Category: admin

Road Map for 2023 (and beyond?)

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First of all, let me make it clear that the kimono content will always be the primary focus of my blog. Whether it be outfit coordinations, events, or informational posts, this is never going to stop. However, I have realised that in my current situation I can’t keep up with the rate of mannequin coords I have posted in the past.

There are multiple reasons for this. Firstly, I used to work a maximum of twenty hours a week. Then the pandemic hit and I was fully unemployed for over a year. This meant a ton of free time. I now have the luxury of working from home but I work a full forty hours a week, plus occasional overtime, which leaves me much less in the way of free time. My collection has also gotten so overwhelming that sometimes just looking at it while deciding what to coordinate with is exhausting!

Secondly, I am spending months at a time with my boyfriend in California, and hauling significant portions of my collection and a mannequin back and forth is just entirely unreasonable. His house also doesn’t have the space for me to take over a kimono corner, let alone the entire room.

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, I am dealing with the early stages of a frozen shoulder. This makes it difficult for me to even dress myself in yofuku (you should see me trying to do up my bra, it’s hilarious), let alone dress an uncooperative mannequin in wafuku. I am doing physical therapy and getting injections for it, and we’ve managed to slow its progression, but it’s not really getting better yet.

So what does all this mean for you, my beloved readers and followers? It means I’m going to be making a concentrated effort to bring you more content relating to Japanese arts, culture, and lifestyle, still while focusing on kimono, but broadening my scope somewhat. I also hope to bring more accessible products to you, not only imported things. Between shipping times, fluctuating currencies, and carbon imprints, it’s nice for those of us in the Americas and Europe to be able to experience a bit more wa in our lives with more ease. Expect to see more tea reviews, restaurant reviews (I am going to Morimoto Las Vegas next week and I cannot wait to share my experience with you), book reviews, and health & beauty products (Tatcha and Rituals of Sakura coming up soon). These are all things I will be able to do after work, with a bum shoulder, while away from Montreal, or any combination of the above.

I realise some of you did not sign on for this and if you decide this blog is no longer for you I fully understand. But I hope some of you will choose to stick around and see what the future holds for all of us! And to thank you for sticking around until the end of this ramble, here’s some photos of the beautiful Lego Bonsai tree Keith got me for Christmas. I love that you can easily swap between green leaves and beautiful sakura bonsai! I am terrible with real plants so this is a lovely way for me to enjoy bonsai on my desk without worrying about killing it.

(Sakura tokidoki unicorno not included – she just happened to be on my desk and I couldn’t resist)

Hiatus Update

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I just wanted to post a quick update. I’m still living in the guest room, still blocking access to my kimono. I’m also just sort of exhausted emotionally, dealing with all this flood stuff. However, my bedroom is in the process of being emptied out and renovations should start on Monday! My birthday is this coming weekend and honestly this progress is just about the best gift I could have received. Hopefully I’ll be back at full energy, with free time and unfettered access to my collection, within a few weeks!

Until then, thank you for your continued patience and support.  😀

Mini-Hiatus

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Several days ago, Montreal experienced an unusually heavy rain fall. Unfortunately, when that happened, my room (which is in the basement of a big old house) flooded, leaving everything down there in several inches of standing water.

Thankfully my kimono collection does not reside in my bedroom, or this entry would be a lot harder to write. However, all my free time for the foreseeable future is going to be devoted to flood cleanup, and the room where the kimono are stored is also our guest room which is where I’m currently sleeping. With the sofa-bed unfolded it’s impossible for me to get to my collection.

What this means is that there likely won’t be new entries for a few weeks. I sincerely apologise, and promise I’ll be back in full force as soon as I can! Thank you for understanding.

Short Term Sick Leave

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If you’ve read most of my recent posts, you’ll notice there’s been a recurring theme of me complaining about allergies and feeling a bit icky. Turns out I’ve got a nasty sinus infection and bronchitis! Whoops! I’ll be taking a short break but hope to be back to posting regularly soon! Thanks for understanding 🙂

A Quick Note

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I’m sure you’ve noticed the lack of updates in the past two weeks.

I started 2019 still dealing with post-holiday stress, and that just got compounded as the year progressed. One of our cats (Vinnie), got very ill with pancreatitis and that became my only priority. He’s hale and hearty again now, thanks to the skills and efforts of our veterinary clinic, but I was justifiably distracted for quite a while. The arms I recently purchased for my mannequin don’t work as expected, and while I know I’m going to be able to fix them with a quick trip to the hardware store, it sort of killed my motivation. An obi I was incredibly excited to coordinate seems to have gotten lost in the mail. I had to deal with the unpleasant task of banning an incredibly rude and abrasive person from the Kimono Tsuki Facebook page (and subsequently my personal account). On top of all this, the weather here in Montreal has been absolute garbage recently and the available light for taking photos is nearly zero. Despite all this, I thought today I’d do a coordination to get my mojo back, and pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did, so I stepped away.

All together, these things have added up and my motivation has taken a huge hit. But I do definitely have some art and DIY projects in the works, and the mannequin’s arm issue is going to be fixed one way or another in the next few days. so I’ll be back in full force soon!  I’d like to apologise, and sincerely thank you for sticking around. I haven’t gone anywhere, I promise! In the meantime, I do still make sure to share interesting links, videos, and photos on my facebook page, so you can always come hang out there. And as a thank you for reading til the end of this silly post, enjoy this photo I took of a beautiful doll several years ago at the Montreal JCCC.