Giant cucmubers

My husband harvested the giant cucumbers yesterday morning.

I had checked whether there was a giant cucumber every day because I wanted to harvest it before it became too big.

But I didn't notice these cucumbers because they were under the big leaves.

I made salad using one of them, it was very nice than I expected!

It tasted like a melon.

I think it is not so bad that I sometimes harvest cucumbers after it grows bigger than usual.

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Preparing for the second stage exam of Eiken Part 2

I took an online English lesson to practice for the second stage exam of Eiken Grade Pre-1 two days ago.

I wrote about the second stage exam in my previous post :
https://a-o-j-m.blogspot.jp/2016/06/preparing-for-second-stage-exam-of-eiken.html

I tried narrating the four-cell comic in English, but I couldn't remember appropriate words to describe the story.

As for the four questions to answer, since the topic was not related to me at all, I couldn't make it well.

I was disappointed.

When I study English, it often happens that I am about to be discouraged.

I often feel the high wall that I can't get over.

When I was a high school student, I was majored in English.

But the class level was too high for me, so I didn't enjoy studying English.

I gave up studying English.

When I was a college student, I had a valuable opportunity to stay in Canada for a month.

I took an ESL class at the college and studied English again.

But after I came back to Japan, I didn't have any opportunities to speak English, so I stopped learning it.

This time, I started studying English again about two and a half years ago.

I don't want to give up again.

I want to get over the wall one by one.

I would like to concentrate on preparing for the exam, so I will write my blog after the exam ( I sometimes might write it.)

 
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My mischievous 6-year-old daughter

My 6-year-old daughter turned the black lucky cat toward the aquarium of goldfishes.

I couldn't stop laughing to look at this.

Surely the goldfishes would be scared because the black cat was stearing at them!

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A missing boy

My children and I visited my parents' house.

My 7-year-old son told us:

"Let's play hide-and-seek! I am good at hiding!"

We sometimes play hide-and-seek inside the house.

It is usually easy to find my children.

My mother and I joined in hide-and-seek.

First, my mother was it.

She could find us easily.

Next time, I was it.

"Ready or not, here I come!"

I started looking for them.

"I found you, mom!"

My mother was hiding behind the bathroom door.

It was easy to find an adult because we are big enough.

"Next, my son!"

I heard the sound that indicated he went up to the second floor, so I went there.

"Where are you?  I am going to find you!"

I said to him while looking for him.

But I couldn't find him.

He was not under the bed or behind the curtains.

"Oh, where is he?"

I looked for him inside the closet and under the hanger racks, but he was not there.

I asked my father who was on the first floor:

"Do you know where he is? I listened he went to the second floor."

"He is on the second floor. Maybe he is hiding under the hanger racks, isn't he?"

He answered.

"But I looked there twice!"

"He is good at hiding. OK, let's look for him together. He is definitely on the second floor."

My mother said.

We went up to the second floor and started looking for him again, but we couldn't find him.

I was beginning to feel as if my son had been spirited away.

My mother said:

"We give in to you. Come out!"

"Here I am!"

He came out from under the hanger racks.

I was surprised and said:

"I looked for there twice, but I didn't notice you!"

"I was hiding well, wasn't I?"

Since children are small, they can hide well.

As for my 6-year-old daughter, she doesn't like hide-and-seek because she is scared to hide alone.

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The result of the first stage Eiken exam

The results of the first stage Eiken Grade Pre-1 exam was announced on their website yesterday.

I accessed the website and opened the page where I could get the results.

My heart was beating.

I could see the word of "Pass"!!!

This was my score.

Reading   634 / 750
Listening 605 / 750
Writing    673 / 750
Total      1912 / 2250

The writing part was the highest score.

I think this result proves that writing this blog is effective at improving my writing skill.

(Of course I still often make mistakes when making the sentences and spelling, so I need to improve more.)

And I was surprised to see the result of listening.

It was really difficult, but I got a better score than I expected.

As for the reading part, I concentrated on studying that part the most this time.

In fact, I was lucky because some questions of the reading part were very similar to those which I studied before.

Anyway, I am really happy to be able to pass the first stage exam.

The second stage exam, the speaking test, will be held on July 10th.

I am going to concentrate on practicing for the remaining two weeks.

I hope I will pass the exam!

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Power Yoga

I ordered a Power Yoga DVD and I received it yesterday.

I tried it with my 6-year-old daughter.

It was really nice.

I was able to do it and it made me relax.

I felt better than before.

