Busy, Busy, Busy!!!

Since I last wrote I have been so busy.  We are trying to clean out my mother in law's house.
Big problem is that the storage area next to the house is full of stuff that I have dumped there over
the years, 29 years worth of stuff.  I found boxes with Mikey's baby clothes, he is now 28, why did
I hang on to this stuff.  As much as possible we have been burning things, old clothes, books and boxes of paper.  Next week somebody will come with a truck to take stuff the trash collection place. Then we have to start on the house!  I've done a bit but I go around asking "Why?"  5 massive draws of underwear, 4 draws of used plastic bags, looks like they have been there for a long time because they have melted and stuck together.  Boxes of supermarket plastic bags, they are in okay condition so am using for the cat litter.  3 boxes of handbags, shopping bags, back packs and purses.  And over 100 pairs of trousers that have never been worn.  I don't want to throw out stuff, it's hard for me to see good stuff just dumped and if I was the right size some of the clothes I would use.  But there is no way to recycle them unless selling online which takes time.  I thought about going to a recycle shop but it is really a rip off.  I once took three of Hannah's baby dresses, new, never worn, they gave me 100 yen,  about 80 pence, they sold them for 1500yen each, about 10 pounds.  I swore I would never go there again.   So am thinking what to do with all this stuff!

David is doing okay, still in basic training.  He calls on the weekend, which is nice.  He was supposed to come back the first week of May for what is called the Golden Week holiday, 5 or 6 days of public holidays, back to back.  But because of the coronavirus his base is on lockdown!  He said that he will get a holiday in the future, I hope so!  Because he is away I have been cooking.  Somedays that is all I seem to do.  I'm enjoying it but it's a challenge because I don't want to shop to often, I try for twice a week, before the virus I would shop almost everyday, small fridge and kitchen means it is difficult to store a lot.  Also I am trying to use up left overs.  Yesterday I made Doria for lunch.  It's made by layering left over rice and curry in a dish and topping with a cheese sauce and baking in the oven for about half an hour. Very nice.

Doria

I bought some shellfish yesterday for the soup but I bought to many.  So the extra ones I cooked in butter with Japanese cooking wine, very nice.

Shellfish cooked in butter and Japanese cooking wine

Our cats are doing okay, they have this crazy time racing up and down the corridor, this goes on for about an hour, somedays more.  They are all very cute but the older males seem to be fighting more, maybe they need more exercise.  I should play with them more but so tired lately.

Hannah said that this pose reminded her of the painting below!

Fred having a sand bath, it was just cleaned

Close up of Mama

Last week was Hannah's birthday.  She is all grown up at 18!  I had such a wonderful day planned for her, trip into the city, shopping, nice lunch and a musical. Then corona arrived and all that was canceled.  So I bought some really nice meat and we had a yaki niku party,  yaki means fried and niku is meat.  Bought very nice meat, some veggies to grill up, then we had cake and trifle.  We watched Roman Holiday.  Hannah was not happy with the ending!  Then we watched Andrew Llyod Webbers The Shows Must Go On.  She ordered some DVD and book so not too bad!

We are in lockdown, kind of!  No school until May 14th, maybe.  I try to not go out but we have students here.  Not many, about half have taken a holiday.  I bought some hand sanitizing gel that everybody has to use and most people wear masks.  I use a bleach solution to wipe down surfaces and am spending a lot of time washing my hands.  I keep hoping that this pandemic would just disappear but it looks like it is here for the long run.  So how do we live with it?