Kelly Azuma

and let myself be sucked into the whole Halloween thing.

I couldn’t help it. I found this cute pumpkin plate when I was shopping today and thought how great it would be with little cupcakes on it. Sucker!!

I was majorly surprised to see how much Halloween stuff was sold out, and now they are selling costumes, wigs, deco’s, candy etc etc. Why is it so big this year?

I don’t think Yasu even knew it was Halloween either, because while we were eating dinner the doorbell rang, and he’s like, someone’s at the door… and I was like, no, it’s Halloween, it’ll be trick or treaters…and he just looked at me blankly like what the hell is a trick or treater… and no, we didn’t answer the door.

Anyway, I cooked dinner tonight, roast chicken with ORANGE coloured rice, and some potato salad. Yasu didn’t even blink an eye. He just exclaimed how yummy the rice looked but he didn’t ask why it was orange. I put orange lentils in the rice too, which gave it a bit of a different flavour, it came out very nice and fluffy.

I also made some cupcakes for dessert.
“Pumpkins” – Orange icing with M&M’s
“Ghosts” – Cream cheese icing

They were popular, Yasu had 3 in a matter of 5 minutes…and still wanted more! I used a plain cupcake recipe also mixed in some vanilla essence and custard powder, which gave it a really nice flavour and meant that they were soft and moist. It basically goes good with any topping.

Freshly baked cupcakes

Pumpkins & Ghosts

Bitten!

I used blue food colouring to give it a bit of colour, I just swirled it around in the mixture.

Happy Halloween!

• I won another competition – free movie passes to see whatever movies I want.
• Yasu got a pay rise, making him the highest paid contractor at his company (yay).
• I caught a cold, but with reiki, managed to get over it by the end of the day.
• I’ve been a life-long nail biter, but since seeing Sarah and doing a lot of self loving, my nails just decided they would grow by themselves and I haven’t bitten them since. Yay for small miracles!
• I’m down to 25mg (one quarter) of an antidepressant pill. That is fast. Oh and little to no side effects means I can hope to be off them by the end of next week.
• I’ve got PMS 17 days after starting my period, so I’m hoping that means I’m going to get a normal period for the first time in my life? That would be sweet. I usually have a cycle that ranges between 50-70 days.
• I’m going shopping for my sunnies today…I’ve been looking online but for some reason I only like the ones that cost about $400/500? Yasu reckons I have expensive taste. It might be true. I can’t imagine spending that much on one pair of sunnies though…
• Our xmas plans have changed and we are now staying in Perth. How quickly things change! We worked out the logistics of driving to Adelaide, 2 days driving there and back, and only 3 days staying there total, which means more time in the car than in Adelaide. (Yasu has 7 days off over xmas). Then my sister emailed me to say they’re having xmas dinner at her house and we’re invited, so we’ll go there instead (if #@$%%# brother isn’t going that is!).
• Pumpkin salad has become a favourite in this house and last night Yasu requested I make it. I’ve got more pumpkin, going to make something pumpkin-y tonight as a tribute to Halloween. Though won’t be answering any doorbells tonight, I hope nobody rings. (aka I don’t have candy to give out/aka we’re too kechi to buy some for possible trick or treaters/aka it’s not our culture so why should we).
• Did I mention I’m going to be teaching Japanese at the community centre? I will have my own classes from next year! Woohoo!

I think that’s it for now. If you’re celebrating Halloween I hope you have a happy one!

