Don't tempt fate I always say. How true!
Back in the day, what could go wrong was a litmus test to the cosmos, just to even the odds. Rarely did anything go wrong. But I now get the feeling all that good luck has to be offset with bad and boy, are we paying for it now!
Where to start? From the back-to-back kidney operations. Which revealed the incredible shortfall on what we thought was the perfect medical plan. Yikes. R10 000 later and all we have to show are a few chunks of Ca/Mg crystals in a jar and I have a few more lines around my eyeballs. A bill for R8550 still pending. If you hear yelling in the not-too-distant future, it's me, reacting to the outcome!
The washer has just packed up. The electrical one, not the human one. But it's touch-and-go for both models at present. And his majesty delighted mineself with the news this pm that the former is now officially 7 years old and thus there are no longer replacement parts available. I did take a moment to point out that the latter is pushing 33 and any more bad news may wear some of her parts out too! So to the kindness of family and washing the delicates by hand. I lament, no wonder I don't get manicures. Total waste on a slave such as I.
I also recently lost some weight. About .5 carats to be exact. Yes, bye-bye 300yr old heirloom diamond, one of seven! Oh the shame. The Welsh arm of the family are doing proverbial somersaults in their caskets. I cried all day, about the diamond not about the Welsh!I love my wedding ring. It's the only item of real, hefty material worth I own. I scoured this carpeted purgatory we call home on my wee knees with an old hose over the hoover nozzle but to no avail. I did however make some interesting finds on my hunt. Am going to have to have some stern words with the "help". And the inhabitants for that matter!
I blizted the oven with cleaner this am before my departure from the abode and upon my return later (her madamness was slumbering) I decided to give it the "wipe-down". Whilst doing this I accidentally decapitated the middle finger on my right hand on the roasting-tray-catch-all doohickey that goes on the bottom of the oven. It bled quite badly and I must admit in light of the irritating events of the last few weeks I was tempted to squeeze it very hard and "bleed out" right there at the kitchen sink. But then my IQ kicked in and after some quick calculations I realised it was going to take forever for me to die and probably make a gia-normous mess that I was just going to have to clean up later and I would have to leave a suicide note and the pen and paper were miles away and oh, screw it, it was just too much PT!
There are a few more woes to expose to cyberspace but I'm growing rather bored of waffling on about them all endlessly. I am however keeping a physical list in my day planner. Who knows, I could give it a read in a few years time and laugh at my stupidity.
For now I try to surround myself with pitiful people, but I can't find any. I take comfort in the fact that I have an awesome support system. Those in my inner sanctum meet my needs on all levels. From fitness, to food, to folly, to friendship. And some special ones meet all those needs at the same time.
Today did however did deliver a gem of another kind in the eternally honest words of the sproglet who told me a I looked like a gorgeous queen fairy princess. I didn't have the heart to enlighten her that queens are not what they used to be! Heaven knows that chat is coming but may I be granted a few years. I need to get my story straight.
For now I am off to hunt for the lid of my water-bottle sans bath time and the madness that effects a hostile take-over of my boudoir each evening.
I would just like to add in closing, that you cannot have OCD and a toddler simultaneously and deign to remain sane.
Nighty night!
13 November 2012
27 June 2012
A man that rocks
The king is a rocker. Who knew?
When I fantasized about my dream guy, as a young girl, I imagined a guy that rocks. Be careful what you wish for. God really does have a sense of humour. You see, in my minds' eye I saw a musical bohemian who played an instrument and more than likely had a tattoo. I never foresaw this.
His majesty has been battling these jolly kidney stones for almost 10 years.. After we married, he went for a medical to take out health insurance and it threw up an abnormality. So since June 2002 we have been to and from winkie noodle doctors, hospitals, specialists, dieticians and we even tried the homeopath. I was almost really close to getting his majesty to commit to Pilates! he claims he came to his senses just in time.
We have noticed a 2 year cycle. It goes like this
He goes green around the gills one day and gets a pain in his back
He goes to the winkie noodle man
He is in hospital within 24 hours and has some sort of high falutin treatment
Passes gemstones for a few weeks
Goes for a post op scan and gets the "all clear"
We live happily until one day about 2 years on he goes green around the gills and we start again.
