Great Start To The Day

 I got up early this morning. Well, early for a Saturday, 7am.

I did laundry and had breakfast. It took a long time to make toast and boil water as the breaker kept dropping. It looks like I'll have to get that changed before we put in air conditioners.

After messing with that, I was on a roll. Cleaned up, made cookies, put the rice on to cook, went shopping, came back and made a good lunch.  I managed to get some vegetables at a decent price, so I did a couple of different salads!  While I was cooking, I got Christopher to run the vacuum.

I was feeling very pleased with myself.

But after lunch, things went downhill rather fast.

It started with the most awful headache. I took some painkiller, which helped a bit.

I couldn't figure out why the medicine wasn't more effective. The past week, I've had headaches almost every day. My allergies are very bad; the medicine I take for that gives me headaches, plus my sinuses feel heavy. 

But today the painkiller didn't help that much. I tried closing my eyes for a bit, but woke up with my head still pounding.

Turns out the air pressure was very low, about 960 hPa. And now we have a thunderstorm, just writing this I've screamed a couple of times. The lightning is close, a bit scary!

I hope this passes soon. I know that Mama Cat and Fluffy will be hiding somewhere. 

Outside during the storm, you can't see the mountains

The storm has finished, and you can see the mountains again

A Challenge

 A friend sent me a challenge yesterday evening: find seven things to be grateful for in this house, but not the kids or cats!

I thought it would be easy. Seven isn't that many things to find, but it's proved to be a lot harder than I thought!

What I've come up with so far.

I'm actually very grateful to have this house. If we didn't own this house, we would be homeless.

The biggest problem in renting a place in Japan is finding someone who can act as a guarantor, usually two different people or your company. In the past, we always put my mother-in-law and her sister as our guarantors.  They have all passed away now, and I don't know of any other relatives we could ask. The few friends that I have are foreigners, which is allowed, but it would make the whole process more difficult. I think David could use the company he is working for as a guarantor, but I'm not sure!

Also, we have cats. Most rental places don't allow pets! Some older properties allow maybe one or two pets, but not nine cats. Rehoming the cats would be difficult; they would end up in a shelter, which is no life for an animal. Most shelters in this area are kill shelters, even the ones that aren't get to be overcrowded and can't offer a good quality of life to the animals they take in!

This house was always the safety net, if the worst comes to the worst, we can live here. But I never thought it would come to that!

At least we have a roof over our heads! 

Another thing I'm grateful for in being here is that I'm starting to appreciate nature more.

We moved in the dead of winter. The garden was dead and I really wondered if it would come to life again but as the year has moved on the whole area is slowly waking up. Everyday I'm seeing new plants and bushes come into bloom.

Today, there was a very noisy bird outside my window.

This guy was singing his or her heart out.

It flitted from tree to tree, really singing and calling out. I was reading in my room and this was such lovely background music.

A couple of Japanese ladies I follow on YouTube make videos about their slow life in the countryside. They are about my age and are spending time on hobbies and just slowing down to enjoy things more. I watch them to study Japanese, but also because they have such a positive outlook and are really enjoying their lives. I think the idea of a slow life is becoming more appealing for me. Living here is giving more chance to just breath and be!

So that is two out of seven things to be grateful for!

I feel that this house has the potential to be very nice but I need a lot of money to make it how I want it.

When I asked Hannah what was good about this house, she pointed out that the kitchen is very big. It is, but very badly designed.  Having money to redo the kitchen, bathroom, and toilets would go a long way toward feeling better here. 

I have my reading nook, I'm grateful for that space but at the moment it's Mikey's bedroom. 

Once he moves out I want to change the tatami room into a living room.

For me, the tatami room is a wasted space. It's there to be a guest room and for the Buddhist altar. But we don't have the Buddhist altar anymore more and not using one room because you might have guests once or twice a year is a waste. 

I would love to pull up the tatami and put down flooring, but that would be expensive, so I'm looking a putting a covering on the tatami, something that is easy to clean because of the cats. Then, having a nice sofa and moving the TV in there. Yet another project to save for!

Maybe I couldn't find 7 things to be grateful for but today at this moment I'm content to be here. 

The weather is warming up, and there are signs of spring everywhere. 

We aren't homeless or living in danchi (social housing, some are nice, but most are very old, and I've heard that the cockroaches outnumber the residents), which would be awful.

This place has potential, but it will take a lot of money and time to make it really nice. 

I have to stop thinking I'm too old to do things. I need to find a way to make more money and have the life I want.

So I'm grateful for my friend who helped to stop and think about things in a more favorable way. 

I'll see if I can find a few more things to be grateful for. 

Am I Prepared?

 After watching the awful news from Myanmar, I'm wondering how prepared we are as a family for a major disaster.

Japan is home to many natural disasters, with earthquakes and typhoons being the most common.

