Bomb Threat

Yes the title is right.  A bomb threat.  Here in Japan, the safest country in the world.  A bomb threat at the junior high school that Christopher attends!!
Yesterday morning at 11 o'clock Christopher came home from school.  Very strange.  The school is practicing for the annual field day, so the kids have 6 lessons a day which means finishing at 4 o'clock and then most days they are a bit late.  Coming back at 11am is unheard off.  I asked why he was home so early. Christopher said that a note had been found in the school entrance saying that there was a bomb in the school.  All the students were sent to the gym where they were told to go straight home while the police searched the school.  Christopher said that there was yellow crime scene tape across the school entrance and at least 20 police officers.  I just can't get my mind around the idea of bombing a junior high school, there is no reason that I can think of.  This is a small city, a nice place to live but not important enough to get the attention of terrorists, especially not the school.  So why a bomb threat?   The one thing I can think of is a kid not wanting to do the sports day practice, but would kids think of such a thing?   A lot of questions, I hope that Christopher has some answers when he gets back tonight!!!

Quiet

Christopher and Hannah went back to school on the 3rd!!  It has been so quiet around here the last week. I love having the kids at home but I have really enjoyed the quiet of the last week.  I am exhausted from the heat of the past few weeks!!  Even though I have had a few days holiday I am still wiped out and the allergies I suffer from have started up!!  But at least the weather is cooling down....a bit!
Last week we had the most incredible thunderstorm.  I hate thunder, it freaks me out.  I pull the antenna from the TV and the computer lines.  Hubby and the kids complain but I would rather be safe than sorry.  Last week I was very glad that I pulled all the lines.  Lightening hit very close, turns out to be  one of my students houses that got hit.  The kid lives just 5 minutes walk from us, very close call.
Hubby has been busy.  The front garden has taken on a life of its own!

Hubby hard at work, looks awful doesn't it!

Hannah has been busy, making up newspapers for her soft toys!!  She has a great imagination.  But she writes in Japanese!



top is Hannah's newspaper, bottom picture is Hannah in her back to school outfit

 Last week I made marble cake, I found the recipe on Bakegirl blog   http://buddingbaketress.blogspot.jp/
I love her site, the recipes always turn out wonderful.

Very nice, soft and chocolaty!!

Well I think that is all for the past week, I will try to update more often!

New Desk

I finally got a new computer desk.   For most people taking out an old desk and putting in a new one would take a couple of hours.  But we are not most people and of course it has taken a few days!!  Still not finished!!   When we removed the old desk hubby had a bright idea to move all the other furniture out of the living room and put the carpet right.  The carpet kept bunching under the sofa and driving me crazy.  Sounds easy but it wasn't.  Last week some time the air conditioner poured water into the living room, basically near the TV.  When it happened I mopped up the water that I could see but didn't realise that most of the water had gone under the unit that the TV was on.  When we moved the TV we found that the floor under the carpet had gone moldy and the TV unit was also moldy.  So we had to throw out the TV unit and buy a new one.  So 3 days after putting in the new desk I am still waiting to finish the living room.  The TV is on a dinning chair at the moment and every time somebody walks past it I stop breathing!!!
Today is the last day of the summer holidays for Christopher and Hannah.  The time has flown and as always I didn't do all the things I had hoped.  This year my health has really taken a turn for the worse and I have very little energy to do anything.  As the weather cools down I should feel better but then my allergies start.  I can't get a break.

Typhoon or not typhoon

Typhoon number 15 of the season is passing by.  The center of the storm is out at sea off the coast of Nagasaki.  Here we have been treated to some rain and a lot of wind!!  A few things that weren't tied down in the yard have gone flying and a lot of the goya have been blown down,which I am happy about!!
 We are in the last week of the summer holidays, the past six weeks have gone very fast and as always I haven't done half the things I had hoped to do.  Tomorrow I want to spend some time with Hannah doing some sort of craft.  I am not very crafty, great ideas but reality turns out different.  Still should be fun to try!!  Also have to get Christopher to do some cooking, these kids need life skills.

Today I found a great recipe for cabbage.  At the moment cabbage is very cheap but of the course the kids don't want cabbage everyday.  This recipe is very simple, quick and delicious.  First cook a few rashers of bacon, I use the microwave.  Chop cabbage, place in a pot with a little water so it basically steams, stir occasionally, when it is cooked add black pepper, pinch of salt and margarine.  Mix in chopped bacon and serve.