They say passing stones is akin to childbirth. Well, I had a baby and I'v never had stones. I cannot compare but just the look on his majestys' face when the stones are passing from his kidney to his bladder says it all. I often wonder the damage it's causing to his "wiring". His "plumbing". He says he's fine but I'm not so sure. Yesterday he started giving birth again and by 8pm we were the round parents of a multiple brood. I won't bother naming this lot. They will go into a speciman jar labelled "Stones - 2012 edition" and will be stored with the predecessors. Bet they all have a lot to talk about.
To date he has passed almost 100g of stones. I know, I weighed them on the kitchen scale last night. Obviously they have been cleaned.
Oh if only they were diamonds, all our troubles would be over and we could finally indulge in that overseas holiday we've been yearning for.
So this latest noodle-olo-gist has issued some food bans, namely cocoa. His majesty is a chocoholic. He is very sad about this news. I am also shattered as my baking revolved around chocolate for the most part. I am so desperate some days I consider snorting cocoa powder just for a "hit". His majesty went out to a study group the other day and I stayed home. I made a batch of chocolate icing and sat in front of the telly scooping it up with boudoir biscuits! Shame on me!
Amongst others is brocolli and carbonated drinks. No biggie. We're too poor to order anything that requires a mixer. So we exist off caffiene and H2O.
And the kidneys will possibly have a reprieve until 2014. But there's no guarantees.
About that Pilates!?!?!?
When I fantasized about my dream guy, as a young girl, I imagined a guy that rocks. Be careful what you wish for. God really does have a sense of humour. You see, in my minds' eye I saw a musical bohemian who played an instrument and more than likely had a tattoo. I never foresaw this.
His majesty has been battling these jolly kidney stones for almost 10 years.. After we married, he went for a medical to take out health insurance and it threw up an abnormality. So since June 2002 we have been to and from winkie noodle doctors, hospitals, specialists, dieticians and we even tried the homeopath. I was almost really close to getting his majesty to commit to Pilates! he claims he came to his senses just in time.
We have noticed a 2 year cycle. It goes like this
He goes green around the gills one day and gets a pain in his back
He goes to the winkie noodle man
He is in hospital within 24 hours and has some sort of high falutin treatment
Passes gemstones for a few weeks
Goes for a post op scan and gets the "all clear"
We live happily until one day about 2 years on he goes green around the gills and we start again.
They say passing stones is akin to childbirth. Well, I had a baby and I'v never had stones. I cannot compare but just the look on his majestys' face when the stones are passing from his kidney to his bladder says it all. I often wonder the damage it's causing to his "wiring". His "plumbing". He says he's fine but I'm not so sure. Yesterday he started giving birth again and by 8pm we were the round parents of a multiple brood. I won't bother naming this lot. They will go into a speciman jar labelled "Stones - 2012 edition" and will be stored with the predecessors. Bet they all have a lot to talk about.
To date he has passed almost 100g of stones. I know, I weighed them on the kitchen scale last night. Obviously they have been cleaned.
Oh if only they were diamonds, all our troubles would be over and we could finally indulge in that overseas holiday we've been yearning for.
So this latest noodle-olo-gist has issued some food bans, namely cocoa. His majesty is a chocoholic. He is very sad about this news. I am also shattered as my baking revolved around chocolate for the most part. I am so desperate some days I consider snorting cocoa powder just for a "hit". His majesty went out to a study group the other day and I stayed home. I made a batch of chocolate icing and sat in front of the telly scooping it up with boudoir biscuits! Shame on me!
Amongst others is brocolli and carbonated drinks. No biggie. We're too poor to order anything that requires a mixer. So we exist off caffiene and H2O.
And the kidneys will possibly have a reprieve until 2014. But there's no guarantees.
26 June 2012
How to get coated
Her majesty has just had another growth spurt. The gazzillion-th this year alone. If it's not the monthly purchase of shoes it's the sudden shrinking of the leggings I bought 3 months ago. I have been able to handle, whilst hemlines may have got shorter over summer, unless the armholes or crotch are death-defyingly tight I have chosen to ignore this.
