It's Finally Cooler

 Yesterday's high was 31C, today 18C!!

I'm so happy, I like this weather, it's cool and rainy.  But it's not going to last, Saturday and Sunday will be back to 31C, according to my app, I really hope it doesn't get that hot. I'm finished with hot weather!

I made chicken stew for lunch today, there's enough for dinner as well, plus I'll steam some sweet potatoes for after. Nice autumn food!! Being able to cook without sweat dripping off my face makes me happy.

The cats are starting to sleep together, that shows how cold it is!  Mama cat got on David's lap this morning!

Mama on David's lap

Cats sleeping together

Hannah went on an adventure this morning to a teacher's training college, two hour train ride! The library there has the books she wanted to check for her thesis. She spent just over an hour there but got dizzy and decided to come back early. This was the first time she's been on a train since she had her seizure, she is still worried about having another one, I guess it will take time for her to have confidence in her body again!

I'm sitting here enjoying a nice cup of tea, I don't drink tea that often when it's hot, so this is a nice treat.

Need to do more packing, hope to go to the other house Friday or Saturday, both days would be best!

Just a month until the move!!!

Can't Win

 I'm trying so hard to be positive.

So before the reason I feel defeated, yet again, I'll post something good!

This morning Mikey, Christopher and I went back to the other house.

Got Mikey and Christopher started on the office in the storage room. It was very bad, I explained what I wanted doing but didn't check when we finished, I'll have a look next time!

Managed to clean the windows in the engawa, the windows are divided by a trim. Small windows that don't open on top and large sliding windows on the bottom. They were filthy!

This was the water after I finished!!!

From the windows and trim

I guess they have never been cleaned!!

Also I saw a lot of these little guys.

Tiny lizards

In just a few minutes I saw 4 of these little things.

I have no idea how to get them out of the house! They don't bother me but I really don't like things creeping around the house. I wonder if the cats will deal with them.

I've almost finished setting up my reading area.

My reading area

Opposite end

View from my reading area

The chair in there is an old massage chair. I want to buy a nice, comfortable chair but am willing to wait until I have money and can find what I want. I want a nice reading light on the table. I can imagine spending afternoons in there, with a good book, a cup of tea and cats for company. I'm planning on putting some bird feeders out, entertainment for the cats!

And the reason I feel I can't win?  Hannah got a letter from her university, she has to pay 33,0000 yen, almost 2,000 pounds for her college tuition!

She had scholarships but because she's been working part-time she lost one scholarship. Poor girl. She has worked hard, to the point of making herself ill but is being penalized for it. One reason she has had to work is because I can't help her, also she has been saving to move to her own apartment for graduate school. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out if I can get some money from somewhere, maybe a bank loan?

She will have to go and see if she can get some help or divide the payments.  She was hoping to have time this week to do her thesis and prepare for her next teacher training. 

Time Flies!!!!

 It's the end of September!  I keep thinking it's still August, maybe because it is still hot, although not as intense as it was!

We now have 38 days until we move. I know we can stay until January 2025 but I really want to be in the other house before it gets very cold.  Also I want to stop paying rent here so I can use that money buy things for the other house.

David, Christopher and I went again yesterday.  I managed to put away a lot of things that we have bought over, photo albums and five more boxes of books.  I've been struggling with where to put our teaching materials, we have a lot of books, flash cards and prints that we use. At first I was going to put more book shelves in the tatami room but decided to clear out the office in the storage area. I don't want to teach at the house, the house is just too small for that. I think we will use community centers, if we get enough students then we can think about renting a place. That is all up in the air at the moment. A lot depends on what Mikey wants to do. I would be happy to get a few online students. I really want to stop working but have no pension and no savings. If I could work for a few more years and save money then I could just retire, again, something that I need to think about.

David cut down a lot of the trees, weeds and bushes. Looks a lot better.

Last week

This week

Not much difference in the photos but it is a lot clearer.

Also I found a nice picture that I want to put in the entrance.

Picture I found

    

Most of the things that were on the walls were not to my taste but I like this picture. It's simple and beautiful.  I'm thinking of buying a few frames and putting some photos on the walls. The tatami and corridor are typical Japanese walls, in this awful green color. 