10 years ago, I went to the Yoga studio once or twice a week.

I sometimes went there before work.

I chose one of the easy programs which I feel up to doing.

It was for about 21 minutes.

I wrote about my indefinite complaint in my previous post, but I feel like I can recover from it soon.

I have been pessimistic recently, but I feel like I can think positively.

I feel like I can get an awareness of myself.

I think to stay fit is one of the most important things in our age.

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7-year-old boys

Two of my son's friends came to our house after school yesterday.

They had promised to come since last week, so my son was looking forward to it very much.

I knew why his friends wanted to come to our house, so I warned my son:

"Don't go to the secret base with them. It is not a playing room, but only a storeroom. I don't want your friends to climb up the ladder. It is dangerous."

I wrote about the "secret base" in my previous post: http://a-o-j-m.blogspot.jp/2015/09/my-hideaway.html

It is an storage attic.

My children love it in there, so my husband installed a small room light there.

They brought their favorite things in there, and made a small notice, on which was written "Say the password to enter here".

He boasted about the room to them and they wanted to see it.


"What? Why?"

He was disappointed to hear that.

I explained the reason:

"Because I don't want you to show them inside of there. It is only a storeroom. And the ladder to the room is a little dangerous. I can't take responsibility if they fell from there and get injured. And the room is narrow for three boys and too hot there."

"Well, OK. I will take a photo in there and show them."

He agreed with me unwillingly.


When they came, they wanted to go to the storeroom as I expected.

My son told them:

"Mom said we can't go there, so I will show you the photo."

"What? You said you will show me there!"

One of his friends seemed to be disappointed.

My son showed them photos, but they didn't seem to be satisfied.

I thought they would go there while I wasn't looking.

I decided to give up because I thought they would not want to go there if they knew what was in there, and I thought I should watch them.

I told them:

"OK, let's go to the secret base, but you can go there only once, OK?"

"Really? Wow!"

They were glad to hear that and ran up to the second floor.

"Look, my dad installed the room light here."

My son told them proudly.

They were surprised to see inside the roof.

"Wow! There are a lot of wooden beams!"

They were excited.

"Open the window, it is too hot there, right?"

I told my son, and he opened the window.

My 6-year-old daughter wanted to join them and she climbed up the ladder, then one of his friends said:

"Sorry, the room is now ours only. It is too narrow."

She came down unwillingly.

I couldn't stop laughing.

"Come down and let's go downstairs!"

They came down and seemed satisfied.

They are still young and adorable.

I think it was good for my son to be able to make such good friends.

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Indefinite complaint

Recently, I can't get rid of my fatigue, I wake up several times at night, and I have several tiny bad physical conditions.

I was not able to sleep well last night because It was hot and humid and my 7-year-old son kicked me several times while sleeping.

But I have an appetite, and I sometimes overeat.

As a result, I gained 3kg, and I feel my body heavy.

One of my co-worker who is 47 years old told me:

"When women turned 40, you will feel under the weather several times."

I am 40 years old now, I really agree with her.

I rarely have opportunity to exercise, so I thought this is because the lack of exercise.

Since I did Yoga before I got married, I searched Yoga video on You Tube and tried one of them for 10 minutes this morning.

But I felt sick after I finished it.

I was disappointed with myself.

Maybe I need to sleep more, not to eat too much, and exercise.

I try to do them little by little.

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Preparing for the second stage exam of Eiken

I took the Eiken Pri-first grade on June 12.

I have not received the result, but I started preparing for the second stage exam of Eiken just in case.

I bought the reference book for the second stage exam.

It is a speaking test.

Examinees need to answer some questions from examiner in English, then they look at a four-cell comic and summarizes the story and narrate by English for two minutes.

After that, they answer the questions related to the story.

I tried to narrate one of the questions of the past exam, I realized that I need to practice it.

I think I almost can express my thoughts in English, but I rarely have opportunities to describe situations.

First, I will practice narrating by myself, then if I can pass the first stage of the exam, I will ask my teachers of Online English school to help my practice.

I really hope that I can pass the exam!

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Karaoke

I went to work yesterday.

My husband took our children to watch the movie of "Kureyon Shin-chan", which is a popular Japanese anime.

He said they went to Karaoke before the movie began.

It was the first experience for my children to go to Karaoke.

I was curious how they were.

"Oh, I wanted to go with you, too. How was that?"

"It was really fun. They were excited about the echo of the mic."

He answered.

I was easily able to imagine how they were.