We were blessed last winter when Beloved Cousin Rachel passed along some second hand windbreakers/windcheaters/pufferjackets or whatever you want to call them. But within the last month these have navigated up past madam's waistband are are pretty much useless in cold weather. So I have been prowling the shops for a few weeks now looking out for something in my realm of acceptable. I don't bow to fashion in any way myself and also since having a sprog I err on the side of practicality versus cuteness. Until she's old enough to buy her own stuff this is what she's getting.
So this a.m. I drag ourselves to XYZ store to look for a new coat. There they have it. Pink. Melton. Long-ish. In madam's size. It's a third of the price of the more labell-y type stores and a pittance in comparison to the kiddie boutiques (yes, they do exist!).
I would like to add that we live in Cape Town. Winters here have been known to last 7months. They are cold. Wet. Mouldy. Long. People start to smell like mushrooms. And yet, I wander into another clothes store this week and all the winter woolies have been usurped by string tops and hot-pants!?!?!? Erm, did I miss something. The last thing in my mind is choosing some new shorts when it's raining buckets outside and the mercury is barely managing to claw past 10C.
Anyhoo, XYZ store have marked most of their kiddies clothes down to half.....fine by me. R40 for a pufferjacket now. It's going to be trashed before October anyway so I'm not going to fall to pieces if it does.
What a mish just getting the sproglet to stand still and try anything on. Our sproglet is an odd shape right now. She is long and leggy, I'd like to say like her Mama, and her feet are rapidly becoming enormous, hmmmm, also like her Mama's?!? And she's only 2. So I am insistant that we try everything on before we buy. Of late the mass-produced clothing industry deems you cannot be tall and skinny at the same time. So we have ended up with everything being 4-5yrs. Shocker!
Madam is also going through a phase of defiance. I was not prepared for it to start so early! "I don't like it!" seems to punctuate her dialogues. From "I don't like jelly (her fave!) " to "I don;t like my feet, take them off!". Whatever. So I left XYZ store today with 1 coat and 2 windbreakers, none of which her majesty "likes". I hope she wakes up in a more agreeable mood on the morrow.
She is making me mental. Thankfully the welfare weren't at XYZ store as I may have been arrested.
We were blessed last winter when Beloved Cousin Rachel passed along some second hand windbreakers/windcheaters/pufferjackets or whatever you want to call them. But within the last month these have navigated up past madam's waistband are are pretty much useless in cold weather. So I have been prowling the shops for a few weeks now looking out for something in my realm of acceptable. I don't bow to fashion in any way myself and also since having a sprog I err on the side of practicality versus cuteness. Until she's old enough to buy her own stuff this is what she's getting.
So this a.m. I drag ourselves to XYZ store to look for a new coat. There they have it. Pink. Melton. Long-ish. In madam's size. It's a third of the price of the more labell-y type stores and a pittance in comparison to the kiddie boutiques (yes, they do exist!).
I would like to add that we live in Cape Town. Winters here have been known to last 7months. They are cold. Wet. Mouldy. Long. People start to smell like mushrooms. And yet, I wander into another clothes store this week and all the winter woolies have been usurped by string tops and hot-pants!?!?!? Erm, did I miss something. The last thing in my mind is choosing some new shorts when it's raining buckets outside and the mercury is barely managing to claw past 10C.
Anyhoo, XYZ store have marked most of their kiddies clothes down to half.....fine by me. R40 for a pufferjacket now. It's going to be trashed before October anyway so I'm not going to fall to pieces if it does.
What a mish just getting the sproglet to stand still and try anything on. Our sproglet is an odd shape right now. She is long and leggy, I'd like to say like her Mama, and her feet are rapidly becoming enormous, hmmmm, also like her Mama's?!? And she's only 2. So I am insistant that we try everything on before we buy. Of late the mass-produced clothing industry deems you cannot be tall and skinny at the same time. So we have ended up with everything being 4-5yrs. Shocker!
