We have uncomfortable warm winter in the end of this year.
Of course it's easier for us to clean the house and prepare for the New Year Day when it is warm, but it is also very odd.
Today, we made "Mochi", maybe rice cake in English.
Mochi is necessary for the New Year Day, and we usually make it on 30th December.

First, we steam the particular rice for Mochi, then put it in the pounding machine.
And, we shape it like ball after pounded.

When my husband's parents were alive, we used to pound Mochi with a mortar and a pestle.
Now we use the particular machine instead of those equipments.
After making Mochi, I started to cook Osechi, the New Year dishes, it took half day to finish all.
I have not finished cleaning the house, but I got a little tired..!

Time passes very fast, even it seems to me years pass faster and faster recently.Maybe it's because I'm getting older.
It's been just one year since I started this blog.
I started my blog for my English study, but has my English improved more than before? I don't know...

Today, it was the last day of our job in this year.
We did a big cleaning of our office as every year.

And it was surprising but the social affair of our office treated us the gorgeous lunch!

This year, our job started with food poisoning and ended up with Infulenza.I was called on the 2nd of New Year Day, though it's our holiday, to investigate food poisoning incident.
I hope we would stay at home in the New Year Days without any emergency call!

It seems to be the Christmas Eve today.
"Seems to be" means that I don't celebrate this day, because I'm not a christian.
Here in Japan, most of people think Christmas is a festival or an event only for kids and young people, which doesn't have religious meanings at all.
In my family, I used to have decorated the Christmas tree and prepared presents, cakes, and special dinner for my daughters.
But now they have grown up and they aren't pleased such events so much, so I haven't prepared any Christmas stuffs for these years.
Adding that,my elder daughter got ful today unfortunately.
But anyway, there's no doubt that the Christmas is the special day, I wish peace, joy, and happiness may be with all of you!

It is the payday today, and it means today is the hamburger's day.
We bought the big hamburgers with coworkers and ate at the office.

Now I look back my everyday lunch.
I usually bring lunch box to my office, that I pack leftovers etc. into the box in the morning.It looks like almost same everyday...

Sometimes I buy lunch at the convenient store.
Curry and rice, pasta, riceball, ODEN, or so.

Some of my coworkers buy lunch box from the catering services.
I rarelly go out to eat at restaurants, mainly because to save money!

We had the first snow in this winter.
In our region, only a little snow covered on the ground, but they have much more snow in the northern part of our prefecture.
I saw the mountains on the other side of the lake all covered with snow, though I didn't see the last weekend.

I came to trap some cats for TNR here, at the lake side.
It's cold outside but I found 4 or 5 cats and kittens there.
Some cats came near but others ran away as soon as they saw me.
I set traps and hide for a while, soon trapped 2 cats, which were rather friendly ones.

I saw some cats under the cabin, but I waited more than 1 hour, no cats appeared again, so I had to give up today.

Last time I trapped 4 cats and kittens here, and released after spaying/neutering.
I thought there remained 2 adult cats and 4 kittens, but I saw new other 3 cats today!
I wonder how many cats are abandoned here...

This is a place where many fishermen come around and give fish to cats, and some people likely to come here only to feed cats.
Now our group is planning to do something to stop cats abandoned here quickly and TNR for all cats here, with more comfortable spaces for them.

I got a phone call from a woman who wants to do TNR by herself, she wanted to ask how to do, so I met her last Sunday.
She is a nun, but she doesn't live in the temple.
She has rescued many kittens she picked up around her house.
Now she has 3 cats in her house and feeds 4 outside cats,of course all spayed/neutered except for young kittens.

These are her cats.
The ginger one, named Magu, was said by the vet "She has FEV, so she can't live more than 6months." when she picked up.

She felt very sorry and decided, "I'll give her everything she wants if she would die soon", but she has been alive for 7years and thanks to her dedicated care, now becomes very fat like a hot water bag!

The 2nd cat, also female, was accepted from a pet shop.

She wasn't sold and the pet shop owner was looking for an adopter,then came to the woman's house.
She is mild hearted and always try to mediate quarrel of other cats.

The 3rd cat, named Riku, is only male.His siblings were all adopted but only he was remained, so she decided to keep him.

Maybe because he is only male, he often picks on Magu.

The woman said "Everyday I say 'DAISUKI(I love you very much)' to them.I think it's very important."
I think those cats are very friendly and lovely, so I love them, too!

I am on the way to the office from the job of checking restaurants.
I found the very big, round and beautiful moon aaove the mountain.
Then I looked back and found very beautiful sunset.(I m very sorry my poor camera can't catch the scene well)
It was warm day even though it's Descember.
Now in the end of the day, and I have to hurry back to finish my documents, maybe left on my desk while I was out!