End of February

The second month of 2019 is finished and things have not improved!
I was really hoping that this year would be a lot better than last year but
it looks like another hard year.
Christopher got turned down for another job.  He keeps trying, goes to loads
of interviews but everybody is looking for some one with experience but how
is he to get experience if nobody hires him!  The hard part is that he has to
pay back his scholarship and pay into the pension scheme but with what? There
is no welfare so I have to support him but it is really hard!
Of course my mother in law's situation hasn't changed, spent an hour and half talking
to the care manager and somebody else about the options available but again it
is a money problem.  Of course mother in law had to open her big mouth and keep
on saying that she isn't selling the land which ties our hands.  She doesn't realize that
saying she will sell the land is seen as an act of good faith. The land is not sell able, wrong
area and wrong zoning.  But just saying that we will sell it means that the city can
help out more.  She is running up debt staying in the hospital, which she has no way of
paying off.  Guess who gets the bill!
This is all so depressing, my health isn't that good and the stress from all this is not helping at all!
I am really hoping that things will look up soon but I am not holding my breath.
And of course the cats are driving me crazy. I left my computer on the other (m*o=======================-/*55555, that was the cat jumping on the keyboard)
morning and one of the cats sat on the keyboard when I went to use it again nothing would
work. Somehow it had cut the wifi connection!

Mikey with his big fish, it's not real!

Over Stressed

Life with cats is not the fun relaxing thing I thought it would be.  They seem to spend
most of their waking hours trying to kill each other or peeing where they shouldn't.
The three kittens are all male so of course this aggressive behavior is part of what
they are!  I want to get them spayed but the vet we use isn't doing the operations until
April, so another month of staying awake until after 1 o'clock or finding another vet!
As for the peeing I will have to buy another litter box, so that is easy to fix, I hope.

The biggest stress though is my mother in laws situation.  She can't get welfare to cover
her staying in a care home.  She can't go home and she can't stay with us.  So a care
home is the only choice. Problem is that on paper she looks rich. She owns her own house and a lot
of land.  We are willing to sell the land but it is in an area that nobody wants to buy, plus
it is zoned as farming land and changing the zoning is a nightmare.  The care manager
said that her pension can cover her stay in hospital but reality is that I am spending
about 200 pounds a month on her, she needs adult nappies and other things that are
not provided by the hospital, plus we have to drive out there. about an hour each way,
to pick up her laundry each week.  The money I am using is money I should be saving for Hannah
to go to university!   I am losing sleep trying to figure out what to do!  Looks
like another round of talking to people who aren't going to help!

Pschyic Dog?

I suffer from insomnia.  I've suffered for years but the past 6 months or so it has been
getting worse!  I go to bed at about 11pm and fall asleep only to wake a couple of hours
later and then unable to sleep again.  I have to get up at 5am to make breakfast and lunch box for Hannah.  So most nights I only get about 2 hours sleep.  That meant the next day I am tired
and rather miserable. Plus getting up at 5am makes my day very long as my working
hours are usually afternoon and evening, I feel like I'm starting to work when everybody
else is winding down for the day.  To help me get through work I try to take a nap. I find a half hour to an hour nap really helps. But the dog won't let me sleep!  Before I go upstairs the dog is
quiet, if I'm reading up there or cleaning the dog is quiet.  As soon as I get comfortable and
start to doze off the dog starts to yap.  If this happened once or twice then I would think it's
a coincidence but it happens every single time.  It feels like the dog knows I want to sleep and
doesn't want me too!  She barks or yaps at other times but she really isn't a noisy dog but this
is driving me crazy!

The cats are also driving me crazy.  The white cat doesn't like to use the liter tray. He walks around making this awful noise, so we have to scope and run with him.  The problem is that he is the
biggest of the cats, weighing about 4kgs!  The other morning I had to run upstairs 3 times to
grab him,  now my back and arms are really painful, but they are still cute!

Christopher and Fred

Alan

Steve and Mama

Steve on my printer

David with his head stuck in the cat carrier!

Going in Circles

I was hoping that the visit to the care home this morning would answer all the questions
I have but seems like getting my mother in law a place is going to be a lot harder
than I thought. We have to talk to another care worker, then maybe back to the welfare department
at the city hall and then who knows!  One thing that is worrying me is that there is no
guarantee that she will get a place, what to do then. I can't take of her and she is in
no condition to go home by herself!

More pleasant things... Hannah came third in a prefecture wide English test.  I am
so happy. She struggled so much in junior high school and I was worried that high
school would be the same but she seems to be doing okay.

Hannah with her certificate and medal.

Also Alan, our black cat is back home and back to being the boss!  He came back yesterday
and spent the past 24 hours just crying.  Nothing we did would calm him down, poor David
stayed up all night with him.  He has calmed down now, hope he sleeps tonight!

This is picture of poor Steve, you can see that his ear has been bitten, that was Alan's doing!

Too Much To Deal With

Life seems to go in cycles of being really busy and totally stressed to times where
nothing happens at all and I get bored! Not sure which one I prefer!
This past week has been hectic and stressful. My mother in law is still in hospital.
Even after months of tests the doctors aren't sure what is wrong. I think it's just a
case of her body slowing down, she is 81 after all!  But she isn't sick enough to warrant
a hospital bed, but she is not well enough to go home. So we are looking for care home
for her.  But money is the problem. Care homes in Japan are very expensive. Because of
the aging population the government pushes families to take care of the elderly at home.
To do this they make the care homes very expensive.  For us taking care of my mother in
law at home is not a choice. she is verbally and emotionally abusive.  So last week David
and I did the rounds of talking to social workers, finally accessing mother in law's pension,
paying off some of the hospital bill.  According to the social worker the city can make up the
money for the care home if the pension is not enough.  My worry is if we have buy
personal items for my mother in law, such as nappies, toothpaste, shampoo etc it gets to
be a lot. The past few months we have been buying her nappies and doing her laundry
which has come to over 100 pounds a month. That may sound like not a lot but that 100 o
pounds is what I should be saving for Hannah to go to university!

Then just to add to the stress the black kitten got sick.  He stopped eating and was having
a hard time going to the toilet.  I thought he was just constipated.  This morning David
and Christopher took him to the vets, turns out that he had kidney failure. Apparently the
food we were giving him caused kidney stones so we have to change the food or the
other cats will get sick.  The cat has to stay in the vets for a few days, I have no idea how we
are going to pay for this.

Poor Alan is in hospital