Making Plans

 I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Hannah and I are making plans to go to Tokyo in the summer. The musical Sunset Boulevard will be playing for a couple of weeks, and Hannah really wants to see that.

The tickets went on sale last Saturday. Hannah managed to get two good tickets, very expensive but I think worth it. She also managed to book a hotel and flight at a reasonable price. The only problem is that the hotel is about an hour away from the theatre, changing trains many times to get there. I'm glad I'm going with Hannah as I don't know if I could deal with that by myself!

It should be an interesting visit. I haven't been to Tokyo since I arrived in Japan, 35 years ago.  I guess it's changed a lot. I was never really interested in going, big cities always feel the same: too many people, too much noise, and everything always seems to be a lot more expensive.

In Tokyo, many years ago.

We are making plans for the other days we will be there. I really don't want to see all the real touristy places, just the thought of the crowds and the heat and humidity makes me panic!

One area that I've read about is the Tokyo booktown, Jinbocho. There are over 130 bookstores; some sources say there are 200 stores. Of course, most are Japanese bookstores, but there are also foreign bookstores. Most are 2nd handstores, but there are also new bookstores as well, plus some stores that sell rare books.  One store that I saw on YouTube is a cat bookstore, so of course, we want to visit that.

I don't know what else Hannah wants to do. She said that watching the musical is the most important thing for her. She loves museums about education or the Show period, maybe we can find something like that. Then, of course, there is always shopping, more like window shopping!

I have to start training to deal with all the walking and the heat/humidity. 

Is it crazy to make these plans? Maybe. But I know I always put off doing things because of ....many excuses! Not enough money, well, that isn't going to change overnight, but I am working on it. Haven't lost weight, well, I can try, I have a few months. It's going to be hot and humid; that isn't going to change. It'll be hot and humid here as well.

I'm at the time in my life when I realised that time is important. We aren't guaranteed tomorrow. I need to make the most of the time I have now, doing things that I want to do, things that bring joy to my life. 

One reason I'm thinking like this is, is the news of a lady I knew, who passed away a few days ago. She was just 70 years old and had been battling cancer for 5 years. That's so sad, from about my age, she was dealing with cancer, hospital stays, chemo and radiation therapy, constantly not feeling well and not having energy to do things. 

So I'm going to live in the here and now, make crazy plans, spend time with those that I love. Also, take care of myself so I can make the crazy plans come true.

Does anybody else have crazy plans?

Japanese Comfort Food VS English Comfort Food

 Yesterday it was so cold. I think it only got to about 10°C; of course, it felt colder in the house!

I decided to make some comfort food for lunch. Something warming, filling, and just feels right on a cold March day.

I made Butadon, Pork Donburi. 

Donburi is a rice dish in one bowl. Lovely, soft, steamy rice topped with either beef, pork, chicken, pork cutlets or vegetables.

For a pork donburi, I cook onions and thinly sliced pork in dashi, then add the usual flavourings: sugar, soy sauce, mirin (sweet sake), and sake. I like the sauce to be a little bit sweet, so I add more mirin. When David makes it, he adds more soy, just personal taste.

To go with this, I made a pot of miso soup. I love miso soup; it's so easy to make and is a good way of adding a few more vegetables to the meal. My kids say that my soup is more like a stew as I put in so many vegetables!

A small side salad rounded out the meal nicely,

Butadon, miso soup and salad, nice lunch.

I ate a lot at lunch, so I wasn't that hungry in the evening. I remembered that I had a tin of baked beans in the cupboard. In the UK, these are standard food; here in Japan, they are a luxury. One tin costs about 500 yen, almost £3. I bought these beans a couple of months ago, so I decided that beans on toast for dinner would be another comfort food for me. This was more about nostalgia. I love Japanese food, but sometimes I just want something English, something that takes me back to my childhood! Maybe not that healthy, but it hit the spot!

Beans on toast with some sausages and mushrooms.

I'm wondering what comfort foods other people enjoy. Drop me a comment!

The Storage Room

 Is a disaster!

The storage area is a large building that has two floors. Most of the downstairs is for parking cars, especially if there's a typhoon.  Part of the downstairs was changed into an office, but it isn't really usable, too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter. Then there's the upstairs, which is one big room. I've often thought it would be nice to convert it so it could be used for something, but there are massive gaps in the walls and between the walls and the roof. It has become home to many different creatures. This time of year, it's okay, but in the summer, I get very nervous about moving things about because I have no idea what is going to run out.

I haven't been upstairs in months. I think the last time was when Hannah came home to find somethings she was storing here. I went today, and it is a real mess. Part of it is things just being moved around without thought of stacking boxes or throwing out stuff that is not useful. Also, David and Mikey had to move a lot of boxes to get to the chest of drawers that I needed for my room.

This is a little video I took, it might be jumpy in places because I was tripping over stuff!

