The New Year's party

The New Year's Party of my friend's cooking class was held at her favorite Italian restaurant. The party last year was held at the restaurant, too. The restaurant is nice and cozy, so I was looking forward to taking part in the party. My friend, her students and me ordered a special lunch course. All of the menus were beautiful, so I took several pictures of them before I'd ate them. We enjoyed eating and talking for about 2 hours. We had wonderful time together.

a sample

I made a sample for my hand-sewing lesson in the afternoon. I refered to my mother's design as usual. The sample was a stuffed toy dog. I did the patchwork for two body parts of the stuffed toy. After supper, I kept making the sample. But I didn't finish making it yet.

my lesson

I gave a lesson on aromatherapy and a herbal lesson in the afternoon. I taught my students how to make hand cream. First, they melted some beeswax and some shea butter which were in each beaker by double boiled water. Then they put 10 ml of sweet almond oil into the beakers, and they mixed all of ingredients. They poured the ingredients into each cream container. After the ingredients set a little, they put several drops of some kinds of essential oils into the cream container, and they mixed all of the ingredients. My student Ikuko and Miki enjoyed making the handcream all the time.

Tokyo- tower

My husband and I went to temple Zojo-ji. We threw in some coins into the offering box, and I bought a cute wooden horse ornament in the temple's shop. Because this is the year of horse in Chinese astrology. I bought the wooden ornament three years ago, so I have three ornaments now. I'll buy the ornament every year, and I'll have the twelve zodiac signs of the ornaments. Then we visited the Mausoleum of Tokugawa Shoguns in the temple. The admission fee 500 yen, but the gate of the mausoleum was always closed, so it was worth seeing the mausoleum. There are 8 tombs with each sign, so it was easy for us to know which tomb belonged to whom. Then we went to Tokyo-tower, and we enjoyed watching the view of the observatory.

 

Run-D, Mugio and Gonta

My husband and I went to my father's home in the afternoon. When we reached home, Gonta welcomed us very enthusiastically at the entrance. Because Gonta really likes my husband, besides Gonta met my husband after a long time. After I did the housework, we met my cousin Yumi, her husband, her 4 children, her dog Run -D, my friend Sachiko, her husband, and Sachiko's dog Mugio at an Inari shrine near my father's home. Of course Gonta was with my husband and me. Yumi's dog Run-D and my friend Sachiko's dog Mugio are brothers. But Run-D barked at Mugio again and again, so Mugio tried keeping a distance from Run-D again and again. Gonta and Run-D seemed to not like each other. So they growled at each other again and again, and they tried to get close to each other again and again. Mugio was scared of Run-D, but he seemed to like Gonta. I guessed Mugio had met Gonta two times, so Mugio thinks Gonta is like his father. But Gonta didn't like Mugio. We took many pictures of the dogs. After we said goodbye to my friend Sachiko, her husband and Mugio, we walked each of our dogs to a river. While walking Run-D and Gonta were keeping a safe distance from each other, so the two dogs didn't care about each other. I hope Run-D, Mugio and Gonta will get along with each other someday.

 

            　　   　　　　　

 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　       　↑　Mugio                              ↑　Run-D

a sample

After supper, I made the samples for my hand-sewing lesson again. I finally finished making them at midnight. It relieved me, and I took a picture of them.

 

a sample

I stayed at home all day. I made a pair of coasters for my hand-sewing lesson. The coasters are in the shape of battledore. I chose several pieces of Japanese pattern cloth which I'd bought before. While watching TV I made them. I didn't finish making them yet, so I'm going to make them tomorrow.