I did it!

I actually managed to not leave the house today.

The only thing I needed to do was buy food, but K and the kids got inspired by a TV show, which helpfully showed yummy stuff just when they were getting peckish, and went off to do the shopping. I was asleep on the sofa at the time, and managed to sputter out a request for cheese before he left, so bonus camembert and crackers to balance their chosen dish - rice topped with raw egg yolk, oyster sauce and spring onion. They must have been really hungry when that came on TV!

Blah

I feeling annoyed at feeling blah, just blah enough to feel down and tired and not really wanting to do anything, but not bad enough to be able to call myself sick. Dammit body, just throw a fever and be done with it! Over in a few days! Then I could call it for what it is, and spend the day in bed popping pills, sipping water and trying to sleep it off. Instead, I get to feel unspecifically grotty for a week. Not quite a headache... nearly sinusitis... twinges of earache.... possible flu-like muscle fatigue... but nothing.

I was moving so slow.... up at 10, breakfast at 11, it took until 2pm to get the rooms cleaned, then lunch and I got a wee rest before the day's chores: to the vet to immunize the kittens, kids to the library, and shopping at three stores for me, for a chicken dinner, cleaning supplies and cat supplies.

Dinner... dessert... TV.... and only here now to write to cancel tomorrow's lunch with AFWJ friends in Kurume. Would love to go, but really don't feel up to the ride. I might stay home and sort photos instead.

A sampler of Yo-yoing

I spend quite a lot of time in my car, which is why it ends up looking so, ahem... lived in! But Wednesday really took the cake. If you've ever wondered what they meant by soccer mom, this is it. And there isn't even any soccer!

1. to the convenience store to buy cat food,
2. and home again.
3. to kindy to drop off Erica
4. kindy to the supermarket to get food for dinner
5. supermarket to courier to mail a package
6. courier to Gooday to get more cat food and kitty litter
7. Gooday to home
(8. walk from home to post office
9. and back home again.)
10. home to work
11. work to kindy to pick up Erica
12. kindy to store to buy Erica a clown nose
13. store to home
14. home to pool to drop off Erica for her lesson
15. pool to home to cook dinner
16. home to pool to pick up Erica
17. pool to home, cursing why I forgot to make Amy and Lena come with me because...
18. home to dermatologist for Amy
19. and home again!

All of which made Thursday seem like a wee holiday:

1. home to kindy No.1 to drop off Erica
2. Kindy to work
3. work to home to get package and money
4. home to kindy to pick up Erica
5. Kindy No.1 to kindy No.2 to drop off Erica for the afternoon session
6. kindy to courier to deliver another package
7. courier to home
(8. walk to school for observation day
9. and home again, with Amy)
10. to Baachan and Jiichan's to pick up Erica
11. and home again
12. to karate
13. and home again.

And today, well! I might as well lay back on the beach sipping my Pina Colada!

1. home combini for kid food
2. and home again
3. home to kindy to drop off Erica
4. kindy to Cosmos for supplies
5. and home again
6. home to work
7. work to supermarket for dinner things
8. supermarket to home and then I stayed there!!

Do you see why never leaving the house is such a GOAL for me, one that I am inordinately proud of when I can pull it off. With any luck, tomorrow I will 'only' go to the Vet, the supermarket and Baachan's for a visit.

Farewell little Green Machine

It's the end of an era, time to say goodbye and start feeling nostalgic already...

No more Green Machine. Our little Mitsubishi Toppo, K-car, crazy four door (only one rear seat door on the passenger side, and one door at the back), too tall, tin-pot, manual greeeen machiiine is officially retired. 

It's reached the end of its economical life, having got too old, and having too many problems for registering it to be worth the money. 

Kanji told me some time after Christmas that Jiichan had decided to finally get rid of it, and we would be keeping the airstream, the comfy, whomph-door-closing, seven-seater automatic, from the 27th of January. We had that car here anyway, as we had used it to go to Beppu, and just not got around to switching it (I prefer to switch back, because the Toppo was so much easier to park, so it was better for blatting around town, shopping and dropping kids off here and there). I went to take it back today, as it needed to be filled anyway, and Jiichan just said oh no, don't bother switching back, just keep that one.

So I took a few minutes to clear my detritus out of the Green Machine, a little sad that I wouldn't be getting a goodbye blat. Memories poured out of it! The mini mosquito-repellant, because our cars seem to sit in a mosquito pit and there are always a few in the car whenever we go somewhere (and the spray in the glovebox for the same reason)... an old portable baby table seat and an old baby carseat sun visor that sat in the miniature 'boot'.. Amy's flyer from the salon ads.... the vacuum cleaner (and memories of Amy removing her shoes to climb on the seats to vacuum them)... a stack of maps and brochures neatly organized into files that sat in the cupboard above my head and have not been used ONCE since I got the iphone... the instruction booklet with my name in katakana written in Jiichan's hand.... he got the car for us after I scraped the sides of the red Honda too many times trying to get into my driveway (and once, very memorably, when I slammed into a concrete pole backing out of a carpark at Youme town). At the time I refused to use the Stand's vans because they didn't have rear seatbelts and I had two kids by then. So he got me that little thing, which did have rear seatbelts. I don't recall being too impressed, since I wasn't told about and wasn't all that pleased to be moving from my almost-racy, red, four-door sedan. But it's served me well over the year, can almost turn on the spot and can therefore be driven into, and out of, all manner of tight spaces.

I crashed it twice - once in the carpark at Shinsenichiba supermarket over the road from the Stand - I was just passing through, and a car that appeared to me to be turning left, turned right instead, straight into the side of me. The kids were in the car, so it was scary. The second time, I rear-ended a person ahead of me at the lights. The light had gone green and I thought they had moved off but they weren't, then my jandals got tanlged in the pedals and BAM. 

And now, no more. I will try to find a photo sometime...

Happy New Year!

And this is where I list all my resolutions, which is why this is going to be a very short post.

Theory being that since every single New Year's Resolution I've ever had ever has never happened, then if I want anything to improve, I'd better not let the universe know what I have in mind. 

Bye