Furniture

The furniture we borrowed from the military while ours is on its way to Mississippi is much nicer than our furniture. Living in the lap of luxury here. Big soft beds, while ours have the cheapest hardest mattresses made. Incredibly luxurious.

We decided to go ahead and get Lily a twin bed instead of a crib. She is three and a half now. While I was concerned that Little Miss Lily would not stay in her room and make my life miserable, I held my breath and put her to bed in, well a bed. She has surprised me by not leaving her room once. She even goes to bed without a great deal of fuss. Whereas previously she had become quite difficult to put to bed, perhaps it was the crib (cage) which was making her unhappy.

However, she refuses to sleep in the bed. She instead sleeps on the floor. I even sneak in after she is asleep and put her back in the bed, but she sneaks back out of bed and sleeps back on the floor. I have tried laying down with her in the bed until she falls asleep, she talks to me for hours and wont go to sleep. I don't know why this is bothering me so much, but it is. I don't want her sleeping on the floor. I guess I should be used to the little one not doing what I want by now. Still, I don't want her to sleep on the floor.

I put a blow up mattress on the floor, no. I put the bed's mattress on the floor, no. I put blankets on the floor, no. She drives me crazy. She wakes up with rug Marks on her little knees and elbows. That child!

I am loving the fact that we have only one tiny little TV in the house. I have seen more of the teenage daughter in the last week than in the last year. It is nice, we have been having to compromise on TV issues, and I have had to watch a myriad of interesting TV shows, like the movie Snakes on a Plane and the movie Nacho Libre. Both excruciatingly painful to view, but the time with the family priceless. Those choices by the way were via Jeff, Mandy is not quite as bad. Only six hours to complete my final paper, better get back to typing.

Blog Village Family Blog Carnival

EDITED TO ADD: The Family Blog Carnival has begun you can read all the wonderful posts by clicking here!


I am going to be participating in the Blog Village Family Blog Carnival and I am inviting you to participate too!

what is Blog Village? I belong to a group called blog village, you see the icon on the sidebar? If you click that icon it takes you to the blog village, where there are currently 250 great blogs listed. I know you already have more blogs than you can read on your blogroll, me too. Blog Village is a list of a wide assortment of blogs, very different than the blogs I discover on my own. Sometimes when there is nothing new to read from my friends and I am killing time it is nice to have this list of great blogs available. If you click the icon you give me a vote, you can vote for me everyday, this makes my blog appear higher on the list. The list resets itself every month. You can go to blog village and read all the blogs there without joining.

If you would like to join Blog Village and have your blog listed click here

what is a family blog carnival? Members and friends of blog village can submit a blog post to the blog carnival, and then we get the chance to read some favorite posts of a wide variety of bloggers. This carnival is about family and all the posts have to be something about family. If you are a member of blog village or if you link to a member of blog village on your blog (like me) you are eligable to enter the carnival. The deadline for entry is tomorrow, sorry for the late notice. You can submit a post written long ago or write something new for the carnival. You don't have to submit something to read all the fun, I will post a link when the carnival is up and running. Basically there will be one long post with all the different blog carnival participants entries listed one after another, along with a link to their blog. A chance to see what else is out there.

If you are interested in particiapting in the blog carnival click here for more information.

I am going to submit my baby elephant post, I know you have all read it 10 times, but it is my favorite.

Still Standin

The last few days have been a crazy whirlwind. Most of our things are now on their way to Mississippi, we are now sleeping on borrowed beds, using borrowed lamps and tables, etc. Lily had a very hard time with all the change, but now that our house is somewhat back to normal she is somewhat back to her normal self.

I missed a couple of school deadlines, because I was living on no sleep and had so much going on and someone was screaming and crying so much, anyways, I doesn't look like I am going to be able to pull of my normal 100% in the two classes I am currently taking. Doesn't look like I will be getting A's. Still what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I am taking the position that sometimes just passing is OK. This week I have a final project and a final paper, next week two finals and then I am done with school until we get settled in Mississippi.

It is times like these that makes me realize how very much I love my family. Each of us has strengths and weaknesses but together we are a great team. I think that all the moving and traveling has given us the chance to really know each other and we seem to be able to work as a team. Mandy is going to be 16 next month and she is such an amazing girl is so many ways. I am especially proud of the fact that she is able to pull it together and really chip in and help the family. It is nice that she is smart enough to understand what needs to be done and I don't have to constantly delegate things to her, she can assess the situation and participate in the solution all on her own.

