February Challenges And The House

 My original plan for February was to get the garden cleaned up and dug over.  I still have to do that but looks like adding other challenges to my month!  So this month I will start on the garden.  I would love to be able to grow some vegetables.  I've tried many times before but never seems to work out.  I want to say that I will go out every day and do a bit but I know that is difficult but at least a few times a week.

The other challenge has to do with the new reality of moving.  I've dedided to challenge myself to find something good about moving there.  Each month I'll try to add one more postive thing so at least I'll have 23 positive things.  But at the moment all I have is negative things,  I am grateful that we have a place to move to as renting another place seems to be impossible because of the cats.  Even rentals that allow pets only allow one or two animals.  

Today I'm not happy.  Spent the morning at the house.  It's a lot worse than I remembered it being.  I honestly don't think my mother in law cleaned.  I know when we moved in with her, about 15 years ago the house was dirty.  Took 10 liters of bleach to clean out the black mold in the kitchen sink.  She never cleaned the extractor fan over the stove and the windows were black.  When we lived there I cleaned all the time.  I know that she was ill before she went into hospital and the old peoples home and cleaning was not high on her list of things to do but she was offered home help, free, from the city but she refused wanting to do it all herself.  Only problem is she couldn't do and so now it's down to me.

Don't eat while looking at these photos.  There's no electrcity so the lighting isn't very good and I only took a few rooms.

Built in stove, how am I suspossed to clean that

View of the stove from the dinning area

Oven, this can be thrown out

There are loads of burnt pots and pans left out.  The draws are full of dead cockroaches and I couldn't get anything from under the sink, just opening it made my stomach turn.

Dinning and kitchen

All the stuff in boxes is stuff that needs to be thrown out.  So much waste.  Some things I can keep, new soup and rice bowls,  some other plates and dishes that have never been used.  

Bathroom

The floor tiles came up just a couple of years after the house was built but she never got them fixed. The edges are sharp and I cut my feet many times when we lived there.

The Japanese style room, again with stuff that needs dumping

Owl outside the front door

I don't know if 2 years is going to be long enough!

The garden is massive and needs cutting down.  The house behind is empty but the bamboo is growing like crazy and could be dangerous in high winds.

All I want to do is curl up and cry but that isn't going to help!

January

 Not a good start to 2023.

I was hoping for a lot of good news and positive happenings.  But not to be.

I did manage to drop 2kgs, which is amazing as I haven't been that good on my diet. I did manage to stop sugar and cut my carbs.  Carbs are harder than sugar, especially with the very cold weather we've had.  For some reason when it gets cold I want to eat more bread or potaotes.  The one week when the weather was mild I managed to have salad and some low fat protien for dinner, the next week when it went cold I was eating rice or bread!   I'm happy with 2kgs loss. The doctor said I have to drop at least 5kgs so that is a good start!

Then loosing the house.  I'm still in shock over that.  I honestly never saw it coming.  The owners of this house built it for their daughter.  She was killed in a car accident.  I thought that they wouldn't want to move back here because of bad memories but I guess I was wrong.   I'm trying to be positive but it's so hard.  The house we are moving to is small and not well kept.  I think the windows have only been cleaned once in the 30 years it's been there!  Then there is all the hassel of reformong it and making it livable.  I know we have two years but in reality finding time to go there and work on the house is hard.  I'm hoping to go on Friday and see what we can get done.  At least make a start.  I also have to start downing sizing here.   There are 6 rooms and living dining kitchen in this house.  The house we are moving to has 3 rooms and living, dinning kitchen area.  About half the size. 

Lets hope things get better!

Mikey bought new shoes and left the box, of course the cats tried to get in it!

Starting Over

 I always thought that people in their 60's were settled.  That their house, career and relationships were set for the rest of their lives.  Doing a quick search starting over after 60 came up with so many results.  Some were web pages giving information for those starting again but some were heart breaking blogs. People whose marriages fell apart after 30 years.  Some who business went belly up because of the pandemic.  Some who were recovering from disease and especially in America where medical bills can eat up life savings in a couple of months.  Reading these blogs gave me a wake up call.  Moving is not what I want, not at my age and not with my health.  But my kids are willing to help, financially and with the work that needs to be done.   They don't want to move either but are trying to think of ways to make it easier.  

Another thing that is driving me crazy is the weather. It is still very cold here.  The average temperature for here is about 9C during the day, dropping to 3C at night.  The past week it hasn't got up to 5C in the day!  This constant cold is unusual.  We usually get three days of cold weather then a week of milder weather then back to cold.  

Cold, cats snuggled together

COLD

 It has been so cold the past two days.  Last night it was -4C and according to the forecast it could get as low as -6C tonight.  I like cold weather but that is crazy!  David is working nights at an internet cafe place.  In Japan these are places that have private rooms where you can stay overnight, it's registered as a hotel.  On any week night they get between 30 to 40 people staying there, last night was 98.  I think people who work here but have to drive back home didn't want to risk it.  Even though it was very cold we got little snow, 2 or 3 cms.  The biggest problem was the wind, it would suddenly pick up making it difficult to see.  Non of Mikey's students turned up so he had a free evening.  David, Christopher and Hannah had work.  Poor kids!  Hannah said that she couldn't figure out where the pavement was because of the snow.