Madam is also going through a phase of defiance. I was not prepared for it to start so early! "I don't like it!" seems to punctuate her dialogues. From "I don't like jelly (her fave!) " to "I don;t like my feet, take them off!". Whatever. So I left XYZ store today with 1 coat and 2 windbreakers, none of which her majesty "likes". I hope she wakes up in a more agreeable mood on the morrow.
She is making me mental. Thankfully the welfare weren't at XYZ store as I may have been arrested.
15 May 2012
Brain (click-shuffle)
Time. I have none (I have loads for pasta). It's not for the lack of planning. I am an OCD sufferer. Every aspect of my life is planned and plotted, albeit in my mind. Everything in my head is broken down into little pixel-sized nuggets that I move around my brain as things happen. Wake up (click-shuffle), make breakfast (click-shuffle), get everyone dressed (clikc-shuffle), and so on and so on, all day long.
This system works very well for me, however since his majesty is not clairvoyant and I don't verbalise my mental algorithms, there is often some tension. Since I'm the one with the grand fantastic plan in my head I always know what's going on. It's his majesty who quite literally misses the memo.
All this is just riff-raff as judging by the date, my darling little blog, I have neglected you. Sorry. I have been making mental posts in the traffic each day. I just haven't had a nano-second to put carpels to keyboard. I have however eaten my way through at least 8 good books since my last post, so I'v not exactly been picking my navel.
I hereby solemnly swear to be a good girl and try to write to you daily. Or maybe three times a week. Or let's just see how it goes.
For the love of gooseberries, I'm the mother of a toddler, just summoning a pulse most days consumes too much time.
But dear blog, I will be better.
Starting tomorrow .....
Toodles
This system works very well for me, however since his majesty is not clairvoyant and I don't verbalise my mental algorithms, there is often some tension. Since I'm the one with the grand fantastic plan in my head I always know what's going on. It's his majesty who quite literally misses the memo.
All this is just riff-raff as judging by the date, my darling little blog, I have neglected you. Sorry. I have been making mental posts in the traffic each day. I just haven't had a nano-second to put carpels to keyboard. I have however eaten my way through at least 8 good books since my last post, so I'v not exactly been picking my navel.
I hereby solemnly swear to be a good girl and try to write to you daily. Or maybe three times a week. Or let's just see how it goes.
For the love of gooseberries, I'm the mother of a toddler, just summoning a pulse most days consumes too much time.
But dear blog, I will be better.
Starting tomorrow .....
Toodles
25 March 2012
Books for worms
I am a word-slut. I covet, covet with covety covetness words, books, leather (down boy!), libraries. I am actually so bad that I asked for a dictionary for my 21st birthday! Yes, I am not a well puppy most of the time and the rest of the time I'm just plain mental.
I am currently reading my 30th book of 2012. I know this for fact, I am keeping a list just to be sure. Now, you may ponder how I manage seeing as I am a professional mother as well as being chief bean-counter in our business. But...I have a secret. I speed read. It's fabulous. I can remember vividly our Std.6 English teacher herding us in to the library projection room and taking us thru entire passages of text at increasing speeds and teaching us to focus our minds on filtering out the gobble-die-gook and gleaning an overview of the story in very little time. This is an amazing party trick if you can master it. It blew the lid of my library subscription. Where I was allowed to loan 7 books for 2 weeks, I found myself chomping at the bit after only 5 days!
And I am not at all label conscious. I will read anything once. And I have run my retinas over some humdingers! There are only so many heaving bosoms and throbbing members a girl can stomach!
All this reading has also stood me in very good stead. Whilst I cannot brag of a university degree, I know pretty much a little something about everything. Sure I am not going to revolutionise cancer research but I've read enough about to know it's a tough nut to crack! I can hold my own in conversations about pretty my anything, shockingly except rugby, considering I grew up in the Free State (but it was Orange back then when colour mattered as much as it didn't). Yes, the Sharks are bitterly disappointed.