One of the biggest problems for me is the stairs to the 2nd floor. They are very steep and don't have any handrails at all.  Even when I was younger, I found the stairs challenging; now they are almost impossible. I only go upstairs if there's someone to go with me. I can't carry anything down; the person who goes up with me has to help carry stuff down. Today it was Christopher.

Looking down the stairs, scary.

I took a little video of what was once the office. It needs cleaning out as well. The doors at the end of the video are from the original house, so about 70 years old!

Then there is the outside!

Oh bother!

Christopher moved the branches that were cut down ages ago; he hopes that it'll be dry enough to burn them next week. At least where the branches were looks a lot better.

The branches were dumped here; it looks a lot better.

Looks like my "to-do" list has gotten longer!

Just Sam

 I don't know why, but one of my ginger cats has taken to sleeping in my room.

He knows that he is only allowed on my bed or the windowsill. At the moment, there's a big box in my room that he has claimed. It's a set of drawers for Hannah, so it'll be gone soon!

When David isn't working at night, I ask him to take Sam to his room, but Sam won't settle at all. He has to be on my bed, on me!  

At first, I was annoyed with him; he sleeps in the middle of the bed, and I have to keep pushing him to one side so I can stretch my legs a bit. But somehow it's become comforting. In the evenings when I'm sitting on my bed reading or watching TV, Sam curls up on my lap and starts to purr. That sound actually calms me a lot! Even if I've had a hard day or am feeling a bit down because of the usual worries (too many bills and not enough money, how to get this house fixed, how to......whatever the latest crisis is), the sound of Sam purring, the feel of his soft fur is like a balm to my soul, I stop thinking, I breathe deeply and tell myself that in this moment nothing is bad. I think that is the beauty of cats, only now is important. They don't fuss about next month's bills, about the house being a constant mess because of dust and spider webs; they just are. I need to be more in the moment. I'm always regretting past decisions, things I can't change and worrying about the future and all the "what ifs" out there. My what-ifs get crazy if I let them. The latest one is what if there's a massive earthquake. Why am I wasting time and energy worrying about a natural phenomenon that I can't stop! I can prepare, have water and food on hand, a first aid kit (which I need to check), but other than that, what can I do?

My evening with Sam have really helped me. When he is looking for love and to be played with, I put my book down or turn off the TV and really focus on him; that's when the magic happens. It's just such a relaxing feeling; it has helped me to unwind at the end of the day.

Just a little video of Sam on the box.

Check Up

 Yesterday was my 3-month check-up for diabetes and high blood pressure.

I will admit that the past few months, I haven't been really mindful of my eating. I know that over the Christmas and New Year's there are so many lovely foods that I only buy or make at that time of year, so I gave myself permission to eat. I thought that I would get that out of my system and that by the middle of January, I would go back to eating less carbs and sugars, but that hasn't really happened. I have good days, sometimes two or three days running that I am eating better and doing more exercise, then I'll have a few bad days where I eat the wrong foods. I don't overeat. I get full quickly; once I feel full, I stop eating, which is a new thing for me. I used to be able to eat even when I felt full; now, however, that makes me feel sick, which is a good thing! I also eat very slowly; it can take over 20 minutes to eat a meal, which is also a good thing, except I'm left alone at the table with only the cats to keep me company.

I was very worried about this check-up. My weight hasn't really changed; it's gone up and down the same half a kilo for the past couple of months, which is amazing considering the amount of junk I've eaten! I thought my A1C would be higher, but it was the same as the last test: 5.7! Also, my blood pressure has gone down; at the doctors it was 102/60. I asked to change the blood pressure meds as part of my gums have become swollen, I don't know if it's a side effect of the one medicine I was taking or if something else is going on! The doctor prescribed a different medicine but told me to come in if my blood pressure goes up or if I have other problems with it. Looks like I'll have to go to the dentist to find out what's happening with my gums! 

I have a new goal: to get under 90kgs by July. Why July? The musical Sunset Boulevard will be playing in Tokyo from July 10th to August 1st. Hannah and I are planning (hoping) to see it. I'm going to start training for walking in the heat. Most summers, I don't do anything or go anywhere because of the heat and humidity. When the extreme heat was just three months of the year, that was alright, now though, most years it's about half the year. I don't want to be stuck in one room for half a year, so I think I need to start preparing for the heat and humidity now, build up my stamina, and find products that will help with the heat, especially with sweating!

This evening I'm going to sit with a notebook and a calendar and make some goals.

Also, I got a new rice cooker. David bought it for me. I think he was fed up with burnt rice. It wasn't expensive, 4,000 yen, about £20. It's so nice to just put the rice in and push a switch. No more watching the pan to make sure it doesn't boil over or burn the rice! 

My new rice cooker

It's very small but does up to 4 cups of rice. It also has a basket to steam foods in, I'll have to try that out sometime.
 

