Boxes after boxes…

The tedious thing about living in two places is all the packing. Since we live here in Japan most part of the year we always ship about 10 boxes with shoes, clothes and toys and what ever we might need from our home in California. Then all of it of course have to come back with us home again, plus the stuff we accumulated during our 9 months here. Everything in the boxes have to be counted and listed in invoices for customs.

We’ve lived in the same apartment in Tokyo for the past 8 years and we leave tons of stuff behind every time we leave for the summer, but I’m gonna have to sort a lot of stuff out this year, it’s just getting to be too much and too cramped. Do some serious spring cleaning before we leave.

 

 

 

Waiting to inhale..

We discovered we have a leak of some sort in our daughters room. The wall is wet, water coming from the ceiling or…who knows. And it’s all ending up in the corner by the floor, in a blossoming mold growth. I’m terrified of mold and while we’re waiting for someone to come have a look at the problem and fix it, remove it, I don’t want the kids to be in the room. I think if we inhale it, it will start growing in the lungs and spread to the brain and then we’ll die. Not good.

My husband thinks I’m blowing it out of proportions and don’t think it’s that big of a deal.. Hello, it’s mold…my arms are literally falling off as I type this…

Our daughter is camping on a futon in our bedroom till this problem is solved.

I think I might have vacuumed up the devil…

We just had a holiday on February 3d, called “Setsubun”, it’s when you do a bit of “spring cleaning” spirit wise.  Evil spirits and bad luck from the past year is “driven” from your house to make room for good luck, kind of. The ritual to perform this day  is called “mamemaki” (throwing of beans) where you throw roasted soybeans out your windows or door and say Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi! (Demons out! Luck in!) and the demons are supposed to follow your beans out.

We’ve never actively participated in this tradition, but this year, the kids wanted to throw beans so I went and got them a bag and they got a “Oni” (demon/ogre) mask each from one of the ladies at the supermarket.

They both ran around the house in their masks screaming “boo” and thought it was great…then they threw the whole bag of roasted soybeans in the living room and started walking all over them, crushing them….aaaallll over the floor.

So after about 15 seconds of intense bean throwing fun, I had to bring out the vacuum….which at just this moment decides had to start fucking with me. It kept going on and off and if I held the cord with both hands the vacuum would work but then I couldn’t vacuum cuz my hands were tied. So I ended up sitting on the floor holding the cord together while my husband was vacuuming, with me being the “backseat vacuumer” yelling out orders of where to go.

And now the vacuum is stuffed in a trash bag in our kitchen, waiting to go on its last trip. What I also realized a few days later was that we didn’t actually throw any beans out the door or windows….so that means our deamons never left, we probably vacuumed them up….and now they’re also in that trash bag in the kitchen…right?! Just like Ghostbusters!

It’s all about the poopies..(the disgusting post)

My son has started using the potty! And not only the kiddie one, he wants to go on the regular toilet. Still far to go before we can ditch the diaper completely but we’re definitely on our way. Yay! I was being totally disgusting and took a picture of my sons first poop in the toilet and posted it on Facebook….no, I’m just kidding…

I did take the picture, just I showed it to my hubby haha…“look baby he poooped!!!”..what have become of me…Don’t worry, I’m not scrapbooking an album about my kids bowl movements, I just got a little carried away #proudmomygoesoverboard

I’m not very sensitive when it comes to dirty diapers (when they belong to my kids that is) but my son crapped in the bathtub a few days ago. That, was almost too much for me. I put both my kids in the tub and I used the Onsen salts in there. Thye’re a bit tinted and smell divine. So when my son pooped in there, I couldn’t tell….they were happily playing in there till my son pulled out the plug of the tub and my hubby put his hand in there to cork it again, and stuck his fingers in to a piece of soggy doodoo!!  (make pause for gaging)

After sanitizing the kids in the shower I had to clean the tub!! Water squirting toys….cups…plastic animals….NASTY!! It was the first time any of my kids go in the bath, dear God, never again!! Please!

And here’s the picture….HA! You really thought I would didn’t you…

Good morning 2012!

How was your new year? Fun? Are paying for it today?

Last night I feel asleep in my daughter’s bed, watching Team Umizoomi with her. Woke up at 11.50pm only to relocate to my own bed, where i found my two guys snoring in synch. And then up at 7am. A new day and a new year, that I started off like I do any day, with a cup of coffee and some soy milk.

My husband who was off from work today, likes to “be funny” and made a comment,  hinting that I should get on with the cleaning…he thinks this is hilarious, as he himself is planted on the sofa with the computer on his chest. Stuff like that tics me off, cuz I do nothing but pick up everybody elses shit. Yeah you know, how many times have I said this before…

Anyway, I started angry cleaning, pretty effective actually. And I was almost about to get unpleasant, but as my couch potato put it. “Happy new year!”…I snapped out of it, and my daughter took over. Holy hell, she was in such a horrible mood all day! It made me look like a daisy in comparison..

And we had a 7.0 earthquake close to Tokyo. I didn’t feel a thing, I think I was vacuuming at the time. My friend and neighbor said her whole apartment was shaking and me and my husband was just looking at each other wondering how we could have missed it. I’m not complaining though…

What I’m wondering is, is this just a taste of what is to come? Please no…

We took the kids to the park for a bit and it just turned in to a cry and scream fest! If you have kids, you know when they start crying over everything, they don’t make any sense and it doesn’t matter what you say. That kind of mood. And it kept going till they went to bed. I’m sitting at the kitchen table over looking the living room…the house was clean for a minute, my better half is back in horizontal position on the sofa, snoring. Gosh I love that big lazy man of mine…

and yeah, I’m sitting here wondering how concerned I should be about the Mayan calendar only goes to 2012….

the odd couple

My kids LOVE broccoli. I thought broccoli was kid kryptonite, but apparently not. Which is great of course. And sauerkraut, God my daughter loves sauerkraut, so much that when we had the “what do you want from Santa” talk a few weeks ago, she said “Sauerkraut!”

