January

Happy New Year!  
I borrowed this phrase because I love the sound of it.   
"Let's shed the old snake skin, and find our horsepower!"  
2026 is the year of the horse, you know?  
And 2025 was the year of the snake.

Our past January are here.  2025.  2024.   2023.

1/14/2026.  
Well, here we go again into a single digit temperature winter time. Coooold. At least I put up some blue color on my fence so that I could smile every time I see them. 
However, on strong windy days, like today, some of them are blown away. Funny. 

1/13/2026.  
I have several birds-expert friends around me in this town. My next-nextdoor friend is one of them. I always ask her some questions about birds, any kinds of birds. She always has answers for me.  I wrote a question on 12/20/2025. It was about a "yellow cardinal".  
I have another one today. It's about a "White cardinal"(!). 
https://www.birdsandblooms.com/birding/bird-photography/white-cardinal/
I'm a bit familiar with albino because I studied biology in college. Also I used frog eggs for research project. However this white cardinal is not an albino at all. So interesting. How many of birds-experts see this kind?  
P.S. In these days, I have to ask my husband same question repeatedly. "Is this AI???"  How about you? 

1/12/2026. A Quick update.  
When I participate in my husband's adaptive sports events, I'm taking a part of photographing, not being  captured in photos. This time, at the Adaptive ski event, was a bit different. Because of this wonderful cheerful lady. 

She and her husband have volunteered for The Bridge adaptive for several years now (I believe). Thanks to her (and her great photography skill), I was in some photos with my husband. 
It was very cold but we survived anyway. 

Do you wonder how it looks like as mono-skier on a lift? Like this. 

1/11/2026.  
We got white a little bit this morning! Cold and very windy. Well, it's my husband's Sit-ski/Mono-ski day anyway. Wish us luck.  
We need to re-read this section all about Adaptive Mono-ski. 

The photo is from February 2023.

1/08/2026.    
The Time has come!! I assume that this opportunity is coming to me right on time.  There is a youth art performance production in Cincinnati area called Rise Up performance arts. I attended their musical shows once or twice. I really enjoyed it. I do know their Lead Costumer very much. (Thanks to her, I learned about the existence of Costumer. I didn’t know about it at all.) 

I borrowed these 3 photos from Talawanda Tribune archive site. 

Especially this last one is special to me. I never forget how fabulous these four ladies harmony was. 

1/08/2026.  
In honor of the Horse Year 2026, here are photos of our son. Have you done horseback riding? I never did....

Entry#513. 1/07/2026.  
I was born in 1973 in Japan. There was a great gadget for “stencil” printing on postcards all by yourself(!) at home.    Have you heard of it? Or seen it before?  I want to show you how it works because I was a big fan of this gadget and I had used it for a long time for my New Year’s Cards (when I was in middle/high schools.  
You would love to use it if it’s still available. (Unfortunately it says it discontinued by the manufacturer.).
The product name was “Print Gocco”.  
It was a popular at-home printing device produced by Japanese company called Riso Kagaku starting in the late 1970s. Long long long ago.  
Thanks to this device, I was able to hand-print my own original design on +100 postcards!  
Sounds amazing, doesn’t it? Yes. I loved it very much.  
You can see the step by step process on this website. 

I wish I still had my old New Year’s Cards with my design from 1980s, I really want to show you those. Good old memories.  This special gadget “Print Gocco” was so popular in Japan in 1980s. Funny though. I asked my husband about it. He never used it in his life. How come?  
I guess I had some unique stuffs in my childhood. I looked back on 2/12/2023. It’s very funny. I started writing “I was born in 1973.” on that day, just exact same phrase as today’s entry.  I introduced my own old knitting machine(!). I am such an interesting human, don’t you think?  
Lastly here is our son’s New Year’s card design in Dragon year. (From the post of 1/04/2024). 

