Recipes

Sunday, October 20, 2024

Every Day Is Busy

 Yesterday it was back to the real estate agents with Hannah to go over the legal side of the contract, all the rules, all the things that she can and can't do.  Then lots of things to sign. I was rather surprised at the amount of paper this took! 3 A four size booklets with different parts of the contract. I remember way back in 1995 the advent of the home computer with a mouse and icons, this was going to revolutionize office work, we would become a paperless society. Maybe not!! We were in there for over an hour!

Before that we went to the local mall. It's massive, Mikey took us, he parked at one end and of course what Hannah needed was at the other end! Lots of walking! She needed a pair of running shoes for next week, she has teacher training at a special needs school. Apparently the kids run very morning and of course the teachers have to run with them!  

The mall had a display of Ikebana. Very beautiful!






Beautiful Ikebana at the local mall

 As I said Mikey took us, which really helped. I didn't want a repeat of last week, getting over tired and sick!

Today it was back to the other house!

The house is basically finished.  A few places to wipe down, a few decisions about where to put furniture but it is feeling ready to move into!

The storage building, however, is still a disaster! I thought that all the books in the room where we teach, all my books from my room would fit into the reading area that I have. I was being overly optimistic. So we have to clean out the storage area.  

Storage area
That is one half of the room!  Behind me is a lot cleaner.

The stuff in there is our stuff, 33 years of thinking about things later!
Whenever we cleaned out our house, any stuff we weren't using was put in the storage place to go through later. But later never really came, kind of out of sight, out of mind!
I have thrown out some things, a lot actually but there is still too much up there!
One problem is all the creatures up there, always just seeing something run across the floor, lots of those little lizard things!
The view from up there is really nice.





 I also found some rather interesting things. A CD Rom for Windows 1995! This is from our first computer!



My hair needs cutting. I say I look like the wild woman of Japan when it gets long and out of control. Today it was so windy, so I looked even more wild than usual.
Christopher took this photo of me. I was taking my frustration out on some old furniture that needed breaking up!







Friday, October 18, 2024

Making Money

 For last 30 years or so I've relied on teaching English to make money.

At one point I was making about 40,0000 yen a month, about 2000 pounds at todays rate!

That was about 25 years ago. It's been down hill since then.

I've noticed that since the pandemic a lot of small English schools and cram schools have not recovered.

In my opinion there are a number of factors contributing to this. The economy in Japan is getting worse, everything has gone up except wages. Parents just don't have money to pay for English class, also young working people don't have money or time for hobbies like learning English. Also parents are so busy that they don't have time to take kids to classes!

I thought that we would just reopen near where we are moving to (that is still an option) but there are a few problems.  Where we are living is a few minutes drive to the area that is a good place to collect students. Until next year that would be okay as Mikey could take me, but from next summer Mikey is moving to another city!  Also the house is too small to have students come and to be honest I've had enough of kids wrecking things in my house!!

So how to make money?

I have one skill, teaching English.  How to use that now?

I have some ideas but they are rather vague.

I want to make a website to get online students. I think teaching online might work better than setting up a classroom.

Also I could make some materials and sell them.

Also a recipe webpage.

Plus start a YouTube channel.

And we still have land that has blueberry bushes and persimmon trees, but that is a longer term thing.

Then there is this little blog. I keep searching about how to make money with a blog but nothing seems to fit for me!  I have made some money, 4000 yen in 12 years!  

But, of course there is a but, when I look at what other people are doing I see a level of professionalism that I know I can't get anywhere near.

I look at materials and feel that I have no way to make things as nice or as well thought out as that!

Recipe webpages are so full of bells and whistles, "jump to the recipe" buttons and loads of videos and studio grade photos! Who would want to get my recipes?

The same with YouTube. A lot of these videos are very professional looking. 

I guess what my problem is is a lack of confidence!

The skills needed to do these things I can learn. Christopher can help set up a webpage, I want one in Japanese, so I really need help there!

I thought that I had more confidence than I do. I was talking to David about traveling in Japan. It was something Hisao and I planned to do. I still want to but the thought of going alone scares me. David pointed out that I don't shop alone because of the automatic register machines!