I’m like, oookeyy….I think Santa can….get that….for you…giving her a bit of the suspicious eye, but she’s said it again and again, seriously. My 3,5 year old wants sauerkraut from Santa.

Recently they also started fighting over the vacuum cleaner when I take it out. They’re fighting over whose gonna vacuum!? And my daughter asks me if she can mop the floors next…and she brings two rags, one for her and one for her brother. I know I can bee a little crazy with the vacuuming, and I think it’s starting to rub off…haha

I’m thinking I could start renting them out in the building

Look at my little weirdos scrubbing away! I don't know if I should be happy, or worried

don't forget the corners son!....

The third wheel mommy

Can someone tell me why it is that although I’m vacuuming at least twice a day, mop the floors twice a week and always walking double folded picking up after everybody, it still looks like I haven’t lifted a finger? It is quite frustrating at times actually. Hanna is sick so I took her to the doctor this morning and when I come back my husband had left for practice already and the house was shining! What the?…… What I can’t accomplish in a day he does in 30 minutes! I’m not liking it. Or I am liking it, but you know what I mean…

Some times I enjoy a day by myself and my husband takes the kids. I’m thinking it’s good for my hubby to spend sometime with them alone and let him handle kids, cleaning and all that. I’m thinking I’ll be coming home and he’ll be “oh baby I know how much work it is being home with them” …bla bla..

But instead I come home to a shining house, laundry done and folded, groceries shopped, kids happy. Whaaat?! Does the maid brigade come over when I’m not here? Or am I just that useless? Why am I even here? Is it the “smooshing”…?

But he’s a Virgo, just like my sister, so I know, it’s hard to live up to the Virgo’s excellency in cleaning and sorting. My sister’s closet looks like a display shelve at “Benetton”….

He’s the better cook too, he reads the recipes and doesn’t throw a hissyfit when the dish doesn’t come out as in the picture. I mean I know, he’s awesome, that’s why I married him. But give a girl a break, I know I’m not a neat freak, and I have walked by the ironing board with my pile of wrinkly clothed on, for 2 days now. My closet looks like the Goodwill drop off container. I’m feeling just a tad useless. I’m trying. I really am. But I’m sweet! I’m kind….I’d do anything for you!? Don’t replace me please!

...maaaybe I could fold something...

My “sigh”-projects….

I’m such a horrible procrastinator when it comes to certain things. Like cleaning the balcony. That’s project nr 1. The kids old pool from last summer that I really should have brought in last fall and cleaned out so they could have used it this summer. The christmas trees from last year, the box of fire wood that’s been moved from one corner to another for the past year and a half. Plastic bags, slippers, old hangers and what else is hiding out there, I don’t even know.

...sigh...

...ghaaa....

....what a sad sight...

Project nr 2.

The “crap hole”, the little nook that always fills up with papers, bills, money…and it’s our main dumping place for all sorts of crap. Why is it that every flat surface in this house accumulates so much of nothings?!

ignore ignore ignore....

But I think tomorrow will have to be the day. Tackle day! I’m gonna do it!  Yu…p!….sigh….

True love

I love you!

You know what I love. Baking Soda. I love bleach and I love baking soda. You wanna know what our toilet smelled like after standing unused for 6 months, in this heat and humidity. I mean it was clean, but it just smelled like old hot p*ss in there! My husband had scrubbed and scrubbed, but it still smelled. I asked him to buy baking soda and he did, 5 kg of it! Hello heaven! (I know, I get off on cleaning products..)

Oldest trick in the book. You pour some on the floor, a bit of hot water, a scrubby sponge and get after it, everywhere. Ooohhh scrub scrub! Wipe with a clean cloth and it’s like frickin’ magic! As new! No more public mens room odor!

You could eat of that floor now it’s so clean!…..not that you’d want to……no actually, no don’t eat from it……

We made it!

But that’s about it. We’re back in Japan after a very very very long flight. Geesh for insane babies on planes, especially if it happens to be your own. Our daughter is a pro traveller. Micah, my son….you’re crazy! He was in a crappy mood from start to finish and decided to vomit all over me 10 minutes after takeoff! I was in the airplane bathroom scrubbing sour vomit of my shirt and I hear him screaming his lungs out over at where we sit, cuz for some reason the whole day he also did not like his papa at all. Best flight ever!

But we did make it, and we’re now back in our tiny apartment. Tiny and very dusty. But I love it! We left in such a hurry after the earthquake in March, we didn’t clean or sort things out as we usually do, so coming back here after 6 moths of dust collecting was maybe not awesome but I’m slowly getting it back together. I’ve missed Japan so much!!

It’s hot and humid and we did have an earthquake the other night, that we felt. A 4.5 with epicenter in Chiba. It wasn’t so bad, shook for a few seconds and the doors slammed a bit but that was it. Kind of calmed me down a little, weird but it felt good to get that first tremble. I know we’re gonna  be feeling a lot of them this season so I just wanted to get that first one out of the way, get used to it again….if that is even possible….

 

Scheduled typhoon on it's way, but other than that, thumbs up!