Lily doesn't handle change well, having people come in and take all her things, seeing the house empty, all that was very difficult for her. Now that we have filled it back up with the borrowed stuff she is better. She is starting to settle back into her routine. She has been sleeping in a regular bed. At first she refused to even allow her favorite blanket, pillow and stuffed bear to be set on the bed. So I let her sleep on an air mattress on the floor, we all slept on air mattresses for one night, the day they picked up our stuff-we had to wait until the next day for them to deliver the borrowed beds. She liked the air mattress but not the bed, so I let her sleep on her air mattress next to the bed. I looked in on her before I went to bed, she had stripped herself naked (she does that a lot) and she was sleeping on the bed. I guess she changed her mind. So Lily spent her first night in a bed, it went well. Now my sweet baby is potty trained and sleeping in a bed, maybe someday she will learn to make it threw the day without a screaming fit? For the last few days we couldn't even make it through a book without a screaming fit about something. At one point she screamed so much she started to loose her voice.

Back to my school work.

Puzzles

Jeff and Mandy have returned from their trip to see Sumo wrestling. It is lovely to have the family home. Lily and I are on the top of the world. Even though Jeff is at work and Mandy is at school, we had them for dinner and then again for breakfast.

The movers are coming on Monday to take away our things, to be delivered to us in Mississippi,sometime in April "strapped to the backs of sea turtles" -Meno. Most things in the military take a little bit of extra time. I have gotten used to it and it just seems normal.

While the family was away I took Lily to the store to buy her a new puzzle. I have found that a new puzzle with occupy Lily for a good couple of hours. Sometimes when it is just the two of us, a good couple of hours where my mind can wander and be occupied with my very own thoughts is heaven. I found a lovely new puzzle, 50 pieces which is her current level, and put it in my cart. Right next to this lovely new 50 piece puzzle was a whole host of 100 piece puzzles. For some strange reason I thought it might be fun for Lily and I to work on something beyond her level together.

Every child has a toy or an activity that they love, for Lily it is currently puzzles. She does her puzzles first thing every morning. She does them periodically through the day, it is her most cherished love. I thought that giving her the opportunity to push herself to try something that wasn't easy but a bit of a challenge would be a good thing. The problem is that I am one of those people who has trouble working as a team.

When I have to help Jeff with the computer I say, "just get up and let me do it". I have been known to take the pencil out of Mandy's hand and grab her homework and do the problem myself. I know, I am evil and have issues. Mandy didn't let me help with her homework again for about three years. Now I sit on my hands. So me "helping" Lily, the queen of "I can do it myself" that was an interesting situation. It began with a ton of conflict, but ended with the two of us working together.

I feel like I have learned as much from this experience, maybe more, than Lily. It began with me just taking all the pieces and doing the puzzle basically on my own. Lily actually went off and played with something else. The next time we sat down to do the puzzle, I started to separate and put it together and Lily promptly took the pieces I put together, separated them and threw them across the room. We are working on her temper, but in a sense I deserved it, so I wasn't too hard on her. She did say sorry and retrieve the pieces.

With about ten completions under our belts Lily and I have a system for putting the puzzle together. We do it in sections: edges, leopard, yellow flowers, tree. Yeah, the puzzle is a leopard (orange spots) in front of an unfocused bed of yellow flowers (yellow spots) by a tree trunk. The pieces are very hard to distinguish, but it is all good. I imagine that someday she will be able to do it on her own. We don't sit down and do the whole puzzle from beginning to end, we do bits, about 10-20 pieces and then one of us walks away. I suggest to Lily that perhaps this piece might work here, or this piece. And Lily puts them together, sometimes I might put one or two together, but mostly I sit on my hands.

Jeff is the world's worst puzzle putter together-er I am loving the idea of Lily trying to get him to help her with this new puzzle while I am away. Hee-hee-hee. I became a mother thinking of all the wisdom I would impart to my girls, but I seem to be the one growing and learning. I believe that seeing me change and learn to work with Lily has shown her how to get along as well. I notice that the more effort I put into the whole working together thing, the more effort she puts into getting along. We look each other in the eye, and she knows I want to grab the piece of the puzzle out of her hand and just do it, and I know she wants to throw it across the room and we collectively take a breath and get the puzzle done. What glorious torture.

brake light

When we found out that we were moving to Japan, four years ago, while we were stationed at Aviano, Italy - we also discovered that Japan does not allow the importation of vehicles. Our choices were to sell our vehicles or store them in American at the military's expense. We owned two vehicles and attempted to sell them both. The first vehicle, my husband's truck, sold almost immediately. That very day, Jeff discovered that the cost of our family going on Safari to Kenya was the exact same amount as what we had just recieved for the truck. We went on safari in Kenya. The other vehicle never did sell, and it is currently being stored somewhere in America.