Bacon and cabbage, even Hannah enjoyed it!!!

Birthday Blues

It was my birthday this week and I am so down about it!!  I had a lovely day, some pressies, went out to an all you can eat restaurant for lunch, picked up a load of DVDs to watch after and basically just hung out with my family all day. I didn't cook, clean or do laundry, of course I had to do everything today, but for one day I just relaxed!!  Nice.  So why the blues?  Because I am now 50.  The big five oh, half a century.  No escaping the reality of half a life finished and what to look forward to!!  I know the kind of life I want, travel, fun and seeing my kids marry, few grand kids but we are broke, living month to month with no savings and no way to save and to be honest it scares me!!!  Japan is not one of the cheapest places to live and the welfare system here sucks.  So I guess from now on is the super frugal time.  But I want to buy things, go places and enjoy life, not worrying about every single yen!  Such is life!!   I will get over this and start to think more positive about things.....one day!

Got my hair cut and colored the other day and Hannah got a trim.   We both look a lot better!



Hair looks nice but Hannah is pulling faces!!!

And the table got cleared off, I am so happy about that!!

From this  to

to this, still a few bits on the floor that need to find a home but a lot better







David's Birthday

Yesterday David turned 18!  I am having a hard time with that, I just don't know where 18 years have gone. I had a baby, blinked and there is a young man.  At least that is how it feels.
All my children are interesting and have their own personalities.  David is very sweet, caring, mischievous and clumsy .  As a child he never got sick enough to go to the doctors, any fever, cold etc he would just sleep and recover within 24 hours.  But he was always falling down, falling off things, tripping over things.  He lives life a full speed and accidents happen.  Even he is tired he won't sleep more than he has to, he wants to experience life.  He has no love of material things beyond what is necessary for living, makes buying for him tough but he really is happy with what he has.  He says that by wanting all the time one is never happy, there will always be something more that you will want, a better computer, better car, bigger house.  He really believes that happiness doesn't lie in having but in being!!  Very mature! 
He also has the ability to perserve.  He worked for a year at a part time job.  The job was okay but one of the older employees went out of his way to make life difficult for the younger kids, everything was wrong.  Any real mistake was met with a lot of criticism.  One mistake could lead to weeks of put downs.  For David that was hard to deal with, he was bullied all through elementary school and this felt like more of the same.  But he stuck it out.  I am very proud of him for that.
For the kids birthday the birthday kid can choose the dinner.  David loves Japanese food and asked for tempura, fish, rice and soup.  Easy enough except yesterday was VERY HOT and the power kept failing in the house because I was running too many things.  So for part of the time I had the air conditioner off.  Talk about HOT, I felt like I was in a sauna.  But the dinner was nice, I made a simple chocolate cake and bought ice cream for after.  We watched a movie and had a few good laughs!

David getting a pressie, he hates having his photo taken so this is the only good one!

Guess what?

Yep. Mikey dropped his cake and got the cream everywhere





Then Hannah got creamed!!

Visits, Science Museum and a puzzle

These past few days have been rather busy but fun busy, not work busy.  The kind of busy that I like!
Sunday we went to visit with my good friend.  It was a nice time, talking and laughing.  She gave me a wonderful face massage, really helped with the awful headache I had. My kids went and hung out with her daughter, I could hear them laughing from the next room.  They played cards and talked, they came in and my friends daughter taught Hannah a new song.  We were only staying for an hour, turned out to be 3 hours and we could of stayed longer but the weather was getting bad and it's a long drive home.  On the way home we did a bit of shopping, I can never pass up the chance to shop!!

Today hubby took David, Hannah and I to the Saga Science Museum.  Mikey and Christopher didn't want to go!!  We left early and got there just as the museum was opening.

David and Hannah, I have no idea what the pose is!!



checking out the movie

There was a lot to see.  A lot about space exploration, the earth and geology, an area for kids to try out different things to do with sight and hearing.  A -20C room, yes that was cool!!  An earthquake simulator and of the planetarium with a movie.
Here are some photos of the day.

Interesting English

And an even more interesting Hannah

And the puzzle is the 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle we bought, basically Christopher has been working on it.

This is going to take ages!

Tomorrow is Davids 18th birthday so I am going to try and find a nice cake recipe for him!!!