Green walls

Not very clear on this photo, I'll try to take some photos next time. I want to paint these walls, another project for when we have money!  But until then I'll put up some pictures and photos!!

I'm tired but have a lot to do.

Just another month! Help!!!!

David's Car

 David works nights so he sleeps from about 1 o'clock.  On Monday he asked Hannah to listen for the phone as he was expecting a delivery and somebody had to sign for it!

Hannah and I thought it strange, David orders the cat food and cat sand but we never have to sign for it. We were wondering what David had ordered that was so important that somebody had to sign for it!

I was talking to my friend on the phone when the door bell rang. Hannah answered it and came back with a piece of paper. She said that there was a car outside and that was the delivery! I hung up my phone and went to see, and sure enough there was a car parked in front of our house!

Apparently David had gone ahead and bought a car. He had been talking about it for a few months. He had to get a loan and I thought he was still thinking about it! He never said he had bought one!

It's a little van type car. Rather old, about 10 years but it was a company car so well maintained. Also it had it's roadworthy test just a month ago, so all the parts work.

The weird thing is the key is not an automatic key, you have to put the key in the door to unlock it. Also the windows are the old fashioned kind with handle that you have to wind up and down.

But it's nice and spacious which will help with the move and once we live in the other house it will be good for taking equipment to the fields that need to be cleared!

David's car, Mikey is moving it off the road!

We are now a two car household!

We drove in David's car to the other house yesterday.  I was having problems with the window handle.

Haven't seen these in years

It's more effort than I remembered to open the window. David was trying to demonstrate how to open the window, while he was driving. But he hit his elbow very hard on the door frame. This led him to not driving properly as he was rocking back and forth in pain.  We stopped at a red light, David moved his knee and knocked the gear shift out of drive into 2nd gear.  I was laughing so hard I was crying!!

From the side!

We got a lot done at the other house yesterday. The intense heat has broken, still hot but 30C is easier to deal with than 38C!

I've was trying to clean out the tatami room and the engawa, which I'm turning into my reading nook.

View from the engawa

I want to cut down as many of those trees as possible, and put in some bird feeders. I think this little area is going to be nice! But I've discovered that what I thought was a ledge around the room and engawa is actually very deep, great place for all kinds of insects, lizards and mice! I tried to clean it yesterday but I wasn't very confident on the ladder. 

With having two cars we can go more often to the other house. Mikey uses the other car for work, so that means even if David is free we couldn't go. I really hope that we can get things done before the end of October!!

Hannah

 Last Thursday Hannah had a seizure!

All started just after lunch. Hannah and I share a bedroom. She was lying on her bed, I was on mine reading. She suddenly raised her hand, as if stretching. At first I thought it was nothing unusual, but I noticed her fist was clenched. I called her name, asking what she was doing, but no response.  I went over to her as she arched her back and pulled her knees up. The movements were strange. I screamed for help as I realized she was having a seizure. The boys came running I told them to call for an ambulance. As I was saying this her body relaxed and started to shake. I kept her on her side until that had finished, I then rolled her onto her back to rub her chest to wake her up. No response, David was her bed by that time, calling her name, getting her to sit up.  She opened her eyes but was out of it! I asked her what day it was, no response. David asked her birthday, she said May but nothing else. She was totally unresponsive and unfocused. We tried to keep her awake but she kept closing her eyes. 

After what seemed like a life time but was probably just a few minutes the ambulance came. I'm sorry to say this is when I totally freaked out, I was shaking and felt faint. Mikey held my hand and helped to breathe through my panic attack. 

They loaded her into the ambulance and we went to the hospital I had spent the whole morning at the day before.  

I was in such a state the nurse was asking if I needed to see a doctor, I told her I would be alright, just needed some time to process what had happened. 

They were very thorough in their exam.  I'm not sure of all the tests they did but there was a CT scan, heart check and some check on the nervous system.

After a few hours she was admitted to the hospital for the night, just to keep an eye on her. 

We went up to ward with her, then came all the forms for that had to be filled out. Mikey took care of that.

By the time she was settled it was after visiting time but I asked if I could just go in to say goodbye and see that she was alright. At first the nurse said no but he asked the charge nurse who said a couple of minutes was okay.

Hannah said she had no memory of the fit and couldn't figure out why she was in the ambulance when she woke up! 

