two beers later.

Can we say "Day from hell?" I was up before 6, which is unusual for me. The movers got here at 9 a.m. They were actually here at 8:50, but being the polite Japanese that they are, they waited until exactly 9 a.m. before ringing the bell.

A friend helped me from 9 to 12. She deserves a steak dinner, but that's another story. We finished sorting out all the crap near my desk and putting away the stuff that the movers weren't taking care of.

The biggest shock was that the movers wanted to finish in one day. I really didn't want to shut down my computer and say good-bye to my desk. I felt weepy when I put my iMac into its fashion forward industrial design box. The movers swooped in with 5 folks (6 later) and proceeded to pack our lives into 127 boxes. If this sounds like a lot, remember that 6 of those were chairs, 2 of those were desk and parts, and only a measly 7 were boxes of books.

They finished at 6:15 and left me with homework: 127 box descriptions to assign a yen value to. I promptly drank a beer and then I had another one, since this was a two beer kind of day. I will finish this blog and Grandma will bathe the kids and I will get them to bed. After that, I will ignore the remaining mess in my condo and finish the evil paperwork. And then, I will figure out where the hell I'm sleeping since my boys have bunk beds at Grandma's, but I have nothing.

The opposite of white space...

My word of the year has been white space. Yes, I know that's two words.

I am currently living in the opposite of white space. If I was motivated, I would take a picture of the pit of despair that is my home. The movers come next Monday. This week, I have helped remove from my condo: a washing machine, a bookshelf, an oven, a sofa, bunk beds, a home theater system, boxes of books, dishes, clothes and toys. And yet, strangely, my home still has waaaaaay too much crap in it.

I am plugging away at it, but honestly, I think the packers are going to come on Monday and take a look at my condo and do a lot of teeth sucking. They are going to blink and in that polite, indirect Japanese way ask me if there is someplace that they can work.

The ironic thing in all this is that 3 years ago yesterday, we moved into this place. And shortly thereafter, got our big shipment of stuff out of storage. I feel like someone hit the rewind switch and instead of unpacking, my life is going in reverse and I'm walking backwards and putting the stuff back in the boxes.

Which might also explain the lack of brain cells going on. This week alone, I have managed to forget my child's backpack, leave my purse in the car overnight, and walk off without teaching materials on several occasions. Obviously, my cranial rewind is causing data loss.

White space, black hole. Yin and yang?

Gratitude

I am not feeling grateful these days. No, indeed. My husband moved to the U.S. last week and I am facing an international move with a 4yo and a 7yo.

So in an effort to not turn this into a rambling, hate-my-life blog entry, I offer up the following things I am grateful for:

1) Being invited to the end of year party for the teachers at my son's daycare. I teach English there once a month and when I told them we are moving in February, the head of the school invited me. It was lovely going out, drinking and getting a beautiful frame with photos of me and my boys' time at the daycare.

2) Receiving multiple offers of help from the moms I know. One mom is coming over to help me sort out my kitchen and bedrooms before the international movers get here on 12/20. She even offered to take all my give-aways and trash so I wouldn't have to deal with it.

3) Living next door to my MIL. Today I was sleep deprived and in a foul mood. She offered to take both boys so I could take a nap. She also made dinner tonight. We will be living with her from 12/20 until we get on a plane in February. I am grateful for that.

4) Finding a buyer for our condo. This one I have a harder time with. We lost a lot on the sale of our condo. We are upside down on our mortgage and will have to pay out of pocket on 12/24 when we sell our place. But I am grateful that we have savings in the U.S. and my husband has a new job. It is only money. (Repeat, until I believe.)

5) Having a sister in Seattle. She is letting my husband live in their basement until he gets an apartment figured out sometime this week. She also picked him at the airport. Him, and his enormous duffel and bicycle box.

6) Having a husband with a job. I may have not been ready to leave Japan, but ultimately, my husband needed to move to somewhere with decent IT jobs. He starts his new job on Monday and is excited to be back in the world of software development.

