Daily life recently

This last week was a short week. We had a day off school on Monday (coinciding with a Japanese public holiday). CAJ calls it "Fall Break" even though it's just a three-day weekend. The extra day off was welcome, however. 

On Tuesday morning I said, "Short week!" David quickly countered, "With a lot in it." 

The week included a lot of editing for me, meetings with various people, and unexpectedly a trip to the orthodontist because of a breakage.  Incidentally, the 30-40 minute drive to the orthodontist contains more than 30 sets of traffic lights, in 8 km!

On Thursday David took a high school team to an inter school trivia competition. Our 11th grader was part of that team.

On the same day I managed to take time out to ride to that big park again. I did get a little miffed with navigation on the way there. Tokyo is full of narrow streets that often end unexpectedly and I just can't keep a list of geographical instructions in my head long enough to ride smoothly, so there were lots of stops to check the map. But it was a gorgeous day. I found the one eucalyptus tree in the park that I know about and sat editing under it for a short while. (Eucalyptus trees are everywhere in Australia, but rare in Japan, so it felt like a little bit of home.) It wasn't peaceful, though, as nearby a bunch of teenagers enthusiastically played tennis. 

On Saturday I got to stay home with our 16- and 10-year-olds while David accompanied the middle school cross country team to their meet in the morning. Sleeping in was lovely, but  even without going out I still was exhausted by about 7pm. Without too many details, there was a lot of interpersonal friction with boys related to homework, screens, responsiblities, etc. Even sitting down to play a "deck accumulation" game with them was hard and exhausting. 

Next week is even busier than last week. 

On Monday I have to go to a mission meeting across town (1.5hrs by several trains). 

Tuesday to Saturday is the school's twice yearly giant garage sale, called "Thrift Shop". This year for the first time I've agreed to serve on the committee that runs it. This is a highly organised event that moves quickly. 

Tuesday pm: set up gym with tables, shelves, racks, and signs. 

Wednesday and Thursday: sort, price, and arrange donated items. 

Friday: sell to PTA members

Saturday: am sell to anyone, pm take everything down and restore the gym to a pristine condition. 

Thrift Shop = Lots of work. Many volunteers. Big revenue. These two events are the only PTA fundraising events in the whole year.  I'm co-coordinating Facilities Coordinator. It will be interesting to see how it all goes. 

On top of all this I'm trying to move the magazine I edit along at a faster pace than usual. We're currently running four months behind schedule. I've been working this week on editing submitted articles for the Autumn issue, hoping to get it to a position where my absence for five days won't injure our progress. It would be great to have a third person  who could look over the articles I've already worked on (we already have two, but they're both busy and can't work on it as fast as I'd like). 

So plenty busy. I'm not sure how much I'll get here to write, perhaps a few posts "I prepared earlier" or photo posts.