And joy of all joys I have now been blessed with an amazing young somebody who obviously reads as much as I do. Oh my word, it's like having conversations with myself, insert John Malkovich here. How awesome to drop the label of a really obscure work and her eyes light up and she says yes, she's read it too! My heart is happy.
That being said let me add some celebrity glitter and honorary mention. My darling heart friend, Greta. Who so casually handed me her copy of The World According To Garp 12yrs ago and started my love affair with John Irving, amongst. Together we read something stupid like 120 (?) books that year, just because we could! We would sit for hours reading the encyclopedia to see who know more than the other and it was always even Stevens!
So now the moon is tipping and my latest page-turner beckons.
Bon nuit bibliophiles
I am currently reading my 30th book of 2012. I know this for fact, I am keeping a list just to be sure. Now, you may ponder how I manage seeing as I am a professional mother as well as being chief bean-counter in our business. But...I have a secret. I speed read. It's fabulous. I can remember vividly our Std.6 English teacher herding us in to the library projection room and taking us thru entire passages of text at increasing speeds and teaching us to focus our minds on filtering out the gobble-die-gook and gleaning an overview of the story in very little time. This is an amazing party trick if you can master it. It blew the lid of my library subscription. Where I was allowed to loan 7 books for 2 weeks, I found myself chomping at the bit after only 5 days!
And I am not at all label conscious. I will read anything once. And I have run my retinas over some humdingers! There are only so many heaving bosoms and throbbing members a girl can stomach!
All this reading has also stood me in very good stead. Whilst I cannot brag of a university degree, I know pretty much a little something about everything. Sure I am not going to revolutionise cancer research but I've read enough about to know it's a tough nut to crack! I can hold my own in conversations about pretty my anything, shockingly except rugby, considering I grew up in the Free State (but it was Orange back then when colour mattered as much as it didn't). Yes, the Sharks are bitterly disappointed.
And joy of all joys I have now been blessed with an amazing young somebody who obviously reads as much as I do. Oh my word, it's like having conversations with myself, insert John Malkovich here. How awesome to drop the label of a really obscure work and her eyes light up and she says yes, she's read it too! My heart is happy.
That being said let me add some celebrity glitter and honorary mention. My darling heart friend, Greta. Who so casually handed me her copy of The World According To Garp 12yrs ago and started my love affair with John Irving, amongst. Together we read something stupid like 120 (?) books that year, just because we could! We would sit for hours reading the encyclopedia to see who know more than the other and it was always even Stevens!
So now the moon is tipping and my latest page-turner beckons.
Bon nuit bibliophiles
5 March 2012
Can I get an Appleberry and two Apads to go please?
I suffer from terrible gadget envy. No sooner than I've signed away my life for a new doohickey with silver flaps on, then the manufacturer releases their latest and greatest doohickeys with even shinier bells and whistles, leaving me with a terrible case of buyers remorse.
I must say my recent acquisition is my nokiaberry, super ceding my limping LG. I was ashamed of it I refused to take it out in public. I was even loathe to answer phone calls in the presence of another human being and heaven help me, I never, ever, under any circumstances left it on the table at the coffee shop! I was scared the greenery on the table might just decay by being in it's orbit and I might be asked to leave.
So Papa Bear (my dad) was inevitably going to acquire the Une Pomme Du Jour. It was only a matter of him deciding how many giga-gerbils he was going to invest in. And I jokingly add, if it came in a shade to match the paint colour of his car or his shoelaces. So he got a PommePad - in a lovely shade of silver to match his temples. But on a recent visit he was trotting around the place snapping pics of grandkiddies and so on and blah blah blah. But Mama Bear not to be outdone whips out her PommePad! And we're all like "Oi, what's going on here?". Insert head snap.
Allow me to put you in the picture. My mother is brilliant. She can get blood stains out of a cashmere cardie without so much as a furrow in her brow and whip up an entire 3 course meal with nothing but a few funny onions and a can of lentils. But electrified (as she calls them) objects are not her strong point. She only learnt to send an sms about 2 years ago, the earth paused on it's axis that day, I joke ye not! And she still keeps her phone switched off unless she has to make a call, whereby all the outstanding messages are delivered, her phones starts beeping like a mad thing and she promptly switches it off again out of pure fright! So you see why we were all so shocked.
