ハロウィンですね。

今年はたまたま31日が日曜日なので

ハローズでは31日にハロウィンパーティーを行う予定です。

いろんな校舎に行っている僕としては

それぞれの校舎でどんな仮装をしようかと

志門塾やHOMESの先生たちと話しています。

先生たちの仮装を楽しみにしていてくださいね。

If there’s a craft project, I’ve probably taken a crack at it. My mother’s an artist, and so she’s interested in all different sorts of mediums and techniques and such, and she encouraged my sister and I to pursue our own artistic interests with enthusiasm. These days, she’s primarily a graphic artist, but her roots are in physical mediums, especially painting and drawing. But just for the fun of it, she and my sister and I have all had fun experimenting with other mediums like clay or, more relevant here, crochet.

I don’t remember how old I was was my mother went through her crochet phase. I do know that she made this really nice scarf for herself that I quickly commandeered because 1) I really liked it and 2) she doesn’t really wear scarves anyways so someone should properly appreciate its comfort. But eventually she moved on. My sister and I took a half-hearted crack at crocheting things ourselves, but we were young and didn’t get particularly interested, so I didn’t learn anything permanently. That was my first introduction to doing crochet.

Many years later, while recovering from an injury, I decided to take another crack at it. I was basically bedridden and couldn’t go out or do anything else fun or look at screens or read… It was a dark time. I needed something to do. So, I decided to learn a new skill: crochet. I made a couple scarves for my sister and an incidental baby blanket. They were all kind of janky haha. I was definitely a beginner. However, I mastered a lot of the basic crochet stitches quite thoroughly with these projects. Chains, single crochets, double crochets, front/back post double crochets, treble crochets… Those are the foundational stitches behind most all crochet work. Due to the nature of my injury, I don’t really remember learning these stitches or making those scarves for my sister, but my hands certainly do.

Recently, I decided to return to crocheting with full enthusiasm. For birthdays and holidays and such, I prefer to give people handmade gifts rather than something purchased. What better than crocheted scarves and blankets? So, I took out my yarn collection and just got to work. After a few days, I’d made a striped cabled scarf, and I was relatively happy with its quality. Then I learned a new stitch–the waffle stitch–and made a waffled scarf. Next, I’d like to take a crack at a much bigger project: a cabled throw for my mother. Eventually, I’d like to make a sweater, too.

I’m a pretty slow crocheter. On YouTuber, the crochet community is very advanced (and consequently fast). An intermediate crocheter like me just can’t keep up. That’s why it took me four days to crochet one relatively short cabled scarf. I imagine the throw I want to make for my mother will take an entire month to make haha, but I think it’ll be worth it. Still, it burns when the YouTuber crocheters casually say they made a baby blanket in three hours…. I’ll just have to practice even more so I can become super fast, too!

I do warn anyone interested in crochet that it can be a rather expensive hobby, especially if you need higher quality yarns like me. (I’m extremely sensitive to texture, so working with a low quality yarn moving over my hands for hours and hours simply isn’t feasible.) But if you want to start small with amigurumi and 100 yen balls of yarn don’t bother you, you totally can, and I encourage you to try it. It’s an extremely beginner friendly craft. If you make a mistake, you can just pull your stitches out easy peasy and try again. If you want to make a blanket, though, it’s gonna cost you. It takes literal kilometers of yarn to make a blanket as I have found out the hard way haha. Good luck!

息子の小学校の課題で子供たちが秋を見つけに散策に行きました。

どんぐり、落ち葉、花びら、木の実などいろいろ見つけてきていました。

下の女の子がキッチンテーブルに飾ってくれました。

生き物はどれもアートの素質をもっていて、それを楽しむ心の豊かさは忙しい毎日では忘れてしまいがちですが、

子供たちを自然に触れさせようと考えて下さる保育園や小学校の先生たちと我が子供たちのおかげで大切なことに立ち返る一瞬でした。

少し涼しくなりましたね。

紅茶の季節がやってきました。

最近は、ハーブティーやミルクティー、ココアも飲みます。

ミントティーをたくさんもらったので飲むのが楽しみです。

日本人は、あまり好きではないかもしれませんが、外国人は

チョコミントも結構好きな人がいますね。小さいころからの

味覚の経験が関係あるのでは、と思っています。

ミントティーの爽やかな香りやリラックス効果は心身を和ませ

安眠効果も期待できるようです。

他にも抗菌効果があり、虫歯や頭痛などの痛みも和らげてくれるとか。

でも甘いお菓子と食べたくなってしまうのでダイエットには覚悟がいりますね！

左側の女性がリンディです。ジョージア校の向かいに同じ2000年から住んでいる隣人です。ローソンのお母さんでもあります。彼女は典型的な南部の女性で、いわゆるサザンイングリッシュを話します。どっぷりと浸かったアメリカ人なので、日本の社会、システムにすごく興味を持っています。ジョージア校に行くときは、時間を見計らって彼女と世間話をします。体を悪くしたので今どうしているか心配ですが、SNSで聞くと大丈夫だと言います。近く中学校で特別学級のクラスをずっと教えていました。彼女の学校を訪れたこともあります。何かいつも怒っているような話し方をするのですが、本当はそうでなく心優しい女性です。犬を4，5匹、猫も3匹ほど飼っていて、ちょっと家に寄るだけですごい勢いで吠えられます。しばらく、2年も会っていないので来週会えることを楽しみにしています。ずっといい隣人でいてくれるといいですね。