Stress!!

 I'm completely, absolutely, and totally stressed by thinking about this move! I now have mouth ulcers which I only get when my stress is too high!!

We have until January 2025 here but I want to move in October 2024, just over a year away!!  But there is so much to be done and basically no time.  Everybody is working so trying to find time when two or three of us can go and work on the other house is hard.  Summer we didn't do anything, it was just too hot and getting heat stroke wouldn't have helped.  

Another problem is money.  Even just doing the very basic things to make the house liveable will cost over 500 man yen (about 3000 pounds).  I need to offer some money to the owners here because of the damage the cats have done, we have to put a new tank in for the toilet waste and get the bamboo in the neighbor's yard cut and uprooted!!  I have no idea where I can get this money from.  I don't want to go into debt, and my bank won't give me a loan, even the loan that was guaranteed by the government during the pandemic I couldn't get because I'm a foreigner.  I've looked at making money online but all seems rather confusing.  One thing I'm thinking about is setting up a crowdfunding page.  But that seems kind of cheeky, just asking for money without working for it!!  We will see.

I've been digging myself into a hole by living in my head, just thinking the same things over and over but not getting any answers, plus wanting to stuff myself with sweets which I know is bad for me. Then yesterday two of my good friends reached out to me.  One of my friends lives in Japan, she called and we sat and talked for over an hour.  That was so nice.  Then another one of my friends sent me a voicemail, really helping to see another perspective on this move.  She said I should find the adventure in this and be grateful for the house and having a place that we own.  This is true, I am grateful that we have this place as I know trying to rent another place would be impossible with the cats. 

Also for all the people who left comments on my blog, thank you!  I thought I had set this up so I would get alerts for the comments but the alerts went into my spam folder and I didn't see them.  I wasn't ignoring you!!

And of course a cat photo to finish!!

Sam and Frodo!