Long Overdue Update

Been really busy and just a bit out of things lately!
The first Sunday of the month was Hannah's field day.  It is a long day and for me rather boring. Hannah's school is large so each child only does 4 or 5 events.  each event is only a few minutes long, so watch Hannah run, sit around for an hour or so, watch Hannah do the team cheers, sit around for a few more hours and so on until about 3:30 or so.  I was up at 5am to make obento so a rather exhausted day for me.  But Hannah had a good time.  A few photo's from that day.

The local football mascot came to cheer the kids on

Hannah carrying one of her friends in the gymnastics display

In other news Mikey passed his driving test and we got a car.  I am so happy.  I can finally shop. Mikey has problems with parking and of course he is still nervous.  That makes me nervous riding with him.  I hope that with time and practice he gets better.

Our new car, 2nd hand but new to us

BUGS

I don't like any kind of bug!  Any creepy crawly makes my skin crawl and reduces me to a screaming mess.  Amuses the kids no end but I hate bugs.
Hubby was the gardener, every year he would spray the trees outside to stop the bugs taking over. This year I never even thought about it until we had an infestation of stink bugs.  They were on the trees near the entrance so of course when we put the lights on in the evening the entrance would be full of these things.  As students came in and out the bugs would follow, they would take up residence on the celling waiting for me to get sleepy then dive bomb me!!  More screaming and running in circles.  Finally in desperation I called hubby's friend.  He came last week and sprayed the trees, we are now bug less!!!

YUK

And just to add to the screams, we had a visitor in the shape of a large spider!

massive!

Then just to keep me smiling one of my students came in this tee shirt

David

David is my second son.  He is a sweet, caring young man.  Since hubby died David has taken over the extra shopping and helping out around the house that needs to be done.  Most days he will load the dish washer, hang out the laundry, tidy up or go to the supermarket without being asked.  He sees that something needs to be done and just does it.  For that I am very grateful.  But he tends to be rather accident prone.  Whenever I hear a bang or crash I immediately think  "David".
This past week was typical David.  Monday lunchtime he goes to get a plate out of the cupboard.  There's an almighty crash as the other dishes come falling out, five broken plates!  Monday evening I had a pizza in the oven, David lifted it out, using the oven gloves, but the plate slipped and burnt his arm, leaving a nice burn mark.  Tuesday morning he offers to go to the local convenience store to pay some of the bills.  He rides off on his bike only to reappear again a few minutes later.  He had fallen off his bike into one of the ditches.  He is covered in scratches and walking funny.  He said that his knee was very painful.  So off to the doctors, 2 hours and an X-ray later we find that he has pulled the ligament in his knee.  Thankfully no broken bones.  Just round things out he gets a fever Tuesday night.  I think it's this cold that we have been having.  Poor David.  I am glad that it isn't anything worse and that he kept a sense of humor through it all!  He reminded me of an incident that I had forgotten about.  A few years ago there as a TV programme about the effects of stress.  That too much stress can lead to heart problems.  David was in the 5th grade at that time, he remembers watching that programme and telling me not to get too stressed, the next day he broke his arm.  I guess stress goes with David!!!

New Blog

I've decided to restart my blog on teaching English.
Hop over have a look, there is only one post so far...it's a start!
http://idealcommunication.blogspot.jp/2013/09/teaching-styles.html

I am hoping to add materials that I make and ideas for teaching.  I'm hoping to get some feed back as well!

When Grief, Stress and Exhaustion Meet......

...there will be chaos!
The past week or so have been really tough on me.  Emotionally and physically hard to deal with things.
Grief is really an horrible companion. It settles in your heart and mind, and just when you think it is under control it rears its ugly head again.  As time moves forward, the shock wears off and the reality of my situation sets in.  Nothing is going to change, hubby is not going to walk in through the doors and give me a hug, make me laugh or offer to go shopping.  That chapter of my life has finished, but I am not ready to start a new one!  Most of the time I am okay but recently my fine has been so good.  I keep thinking that this time last year Hisao was here.  In a few months time that statement will no longer be true!
The stress I have is just day to day stuff.  Some days I feel so hopeless. I applied for a credit card this week.  Simple enough but I had to walk to the bank...twice, wait for over an hour each time.  Spent ages filling out forms, with most forms here one of my older boys writes out the address but for the credit card I had to write in English and my son write above it in Japanese, complete waste of time and effort!  Also I am realising that I need a lot more money for next year when David starts college.  I have some saved but not enough!  That is one big stress!
The exhaustion is from the heat.   We had a week of nice cool weather but the heat is back.  Plus this past week we have all had colds, slight fever and awful sore throats.  Because of feeling under the weather for the past week I haven't kept up with he cleaning that needs to be done. If I miss one day things get out of hand, miss a few days and the kitchen, dinning, living room looks like a tornado has blown through.  Today, Saturday, is busy for teaching.  I am hoping that the kids will help out with cleaning a bit I'm not holding my breath.

rain and reading

We got the rain I was wishing for the other week.  A lot of rain! Non stop torrential rain.  Of course the storms were the worse when it was time to go to school.  Poor Christopher came back soaked through, that was with a rain coat and umbrella......the poor umbrella got ripped apart in the wind!  I think I'm the only person that actually enjoyed the rain and cooler weather. Not the thunder storm though.  That was really scary,  a couple of close hits!   Today it is really nice out, some sun but not really hot.  Good cleaning weather!

As for the reading, David is trying to improve his English by reading the Bible.  He is reading through the Book of Proverbs.  I sat the other day with him just to make sure that he was reading okay.  But I wasn't really focused.  He read one passage along the lines of "you simple fools you should find better ways"  I asked him what it meant, David started going on about a healthy diet and eating more vegetables.  EH?  I asked why he said that, David said that the passage was talking about "simple FOODS"....Got my work cut out for me here!!

Back to School

Hannah started back to school yesterday, Christopher started back last week. Yesterday morning it was so quiet in the house!  Nice somehow. I love having my kids at home but it does get to be a bit overwhelming at times.  The constant cooking drove me crazy this summer. I think the fact that I had little appetite and cooking in a kitchen that felt like a sauna didn't help.  Also we were stuck inside all say everyday, not having a car made it impossible to go anywhere.  Somehow my kids were very good about that, they didn't moan and whinge about being inside all the time.
The second term here is very long, there are no real holidays until Christmas holiday, 4 months!  Also this term is the real focus for study. Hannah has a very busy term, the school has field day in October and then a 3 day camp a few weeks later!  Lots of fun!
Christopher has been practicing for his field day event. The weather hasn't helped at all. The event was supposed to be on Sunday but heavy rain was forecast so the event was postponed until today.  But it is pouring down with rain now, I guess it will be inside.  Poor Christopher has to walk a good 30 minuets to school.  I suggested that he wear  a rain coat but he isn't allowed to, school rules.  I am so not happy about him walking without a raincoat.  Maybe call a taxi?

Actually the weather has been rather unsettled here. After a month of extreme heat, up to 39C some days, the weather changed to the most amazing rain. Last Friday we had a really terrible thunderstorm, it lasted all night and most of the morning, I did a lot of screaming.
And yesterday afternoon a tornado hit part of eastern Japan.  When I saw the news I was amazed that nobody was killed, the damage was very extensive.