What I've been up to since July

Hello Everyone,

As many of you know, we just did my 3rd (in my life) move across the pond, and that put a damper on anything kimono or blogging wise. In the past 2 month I just haven't been feeling like blogging, but here are some of the things that have been happening with me.

- Move back to the USA! Yay for normal roads and plenty of parking spots. Not-yay for no Starbucks where I live :(

- We bought a house!

- I picked up my cats from my parents house in Florida and made an epic 17hr trip with them!

- I had a kimono photo shoot, which most of you probably already seen on my Facebook page. 

- I went to Japan Fest in Atlanta with friends where we were kimono dealers. I now have barely any kimono or obi left for sale (MAJOR QUADRUPLE YAY!!!), but whatever I have left I will post in my Sale albums. 

- I'm transitioning my cats to the raw diet. 

- I got myself a pretty glass kettle pot (is that even right?) for my pretty tea! But now I can't find any raw heavy cream to make clotted cream, and might have to pay big money to import it from the UK. 

- I can still make scones! 

- I haven't even thought about starting a KDJ in the area because any decent size city is at least 2hrs away, and I'm not traveling that far just to find out that no one will show up. So there probably not going to be a KDJ where I live, and I'll just hang out with me, myself, and I, like I usually do. Ok, I did think about starting  a KJD. 

- We bought a Japanese cherry tree for our front yard! It's really tiny now, but I'm hoping that by spring it will be grown enough to flower! 

I can't think of anything else that happened, so for now that's all. 

~ Lyuba

Meowmer Thursday

Because "meowmer" is a new scientific word, meaning kitty in general, and my cats specifically.

This is what Echo looks like after the rain. She is not afraid to go out and play in the rain, goofy cat. 

Every time Mittens sees me while outside, she rolls on her back with the cutest little meow, and starts showing off. 

I wake up to this exact face every day! So I can't really stay mad at Echo for waking me up at 5 am right?

I also wake up to this every morning. 

Will Miss #3: difference in spaying procedure

I've never had cats in the USA, and I've only seen one cat get spayed (our friend's, we ended up taking her to the vet and bringing her back while he was deployed) so I didn't even realize there was a difference until my own cats got spayed. I wouldn't have even known there was a difference, had I also taken my cats to the base vet, but instead I took them to the off base UK clinic.

Apparently, the US way of spaying that I'm familiar with (and which the vet on base does) is to make a cut right at the bottom of their tummy but my cats got their cut on the side. You can see in the photos that a good chunk of their fur got shaven off and it took few month to grow back, but I actually prefer it that way. I remember when we took our friend's cat to the vet to get spayed, I kept thinking about her using her litter box and possibly getting all kinds of infections in her cut because of where it was located. It seemed like she would be literally touching the litter with her cut while peeing. While I don't know if that is necessary true, having the cut on the side just completely eliminates the problem altogether.

Again, I'm no vet expert and don't know if it actually makes any difference, but having their cut on the side made me feel much better about keeping the cut clean from the litter box.

I hate rain!

Yes, I know I'm in England, but I think even those who are native to this country will agree that this "summer" we got a LOT of rain. I think the general idea is that we're compensating for a rather nice and dry winter with a FUGLY summer. It's all great and everything, and my garden seem to be finally growing properly, but it also means that I can't wear kimono as much. Sure I can grab and umbrella and kimono coat and still go somewhere, but I really don't want to bother. I'm still going to be wet, and now probably hot, AND the closest place to go for me is an outdoor mall. No thanks, I'd rather save me the frustration. 


On top of that, my cats keep bringing baby birds and frogs to the house every day now. And I don't even know where to release the birds (when they are still alive) because I have no idea where they got them. I have a general idea of where the frogs come from, but I can't get there easily so all I can do is hope that they get back there safely. I'll try putting bells back on my cat's collars and see how it goes. I took them off before because it was seriously freaking my cats out, but I'm kinda desperate now. 


Of course, now that I've started talking about my kitties, here are some photos for you. They are still adorable! 

Best Kimono Accessory?

Cats ARE really the best kimono accessories, except they do tend to have a mind of their own... and sometimes they refuse to be cute and adorable in front of the camera. Mittens clearly demonstrates here what she thinks about her picture being taken.

Do you have a furry friend that just refuses to pose for photos? Or maybe you have one that loves to join in on your kimono fun? :) 


~ Lyuba

Kimono and snow go very well together!

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Hello Everyone,

I didn't believe it at first when I saw the weather forecast that promised heavy snow in our area. I pretty much said that I will believe it when I see it, because for the past 3 years that I've spent in UK, our area doesn't really get much of ANYTHING in terms of weather. I call this curious phenomenon a "Lakenheath Bubble". Well, yesterday I was proven wrong because we got a LOT of snow!!!

I couldn't wait until morning so I could put on one of my kimono and take some photos (and walk around in the snow wheeeeeeeeee!!!). I had a kimono in mind, and even took it out, but when I woke up there was a LOT more snow than I expected. Instead, I've decided to be safe and wear my wool kimono. Incidentally, it is very similar to the kimono that I wore a few days ago, but I promise you I'm not on a yellow kick. I simply have only one wool kimono, and it happens to be yellow.