She was discharged the next day. The doctor said that she couldn't rule out epilepsy but she didn't think that was what it was.  It might have been a combination of the heat, exhaustion and stress that triggered the seizure. She might have more or never have another episode. 

One big stress for Hannah was the test for graduate school that she took on Saturday. The plan was for Mikey to drop her off, the test started at 8:30, then she was going to come back by train. But Mikey decided to wait in the city and bring her back by car. That helped my stress level a lot.

I haven't slept properly since she had the seizure. Every time she turns over I wake up and she is a restless sleeper!

I realize that I can't cope with these things. Hearing the ambulance pull gave me flash backs to when Hisao passed away. A sense of hopelessness came over me and that is what started my panic attack.

I'm exhausted now but need to push to get things done, moving day is creeping closer!

At least the weather has cooled down, it's just 26C today, high will be 30C. Still hot but bearable!

I hope my next post is not so dramatic, I really don't need this drama in my life.

google collage of Hannah and me

 

Hospital Visit

 Yesterday was my 3-month check-up for diabetes.

This appointment is not invasive; it's just a blood test. Nice and easy but I still dread going!

The hospital is not overly large but has its own lab, so you don't have to wait for a week for results. It also has a CT scan, X-ray, and MRI machines available plus to state of the art operating rooms.

I've been going there for about 6 years now and have gotten to know some of the nurses, they know to use simple Japanese with me.

But every time I have an appointment I dread it. It's the waiting that does me!  Yesterday I waited for two and a half hours to talk to the doctor for about 2 minutes!

I know that I'm lucky, this was just to check on my A1C number for diabetes. The good news is that it has gone down a bit, this time was 6.1, normal range is between 4.6 and 6.2.  I am still taking medicines but am heading in the right direction.  At my last appointment, I was asked to check my blood pressure every day, turns out that it is a bit high, about 140 over 85. So I was given medicine for that as well.

So I waited for most of the morning just to get a prescription. I shouldn't complain as I know that in some countries just getting to see a doctor is impossible.

The one problem I have is seeing all the old people who are there. It makes me so sad to see some of them, they are barely alive and I wonder what quality of life do they have.  I wonder if that will be me if a few years time. I hope not and I know that the only way to have a good quality of life as I get older is to take responsibility for my health now.  Not just my physical body but my mind as well.

So I have to try and reduce stress in my life, be more focused on the good that I have and stop with the moaning and victim mentality, easier said than done.  Find things to be grateful for, find humor in situations, learn to laugh at myself and all the dumb things I do. Keep my mind active by studying and reading. Find hobbies that relax me. 

At the moment my stress is high because of moving, just the logistics of that is driving me crazy. I would love to have a week or so where nobody has any commitments, no work, no classes so we could just go and get every thing finished but that isn't go to happen, so we have to work around other commitments and try to get things finished in the short time we have.

A few photos of the area near the hospital. Opposite is the Coke Cola factory!

It was another hot day!  One city, about 20 minutes drive from here ,recorded 60 days of temperatures over 37C! That's crazy!

The Storage Area

 At the other house, we have a large storage area. It consists of a two-story storage room, big enough to park a small truck inside, a covered carport area, and another large garage.

I haven't been out there for the past few months, all my energy has been getting things out of the house.  I assumed that most of the stuff I was throwing out was going into the trash or being burnt.  Some things I asked to be put into the storage area to deal with later, a lot of old ornaments, that aren't my style, large lacquer boxes that are used for the New Year Osechi-ryori, the traditional New Year's food and other bits and pieces that we can take to a recycle shop when we have time.

What I didn't realize was how bad it is in some places!

David sent me some photos!

Outside

The building in the back is the two-story storage area.

Downstairs in the storage area

This was an office

I thought we had almost finished until I saw these photos. My focus was on emptying the house, I never thought to check the outside.

I hope that the weather will cooperate and be a bit cooler so I can work (supervise!!) getting this cleaned up as well.  

It's not that important, not like getting the house clean but it would be nice to have it finished or at least almost finished before we move.

I hope to move during the first week of November, which is just 50 days away!

HELP!!!!

If we could go two or three times a week I would have more confidence that things could be finished but going just once I'm doubtful.  

Just keep on I guess!