• I went to Yoga on Wednesday night and the teacher, Sui, told me I should give it a go anyway because when she was in a car accident and broke her wrist and had whiplash she still did yoga, and it actually made her better and strengthened her wrist and neck. So I did give it a go, and it actually wasn’t too bad. I didn’t push myself, only did as much as I could.
• Halfway through the yoga I was called into the AGM that was happening in the next room and stood for election onto the community centre committee, and won! I was sworn in that night and am now officially a member of the committee. Our next meeting is on 18^th November to decide on a few projects coming up and to set who will be doing what. I’ve already learned a whole heap of stuff, it’s really interesting.
• One of the women in my life skills course, I found out today,  is a clairvoyant and a healer. It also turned out she is going away and needed someone to stay at her beautiful house up in the hills for 4 days (weekend) while her and her husband go away. She has a mini-farm with sheep, dogs, a horse, goats, chooks, and cats and it overlooks the whole of Perth. Anyway, Yasu and I will be staying at her house over the weekend she is away, so it will be like a mini holiday of our own! Add to the fact I just love animals, so it really will be a pleasure.
• I have also been talking with a friend in Melbourne and we have made plans for me to go there in February to go to the Soundwave Music Festival together. Our favourite band, Faith No More, is playing after reuniting again, so it will be a blast. I will be staying for a few days so I can hang out with him and his wife and their two young sons who I am yet to meet! It’s been about 7 years since my last visit.
• As well as that, we are heading to Adelaide for Christmas, driving over, to stay with a high school friend of mine who just moved there with her partner, because of his work. So it’s all very exciting!
• Melbourne Cup Day is coming up on Tuesday and I’ve been invited to my Reiki Master’s house for a Cup Day party, all our ‘spooky’ friends will be there, so it will be a fun day!! Plus which one of us will be the better psychic and pick the winning horse??
• I’ve put in an early order for a good pair of sunglasses for xmas from Yasu… anyone have any ideas about good brands? I’m totally new to this… I’ve never owned a really good pair, but with the sun so bright now, and summer on the horizon, squinting is making the skin around my eyes go wrinkly so I really need to get some good ones, the darker the better.
• On the weight front, I’ve dropped another 3kg and 5cm from my waist. I’ve had some small-er clothes in my wardrobe for a while, and I can now fit into them, so yay. I haven’t really changed what I have been eating consciously, but I noticed once I started drinking 2.5 litres of water per day, and walking 3.2km per day, the craving for sweets has gone out the window. I also eat far less than I used to, it’s as if my body needs less, and I definitely can feel now when I’ve had enough.
• I bought a papa-san chair online, you know those round chairs on a frame you can sink right into? I bought one from someone else, but it was practically brand new, hardly ever used, beautiful black suede and so big and comfy. I have been meditating in it every day, and it’s sooo good. I mean I can get really comfy and the meditation is just so enhanced by that. And it was only $30 so a very good buy!
• Somehow I keep winning competitions. I won some energy saving lightbulbs last week, and this week I won a potato chips competition I entered online and received a big box of mixed potato chips from the company! I also entered another competition, and was one of 400 people worldwide to win a bunch of cool prizes which I was just notified about last night, so I’m waiting to receive them by courier!
• I felt it was time to come off the anti-depressants (Luvox) I have been on for the past 9 years. In the beginning I was taking 11 different pills in the morning and 11 pills at night. 8 of those were anti-depressants because at 22 I was suicidal after a personal incident. From there it all just snowballed and I ended up with all these pills after seeing a psychiatrist. Over the last few years I’ve taken myself off most of them, and have, for the last 2 years been on only 1 anti-depressant per day. That’s a big step down from 22 pills per day. Anyway, I felt that now is the time to come off totally, but with anti-depressants you can’t stop just like that because the withdrawal symptoms are hell. If even I missed one pill by forgetting to take it, the next day I would suffer hellish withdrawal symptoms until I took the pill and even then it would take half a day to work. The symptoms are feeling like you’re going to vomit, or actually vomiting, dizzyness, headaches, anger, extreme sleepiness, nausea etc. It’s just like with any other drug. So bit by bit I’ve been coming off. It means for me, cutting the pill by myself unless I want the rigmarole of buying a lesser dose pill, but instead I just cut off a bit, one pill for me is 100 miligrams, so cut the end off it becomes 80 mg, then abit more 70, etc, until now I’ve got it down to 50. I’m hoping within the next week or so I can get it down somewhere to 30. Hopefully by mid-november I can be off them altogether. It’s somewhat fast the way I’m doing it, usually it would be slower than this, but I’ve been giving myself reiki every day and it really helps with the symptoms, so I’m not feeling it as much. Also, when I get determined about something, nothing is going to make me stop, so the willpower that I need to get me through is strong, thankfully.