In my way of thinking, typhoons are easier to cope with. Weather reporting has become very accurate. Typhoons are watched from when they first form, there are tracking simulations so you know if your are going to be in the path of one. As soon as I'm aware of a possible typhoon, I make sure that our yard is clean so there is little chance of debris flying and causing problems. Here, the neighbour's houses are far away, in the last house we were living on top of each other. As much as I was worried about the typhoons, I was more worried that something from our yard would cause damage to the neighbour's house or car! I make sure we have enough water, filling the bathtub to have water for the toilet, to wash with, or for the cats, and for us I would buy bottled water and fill as many flasks as we had. Also, checking that we had food that didn't need to be cooked, and whatever medicines we needed.  These preparations take a couple of days. The hardest part is convincing everyone else that we need to do this. My way of thinking is that if we are prepared and nothing happens, it's okay, but if we aren't prepared and we get hit then it would be awful! Especially if we lose power!

Earthquakes are something else altogether. They hit without warning. Apparently, we had one last night, about an M1, so very slight. I didn't feel it! 

My fear is the megathrust quake that could happen because of the Nankai Trough off the Pacific Coast of Japan. This subduction zone fault line moves about every 100 to 150 years. The last big one was in 1944, then 1946.  Each time, the quake was M8.1. 

People who study earthquakes have said that the possibility of a megathrust in the next thirty years is very high. Last year, an advisory was sent out after there was a large earthquake near the Nankai Trough. The advisory was to let people in the area that would be affected to prepare. Not only are these quakes very large, but because they occur at sea, the possible tsunami would be devastating. One news report I saw said that a tsunami caused by the Nankai Trough could be worse than the March 11, 2011, tsunami.

So, what to do? Panic? I've talked to each one of my kids, and they all say if it happens, it happens, nothing we can do about it! Which is true, sitting around worrying about something you can't control is a waste of time and energy! 

But at the same time, there are things that I feel are important. We live at the foot of a mountain that might be inaccessible if there is a large earthquake, so having three or four days' worth of food is a sensible thing to do. We should be able to take care of ourselves until rescued. Alongside that, a good first aid kit would help, with things like bandages, alcohol, and some kind of painkiller inside.  Any important documents should be copied and kept at hand.

Making a plan of how to contact each other and a meeting point is a good idea. Also, what to do with the cats?

The only big earthquake I've experienced was in 2016. The two big quakes were both at night when we were at home, but after that we talked about where to meet if we were out and decided that the best was to go to Hannah's school. I think we need a new plan!!!!!

These things are always in the back of my mind, but after the Myanmar disaster and the fact that there have been many earthquakes recently I think I should take some action!

There are disaster kits that you can buy, but I always feel they are very expensive. They seem to become more expensive after a major disaster as well. Most items are available at local supermarkets and 100 yen shops. That's where I'm going to start.

The big question is what to do with the cats!  We have enough carrier boxes for them but I'm not sure we could take them all with us if we have to evacuate to a shelter! 

Also, I've seen several apps for disasters. I'm wondering if it's worth downloading them. I'll have a look. I know on the Line app we use there is a disaster mode that allows you to contact people to let them know you are safe.

Another thing that I think is important is my own health and mobility. I was talking to one lady who used to go for long walks, even in the summer heat. She said that her fear was not being able to help herself or others if there was a disaster. I think getting healthy and keeping my mobility would help with that.

Any other ideas?

Totally unrelated photo, just because the cats look cute!

Sam and Steve

Cutting Down On Food Waste

 On thing that drives me crazy is throwing away food, either because something was bought and not used or because I made too much.

Both David and I do food shopping. That's alright but we don't always communicate with each other. For example, at the moment we have too many carrots, there were some in the fridge, David bought some and so did I. So I'm thinking how to use all these carrots before they rot!

Another bad habit of mine is making too much. At the moment there are four people here, on some days only three of us eat lunch or dinner here but I'm still cooking for 5!  On Sunday I made a Japanese meal, oyako donburi (chicken and egg on rice), miso soup and salad. The donburi and rice were finished in one meal but there was a large pot of soup and a dish of salad left over, the problem was I didn't want to use rice the next day, I'm trying to cut down on our rice consumption. So Monday's lunch was a mix of Japanese and Western cuisine.

I made pork patties with chopped green peppers, french fries, salad from the day before and miso soup. Sounds strange but actually worked out!

Monday's mixed lunch

 The pork patties are made from the thin sliced pork I buy. I chopped it into very small pieces, chopped some green peppers, seasoned with salt and pepper and used potato starch to pull the meat together. One good thing about this recipe is that it's very versitile, by changing the seasoning I can make it more Japanese style. It's also very quick to make!

My challenge for this month is to really cut our food bill! I picked up a few vegetables, tin of tuna and a pack of shredded cheese yesterday at one of the cheaper supermarkets, just 15 items came to 3000 yen ( about £15), I actually checked the reciept as it seemed a lot for so few things!  I don't buy anything fancy, not even fruit, unless it's on sale, but 3000 yen for a few staple items is ridiculous!  So it looks like menu planning, making shopping lists and sticking to a tighter budget!  

How are you dealing with high grocery prices?

Any tips or ideas?

Let me know in the comments!!!!