Hannah took these on the way to her work.

I forgot to mention that Mikey took me shopping on Sunday and I almost got run over by an automatic floor cleaner.  The thing came round the corner rather fast and scared me!

This thing roams around cleaning and scaring people.

More Bad News

 We haven't even got out of January and we've been hit with another load of bad news!

We have to move from this house!

On Monday Mikey went to the real estate to renew the contract, we do this every two years.  He was told that the owners of the house want to move back here but we can stay for the next two years.

I'm shocked, I really didn't see this coming.  I'm deverstated, the thought of moving is so depressing.  Because we have cats then getting another rental in this area is basically impossible so we will have to move to my mother in laws house.  The dump!  We will have to spend a fortune on it to make it livable. There is no main sewage in that area so septic tanks are the norm.  When we lived there before I was told that the tank had broken and the toilet waste was seeping into the ground.  I have no idea where the water comes from but surely that is something should of been fixed when it happened.  The house is too small, two bedrooms.  Hannah won't be living with us then, she will graduate university and will be sent to a school.  But even so two bedrooms for 4 adults doesn't work.  The area is awful, countryside.  Here there is a doctors, dentist and shops in walking distance of this house.  There is nothing unless you drive and I can't drive.  Also the people are small minded and racist.  I lived there for a year and hated every moment, the kids call it the year from hell.  

There is no upside to this.  I'll be 62 when we have to move and honestly I don't want to go.  

Mikey was so sweet.  He really worried about my reaction.  He told the other  kids first, even called my friend to help.  He taught my classes yesterday so I didn't have to deal with that.  He's good like that.

And of course today is very cold.  It's 4:20 in the afternoon and minus 3 degrees celsius!  It's been snowing on and off but the wind is strong.  

The cats are all snuggled up.

Cats are nice and warm

Challenges

 I stopped making new year reso;utions a few years ago.  I always seemed to make the same ones,  lose weight, make money but every year the opposite would happen.  Gain wait and lose money!  So this year I'm doing challenges.  I hope to do a new one every month to six weeks.  I know that once it gets hot all bets are off and any challenges will be out the window.

January's challenge is to keep the living, dinning, kitchen area clean and tidy.  And I'm not doing very well.  The living area is okay, I pick up the flutters in the morning and sweep everyday (or get who ever is hanging around to do it).  Two or three times a week vacuum, run a mop and dust.  So the living area looks good most days!  The dinning area is not good (sigh).  We don't eat on the table there.  This started after Hisao died, I just couldn't face sitting at the table with an empty chair, the table is for six and having just five felt wrong.  So we use the small table in the living area.  So the dinning area has become the dumping area and cats play area.  Also there are cat toilets, they are clean but somehow not nice to eat in the same area.  The reason we have them there is that some of the cats are locked in this area at night, two or three are in the corridor otherwise we come down to fur everywhere and one or two with injuries! They really fight!  So how to keep that space clean and tidy is what I'm pondering.  Thinking of getting rid of the table but it's really big and heavy and I have no idea where to dump it.  It's in a bad state otherwise I would try to sell it.  So need to think about that more.

Then there is the kitchen (very big sigh). I seem to spend ages just washing dishes.  I do a load, leave them to air dry, do so some other chores, some back and there are even more dirty dishes, it's like magic.  I'm really trying to get things sorted and cleaned, I hate a dirty kitchen.  I'm hoping that by February I'll have some sort of habit and will be able to keep it up.  I know I should of sorted this years ago and when the kids were little I was okay with the cleaning and cooking but the past few years between working and my health not being good I kind of lost the plot!

Another things I'm trying to do is to find something to smile or laugh about every day!  Usually the cats.  But the kids keep me amused as well.  They have stories from their work to tell me which can be funny.  I need to laugh more.

This made me laugh. We found out that the noise that a comb makes when you run your fingers over the teeth makes the cats gag. It's so weird, all the cats react in the same way!

Cats

 I tried to make a blog for my cats but gave up.  I would rather focus on this blog. My cats are really part of my life.  They drive me crazy, make me laugh and help calm me when I'm feeling desperate.  They also keep me awake at night!

Fluffy has a new nickname, Chicken Thief.  David was making vegetarian curry, with grilled chicken and rice.  The chicken cooked up very quickly, so he left it on the grill while waiting for the rice to finish cooking.  I saw Fluffy go into the kitchen (living room, dinning room and kitchen are open plan, no doors to the kitchen).  A few minutes later I could hear this chobbling and chewing noise.  Went to see, Fluffy had grabbed the biggest piece of chicken!  She ate the whole lot!

Chicken Thief (sorry about the floor)

Next was Alans turn to get into mischief.  In Japanese cooking we use shaved fish flakes.  The cats love these.  I left a bag on the counter that got Alans interest but managed to move them before he got into them.  I put the bag in the cupboard.  The next day David was holding Alan covered in sugar.  Alan had managed to get on the counter and reached up to open the cupboard.  But an open bag of sugar was leaning on the door and he got covered in sugar, the counter and cloor was also covered.  Alan's new nickname is Sugar Baby.

Sweet cat!