We arrived in Japan without a vehicle and we had already spent the money we were supposed to be using to buy a car on a really fun trip to Kenya. To our surprise we found the world's most lovely vehicle for just under $4,000. We decided to share this vehicle during our four years here in Japan. Boy, has that been fun.

About three years ago the brake light started coming on. At first it was just when we first started the car on cold days. Then it slowly started coming on more and more often and then, it was just always on. Jeff and I debated the meaning of this light. He thought that it meant that there must be a short in the electrical system of the vehicle. Did I mention that it is a 1991 Toyota Surf (SUV)? He believed that the brake light's purpose is to let the driver know that the emergency brake is engaged, since the emergency brake is not engaged the light is an indication of an electrical problem. I believed that the brake light serves two purposes, one to let the driver know the emergency brake is engaged and two to let the driver know that the brake fluid is low. Jeff absolutely did not agree. He pointed out that the brakes worked fine. If there was a problem with the brakes we would feel it when we tried to stop. Everytime we drove together in the car he would complain about the light and I would remind him of my theory. Which he poo-pooed for three years.

To be fair, I would say that I know more about cars than Jeff. When I was single I was also poor and I changed my own oil and attempted to make all repairs on my car. Or talk someone else into doing it for free. I could have filled the brake fluid at any time during those three years. But, what fun would that be? Now it is time to sell the car. We are thinking that it is not going to be easy to convince a prospective buyer that the brake light doesn't mean anything. Would you buy a car if I told you that the brake light had been on for three years, and therefore it doesn't mean anything is wrong? Probably not. We were worried we would not be able to get a single yen (approx. $00.01) for our beautiful truck.

Out of desperation Jeff bought some brake fluid. And then instead of putting the brake fluid in the car on his own he waited until I was in the vehicle. This occured on the way to visit the doctor when I injured my ankle. Nothing like a stop to fill brake fluid on the way to have my poor ankle examined. Three years with the light on, and this is when he decides to listen to me. (Ankle still hurts a bit, but not too bad )Then he pulled into the gas station, and opened the hood, and filled the brake fluid reservour all the way up to the top. He got back in the car, very smug, ready to laugh at my ignorance....

No more brake light. I win.

wild party

Lily and I are having a wild party, having the house to ourselves. We played Candyland the DVD version, had home-made gluten-free strawberry milkshakes, danced to really loud music, and giggled uncontrollably. She has been so sweet. We should get rid of the family more often. There is so much less work and Lily is so much easier. I think she likes having me all to herself.

Today we are going to buy fresh salmon and spinach for lunch and a new Japanese puzzle.

At home Mandy can barely tolerate being in the same room with me, now that she is away, she misses me terribly. That girl is too smart. The other day I was showing her how to code in html because she had to do a web page for a school project. Instead of showing her how to make the page in a program and then export it to the web I showed her how to hand code the site, because I am a nerd. There I was explaining this and that while she watched me type it in to the computer. There she was sitting behind me pointing out my mistakes. She picked up pretty much everything from my semester long class and 800 page text book in about an hour. I always have to look up things to remember the exact words or whatever, not Mandy-once something enters her brain it stays. Convienent when she wants to tell me all the things I have ever said to her in her entire life and for remembering html code. Even with her amazing abilities she thinks it is boring. What isn't boring? I worry that she doesn't have direction. But, here I am at 37 still without direction, I guess it isn't something that is life or death. I would hate to see her make all the mistakes I made. It sure would be lovely if she could do college right out of high school and if she could find her path soon and be working toward her goals. It would be nice if at about 25, if she had a degree, work experience, and was on a path toward a good life. Wouldn't it be nice to start adulthood, with all your ducks in a row? Or is it wrong for me to take away her opportunity to struggle?

