Complain much?!

I love Facebook. I was very reluctant to join at first and was probably the last in my group of friends that did. But thanks to the nagging and begging of one particular friend…yeah I’m talking about you Fie.. I finally did. And of course it’s just as I imagined it to be, a ton of fun and a trap that sucks the creative juices out of my brain I sit and reload the stupid Facebook page hoping something new and utterly non-interesting will appear in my news feed. Someone went to the market, another one posts a picture of their child vomiting, one’s cooking dinner, one is bored, one is pissed. Same same but different.

But then there’s the friends that does nothing but complain. Every single status update there’s some drama going on or life is so unfair and buu-huu, cry me a river. I get extremely irked by cynical and whiny people. I’m in no way a person that’s always skipping down the road thinking the weather is goooorgeous when it’s raining, but come on! You’re not in a Thai prison awaiting execution. How bad can your everyday be?!

I remember my friends as fun happy girls and then somewhere during life, something must have triggered this bitterness, whining and cynical outlook on everything. Sad to me. And especially one of them, gosh what a drama queen, and everything in her life is everyone else’s fault. And the worst thing is, as much as it annoys reading her updates, I can’t help but read them! It’s like I’m fascinated in how much a person can possibly complain!

If you are miserable in your life,  make a change. If you think you weigh too much, stop complaining, get off the computer and start working out.

I’ve been in my fair share of shitty situations in my life but unless you’re open to make a change, can you really complain?

Anyways, enough complaining about complaining. Tonight we’re going to watch Toyota play Hitachi, in Yoyogi. Second to last home game for Toyota before the playoffs! Oowheee! Can’t wait! If you’re in the neighborhood come support the guys!!

HOT stuff!

My friend and favorite enchilada, Alejandra is leaving to go home tomorrow. Her and her hubby (my husbands teammate) is due with their first baby in a couple of months, so she’s going home earlier this season. I’m so sad because we hang out almost every day and I’m gonna miss her so much.

But she promised that before she left she’d teach me how to make her incredibly hot “hot sauce”. I love anything spicy and after trying her chili sauce the other night I had to learn how to make it. She said every Mexican knows how to make it and she learned this easy recipe from her dad. So, hit me!

We used 16 dried Arbol chile’s that we roasted in a pan for a bout 5 minutes. Then 2 cloves of garlic, 1 can of crushed tomatoes, 1/2 a cup of water. Mixed that with the hand blender and that was it!

I made brown rice spaghetti and tomato sauce with mushrooms and fresh mozzarella for dinner. Topped my plate with the chili sauce…goodness! My son who was snatching pasta from my plate and didn’t want to listen when I said “mommy’s is spicy” learned the hard way.

 

Where I stand

Me and my girlfriends have been heavy in to discussions about religion and politics lately. I’m not very deeply involved in either, but I know where I stand. And I stand firm.

Growing up in Sweden, religion does not have a big part in your daily life in general. A professor ones said he believed about 46% of Swedes were atheists, but when asked only 17% see themselves as “non believers”.

In a recent survey 53% of the people asked said to believe there is “some sort of spirit or life force”, 23% believe there is a God and another 23% were “non believers”

In school we learn about the “big bang theory“, we learn about evolution, we have “Religion” as a mandatory subject from 4-9th grade, depending on the schools curriculum, where we learn about all the big religions and cultures in the world. I went to Bible study in 7th grade, and I found it interesting, but am I a Christian, no. Do I believe in God, I do. I believe God is in everything, I believe in Karma, I believe in the evolution, the big bang. I believe in spirits and past lives, but nr 1, I believe in being a good human being. I believe in empathy and putting my self in other peoples shoes, and not only see to my own situation, being open minded.

I believe we’re all equal, we should all be treated the same, have the same rights. Regardless where you’re from, skin tone, who you love or what religion you belong to. (Exception, pedophiles not included)

I believe you need to be responsible for your own actions, treat others the way you want to be treated. I don’t want to belong to a religion that preaches about sin. I believe in using my common sense. If I do wrong I make it right.

I believe health care is a human right and so is education, for both men and women.

I believe in love and I believe in paying it forward. I believe that religion is important, when people believe they have hope.

To me, the most frustrating thing about religion is peoples inability to respect each others beliefs.

I believe we need to get better on smiling at each other (Swedes really need to work on that..), hold doors for each other and so on, and you know what, greed is not attractive…

..and with that said, I also believe I need to go to bed. Sweet dreams everybody!

