Sources of free photos

I just downloaded this from https://stocksnap.io. It will be me
tomorrow as I catch trains across Tokyo and then fly
to Bangkok. (But my suitcase isn't red!)

Most people know that you can't just download photos off the internet and use them for your own use. Unless they are stated as free-for-use, it is stealing.

This becomes an even bigger issue when you're trying to put a magazine together on a tight budget and without a photographer on-staff. You need good quality photos that you don't necessarily get from the authors of articles.

One of our designers found this post which gives links to websites with free stock photos. Very useful! I used a beautiful one for our Christmas card. Other uses include websites, blogs, slide presentations, backgrounds for songs for worship on Sunday etc.

It's over

I have lots of photos from this season, but I think this is my
favourite. These two tussled all season long. Six times
they met, score? Our son 4, the other guy 2. Our son
pinned him twice. They pushed one another to be better.
It wasn't easy to watch, but a great challenge for them both.

At least for the spectators. The wrestling season finished on Wednesday. It's been nearly four months since they started training five-days a week and these last five weeks have been pretty intense. It finished off with a three-day 15-school tournament in Korea that really pushed them to their limits.

The tournament is an American military tournament for the "Far East" region where they invite a few private schools to join in. The team lived on an airforce base in a motel for four nights. David said it was like living at an airport!

The first day and a half was an individual tournament, like most of the Saturday tournaments we've been to in January, except it was seeded. It has a few twists and turns to the way it was organised, which meant that when our son won then lost then won then won then lost he wasn't out of medal contention. He went into the top six (all medalists) and had a chance to get third, but it seems he underestimated his opponent and lost his first bout on Tuesday, relegating him to sixth place. Still, not a bad result at all. It was, by all reports, a tough weight class with \ the 2nd to 6th place getters all very good wrestlers. I also think that if you put them up against one another on a different day you would end up with a different end result.

Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday were a team-duel competition. Which means teams face up against one another, from the lightest category to the heaviest one, and the team that got the most points from that match-up won the duel and went on. CAJ lost, then won, then lost. They got 6th place out of the seven in their division. Our son pinned the guy who he'd lost to on Tuesday morning, which was a satisfying end to the tournament. That guy picked up 3rd place in the individual tournament.

Our son has come home with a determined attitude, he has one more crack at this competition next year as a senior. He and another member of the team are planning to train a couple of times a week with a Japanese university club in Tokyo. We'll see how it all pans out.

It's been a season of ups and downs. Certainly plenty of challenges on and off the mat. One of the most gratifying thing of watching the whole team through the season is seeing how they keep coming back each week and improving. I especially think of a couple of the lighter wrestlers who struggled early on. One didn't have much stamina and the other was a rookie, who was a bit at sea early on. Both improved significantly as the season went and it was fabulous to watch.

Of course watching our son do more wrestling than he ever has before in one season was exciting too. He's improved as well, having to dig deeper than he ever has before.

Watching our youngest son (nearly 11) start in on wrestling was also exciting, though we didn't see any of his seven matches first-hand he did very well and we got to see videos of them all. He moves into middle school in August and will be eligible to be a full-time member of the wrestling team. It seems as though next wrestling season will be even bigger than this one!

We get about a month's break until the next lot of school sport begins, though the athletes don't, training for the next season of sport begins in the next couple of weeks. The Spring season contains track and field, high school boys soccer, and middle school girls basketball. Our two oldest boys are planning to do track and field. The middle schooler to run and the high schooler for the throwing events (he's focused on building strength prior to wrestling starting again in November).

Phew! I've always encouraged our boys to be active (see our EF parenting philosophy), it helps them be nicer people and to concentrate. I guess this is where that kind of philosophy can lead! But I'm not disappointed. It is great to have active, healthy young men in the house. Much better to be out being active than stuck playing computer games as seems to be the great temptation when they don't have other things to do.

The value of a mother

Well of course I had to put a wrestling photo with this! Being
a mum supporting my kids as they play sport (or what ever
thing it is, for example music, is very important. The value
of presence is easy to overlook. Your presence at their
sporting events speak volumes about your
love for them. And if you can't be present, at the very least
your interest, your enquiries as to how it was, do not go
unnoticed by our kids.

I have been functioning as a single mum (basically) for 11½ of the last 14 days. It isn't fun, but I've had much worse times with David away (though never as long). Now the boys are older it is a lot easier. But I still get stuck at times, without any other parent to lean on or consult with it can be really tiring and it's easy to lose perspective (evidence: my blog post two days ago).

