dentists, death, swaps and flowers

Well, you try making a title for this ramble....

Blah, I hate dentists, that said all the Japanese dentists have been really good. My friend took me to her husbands practice and gave me a hand with babyebi, he had his first real dentist experience and was really good. He has been talking about it all day, about how he went on the special chair and the dentist looked in his mouth with spoon! Hopefully he will have better dentist experiences than I have had. The most exciting this was, well you know Japanese people take their shoes off when they go indoors? this applies to places like dentists and doctors too. Well, I got through the door, spotted the kids slippers but no adult ones, strange I thought, then the receptionist told us to press the red button on this gadget next to the door. So I pressed the button and out popped a pair of slippers! It was like a slipper vending machine, maybe it is just a distraction technique to help you forget that you are in for some kind of mouth torture haha.

Had some sad news this morning, the family dog, Jake has died in his sleep. I say family dog because he was my brothers but he went off to Spain so my mom ended up with him and then he went to live with my other brother but when they moved they couldn't have pets in the new place so my aunt had him and that is where he lived out his days, none of us can remember how old he actually was, he was a funny little dog and would howl heeelllllooooo when the phone rang. He will be sadly missed by all of us.

The swap is well and truly closed now, I have sent off all the group lists, I am looking forward to putting the rest of the things for my packs together, although I have no idea what else to include, maybe I have been here too long. I was thinking of getting these draws to turn them into continent storage boxes, I could paint the map on the front of each draw in the appropriate colour, I am sure I could come up with something for the 2 spare draws. I'm just not sure if they will be big enough, since I have no idea what my partners will send I think I will wait until their goodies arrive before making a final decision. Plus the local Ikea is 2 hours trip away so it's not like I can just pop in!

What else? Oh yes, the exterior of the house is almost done, we have to put up the lattice fencing and buy a shed but mostly done. We have a small 'garden' area but I have no idea what to put in it, I am probably the least green fingered person alive, maybe plastic flowers are the way to go. It's not an exceptionally sunny spot, it gets direct sun first thing and again mid-day for a couple of hours, I'd like something colourful and babyebi still wants an apple pie tree and to grow vegetables hmmmm
not the best picture since the light was going but here you are.... oh the snowman has left us too!


OHHH yes, I knew there was something else, I'd like to say a big thank you for all the lovely emails I have had recently, it really means a lot to me to know that my ramblings are so inspirational to others, I love hearing from you and love getting comments too. Now I know this sounds daft, I get a notification from blogger to say that someone has left a comment, I can actually read it in the notification but I never do, I always read it directly from the blog page, it feels much nicer that way, alright, you now officially know that I am soft in the head!