Synchronized headaches

Very strange thing occurred yesterday. I woke up at 2-3am with a slight headache. First I thought I was just dehydrated so I had a glass of water and tried to go back to sleep. But the headache got worse and I slept like crap. In the morning it felt like someone had knocked down a building with my bare head. I could barely walk straight, my head was throbbing to the point I was nauseous. I took two Advil but it did nothing for me. All day it was going on, slowly getting better in the evening. I thought maybe I was lacking iron so I made a mega iron C booster.

Spinach, parsley, kiwi, pineapple, soy milk. Yup, sounds disgusting but it’s delicious! It did nothing for my headache, but I’m sure it filled some holes somewhere.

So to the strange part. Both of my girl friends in the building had experienced the same excruciating headaches yesterday. No pain relievers had helped. The nausea, the throbbing….and we could not for the life of us figure out what it could have been. We all feel fine today. What’s-up -with-that?!

A casting..

I really haven’t had my hopes up about going to any castings this season. It’s been so incredibly slow for me, so I kind of just dropped the whole modeling thing for this year. I bumped in to my booker outside the agency one day, I had the kids and she saw that I had shaved my sides,  I hadn’t even bothered giving her heads up on my new hairdo but she was cool with it. That told  me right there that the “slow” status for my part wasn’t gonna change anytime soon.

I would like to work more of course but at the same time I understand how the business works. I decided to start a family right when I was on top of my career in Japan, and maternity jobs in Japan is not happening. They’d rather use seventeen year olds with fake belly’s rather than a real preggo. So having 2 kids in 3 years kiiiind of made me an “outer” on the market.

But then yesterday I finally had a casting, for Shiseido. And I love it, now that I fall in the “mature” bracket, meaning 40+ audience. You can label me what ever you want baby. Mature, older, ripe….as long as you keep calling me in for those castings.

I’ve been to plenty of Shiseido’s castings through the years but I’m not their type so even though this casting went well, I had a feeling…and with my shaved hair…probably even more so “not their type”. But it was cool, I got to see some of my old girls. Girls that’s been here modeling for as long as me, some are on their 10th 12th year now. All of them have husbands or boyfriends now, kids and “regular” lives. No more six days a week club hopping in Roppongi and then straight to photo shoots Oh the carefree crazy old days…

My agency had changed my composite too, and I love the picture they chose and I’ll tell you why. This picture is 7-8 years old, but it means so much to me because I had just met my husband when it was taken. The picture was for a beauty magazine, shot in Osaka. And I remember I was at the train station in Osaka, on my way to a hotel and I had the shooting the next morning. And just as I get in a cab my future husband called. Like, we had just met a few days earlier and I was head over heels and literally floating above ground the whole next day at my job, thinking about him! So every time I see this picture I get that butterfly feeling in my tummy again. This is when it all started. It’s all about the love baby

I CHEATED and almost died!…kind of..

The guys lost both their games this weekend, to the team I hate! Aisin, they’re SO arrogant and cocky! I can’t stand losing to them….

Some of us went out for dinner after yesterdays game. First we hit up this Mexican chain “El Torito” in Shinjuku.  Me and hubby went years ago and had to rename it “El Toshitto” after, but hey we thought we could give it another try.

As many places in Japan they don’t take reservations, you just sign up on a list as you arrive and then take a seat outside and wait to be seated.  Our starving group of 9 adults and 5 kids would have to wait for an hour to be seated, so someone suggested we’d go to Tony Roma’s instead….I knew I was fucked.

I LOVE ribs! I haven’t had beef or pork in 3-4 months and haven’t really missed it at all. But yesterday for some reason I could kill for some Carolina Honey’s. I had a whole slab. My husband just stared at me as I was literally sucking it down without breathing. I think I could have had two slabs, it was so good!!

I was feeling great the whole car ride home, then I started feeling guilty….then dying. I went to bed, nauseous. It felt like I had meat stuck the whole way up my throat and I couldn’t get out of my head that “type A has less stomach acid” so now I had half a cow fermenting in my intestines. It made me so sick and I regretted the choice of dish so bad! I was doing good, feeling good without the pork and beef in my life and I fucked it up! I had a terrible night of sleep but woke up and my stomach felt a little better.

My husband pointed out to me that it wasn’t beef ribs but pork I’d had the night before and it really isn’t that much meat on them, so he thought maybe I was psyching myself out a little because I felt bad about cheating on my plan. And it did in fact make me feel a bit better. I was mostly disappointed in myself for caving in. I do feel so much better without the meat though. I’m gonna savor that Carolina Honey’s in the back of my mind but stick to my veggie/fruit/fish/chicken path in the future.

Not even Aisin can bring us down!!

Survival kit

Last week when my kids were driving me crazy, I jokingly told my friend Alex that all I wanted for my birthday was earplugs and a Xanax. Last night she dropped off a bottle of wine and this fantastic little “mommy survival kit” from her hubby.