7) Having a husband who has deal with all the relocation crap on that end, even if I'm stuck with the crap on this end. He has been apartment hunting, car hunting and is still jet-lagged.

I have much to be grateful for. I just need someone to keep telling me this. The soundtrack of my brain keeps playing the wrong tune. I need a new anthem.

Zero to Angry in 10 seconds.

This is one of those self-flagellation blog entries. The husband is off to America to look for work. He is eating pizza, shopping at the Apple store and Nordstrom Rack, and going out to lunch with former co-workers. I am happy for, and envious of, him.

Today was the start of a 3 day weekend. I had visions of baking cookies, going to a festival, and doing some beach-combing. Instead, my boys and I went to the video store, the grocery store and Mister Donuts. Sometimes I really dislike being a mom to boys. I tried to get them interested in making cookies, but instead they decided to beat each other up with plastic bats.

I made a conscious effort to let them have some sensory fun. I have an old container of stale coffee beans that I was going to throw out. I let them play with it on the dining room floor, with the only rules being that they contain the beans to the dining room and help clean up the mess afterward. Forty minutes later, I'm yelling at them because they are crushing beans into a fine powder, taking "showers" with the beans and getting them under the couch, in the tatami room, and under the floorcloth in the dining room. Much nagging later, the beans were picked up and the room vacuumed, but I felt like a failure in the "spontaneous fun" mothering contest.

As the day progressed, more whining and fighting ensued. My 4yo is going through some phase where everything ends in tears. We only watched one video, "Wahhhh!" Big brother touched his balloon, "Wahhhhhhhhh." I didn't get milk with dinner, "Wahhhhhhh!" I'm seriously tempted to wear headphones to drown out the constant noise of his disappointment.

By the time the boys went to bed, I had already threatened, yelled, ranted, steamed and pouted at both of them, multiple times. Not an effective style of parenting. I know the stress of my own life is manifesting itself this way, but I can't seem to stop. Hence, zero to angry in 10 seconds.

Now I'm going to watch a mindless movie and ignore the dishes in my sink.

Perfect protest

Brene Brown's blog this week is about protesting perfectionism. I'm posting a photo of myself, something which I hate to do. The photo is of me at 7:47 this morning with a hastily made poster written in crayon-pastels. The image is reversed because I took it with photo booth and I'm too much of an imperfectionist to reverse the image.

Long live imperfectionism. (And if you can't read my poster, it says "Perfect is the enemy of good.")

The sound of silence

This is a quick post because I realized I haven't posted anything in over a month. My life and problems are both tiny and immense. I wish both to splash them across the blogosphere and hide them simultaneously.

The husband quit his job (see profile about "karoshi") and now we are living on our savings. I am shockingly not panicking about this. We've been without his income since July and my income doesn't even come close to paying our monthly expenses. We will be completely broke on this side of the pond by December.

So, DH is off to the U.S. to line up job interviews and a job. Our lives are in limbo. We're talking to a real estate agent about selling our condo, at a big loss, oh well. I'm trying to figure out the timing on all of this. Which is laughable since everything hinges on my husband getting a job.

Shanti, shanti, shanti. Peace, peace, peace. (As my former yoga teacher used to say.)

Nothing in particular.

Yesterday was DS1's 7th birthday. We barbecued some steaks and chicken. I made chicken ramen coleslaw. Dessert was an overpriced ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins (aka "Thirty-One" if you live in Japan.)

It also was the annual day for the Hikari Fireworks display. This year it was a week early. We shoveled down our cake and went out on our 5th floor balcony to watch the show. The birthday boy got bored early and went inside with Daddy to play Wii Party, his birthday present from Grandma and the great aunts. DS2 soon followed. I was left with Grandma and her sisters out on the balcony. We oo'ed and aahed and sweated in the heat and humidity.

Not bad for a Saturday in July.