Back to my wild party with Lily.

sleepless in Misawa

I got all of about two hours of sleep last night. I stayed up late trying to catch up on homework, didn’t, catch up, but tried. Lily woke up and had to pee, then I let her sleep with us. I haven’t really done that much before, but she has become very difficult to put down and I was tired. Boy, was that a big mistake. She was like the Tasmanian Devil, rolling around kicking me everywhere. She never went back to sleep and neither did I. We then drove Mandy and Jeff to the tour bus. They are off on an adventure to Tokyo this week. Going to see Sumo Wrestling in person. It was the crack of dawn, a thick layer of wet snow covering everything. A gray dingy sky, the world appeared as if it were a black and white picture, very mesmerizing to me who has not slept. Now Lily is sleeping peacefully, and me, I laid in my bed for an hour and a half, my mind racing and no sleep. Boy will it suck when she wakes up all refreshed and I am still beat. I guess I will sleep well tonight.

For the last couple of weeks I have been going through a pretty bad spell. Do you have those days (weeks)? I am starting to feel like myself again. During that time, I would drift off in my mind to other times in my life when I was depressed. Remembering times of sorrow, times of humiliation, times of loss. I would feel all those moments again as if I was there, take on all that grief. Why do I do that? Today it seems silly, last week it was all I could think about. When I should have been focusing on my homework and all the work of moving. My mind would just drift off to sorrow.

I composed dozens of blog posts in my mind. Posts about how much I hate this or that, it was terrible. Luckily I didn’t ever write them, just in my head. Now I am cleaning out my head and working on looking at the life I have today, full of people who adore me and depend on me, so I better not let them down.

The new me

I haven't been blogging much lately. I have been going crazy instead. No one wants to read about that, how does the saying go? When you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all. Here is my humble attempt to find something nice to say in the mist of the chaos in my head.

We had the movers come to the house today for an inspection. We have our date for picking up the "big" shipment confirmed for January 22nd. It will take 60-70 days for our stuff to get to Mississippi and so it should arrive before or shortly after we do. We will have a second, "small" shipment right before we leave and those items won't get to Mississippi until a couple of months after we do. This gives me about two weeks to sort through everything we own. Give away what we no longer need. Separate "big" shipment items from "small" shipment items and of course the items we will be carrying on our back from here to there. I love going through the closets, it is a time for seeing all the things that I keep because they are so special, but put away because they have no function. Pictures, mementos from trips, pressed flowers, old journals, letters, baby books, the memories are wonderful. Too bad I am finishing up two classes and have papers, computer programs, final exams, all happening now when I need to be sorting through all the stuff.

I have found that keeping busy is helpful. (Not really, but I am trying to stay positive) Jeff is doing a scavenger hunt this weekend. He went snow shoeing last weekend. He is going to Tokyo with Mandy next week to see Sumo wrestlers. He is really getting the most out of his final months in Japan. Yippee for him. He is lucky that he is so handsome and sweet or I might accidentally poke him in the eye while he is peacefully sleeping.

I am really looking forward to my trip to America. To getting away from all those people I adore. We made a mistake on the dates and didn't catch it until too late and now instead of going for a week I am going for almost two weeks, darn! Jeff's boss's boss has invited me to stay in her guest room, for free, and our realtor will be driving me around, no car rental, and that is saving us about $1000. Which is nice because traveling from here to there is very expensive, even at this time of year with all the discounts, there are still all the trains and buses to consider just getting from my house to the main airport of Japan. It is all paid for and the tickets are due to arrive here soon, yeah!

I am so excited to be looking through houses and finding just the right one for the next 5 or 6 years, or maybe more you never know.

Every time I move I feel like I am leaving behind all the things I don't like about myself. Starting over with a clean slate in a new place. With every move I actually do redefine myself a bit, some of my bad habits rear their ugly head, but I have grown so much and learned so much with every move. I enjoy coming to a new place and making new friends and being the new me.

When I moved to Japan I wanted to share all my experiences from traveling around the world with people. I thought my pictures and stories were so very interesting. I thought that it was important to invite people into my home when they first move here and show them everything I have learned about Japan. But, I was instead just a big fat know it all. Here I learned to only give advice when asked. People like to figure it out on their own. It is a subservient position to have to listen to someone else tell you how it is and people don't really like that. So with this move I am going to work on being a good friend. I am working on being the type of person who listens more than speaks. The type of person who makes others feel special and therefore others want to be around. This is a complete and total change from the know it all person I have always been. It will be interesting. Let others be the expert, I am the student.

See I was able to find a way to finish this post on a positive note.

My Ankle

My ankle is much better, thanks for all the advice, concern and support.