Just Thinking

 Yesterday, when I changed over the chest of drawers, I threw out a few things. Not a lot, about one trash bag full, clothes that were falling to pieces, some that no longer fit, just trash really. But it wasn't easy! For example, I threw out a sweater that I bought about 15 years ago. I've only worn it a couple of times because it's not my style, wide neck, off-the-shoulder type. I got it from a recycle store, so not expensive, no real sentimental feelings toward it either, but I just haven't been able to throw it out!

Why? I can understand keeping things that have sentimental value. I have a couple of things that belonged to my Mom and Hisao, they comfort me and bring back memories. I also have a couple of baby clothes from each of my kids, again, comfort and memories. The same with photos and journals that I keep, I like looking back, remembering things, places I went, people I knew. Now that the kids are adults, I can tell them stories of their childhood. I feel that kind of family history is important!  

Why do I find it hard to throw out things that I don't need, aren't useful and are not even worth keeping? Is it the fear that I won't be able to buy things? Is it the fear of not having things? I know that when I do get the courage to purge myself of unnecessary stuff, I feel a lot better. I feel lighter, more at ease. Getting there, however, is hard. Hannah and David are good at helping me when I need to declutter.

Once I was sorting out the teaching materials I had. I had built up a library of books, CDs and prints. I like that I had a choice of textbooks so I could cater to the students' individual needs, but I always went back to using the same textbook.  I pulled books off the shelves, making two piles: keep or trash. The keep pile was getting very high! Hannah asked why I was keeping certain books, I told her that the grammar points were good or the dialogues were useful. She pointed out that the information was out of date. In one book, it had the question "Who is she/he?" with photos of Princess Diana and Michael Jackson; most kids wouldn't know who they are. Another book had a picture of cassette tapes, asking how many? Again, kids wouldn't know what cassette tapes are. With Hannah's help, I managed to throw out a load of books, making the room look a lot better.

The same with David. Before we moved here, we cleaned out the storage place. I had kept everything that I wasn't using, about 34 years of stuff, from baby clothes to school textbooks and loads of broken gadgets. David would pick up something and ask why are you keeping this. So much trash. It broke my heart, but I realised that the only value was sentiment, not usefulness! I kept a few things, but most were thrown out.

I think I need to learn how to do this by myself. I don't like the feeling of being afraid of letting things go. With spring starting, it's a good chance to go through the things that I have and do another good purge of trash. This house is too small, half the size of the last house. I don't really have space just to keep things. 

I can do this! I'll just have to remind myself every day!

A photo of the mountains from the other morning. It's been raining all day today, which is good as the winter has been very dry and the reservoirs were getting low!

Misty mountains.

A New Chest Of Drawers

 Did I mention that the chest of drawers in my bedroom stopped opening? About a month ago, the bottom three drawers got stuck. David managed to get them out, but they wouldn't go back in. So two of the drawers have sat near the door to my room. The cats liked to get in the top one!

Sam is in my drawer.

Maybe I could have coped with the drawers that were left, but they were getting harder and harder to open. The other day, it took 20 minutes to open one drawer. 

My old chest of drawers.

I remembered that there are two nice sets of drawers in the storage room. I asked David to check them out, which he did. One was still good, the other one was not really useful, with very shallow drawers and smelled a bit musty. 

Today, David said that he and Mikey could bring the good set of drawers down. I'm glad I have these muscle men to help me out; there's no way I could have gotten the drawers down the very steep stairs in the storage place.

While I was making lunch, they got the drawers down and gave them a good cleaning. I thought that just changing clothes from one set of drawers to another would take a few minutes. I didn't anticipate David's help.

The top part of the old drawers I had some books, I always seem to have more books than anything else. I had put them up there to keep them away from the cats.  The new set of drawers doesn't have a cupboard space on top, so what to do with the books?

David opened the closet that I have and decided to reorganise it, to make space for my books. Great idea. The only problem was that the closet had become a dumping ground for clean laundry! Weeks of laundry that nobody had claimed was just shoved in there.

David pulled out a lot of the laundry, some of the boxes and files that were in there. Let's just say my room was a disaster!

Disaster!

Hannah called while we were doing this. I couldn't find my phone! I sent her these photos. She understood why I didn't answer!

Even though I hadn't planned to do this today, I'm glad we did. I managed to fill up a big bag of trash, things that I'm just hanging onto for the sake of hanging onto them. I found things that I thought were lost, some tops that should fit me now. Also, moving the old drawers revealed mould that had been growing behind them. David wiped the walls down with bleach. There is still a lot to do, but we made a good start!

My new drawers

The teddy bear is Hannah's. I don't know why it's in my room.

The baskets on the floor are clothes that belong to Christopher and Mikey; they'll have to put them away later, plus two baskets of stuff I'm throwing out!

I think today was a good start to March!