What I did for HAPPY New Year’s Day 2008

These are what I did during Dec.2007 to prepare for New Year’s Day.
Most of them are common in Japanese, but some are particular for me.

- What I did before Xmas day
1. Cleaning up my room: Especially throwing bulky trash such as a bed, a broken CD player and so on.
2. Writing New Year’s greeting cards manually: It’s a bit easy work for me because I could use a printer in my office to print address on the cards.
3. Maintaining my room’s Japanese window screen “shoji”: “Shoji” is a paper based window screen with wooden frame. Normally it belongs to Japanese style room. My room isn’t Japanese style (thought it used to be), but shoji is left as it is by my request. So I usually change the paper in the end of year.

- What I did yesterday
4. Cleaning up my house, not only my room but also any other rooms: In this case, I had to clean all pendent lamps in my house even though I’m not enough tall to do easily. So I used a step ladder to do…They made me heavy muscle pain on my neck and shoulders.
5. Preparing my mother’s birthday present: I guess it took the longest hours to have done. Finally I determined a long-sleeved T-shirts and a skirt but I tried to put clothes again and again…
6. Cooking a “Osechi” dish: I cooked steamed chicken with Japanese Sake. Though this dish isn’t a traditional Osechi but our family really loves it so we make it in this season.

- What I did today
7. Cooking some “Osechi” dishes: I cooked one is a traditional Osechi dish “Kuri-kinton” As it is made of sweet potatoes and chestnuts, it is very sweet. I usually mush 3 or 4 sweet potatoes in hand…so my muscle pain is getting worse, as you know.

What I posted here is actually a part of my work, so truly I worked more and am getting more tired than you thought. Anyway Tokyo is 9pm now, 2007 is just 3 hours remaining for me.
I wish you a happy New Year from Tokyo!!!