I went to the doctor and it is not broken, just a mild sprain. It appears I am just a big baby. There is no permanent damage. It is still swollen and bruised, but there is no loss of stability. The only concern is that while healing it is very easy to re-injure the ankle. Therefore I have to take it easy and avoid activities that might cause me to twist the ankle again.

I got an ankle brace and some motrin like anti-inflamintory / pain relievers. I did spend three days with my foot propped up, causing me to get behind in everything. Now while taking it easy I am supposed to be catching up on everything. We seem to be experiencing some global warming, and Lily and I have been partaking of the sunshine and snow free playgrounds, causing me to become even farther behind in my homework and housework. School is winding down, only a few short weeks left and you wont be hearing me complain about how far behind I am in my school work. So sad.

I am taking a break from school while we move. Jeff on the other hand is so close to his Master's degree in World War II history that he is plowing ahead and taking extra classes during our move.

Upon finding out that I have not broken my ankle and that walking around is not going to cause me any permanent damage, I bought my ticket to paradise (Mississippi). I will be flying there mid-February to find our dream home. Jeff will be taking leave and taking care of the home and girls on his own.

The trip is going to be very exciting. It is very complicated to travel from here (the middle of no where Japan) to Gulfport, Mississippi. The trip involves, an airplane ride to Tokyo, a bus ride to the other side of Tokyo, an airplane to Atlanta, customs & immigration, another airplane to gulfport. Coming home I have to take three trains from Tokyo to Misawa otherwise I would have to stay in a hotel overnight (very expensive). While I have traveled all over the world, I am a bit nervous about doing it all on my own. I usually rely on Jeff figure it all out and I usually keep track of the girls. I am looking forward to the roll reversal, hopefully I wont end up lost somewhere. I don't even know how to call my house on an American military base in Japan from a pay phone in Tokyo, I will have to put that on my list, find out how to phone home.

In other words, I am alive and well. The ankle is healing, getting better everyday, looks like there won't be any permanent damage, which has been verified by an M.D. Just a little spazzed out by the enormity of all that needs to occur in the next few months.

Happy New Year!

My new years resolution is to have more fun. The other day I was reading Meno’s blog and she told a funny story about turning around the toilet paper rolls at her sister-in-law’s house due to a long lecture given years before on the importance of toilet paper hanging in a certain way. It was so funny. It reminded me of how much fun I used to be. Lately I haven’t really been very spontaneous or silly. These next few months are going to really need an infusion of the good old fun Marsha if we are going to make it through with our sanity.

On that note, on New Year’s day, it was incredibly beautiful here in Misawa. The sun was shining the snow had melted and I took Pixie (crazy dog) and Lily to the playground. We had a blast, but there were no kids there so we decided to walk over to one of the other playgrounds in our area to see if we could find someone fun for Lily to play with.

I cannot tell you how much fun I was having. Running down hills, laughing etc. However, I somehow put my foot down wrong and twisted my ankle. It hurt more than I can say. All I saw was a bright white light, I heard a ringing in my ears, I felt very nauseous. I tried to hobble home. The dog, who is so bad, was pulling me, Lily was running ahead, about to go into the street. I was in so much pain. I called out and asked some kids who were playing near by to help me, I asked them to run to my house and get Jeff. I sat on the ground and waited with Lily and Pixie. Jeff came and took us all home.

My ankle hurt so bad, I took some Motrin and took a nap. It wasn’t swollen so we decided not to go to the doctor. It took about 24 hours for the swelling to show up, now it is good and swollen. It only hurts when I put weight on it for any length of time. Then it starts to ache and swell even more. Jeff had to go to work today. I guess we will see how it goes. I don’t know if it is sprained, strained, or broken. I really don’t know how to tell the difference. My Air Force issued book, “Taking Care Of Yourself” which we always consult before going to the doctor, has confusing conflicting advise. It says that if I stay off the ankle I don’t have to rush to the ER, I can wait a few days and even if it is fractured it wont kill me. So we are taking the wait and see approach. Maybe it will heal itself in the next couple days? Jeff works with doctors so he is going to ask the question, about when or if we should seek help.

The hill I fell on, it was so small, the smallest incline you have ever seen. How, embarrassing, I can’t even walk a dog. If you don’t hear from me for awhile, it is because I have my foot propped up somewhere. Hopefully with my sweet children waiting on me hand and foot. No more New Year's resolutions for me!