So I have a lot of thinking, soul searching to do. I want to make money, I want to travel, I want to live life not just survive or live vicariously through my kids! So I have to do something proactive and get over myself.

The next few weeks are going to be very busy! So much to do to move. Once we are settled I want to really start focusing on getting some of there projects off the ground! I'm already reading and trying to study things, but my brain freezes and I feel very dull, I think it's just stress and exhaustion.

A few photos of David and Hannah pratting with the phone camera!



David and Hannah






Thursday, October 17, 2024

A Few Photos

 Hannah took a few photos of the city she is moving to.

I found the area around the station to be very beautiful, it's recently been reformed and is now a very pleasant place, with a good variety of shops, restaurants and cafes!

In the station we came across this guy, all decked out for Halloween.

Halloween

I wonder if they will do the same for Christmas.

Near the station are a collection of statues, famous men from the cities history.



The guy on the right looks like he has an iPad!


There's information about the different people.


On Wednesday we went to the other house. I found some chairs to put into my reading area.

They are old, older than Hannah! I used them in the entrance of one of the houses we had, a waiting area for students and the naughty chair for my kids.  I was going to throw them out but since they've been there the area has become a hang out. We have a coffee break after a couple of hours work, every one who is there comes and sits, looks through the books, have a nice chat. I hope that area can keep being like that!


Nice place to hang out

Once we move in I'll see about getting or making some covers for the chairs.

I'm feeling rather overwhelmed with all that needs to be done.

Cleaning, packing, moving stuff from here. Sorting out utilities, getting toilets sorted at the other house, cleaning out the office in the storage building. Then helping Hannah with her process. We went to an electrical store today. I might be able to get a loan so I can buy some things for her. I spent most of the night trying to figure things out!

I have a long to do list. I cross off 3 things and add 10 more. As much as I don't want to move I really just want it finished with now!

A lot of the work now is me supervising the boys, they have more energy than me!

Christopher stayed home on Wednesday and cooked lunch, chicken liver, very tasty! Another cook helps!!

Monday, October 14, 2024

Catch Up Post

 The past few days have been very busy!

Saturday David, Christopher and I went to the other house. 

I managed to wash five lots of windows, scrub the bathroom, cut down some trees and clean out

some of the office.

David and Christopher worked outside cutting trees and burning trash.

I spent 10 minutes looking for my phone, then I remembered that it was broken!

Massive cobweb!

These cobwebs were all over the yard!

Also I found these snacks in a local supermarket. Not really fish and chips taste, more like vinegar taste.

English fish and chips

Sunday Hannah and I went to the city to see about getting her apartment.

I thought we would just have a look at a few places, come back, think about it and then go again to sign the contract. Hannah just wanted to do it all at one time.

She made an appointment with a real estate agent near the station. She said that it's just a 3 minute walk, I asked if that was 3 minutes for 22 year old legs or 62 year old legs!

It wasn't that far and the weather was good, not too hot!

Hannah had selected 3 places near the university but all of those were taken. The agent found 3 others, similar location and price.

There was 10,000 yen (about 50 pounds) difference between the most expensive and the cheapest. We started with the most expensive place, newer apartment, just 2 minutes from the university. Very nice but no stove or light in the main room. The next one was further away, 15 minutes walk. I felt the main room was very small. The last one smelt musty. It was clean but some how didn't feel well taken care of, maybe just an older building.  We went back to the first one and Hannah decided on that one.  Her budget will be tight but I'll help her when I can.

Hannah's room, left is the closet, right goes to the kitchen

We went back to the real estate office and Hannah signed the contract.  There's a lot to pay out but they have this system where the initial cost can be spread over a few months, which helps.

After that we went to the mall and had lunch.  We decided on sushi!


Very nice sushi

We thought there was a mistake on the English menu

Ship Roll????

We thought it should be shrimp roll, until we looked at the picture.

Ship Roll!

In Japanese these are called Battleship rolls1!!

We had a look round, there's a nice furniture store and electric store but I was getting very tired so we headed back to the station.

Of course I had energy for Mister Donuts.

Mister Donuts treat

My Halloween donut

Hannah's!

After that we got the train back. We had to wait for a taxi, which is very unusual!

Unfortunately things went down hill from there for me!