龍 (たつ) = Dragon

Entry#512. 1/04/2026.    
I wonder.  How many Christmas greeting cards did you send to your family/friends last month, by postal mail?  Did you use e-cards instead of snail mail?  
According to the internet, on average, most people in the States send out 20 to 50 Christmas cards each holiday season. 20-50. Good to know.  
Since both my husband and I are Japanese (we are originally from Japan), we have continued making Japanese style New Year’s cards each holiday season. We do it digitally, not snail mail. I don’t send many cards, not 50.  
I used to send about 100 New Year’s cards to my friends when I was a high schooler in Japan. I was so proud of myself about that big number of cards. Funny.  
I do believe my parents sent many more to their friends and families at that time.  
According to other articles, here are Japan facts about Japanese New Year’s cards.  
Japan's peak for nengajo (New Year's cards) was around 1993, with roughly 30 cards sent per person.  
In 2003, the average number of postcards sent was 35 per person.   
These numbers have dramatically fallen with the rising popularity of email and social media. Sending digital nengajo has also become a popular trend.  More people in Japan quit sending New Year’s cards. 

https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/more-people-in-japan-quit-sending-new-year’s-cards-and-many-have-started-to-regret-it

My parents decided not to send New year’s cards by postal mail anymore because my father’s computer was broken. It sounds a bit sad to me but I understand.   
My mother drew about 30 postcards with handwritten notes this season. All handmade designs(!)   
Her drawing idea was “making a Horse using Japanese letters of Horse”.  It’s like animal doodle alphabet letters. 

In Japanese, horse is うま or 馬. Do you see two letters う and ま in her postcards below?

I love her design ideas very much. I admire her a lot for making each postcard with different designs of her original ideas. 

We talked on the phone for over 1 hour on New Year’s Day. It was very needed for both of us. Long distance relationships (my mother and I) are sometimes tough. I cannot visit her to see her face right away. Catching up with her on the phone is important to me. 

Each year, I would look forward to seeing her original design on her New Year’s card. It’s quite a collection now, you know? 

I wrote about her Rabbit design here on 1/11/2023.

Entry#511. 1/04/2025.    
The year of the Snake ended and the year of the Horse started now. This time of year, I like thinking about both Chinese zodiac and Japanese zodiac. Basically they are very similar.

I learned about an interesting difference this time from our Chinese couple friends who are now parents of 6 month old baby boy. (The father is a biology professor.) 

First, re-read here about my family’s Chinese zodiac animals.Entry#351 (1/19/2025)
In Japan, there are two terms “Toshi-otoko” (年男　としおとこ) and “Toshi-onna” (年女　としおんな). 

See the photo above?  It was 2 years ago when our friends visited our house for the first time.  
She pointed out her RED socks when we thought back about our gathering. She explained why she wore those red socks. She said “It was the year of the Dragon. My zodiac animal is Dragon. It was my year. That’s why I wore red socks.”  
Then they said “This year is your son’s year. The year of the Horse. We will give him red socks next time we meet.”  
Okay, that sounds great.  
Then my husband and I got curious about “Why red socks??”. They explained to us. 

According to internet info, it’s called Ben Ming Nian.
“Ben Ming Nian (本命年in Chinese) refers to the year of zodiac animal in which one was born. In China, each one has his animal sign that is determined by the lunar birth date. In all, there are twelve animal signs each undergoes a 12-year cycle. So, every twelve years, one will meet the year of his birth sign. 
Although it sounds a bit superstitious, Chinese people take their year of birth seriously. According to the soothsaying, people in their own Ben Ming Nian may offend “Taisui”, also called the God of Age, so they would suffer a lot of misfortunes, such as sickness, economic loss, physical injuries and obstacles in career. However, there are effective ways to diminish the unlucky impacts. The most popular solution is wearing red underwear, socks or waist belts given by elders, for red is believed to bring them good luck. Some jewelry accessories may also help, such as pendants and bracelets with auspicious images.”

After all, these are so opposite idea. Japanese Toshi-otoko vs Chinese Toshi-otoko.  
Japan: carrying good luck  
China: attracting bad luck  
We believe “Chinese zodiac animals” were imported to Japan. Then somehow the idea of Toshi-otoko had changed. Interesting. 

We would welcome the Chinese tradition gratefully. So we let our son wear RED socks to prevent bad luck. At the same time, we let him bring many good luck into our household. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it?  
Happy Horse year!! 

1/03/2025.  
I asked my husband and son to test out some ideas of poses with wheelchair. It was a good start of 2026 with big laughter together. You like them?