Phew!!

Yesterday was a ball, met up with my two highschool friends and their two boys aged around 5 (they both have 2 girls at school), and their babies, one 1 year and the other 6 months.

They were both very cute and seemed very attracted to me, lots of playing, but boy was I glad when I could hand them back and go home, it just wears me out keeping them entertained!! Who knew babies were so much work!

When I got home I made a quick dinner, Yasu came home, we ate and then I was so shattered I laid down on the bed and slept for 2 hours!

It started raining thankfully as the humidity was 70% yesterday and the flies were terrible!

I received an email from a lady who had had a card reading from me the day before and she blew me away. While I was reading for her I kept getting an image of a pale grey horse with big dark eyes. I just couldn’t get rid of the image so I wrote it down in her reading. Lo and behold, she emails me back to say that she has 3 horses and her favourite is a pale grey horse with big dark eyes who is 2 years old and who she has a very strong connection with!

Just another lesson in trusting myself!

I’m off to the community centre today, we are having a belly dancing lesson, but I’m not sure I will be able to participate because of my collarbone.

In any case, tonight is the Annual General Meeting and I’ve been asked to be on the committee by the Manager of the community centre because she likes some of the ideas I came up with. I’ll be coming up with ideas for future community projects, so I’m looking forward to that.

I’ve been feeling the creative urge today, since yesterday I couldn’t get it out of my system with drawing. So I made an upside-down peach cake to take to the picnic tomorrow. It was really simple; self-raising flour, eggs, caster sugar, vanilla essence, brown sugar, butter, and peaches.

Of course as soon as it had come out the oven my little mouse was waiting for some “just a bit from the corner”, he said. And then two minutes later he was back for “just a bit more”. I had to wrap it up and put it in the fridge so he wouldn’t devour it! It is yum though, the peaches give it alot of flavour and the cake is very moist. I’ll post the recipe later if anyone wants it. (Oh and I used tinned peaches…a little bit of cheating there!)

I got another reading tonight, the lady who I read for today told her daughter about the reading and recommended she have one, so she contacted me for a reading for herself. Sweet!

I’ve fractured my collar-bone Which means I can’t move my neck from side to side, look down, or move my left shoulder and arm without major pain. How did I do it? I walked into the door frame.

No really.

I’ve been really clumsy lately, and off-balance I walked straight into it, with my collar-bone bearing the brunt.

So of course I couldn’t go to my drawing class today because I can’t look down. No pretty asagaos today. I probably won’t be able to do the belly-dancing or yoga this week either.

On the upside I got another card reading request today, plus a few other people have expressed interest. I also got some lovely feedback from the lady I read for, who said that she was really happy with the reading. I’m pretty chuffed about it

I’m meeting up with some highschool friends tomorrow, Kerry and Jodie. They both have just had babies, so no doubt I’ll be doing loads of coochie-cooing! We always have a laugh when we get together, so that will be medicine for the soul. I’m going to bake a cake tonight to take with me.

Also got to go pick up a papa-san tonight that I bought online, it’s for meditation in my healing room. Yasu’s on his way home now, so we’ll go soon.

今夜の夕ご飯は私が作った照り焼き豚肉とズッキニーとカボチャサラダとご飯でした。美味しかった！

Yasu was suitably impressed, and scoffed the whole plate down and amazingly didn’t need seconds because his eyes had eaten too! The pumpkin salad recipe is from MIL, she taught me how to make it, and with kewpie and some lebanese cucumber it tastes really nice!

The teriyaki is just a home-style teriyaki recipe from a Japanese cookbook, and the zucchini was cooked in the same sauce. So in all a very simple but delicious Sunday night meal.