In the next two weeks I'm getting my parenting "holidays"; it's my turn to go away. On Sunday I leave for Bangkok to receive some leadership training with our mission. I'll be back next Saturday. Then the week after that I go away to a Women in Ministry retreat for two nights—finally we have a one of us going away, but not overseas, this retreat is in far western Tokyo!

I saw this article today by a guy (Jason Ingle) encouraging us mums (especially those of us who are parenting in cultures we didn't grow up in) not to doubt our value as mums. It is easy, in whatever living situation you are, to devalue your importance as a mum.

Why?

1. When they're tiny they are so needy, in fact they remain very needy for many years. But in their neediness they don't express much gratitude. 
2. The things you do as a mum you do over and over again. The rewards are slow in coming and many days you wonder if you've achieved anything at all. It's easy to wonder if you have no value.
3. One thing often comes with teenagers is a certain disdain for their mothers. It's part of growing up and gaining independence. In a quiet, sane moment I understand that. But it still hurts and adds further fuel to the feeling that your role as a mum is not so important.
4. As they get older they aren't quite so obviously needy (although any teenager who can't find their clothes, or who doesn't get a reasonable meal after a long day at school would probably disagree). But the day-in day-out drudgery of motherhood continues. It just looks a little different.
5. I use that word "drudgery" purposefully. That is what it often feels like and the work never seems to end. You begin to wonder, even as they start to tower over you, if your job as their "carer" will never end. Will all this training, all this work I've put into parenting this child ever produce an adult who can take care of themselves and be a valuable member of society?

And that's just a few reasons.

I've been a mum now for nearly 17 years. I still need the assurance that the article I've linked to provided.

Yes, you are important, you are necessary. It's easy for those of us who are "paid" to do "ministry" to feel as though being a mother is cheating somehow, that we need to do a lot of work outside the family in order to be valuable, to be worth what we're "paid".

To anyone feeling that way, Jason writes:

Moms, you are valuable, even when you don’t hear it from the rest of the world very much. You are valuable even when you look around and are tempted to believe the lie that you have nothing to contribute to the “real ministry” happening around you. Being a mother IS full time ministry!

But even more importantly:

As I’ve said before and will repeat until I die, no matter your role or stage of life, when you wonder about your value you need to look to only one place: the cross. At the cross the creator of this universe sacrificed His only Son because He values you. Your value comes not from what you do, but who you ARE in Him because of what He already did. He also highly values your role as a mother. 

My life verse for parenting is: 

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up" (Galatians 6:9, NIV).

Japanese Stop Signs Changing?

Last month we heard that the Japanese authorities were considering changing the Japanese stop signs to a shape more internationally recognised prior to the Olympics.

Japanese stops signs look like this. Remarkably similar to Australian Give Way signs (see below).

Australian sign*

Give way or yield

Here's a Japanese Give Way sign, quite similar in shape, though the red is far less. But the similarity between it and the one below it is quite scary, in a flap it would be easy to miss the little black and white sign below the red triangle. WHAT? You never drive in a flap? Well you've probably never gotten lost in Japan with fractious children in the back seat...

Slow down

Here's the backstory: "In 2016, it was announced that the Japanese National Police Agency was considering changing the design of the "Stop" sign used on Japanese roads since 1963 from the inverted red triangle sign to an octagonal design more closely conforming to the recommendations of the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals. The inverted red triangle sign was introduced in 1963 ahead of the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, and replaced the earlier red octagonal sign used from 1960, which in turn had replaced the yellow octagonal sign used from 1950" (Wikipedia).

Australian stop sign

Australia's Stop signs are in line with the convention.

So my question is: "Will the influx of foreign visitors surrounding the Olympics be confused and thus cause many bad accidents?"

Then my question is: 
"Is the estimated ¥25.5 billion cost of replacing all the stop signs in the country worth it?" 

And even, "Aren't there better things to be spending money on?"

*Both Australian signs by Government of Queensland (Vector graphics design by Cassowary) (here) [CC BY 3.0 au (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

Neck-deep

I'm neck-deep and struggling to make headway. Here are the main factors:

Me at my editing/writing work-station today.

• David and our eldest son are away at a huge three-day wrestling tournament in Korea. David's been great at shooting me short texts with results. Our son has wrestled six times in the last day and a half. I love the news and crave the news (it's hard not being there), but it's also disrupting my concentration. Oh, and our son hasn't done as well as I'd hoped, so that messes with me too.

• Because David's away I have more responsibilities at home, as usual, so I'm busier than normal. Plus, I've not slept super well (wrestling tournaments seem to do that to me whether I'm there or not).