I was so tired when I got home, thinking it was just exhaustion from two very busy days I went to lie down for an hour, thinking that I would feel better after.

That wasn't the case. I came down stairs to make some dinner but didn't feel up to it. Instead I ended up throwing up. Then I got a really bad headache. I wanted to take some pain killer but thought it might upset my stomach more!

Monday was a national holiday so no doctors open. Also Mikey was out and David was sleeping. By 5 pm I felt so bad that I went to the emergency room by taxi. My fever was up to 38.8C, my head and body hurt and I still couldn't keep anything down. I tested for both Covid and flu but they were negative, I got some medicine for pain and to stop throwing up. I still feel rough but want to move about a bit as my body hurts from lying down so much. Just writing this has exhausted me!!

And I have a new phone! I didn't realize how much I use it until I didn't have one!



Thursday, October 10, 2024

What A Day

 I think I'm too tired!

I set my alarm for 7am but got up at 8am! Not a good start!

I broke the yolk in an egg I was frying, and made 4 pieces of toast instead of three.

Silly mistakes but it shows how tired I am!  I feel like everything is in slow motion!  

I was putting together things to take to the other house and broke a set of plastic drawers. I picked it up by the top, which came off and the whole thing fell to pieces, scattering the contents everywhere!

On the way to the other house we stopped at a store to pick up some cleaning supplies. I was looking for David, so I called him on my phone. After the call I tried to put my phone away but dropped it. Of course it's broken!!

The next couple of weeks are going to be busier than ever. I wanted to hire my husbands friend to help move the big stuff. He has a small company that does moving, house cleaning and gardening. I asked David to call him, David sometimes works for him, but David said he isn't working because he has hurt his back. So we need to find someone else who can help with moving the big stuff!  I was hoping that my husband's friend could help as he would accept monthly payments!! 

Cats lined up!

At least the cats are happy! It's a bit cooler but still too warm for October, 26C today!



Wednesday, October 9, 2024

Having A Laugh

 We bought a cake yesterday to celebrate Hannah passing her test!

David chose the cake, a cute cat cake for Halloween.

The first thing was  Hannah saying that it was too cute to cut and eat! We had to take the face off before we cut it!!

Cute, it even had toe-beans!


I wanted some photos of Hannah and the cake.  Something to remember this time.

Hannah, looking very happy!

Hannah and me, I'm really happy but was so tired!!

Of course when the phone cameras start we end up with lots of crazy photos!
Hannah has an app which has filters on it, so Hannah and I ended up looking like strange cats!

Cats?

I took one of the toe-beans. These were so realistic, whoever made them is very artistic!

Cute!

But the funniest photo was one Hannah took of David. This not photo-shopped. I think it had something to do with the angel. Hannah was sitting on the floor, David standing by the window.

Weird?

Cropped version

He's not that tall and even though he is skinny, not that skinny. It's the head that got me! It looks like it's been pasted on!
It was so nice just to enjoy ourselves, have a laugh and be together. 
With this move we are coming to an end of an era.
Hannah is moving out next month. Mikey next year. It's good and I'm happy that they are moving on with their lives but change isn't easy. 
My emotions are all over the place, happy and sad at the same time!




Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Congratulations Hannah!!!

 Hannah passed her test for graduate school!

I'm so happy! 

She was really worried because there were only 10 places but 11 students took the test. She thought she had messed up on the interview part!  

But she got in!

So now things are getting very real! Tomorrow she needs to sort out a student loan and look for an apartment.  We have a weeks holiday next week so we can go one to see some apartments!

It's really happening!

Today David decided to change his address and register his car, the number plates were from a different prefecture. Changing address didn't take long but registering the car took ages. So many forms to fill out. Then take the form to one counter, get it checked, go another counter, get them checked, go to a different building for the forms to be checked again, I think that was the police department, back to the original building, take the plates off the car, pay 2000 yen, get new plates and put them on. Talk about tiring. But it's done! We planned to go to the other house but no time!!


maybe a cafe, interesting name

so cloudy

massive statue

I enjoyed going to places that I haven't seen in many years.

The last photo is near a massive park, when Hannah was born Hisao used to take the boys there while I visited Hannah in hospital! 

Nice day, tomorrow is back to packing!!!