Look how much snow there was!

Since I was going to be walking around in the snow, I've decided to give my trusty old Sketchers Shape-Ups boots a chance. I've never wore them with kimono, and I never thought I would, but today they sure saved my outfit. Not only that, but I successfully managed to get them completely wet (the outer layer) too. I found a brown hat in the depth of my collection, and a scarf that I've bought back in Florida! I paired up the kimono with my Ane-sama ningyo, which happens to be my favorite pattern, patterned hanhaba obi and long red gloves.

It actually wasn't that cold, about 1C outside, but for the sake of fashion (and my exposed neck), I wore a cape and a scarf on top (I also wore UNIQLO's HeatTech leggings and sweater under my kimono). After taking plenty of photos, I went for a nice little walk to a grocery store.

When I came back, I let the kitties outside again and tried to take some photos with them. As you can see, both of them were not impressed with being kitty models. Both of them were shivering so much, but still insisted on staying outside and exploring the white fluffy stuff. They were simply adorable in the snow.

If you're in UK, did you take this opportunity to wear your kimono in the snow? If not, have you ever worn kimono in the snow? Show me your posts or photos, I would love to see them! :)

~ Lyuba

Strawberries, Kimono, and Mittens

Hello Everyone,

Last week was pretty FUGLY here in UK, with lots of rain, so I didn't end up wearing kimono at all. Actually, on Sunday it was pretty, but I had zero motivation to do anything, so this week I'll have to wear kimono twice to make up for last week.

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a photo with one of my cats, Mittens. She is such a nice kimono accessory, and she matches my overall outfit too! Too bad that Mittens has her own thoughts about being a kimono accessory :) At least she stays still enough to take a good photo (unlike some other kitties I have.... not going point fingers at anyone, Echo!).

I'm wearing one of my latest kimono again, which turned out so much brighter and prettier in real life than I thought it would. Immediately I knew that I needs some bold obi to go with it, and originally I was going to wear my Union Jack with it but then changed my mind in favor of this strawberry tsuke obi. It is the latest tsuke obi I've made, and I wanted to try it out so bad, so I'll know how it behaves. Well it behaves very well, except that I am not really good at tying those stupid tsuke obi!!!!! But I'm learning :)

Haneri is handmade from cotton and lace. My collar keeps riding up in the back, even if it still looks pretty good up front. I even have fansy-shmancy ties on my juban to make sure that collar is down, but for some reason they don't work as well as I was hoping.

I'm in love with this strawberry pattern! Finally Strawberry Kimono has a strawberry item! Below you can see that I've used regular belt instead of obijime, and I think it works very well to add that modern touch to the outfit. The obiage is one of my favorite ones, and also balances the white of kimono and obi nicely together.

My every-present red boots are present here again!

As you can see, my juban sleeves are much shorter than kimono sleeves, but I didn't want to search for another juban in my uber mess aka kimono room, so I decided not to worry about it too much. Plus, it already had haneri sewn on it.

What do you think about this coordination? Let me know :) And as always, more photos are in my FB group.

~ Lyuba

No time for kimono :( But plenty of time for little kittens :)

Sadly I haven't been able to wear kimono at all for almost 2 month now! I blame my 2 new kittens and my schoolwork for it. I literally come home from work every day and then spend the whole evening doing stuff for school. Of course I have only myself to blame for taking 4 online classes, but I can't drop them now because I got a military spouse scholarship type of thing to pay for them. If I drop any classes, I will have to pay back the price of class and it is very expensive. So I have until January 24th of this hell and after that I will know better and only take maybe 2 online classes per term.

On the bright side, I have 2 little kittens now :) One is black with white paws and another one is brown spotted bengal. We had Mittens for little over 2 month now :) Can you tell how much she loves me? :) :) :)



Little Mittens is not so little anymore, but she is still soooo cute! She is a little over 4 month now. Actually, she is literally my dream kitty. I always wanted to have a black female cat with white paws. We adopted her from a lady on base, the lady was giving her away because her cat gave birth to Mittens and she had too many cats in the house. The second I saw this cutie I knew she had to be mine (or I had to be hers, whichever you prefer lol). We instantly named her Mittens after Mittens from Bolt :) :) :)



We have a new Christmas tree ornament! It is cattilicious! :)



The newest addition to our family is little Echo :) She is so small compared to Mittens and they are only 2-3 weeks apart! The breeder told us that it is because pedigree cats tend to develop later than mutts haha :) I expect them to be about the same size when they are full grown.





Right now they are still getting used to each other, but they are doing extremely well. Of course I am still watching them and won't leave them alone in a room without supervision. So far all they are doing are chasing each other around the room, not hissing as much as before and I guess sizing each other up? They are even sniffing each others noses. So cuuuuute! I can't wait for them to become best buddies! :)