Serveball on the neck…

Got a phone call from my little sister today, it’s always good to hear from her, we’re very close. But today it turned pretty ugly for some reason. We were talking about our other teenage sisters and all of a sudden an issue from like 15 years ago get brought back up. I acted carelessly towards my sisters feelings back then, we kind of don’t see eye to eye on the situation, still nothing I’m proud of and I could have handled things differently, but I apologized back then and we moved on…I though..

So I got pretty upset when she calls me a hypocrite today. Only cuz I’m giving our 15 year old sister advice in a heart ache issue.  Uumm…I can’t agree with that. I’m not the same person I was 15 years ago. I firmly believe that people change. For ex. “once a cheater” does not always necessarily cheat. My mom used to tell me stories about her and her best friend shop lifting like crazy in their teens. I’m very sure my mom wouldn’t steal as much as loose button today. And if she tells me not to steal, I can’t call her a hypocrite. Been there, done that, don’t do it. 

Calling me a hypocrite is just like saying that you think I’m the same person as I was 15 years ago. That would be true if I was a sociopath without regret and empathy, but since I’m not…let’s us just move on…again. I mean I of course apologized again for my wrong doing a decade and a half ago, I don’t like people to carry around tucked away anger, that’s not healthy.

But I feel a bit like the time my husband served a tennis ball right on my neck…surprised, hurt and a little pissed.

Like I told my teenage sister, love is not easy in your teens, there’s a lot of immaturity and the need to be seen and liked. And who ever hurt you shouldn’t have done what they did. And that’s was me talking from experience. You see now?

But my other sister is kind of a hothead, she has a hard time admitting she was out of line and apologizing herself…and now I’ll probably get another pissed email just for saying that so…oh well. Sorry for that too.

But on to other things…tomorrow I’ll turn 34. Yay for getting older and wiser!

Happier times, me and my sister.

The place to be

It was a gorgeous day in Tokyo today. My friend suggested we go to Kichijoji and Inokashira park. This is probably one of my favorite spots, year around. Cute shops and then to let the kids roam free in the park. We kind of expanded our walk round the station today, my kids were napping in the stroller so there was some undisturbed window-shopping time. We realized we had seen absolutely nothing of Kichijoji before today. We walked around for a good hour with hour heads spinning trying to take in all the shopping possibilities we’d missed our previous trips. I love this place even more now! It was pretty crowded today, so we decided we have to come back on a day when everyone else is back to work, enough with these holidays already ….and leave the kids at home with papa-san of course..

posing with the mandatory Starbucks soy latte...

And unfairness noted, Kichijoji have about 15 Starbucks it seems like, our town have none….what’s the deal sorta….?

Once the kids woke up we strolled down to Inokashira park to walk around the lake. This is perfect, the kids get to do their thing too.

Always beautiful

 

Micah checking out the koi fish

::::

:::

It was such a perfect day, can’t wait to go back!

 

My trim

Seriously, not much needed to feel like you got a whole new set of hair. I went to my regular place if I do color. Samson&Delila in Chofu. They’re so sweet, and I can still afford food for my kids after I leave the place. No color today though, I just had my guy there trim the ends and shave the sides.

like new...

My friend came with me, she had made an appointment too, to get her roots done, and some high and lowlights. She showed them a picture of Carrie Underwood and they gave her the thumbs up, no problem! She still had bleach in her hair when I left and she was slightly nervous that it wouldn’t turn out the way she wanted. So was I.

I don’t think they get to work on blond hair too often at this place. I told her to call me once she got home. Which she did. Aaand she wasn’t happy. She sent me a picture of her now, ash brown/hint of carrot color hair. It was definitely no Carrie Underwood, still not bad, I liked the color but I understand, that if you’re a blondie and want to continue to be a blondie, you’d be very disappointed.

She told them she wasn’t happy, it was way too dark so they told her to come back at 7pm to do the highlights. To a mother of three, this just is perfect, since you have so much free time to spare…anyways..

she did go back. They gave her some highlights but it’s still no where close to what she asked for. I feel so bad for her. They gave me a 20% discount for coming with a friend, but they charged her more than I’ve ever paid there for cut and color together. I don’t get it! And my friend paid, I wouldn’t have paid. I would have said something. I think…or actually when I think about it, I paid after being butchered by the racist narcissist hairdresser in O.C a couple of years ago.  I didn’t say shit, I even gave a tip! Oh gosh…I’m a sucker too…

Have you ever been really disappointed leaving a hair saloon? Did you say something or are you a sucker like us?