Sunday Projects

Today is Sunday.
I have a number of personal projects lined up.
First on the list is gardening.
My backyard had been a mess for quite a while
as it rained on and off, and I wasn't able to get out and take care of it.
It cleared up today,
so I was finally able to attend to my tomato plants and some other stuff.
In the backyard a number of different kinds of tomato plants are growing.
The mini tomato ones are still nice and robust,
but the one on which large tomatoes grow are getting weaker and weaker each day.
I uprooted some of them.
Also, all of them had significantly grown over the last several weeks,
and the leaves were all tangled up.
I tied many of them on to supporting poles,
while getting rid of all the dead and dying leaves.
The backyard now looks a lot more spacious and orderly.

The second on the to-do-list was making breakfast.
As I may have mentioned before,
breakfast is important to me.
I do not eat a lot, but I eat good stuff.
This morning, just like on many other mornings,
I made miso soup.
I made the broth with dried sardines, a few small sheets of kelp,
and a small bag of fine bonito flakes I got from a student of mine
in return for a DVD I lent her.
I put beaten egg, and strings of 'eringi' mushroom,
some pieces of tomato, and some leaves of  'moroheiya' in it.
The tomato and horoheiya were fresh from the backyard. 
The soup was enjoyed between me and Madam Fumiko.

The third on the list was exercise.
I was a bit sore from the one on Friday,
so I didn't push myself too much.
Especially, I avoided hitting the areas
that were worked out then.
I hit the shoulders and bi-ceps today.
I used rubber bands to create resistance.
I could use dumbbells, but I don't.
Two reasons.
One, they are expensive.
Two, they are heavy.
On the other hands, rubber bands have many merits.
One, they only cost a dollar.
Two, they are light and easy to carry.
Three, they are easy to throw away when they are out of use.
One big demerit, of course, is that rubber bands cannot be used as a weight
when you pickle Chinese cabbages in winter..
Anyhow, I exercised for about twenty minutes,
and felt pleasantly pumped up.

The fourth on the list was buying sushi for Madam.
Madam worked out real hard at the gym this week,
plus she did some significant amount of yard work yesterday.
She looked exhausted last night when I came home from work.
She stilled looked not completely recovered.
I thought fuel injection was important.
And sushi was the best fuel for her.
Luckily, on Oct. 1 the ban on takeout of shellfish was lifted
at Katsugyo Ohedo Ueno Nigohten in Ueno, Tokyo.
So I am going to go there to get some fresh sushi
including some good shellfish stuff that Madam likes.

Later in the evening,
I hope to hit the road to have a training run.
I would really like to burn many calories.
But there are so many different approaches to achieving that goal.
Interval training is one.
Pace run is two.
Or I just go for a long slow jog for many many miles.
Right at the moment many miles of long slow jog sounds like a plan.
The sky is high, the air is cool.
The leaves are just about to turn yellow,
and the whole landscape is charmingly filled with an air of early autumn.
I love running in the changing seasons...
So we'll see.





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