• In the last week I've had 20 articles submitted for the next issue (Spring) of the magazine I edit. That happens four times a year and always makes me feel time pressured. I've given these writers deadlines, it feels bad if I'm late in dealing with the articles, as if I've pressured the writers unnecessarily. Additionally, the whole process of getting the magazine out is a process, and if I'm late, that has a domino effect on the whole magazine (and team).

• I've got the other two boys home for their "Winter Break". It means we get sleep-ins and can be more flexible about bedtimes, but it complicates my days in terms of getting my editing done.

• The Winter issue is currently with the design team and they keep coming up with questions about editing, good questions...probably things we should have dealt with earlier, but they're intruding into my already dodgy concentration.

• I'm going away to Bangkok on Sunday for a week of training, so I've been trying to make bigger meals to freeze for dinners for the family next week. More cooking than usual and more washing up with no husband to help out.

So, no more blogging (or whinging) for me . . . back to editing land and hoping that I can make a little better progress in what is left of my afternoon.

Published a couple more times

UPDATE: the link on number two was broken, fixed now.

While I've been busy with other things this month, a couple of short articles I "wrote earlier" were published. It's a funny thing, writing. People talk to you about something you've written as if you've just written it, but chances are it was something you wrote six months ago, or even, as I note below, more than two years ago. Same with editing. I'm about 1 ½ issues ahead of everyone else. What my audience is reading now, I was reading well before Christmas last year.

Anyway, here are the two things that I know about that were published:

1. I was featured in an online magazine this month. Connection, the online magazine of Thrive, a community of Global Women. I've had a few other things published by them and they asked if they could include me in their "Global Woman Highlight" this issue. If you want to hop across to have a look, this is the link. 

2. A meditation I wrote more than two years ago was finally published last week in The Upper Room magazine, in the paper edition as well as online.

Plus:

3. This article about teaching Third Culture Kids was written by my husband, but edited and submitted by me.

How's it going?

David arrived home again last night, after I was in bed but before I went to sleep (I usually spend a good portion of an hour reading, or if I'm bad, playing word games or Sudoku or Spider Solitaire on my phone).

Anyway, we got to catch up just a tiny bit, not a lot. Then this morning it was straight back into the fray of a school day. Tonight and tomorrow I'm hoping to have a bit more time to hear how things went in Australia. But from what I understand he's had a good visit with his dad and family. His dad is still in good spirits most of the time, with enough energy to walk a little around the hospital.

Meanwhile, I've had a pretty good week. Better than most of the times he's been away. I guess I didn't have much time beforehand to work myself into a stew this time! Wrestling has been a considerable distraction, of course. And also lots of people have been praying for us, so that makes a huge difference. Thank you, if that's been you.

Last night we went down to school to watch a little bit of
basketball and eat dinner. CAJ seniors sell a pretty good
Japanese Curry at a reasonable price on these days, so
it's nice to take the night off and eat there, plus catch-up
with some people I don't necessarily see that often. The
moon that you can barely see in the photo was a gorgeous
silver sliver.

I'm also thankful for the people I've spent time with this week, it's ended up being a more social week than I would usually plan. So I've not done as much "work" as I'd like to have done but I'm probably in a better mental state than I would have been if I'd tried to do computer work all week and not take time to spend face-to-face with adults.


Life moves on, though in a way it will stand still for three of us for a little bit. Tomorrow is a designated rest day. Then David and our eldest will leave with the CAJ wrestling team for Korea early on Sunday. They'll be away four nights. But actually Monday and Tuesday are school holidays, they are called "Winter Break" (though four days isn't much of a break). 

So it will be just the three of us here at home for three days next week. I'm hoping to get some editing work done, this week was the deadline for articles for the Spring issue and have about 20 articles waiting for me to look at. But I need to balance that with some rest because I know that I'm tired, for example I was having trouble getting my eyes to adjust from reading to distance yesterday despite my transitional lenses.

I can now take these jeans off without undoing anything.

And tired isn't good when I've got my own international travel coming up the next week (from the 21st). There is so much illness going around and I know that David and I are vulnerable because we're tired. Two or more members of the wrestling team were down with fevers or other illnesses yesterday. We're hoping it isn't the flu. Our family is entirely healthy so far.

On an entirely different note, I am feeling a bit thin! I don't think these jeans were ever super tight, but they're certainly looser than they were a year ago when we were in Australia. The scales tell me I've lost about seven or eight kilos since then. Japan is good for me! I haven't been consciously trying to lose weight, though maybe having a wrestler in that category has rubbed off on me?