Shit just got real

Today I paid for our first months rental in Japan. 

"There is no turning back now!", said with both exhilaration and trepidation as Biki worriedly chewed his bottom lip. 

And so the first steps into our grand adventure have been taken.

Would you like to see where we will be?

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/589768?checkin=10%2F03%2F2016&checkout=10%2F31%2F2016&guests=2&s=gL6Y4AUg#reviews

This is outside of Kyoto, only a 15 minute $3.08 bus ride away.  This should be good for TH to ease him into a triple month experience of living completely immersed into a different culture.  Before we had our son and daughter in law to help us with the language barrier, now we are on our own.

Cheeze Gromit!

I never understood the love affair most folks have with cheese.  Cheese was a food item that had very narrow confines in my diet.  I would eat it on pizza, but wasnt a fan of lasagna, as it was to cheesy for me.  Grill cheese sandwiches were acceptable, but putting cheese on meat sandwiches was a big NO!  I ate cheese, onion, lettuce and tomato sandwiches when tomatoes were in season.  Mac n' cheese was ok, as long as there were more noodles to cheese ratio.

About a month ago I began craving a soup I only ate once and wasn't all that big of a fan of, cheese broccoli soup.  I have no idea why this soup became my reason for living.  One day while standing with the fridge door open, hoping lunch inspiration would occur, I remembered the left over broccoli from two nights ago dinner.  I had some Daiya cheddar cheeze* in the fridge for an attempt making a copycat gluten free-dairy free "cheez-its".  But the crackers were put on hold as I decided to make the cheese broccoli soup.

The soup was super delicious!  I made several batches until I ran out of cheeze and broccoli.  And then one day I sauteed mushrooms in v-butter* and melted some cheeze and poured it over a baked potato.  Then I made about one zillion servings of nachos. 

I can't get enough cheeze.  I'm looking at recipes that have cheeze as a major part of their ingredient list and before I'd make a "bah" sound and flip the page, now I stop and linger and decide if this would work well with my cheeze. 

What the hellz is going on?  Hubby thinks that my body knew that cheese was bad for it, not sure if I believe that.  All I know is that a whole new food vista has opened up, and I'm excited to try every tasty bite!

*cheeze is vegan cheese
*v-butter is dairy free Earth Balance butter

Open Sesame!

These past few weeks have been crazy.  Emotionally, physically and time management wise.

I arrived on the 18th of December back in Alaska, Youngest picked me up at the airport.  We some nice hugs and a small chat and then he went back home to bed.  TH worked that night, so it wasn't until 7am I got to see him.  That night we attended the company party.

From then on out our time was divided between going through our belongings and packing packing, packing and dealing with Sisters estate.

To add to things that need to be dealt with, TH retired!  Yup Yup! 

We no longer have a home in Alaska.

TH no longer has a job.

Tomorrow TH arrives from Alaska!

And then starts our new life, which is totally uncharted territory.

Just think, we get to shape our lives as we see fit!  Not to anyone elses standards, but our own. 

This just got interesting!