"And what did they sing?"

I asked him.

"Well, for example, anime's song like Doraemon, Kureyon Shin-chan, and so on. Then children's song like Grandfather's clock. Yes, they were so excited to sing it."

He recorded their song, so he played their song for me.

They sang seriously than expected.

"I thought they would sing playfully or be shy."

I told my husband. and he said:

"No. At the beginning, they didn't understand how to sing with only an accompaniment, but they got used to it soon."

"It's nice to be young! Hey! Was Karaoke fun? What did you sing?"

I asked my children.

My 7-year-old son said:

"Yeah, but what I sang is a secret!"

My 6-year-old daughter said:

"Yeah, it was really fun! I sang the theme song of Doraemon's movie, and the theme song of Kureyon Shin-chan's movie, and..."

Then she started singing again, so we sang together.

I like singing, but I have not been to Karaoke lately.

Their story made me want to go Karaoke!

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Choosing a new Randoseru

My 6-year-old daughter will enter the elementary school next April.

Since we need to prepare her new Randoseru (school bag),  we went to the bag shop to go over her Randoseru.

Do you think it is too early to buy her Randoseru?

It is not too early, because popular Randoserus will be sold out in July.

When I was a child, the colors of Randoseru were black for boys and red for girls.

But now, children can choose various colors.

They can also choose the colors of sewing threads and the colors on the leather of inside the Randoseru.

I already decided that we will buy her Randoseru at the bag shop where we bought my 7-year-old son's Rnadoseru because I am satisfied with the quality of his.


When we got to the shop, it was very crowded with a lot of families who were trying Randoserus.

My 6-year-old daughter tried carrying various kinds of Randoseru.

First, she told me that she wanted a pink Randoseru.

But in the shop, she almost tried the red Randoserus.

"Do you like a red one? Didn't you like a pink one?"

I asked her and she answered:

"Yes! I like red! They are really nice!"

I was relieved to hear that because I hoped that she would choose a red Randoseru secretly because girl's Randoseru were always definitely red when I was young, so other colors' Randoseru were not acceptable for me.

She finally decided her Randoseru.

Its color was red, and it was the same type as my son's black Randoseru.

I told her:

"Good for you! You were able to find your favorite one!"

My husband was impressed by the large number of families in the shop.

When we went to the bag shop to buy my son's Randoseru, he didn't go with us because he went to work.

I told him:

"This is a good experience for parents to help their children choose a new Randoseru with our children. It is already like one of our family's events. Seeing is believing. I hope our daughter will remember the day when she chose her Randoseru with us."

I will order her Randoseru on their website in July and we will receive it next February.

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Here comes Tooth Fairy again!

My 6-year-old daughter woke up at 7:30am and went to the wash room yesterday morning.

I was preparing breakfast.

"Mom!"

She shouted, but I couldn't hear what she said after that.

"What? I can't hear you!"

My 7-year-old son said:

"She said her loose front tooth has fallen out!"

I said:

"Wow! Didn't it hurt?"

"No!"

She answered and came to me to see her tooth.

"Which tooth fell out, upper or lower?"

I asked her and she answered.

"Lower tooth."

"OK. So let's go to the upstairs to throw it on the roof."

The morning is always really busy time for me, but I took my time to go to the upstairs with her and threw her tooth on the roof instead of her.

But the tooth rolled down the roof and fell onto the ground.

"Mom, it has fallen down!"

She said.

"Never mind! Let's have breakfast!"

Since my daughter always takes a long time to finish breakfast, I wanted to finish this custom as soon as possible and wanted her to start eating.
I wrote about our custom when children fell out their tooth in my previous post:

http://a-o-j-m.blogspot.jp/2015/09/my-tooth-finally-fell-out_3.html



Before I went to work, I made an appointment to see a dentist for my 7-year-old son.

Because he said he has a toothache.

I looked at his tooth.

It color was getting gray and was bleeding a little.

I was surprised that he said he wanted to go to see a dentist.

Children usually don't want to see a dentist, so I thought he has a severe toothache.


My children and I went to the clinic at 5:30pm.

He went into the consultation room alone.

I was surprised because he couldn't go alone last time we visited the dentist 2 years ago.

After a while, the doctor came to me and said:

"I am going to take his X-ray and if I can see that his permanent tooth is ready, I will pull his milk tooth."

"I see."

I answered.

Then after a while, he came back from the consulting room biting a gauze.

One of the assistant explained their treatment to me.