I need to add this, too!  I love these two humans very much. They give me so much energy and comfort all the time. They should know that.

Entry#510. 1/02/2025.    
We used to go ice skating to Goggin ice center at Miami University. They offer public ice skating. We had our own boots (hockey skates). See, that much we loved?  My husband even organized his “lab gathering ice skating” as well. Most of the time, it was their very first time in their life for some lab international members. He taught them how to skate. It was fun. (Photos below are in 2019)

After his injury, naturally the term “ice skating” was erased from my brain because I thought it was not for a manual wheelchair user. I thought about it automatically.  
Then I learned about mono-ski(sit-ski) and sled hockey.  See past writing about sled hockey  here (Entry#508. 12/28/2025).

Those are adaptive sports indeed.  
My mind just kept thinking about ice skating, “no chance for a manual wheelchair” since 2021 winter until now. Funny. Now I realized something different.  
I read some news/articles that electric wheelchair users had fun time on ice link at some special events. That made me think “Ohhhh, they were on the ice link”.  How about manual wheelchair users??  
Then I started thinking and researching on internet. Obviously some manual wheelchair users “skated” on ice link. So it is possible. Hmmmm.  Okay, then, how does it work?  
I had to think about it step by step because safety is first always.  
First of all, I need to get a permission from the ice center (facility policy) whether my husband with wheelchair could join ice skating. 

Then here are my thoughts.  
1. He could enter an ice link if an entrance gate’s width was enough wide.  
2. He could start “skating” just same as wheeling on the roads, with rolling wheels with hands.  
3. Surely a wheelchair (wheels) could basically “glide/ slide/ slip” on ice.  The idea is simple. Wheelchair is fine with smooth surfaces. It’s tough with gravel/grass/deep snow/water so on.  So, ice surface is okay for a wheelchair, is it?  
4. How to stop on ice??? How?  
Well, this is the most importance question to me. If we could figure this out, we could attend public ice skating at Goggin ice center, just like we used to……  
How do you think?    
If this is possible, we could add ice skating on our winter activity list. That would be awesome and lovely, I assume.  
Basically we prefer not to take any risks. You know?  
But I’d love to make him try “manual wheelchair ice skating”. We need to figure out “how to stop on ice”, that’s our first mission. 

You might wonder “Why do you worry about stopping part? A manual wheelchair can stop easily, right?” 
A manual wheelchair has brakes each side of wheels. They are “parking brake”. For manual wheelchair, when you need to stop, you basically grab pushrims/handrims.  (Reducing the speed then stopping.)  Especially at downhill, you need to grab pushrims/handrims constantly with the right amount of friction.   
For smooth stopping, gently apply pressure to the handrims, leaning forward slightly to avoid tipping backward, especially when going backward or downhill.   
If you grab handrims 100%, it means wheels are locked 100% = your wheelchair completely stops on the dry ground surface.   

Now, imagine if you grab handrims 100% on ice link when you want to stop.  What’s gonna happen??? 

I can only imagine that you just slide until you hit the wall. See?  That’s why I need to figure out how to stop. 

1/02/2025.  
Winter time is very tricky for handcycle, at least for us. Indoor trainer setting is very convenient for sure. Of course, we prefer outside riding than indoor. But better than nothing. Here are our virtual ride photos/videos on New Year's Day.  Videos are just only 15 seconds each. You can feel about "what indoor training looks like". 
Do you see our "hats"?? This cycling app is Zwift. They set up several fun visual effects related to holidays. I enjoy them. What do you think? 

Entry#509. 1/01/2026.  
The day before the New Year's Eve, I received a text message from our wonderful professor friend. I wrote about her, here (Entry#472, 10/19/2025) and here (12/30/2022).  
Also do you remember about Taiyaki (see  12/18/2025)??  
After 5 minutes of our texting, her husband arrived our house. He delivered HOMEMADE Taiyaki for us. Yes, she made them from a scratch. Even she made two kinds of fillings. When I opened the packages/boxes, my eyes opened widely. They looked just like store-bought Taiyaki. They made our day joyful and brighter indeed. It was scrumptious.  
I had to ask her "show me your Taiyaki mold"? I was very curious. See the photo? It's amazing that she owns that one.