Where did the crafty posts go?

What can I say? I just haven't had much in the way of crafty time the last couple of weeks. Yesterday we had lunch and playmate at the yochien, yes, I know he has graduated but we are still allowed to go and play there apparently. One of the moms will move to Germany next month so she was asking me lots of questions about the kindy/school system - of which I know nothing, I have been to Germany once, for a couple of days and I vaguely remember it included a lot of beer. I don't think I was much help.

There has been no kitchen fun either, after my microwave/oven combo died I have had to plan meals more carefully. Usually, we go to the supermarket at the weekend, buy what veg looks good / not grown in the affected areas, I never know what we will come home with so I plan the meals for the week after we have done the shopping. I have found this method works best at the moment and I can then use up the veg that doesn't keep well first. In the evening I cook dinner and my husbands meal gets put out so I can re-heat it when he gets home. Except now, I have no microwave so I have had to think of meals that I can reheat easily on the stove top or cook quickly when he comes in, which is usually late, anytime after 9pm.

The new oven has been ordered, we will get it next week and it looks like this....

I have no idea what it can and can't do, my only requirement was that I can fit a turkey in it! It is the Hitachi MRO-JV200 and 33L, my old oven was one of the biggest on the market when we bought it years ago but there seems to be a trend for bigger ovens these days. Anyone outside of Japan is probably laughing their socks of at the teeny tiny size of the ovens here!

So, yes, very little on the cooking or crafty side recently, Ebi-kun has a new craft book and is working on a project from that, I hope to share with you soon, I also hope that once we have all his school stuff out the way I can get back into the crafty groove.