Saturday, February 11, 2012

long time between blogs

Its been a while since I blogged.  We are all alive. The kids and I have been sick with a nasty cold for more than a week.  N missed 2 days of school last week, but he did homework and helped out at home.

I have been writing; I am about to get a manuscript out the door I think.  And, I am not going to China after all. The conference I was planning to go to turned out to be (at worst) a phishing scheme, or (at best) a for-profit conference (expensive and not worth going too) so I am withdrawing my talk.

My running took a serious downturn the last 2 weeks as I've been sick but I have 4 weeks until my race. I know I am in good shape and its just going to be a mental setback. I have 2 more 20 milers scheduled (one later today) and that will get my confidence back on track.

We experienced some Japanese culture last week; we went to the local Setsubun festival at the shrine near us. Apparently it is one of the biggest and/or best in Kyoto. This is the festival where you throw soybeans at Oni (evil spirits) and there is a big bonfire where you burn old amulets and wishes and things.  All that apparently happened late at night, and it was the coldest day we've had in Kyoto so far, so we missed it. We saw the big street fair with booths and yummy food and games, and we walked around in the snow and cold for a while before we abandoned ship and went home to get warm.

The kids have started doing gymnastics every Friday night from 6-9. They really are enjoying it.  Its about a half mile walk to the gym. I usually ride W's bike down and the kids run to warm up.

Thats about all for now.  Maybe we will do something fun this week and take some pictures.

No comments:

Post a Comment