What a year...

So obviously I really stink at the whole blogging thing.  Not making any promises about how often I'll write, or how funny I'll be.  Changed the settings to adult content, do I really think I'm gonna be talking porn or something, no.  However given some of the recent turns in my life, I'm much more likely to be a tad more colorful in my wording of things.  Last time I posted, was  not too long after my father passed away.  I had come to the states for his funeral and was back in Japan, and had enrolled my girls back in the school system on the base.

Well, it's a new school year now, and all the kids are all back in school now, except of course for Monkey.  Thing 1 is in 7th, Thing 2 is in 6th, Beastly is in 2nd, and Monkey is just 22 months old still.  We've moved back to the states again.  It was unplanned.  We were there in Japan on March 11th for the big 9.0 quake, the Tsunami was much farther north than we were, but we sure as hell felt the quake.

Thing 1 was on the bus coming home from school.  The bus stopped and pulled over, and turned off the engine during the quake.  Thing 1's seat was right by a power pole that was rocking so hard she was terrified it was going to fall and crush her, which was understandable even with her sense of drama.

I was picking Beastly up from school, she was playing next to a very steep, wooded hillside with a friend while I visited with the friend's mother waiting on them to open the road to cars again to go home.  They close the road when the kids are walking and riding bikes through there before and after school for about 40 minutes.  While we were talking we became aware that there was an earthquake, it started off as nothing major, then after several seconds we could feel that it was building.  It still didn't seem that bad, but we called to the kids to get them closer to us, at that point it REALLY started to move, there were rocks tumbling down the hillside, into the fence that surrounded the area to keep the kids out of the woods.  I got Beastly into the van with me  and we sat there and waited it out, watching as the teachers and people living along the street were all coming out of their buildings to wait for it to end.  When it was over, I got her settled in her seat and we drove home to where Sailor, Thing 2, and Monkey were all at home, and to see if Thing 1 had made it in yet.

Monkey had been taking a nap during all this, Sailor had as well.  Thing 2 was playing a video game.  He woke Sailor up because the power went out and then he realized there was a quake as well.  Power went out first because the quake was so far north of us and knocked out the grid before we could feel the shaking.  His Dad jumped up, told him to get outside and ran upstairs where he snatched Monkey up out of his bed, and ran out with him as well.  I pulled up and they were all 3 outside, but no sign of Thing 1 yet.  She made it home not long after.

We were without power for about 6-7 hours, we knew there was a tsunami, but not how bad it was until after that.  Then of course the whole Fukushima thing, and we were there in Yokosuka when a plume of radiation blew over our base.  We were allowed to take part in a "voluntary departure" which got us home to my Mom's place on March 23rd of this year.  Thing 2 and Monkey seemed to be fine and not having any issues, but Thing 1 and Beastly had real problems.  Beastly couldn't eat much without getting sick from the time we had the quake till we got to the states and lost 3 pounds, and Thing 1 was having anxiety attacks. 

When we started talking about going back to Japan, the girls both got worse again, so I told Sailor what was going on, and that I thought the worst thing we could do was force them back there when they were still clearly so afraid.  That I thought it would do real harm psychologically to them both.  He seemed ok with that, so the decision was made for the children and I to stay in the States with family until he finished his tour there.  Or that's what I thought anyway.  Then about 5 weeks ago, he sent me a horrible email saying a lot of terrible things, and said I never gave him a choice in this and that he'd never trust me again, and 2 days later told me that he wants a divorce when he's back in the states again.  He told the kids over the computer about 2 weeks ago.  Thing 1 is hurt and angry and doesn't really want to talk to him about it, though she DOES talk to her grandmother and myself both, Thing 2 is dealing with it in typical boy fashion, so I'm watching him closely, Beastly is sad and hurt, but she's doing alright, and of course Monkey is too little to know what's really going on. 

Oh dear...

Boy, life just took a huge bite outta my butt didn't it?  "I'm going to try to blog EVERY DAY!"  Yeah....nearly 5 months later, here I am again, peeking in around the corner. 

A lot has happened to me in the last few months.  Of course we had the standard American family holidays of Halloween, which is also my birthday.  I'm old you know.  My children will tell you this.  Thing One, once asked me what kind of horse and buggy my family used when I was little.  Grrrrr...No, I did not eat her.  Though I did gain a new level of understanding for creatures that actually do eat their young!  Then we had Thanksgiving, which was a strange one this year.  It was just the kids and myself as Sailor wasn't home, so we went and saw the opening show for the latest Harry Potter movie and had McDonald's of all things for dinner.  But we had fun, and that was the most important part of the holiday.  My children and I had a  wonderful day, a silly dinner, and made a great memory.  Thing One even won a black cat Webkinz for Beastly from a claw machine at the theater on base!

We had a really great Christmas this year.  All the kids were happy with their loot, and weren't lacking too many of the things they wanted.  But I'm not dishing out cell phones and iPod Touches to them when they want a few hundred dollars worth of other stuff too, ya know?  They're gonna have to give up all the kiddie stuff to get the big kid stuff!  Not to mention, we should be moving in under a year, and I can't see getting cell phones that we'll only use while we're here.  Thing One can borrow Sailor's when he's not home.  We had a big Christmas dinner at our place this year with a dozen or so guests, maybe 15 or so?  We have done this nearly every year that we have lived here.  I didn't do it in 2009 seeing as Monkey was only 6 weeks old, I just wasn't up to it yet.  But we try to invite most of Sailor's division to our place, some times it's a party and there's drinking, but not always.  This year was just a nice dinner, a couple of games, and a gift exchange.  Everyone had a good time I think, I thought it went really well. 

The New Year rolled around, and while Sailor was home, he had duty.  So again, just me and the kiddies.  Thing One, Thing Two, and Beastly all made it to the New Year and we toasted with sparkling grape juice.  :)  Monkey slept through it all of course.

One week into the New Year, my father passed away.  Lucky for me Sailor was in port and able to take some leave time.  He stayed here in Japan with the kids, while I went home to be with Mom and my brother and the rest of the family to bury Dad.  It's been almost a month now, and I think we've adjusted alright.  Mom has her good days, her sad days, and sometimes her mad days too.  Which is good, that mad will get her though the harder parts.  I think that's why we have it during the grieving process, you know? 

During the week that Sailor had to solo 4 kids who are all home, all the time he realized just how hard it is.  He declared to never get mad again because the house is messy, so long as it isn't dirty, which works well for me.  He didn't have to do bills, or run all the errands because we did that before I left, and the kids didn't have to do their school work while I was gone because he's not used to teaching them, and while I know he could do it, there really wasn't a reason to make him.  However, by the time I got home he had made up his mind that it's crazy to try to home school so many, and that it would be better for the girls to go back to school.  The whole reason we started home schooling was because of problems with a certain school, which only Thing Two would be going to now.  So Thing One is  back in as of last week, and Beastly will start again tomorrow.

Thing Two will finish this year at home with me, and Monkey of course will be monkey-ing about the house.  It'll be interesting to have only 2 instead of 4 all day for sure.  Next fall who knows what will happen, but with luck we'll be back in the States and everyone will be back in the public school system.  I don't mind teaching them, but it's a very big job with 3 different grade levels.

Sorry for the lack of humor in this post, but I'm tired, and it didn't seem right when I was doing a summary that included a death.