I asked her:

"After all, was it a bad tooth?"

"No, it couldn't fall out for longer term than usual, that's why its color turned gray."

She explained.

"It can happen! "

I was surprised to hear that, but I was relieved that the cause of toothache was not a bad tooth.

We don't have the custom of Tooth Fairy, but I felt like that the Tooth Fairy came to my house because the teeth of my children fell out their teeth on the same day!

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Our small kitchen garden

My husband's parents are farmer.

My husband didn't like helping their parents as a child.

He and his brother had to weed spacious rice paddy, but they didn't like it.

After they graduated from school, they started working apart from their hometown.

But my husband likes growing vegetables in our small garden.

He never plants flowers, he wants to grow only something to eat.

He said:

"I don't want to be farmer. It is really a hard work. But I like growing vegetables. We can get vegetables to grow them by ourselves cheaper than to buy them at the supermarket. If I grow them in our narrow garden, I can manage it. "

I don't take care of vegetables at all because I have already got a lot on my plate.

I found the cucumber's flowers yesterday evening.

They were yellow and there was a small cucumber under the flower.

It was like a cucumber baby!

"Hey! Come and look at the cucumber! It is like a baby!"

I called my 6-year-old daughter who loves cucumber.

But she didn't come because she wanted to eat snack and it was raining strongly.

My husband also planted bitter melons (Bitter gourd / Goya).

I didn't like its bitter taste before, but now I like it.

It includes rich vitamin C, dietary fiber, calcium, iron and it is said that it can prevent the summer heat.

It is also called "green curtains" because its vines twine around the net and it can be able to block out the sunlight.

I have heard several times from people who grew bitter melons that they could harvest too many bitter melons, so they had to give them to somebody like friend, co-worker, and neighborhood.

But I am looking forward to harvesting them!


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Word play in Japanese

When we were taking a bath, my 6-year-old daughter imitated that Rafiki,which is the name of mandrill in the movie "Lion King",  is meditating.

"Rafiki was doing like that, Mom."

She told me making circles with her thumbs and index fingers like Rafiki.

"Do you know the name of the act?"

I asked her.

"I don't know."

"It is called meditation. When we visited the temple of Nagano during our family trip last month, one of the international students from Tibet explained what is meditation to us. Do you remember?"

"Was that so?"

She didn't remember about it.

I continued:

"If you are thinking about something, for example, you hope the girl who you like also like you while meditation, it is not meditation, it is delusion!"

My 7-year-old son who was listening to our conversation said:

"In the movie, the stampede of gnus broke out, then they ran away. didn't they? And we watched Lion King broadcasted on TV the other day!"

I was amazed to hear what he said.


"Meditation" is called  瞑想（めいそう） (meisou) in Japanese.

"Delusion" is called 妄想（もうそう）(mousou) in Japanese.

"Stampede" is called  暴走（ぼうそう）(bousou) in Japanese.

"run away" is called 逃走（とうそう）(tousou) in Japanese.

"broadcast" is called 放送（ほうそう）(housou) in Japanese.


He made rhyming sentences by himself!

I was surprised that his vocabularies are increasing.

He likes reading books and comics.

I think maybe it is good for him to have opportunities to encounter new words.

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Study in the morning

My 7-year-old son's elementary school teacher called my office again yesterday afternoon to ask me to pick him up because he had a fever again.

I suspected whether he really had a fever.

When I got to his class, he was talking with his classmate with a smile.

The teacher said:

"He feels sick and he has a fever of 37.6 degrees."

I thought the fever of 37.6 degrees was not so serious for children.

As for my son, when he has a cold, his temperature usually goes up more than 38 degrees.

As I expected, his fever fell down to 37.3 degrees.

Just to be on the safe side, I took him to see a doctor.

But the doctor said:

"There is nothing wrong with him. He doesn't have to take any medicines."

I thought that he was glad that I came to school to pick him up 2 days ago, and he learned I would come to school to pick him up if he tells his teacher that he feels sick and has a fever.

Actually, he was running around at the ground of the nursery school when we went there to pick my 6-year-old daughter up.

I told him:

"It was not a real sickness. If you had a cold and fever truly, you could not smile with your classmates, you would look worn out! You might want to come home earlier than other students. If you do it again, I will not be able to believe what you say. The Sickness is quite different from the feeling which you don't want to do something. Never, never do it again! "


We went to bed before 8:30pm.

Maybe my son was tired.

Recently, the rainy season has begun around here.

The climate changes very often, sometimes it is very hot and sunny, and sometimes it is rainy and humid.

My son's teacher said that five children had a fever at school and went home early yesterday.

As for me, I feel tired recently due to the climate, so I thought I should sleep enough.


I woke up at 5am, one hour longer than usual this morning.

My 6-year-old daughter woke up at 6am, and my son woke up at 6:30am.

She started writing letters to her friends, and he wanted to play with my iPad.

I allowed him to use it, he started playing an application.

It was an educational app which children can study math.

There are some categories of the questions of calculation in the app.

Each category has 10 questions.

If players can answer the questions correctly, they can get the character of the app.

He likes it very much and he wants to get the characters more.

Now he is struggling with the questions of the volume of liquid because he has not learned it at school yet.

He often asks how to solve such kind of questions to me.

He asked me again this morning:

"Mom, I don't understand what it means."

"Well, you need to write down the calculation on the paper, so that you can understand it better."

I prepared a piece of paper.

"Do you remember what milliliter equals to 1dL?"

I asked him:

"Well, 100mL?"

"That's right."

Actually, I completely forgot about "dL", so I searched it on the internet.

I explained how to solve the question.

"I got it!"

He answered the question and it was correct.

He was glad to be able to solve it.

I can manage to answer his question now.

But from now on, his question will be more difficult, so I will not be able to answer his questions.

Parents also need to study with your children, not only force them to study, so that I believe study will become more interesting for children.


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An emergency call

While I was working yesterday afternoon, our company's phone rang.

My co-worker answered the call, then she told me:

"It is from your son's elementary school teacher."

"Really? Thank you."

I thought it was an emergency call.

Maybe my 7-year-old son had a fever.

I wondered that he didn't seem unwell when he went to school in the morning.

His teacher said:

"Your son has a fever. It is 37.6 degrees. He has been unwell since morning. Could you please pick him up?"

I asked our team leader whether I could go home, she accepted my offer.

"OK, I will go to school from now, but it will take for about 30 minutes to get to school."

I told the teacher.


I arrived at his school then visited teacher's room.

One of the office clerk took me to his class.

His classmates looked at me all at once enviously when I went to his classroom.

I was surprised that my son was in the classroom and taking the lesson.

I thought he would be waiting for me in the nurse's office.


I said thank you to his teacher and took him home.

I asked my son:

"How are you feeling? Did you feel sick?"

He answered:

"Yeah. I have felt sick since morning. I had a stomachache and headache, I almost threw up."

"Maybe you are tired. Your long sleeve shirt looks hot. Change your cloth into cooler one and take a nap a little."

I told him and spread his futon in the Japanese room.

"OK."

He said and went to the Japanese room.

He took a rest about for 30 minutes, then he came to the living room and said:

"I recovered!"

"So soon?"

I touched his forehead, but it was no longer hot.

"Wow! It is good for you. You didn't catch any colds or infections. You will be able to go to school tomorrow!"

He smiled.

I thought he was only tired and sleepy.

Indeed, he had a slight fever, but maybe it was like a teething fever.

Anyway, it was good for us that he recovered it soon.

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The Eiken test

I haven't updated my blog to prepare for the Eiken test.

I appreciate those who visited my blog although I hadn't updated it.

I devoted my time for preparing for the Eiken test since the end of May.

Since I noticed that my weak point was a lack of vocabularies, I concentrated on remembering frequently-appearing words.


Finally, I took the Eiken Grade Pre-1 yesterday.

I slept longer than usual so as not to be sleepy during the test.

Before I left home, my children told me:

"Good luck, Mom!"

And they hugged me.

"Thank you! I am encouraged by you. I will give it a try."


When I reached the college where I took the test, I was surprised that there were some elementary school students with their mothers in the room of the Grade Pre-1.

Most of examinees were students, but with regard to the Grade Pre-1, there were men and women of all ages.


The test was difficult, especially Part 2 of the listening part was really difficult.

I am not good at catching proper nouns.

For example, I couldn't catch "sand eels" and "kittiwakes" in one of the dialog.

I wonder how I can catch such an unknown proper noun.

Thanks to the practice of writing this blog, the writing part was not so difficult.

The multiple-choice questions, which was my biggest challenge, were also difficult.

I guessed some answers and marked them.


If I am able to pass it, I will take the secondary examination of the  speaking test.

But I don't think I will be able to pass the primary examination.

Since answers to the test will be posted on the Eiken website, I will check it and try marking my answers.

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