Papa Bear also recently got one of those vowel phones. It starts with an ae(i)ou.......you know the one of which I speak? So now all his gizmo's can synchronise and he can now be tracked down anywhere on the planet to within a wombats armpit hair of the GPS co-ords. Yes, because he lives in fear of being lost. Well, I gather he must do because he's owned a GPS for as long as they've made them and he has a telescope bigger than his carboot just in case he's ever tricky to find. In fact you can now officially track him on other planets! If you ever wanted to of course. I think Papa Bear may be preparing for the Apocalypse but if that happens then we're all going to be vapourised anyway and nothing but the gadgets will remain I know this for fact. I've seen Wall-e! Disney can't be wrong!
To add insult to injury Mama Bear also had the latest up to date, fresh off the assembly line cellphone. The perks of Papa Bear getting an upgrade. How humbling to find out that your parents chat via Whatsapp and you can't be bothered to send an sms any longer cos your phone seldom has a pulse! Who are these people?
I too now have whatsapp and chat with both Mama and Papa bear on a regular basis. Mama Bear and I spell like dyslexic children (sodding teeny weeny QWERTY keypad thingy) whilst Papa Bear (being an Aquarius) spells like the Longman. But then again we all know he's hooked it up to his PommePad via blueteeth and the giga-gerbils are doing the typing anyway. Cheat!
Must also add that I noticed that everyone at church is no longer taking a bible. It seems the humble Word has been usurped by the PommePad. Must've seen about 10 people doing this?!?!? Is it going to become the norm? Hey, I don't have to explain myself to the Maker one day.
Moving on. Traded in my beloved green machine........Oh. My favourite colour is green. In 2008 I set about colour-matching all my gizmos. Phone, calculators, laptop, knickers, I tried for a green car but his majesty was thankful that our flavour of vehicle wasn't being made in green that year. Alas the blessed green machine took a tumble off the desk last year when in a moment I lost focus and was beguiled by a toddler. The green machine's brain was salvageable (now in a pretty black case that looks a little like the paint colour on my dream car, the Porsche 911 Carrera) but the heartbeat flat lined and resuscitation was going to be very expensive. So I wrapped her in her case and left her alone for a few months. I felt such guilt at handing her over at the pc shop. But the green machine is destined to become green waste and the salesman assured me that she was going to a better place. And now I have a new green machine that isn't green. Does the same job but I am taking longer to fall in love with this model. I do like the numeric keypad. Also helps that I no longer have to lug around my keyboard like a real spas. I hate the carpel exercises when you have to use the numbers on laptops. It always leaves me with a fit of Tourettes syndrome. Actually everything leaves me with a fit of Tourettes of late.
So I come to you tonight compliments of the A-Dell whilst my Nokiaberry snuggles next to my teacup making me feel human again. Also got a wireless printer. Where has that doohickey been all my life?
Now my giga-gerbils need a rest and I have a real book to nuzzle so Bon Nui.
I must say my recent acquisition is my nokiaberry, super ceding my limping LG. I was ashamed of it I refused to take it out in public. I was even loathe to answer phone calls in the presence of another human being and heaven help me, I never, ever, under any circumstances left it on the table at the coffee shop! I was scared the greenery on the table might just decay by being in it's orbit and I might be asked to leave.
So Papa Bear (my dad) was inevitably going to acquire the Une Pomme Du Jour. It was only a matter of him deciding how many giga-gerbils he was going to invest in. And I jokingly add, if it came in a shade to match the paint colour of his car or his shoelaces. So he got a PommePad - in a lovely shade of silver to match his temples. But on a recent visit he was trotting around the place snapping pics of grandkiddies and so on and blah blah blah. But Mama Bear not to be outdone whips out her PommePad! And we're all like "Oi, what's going on here?". Insert head snap.
Allow me to put you in the picture. My mother is brilliant. She can get blood stains out of a cashmere cardie without so much as a furrow in her brow and whip up an entire 3 course meal with nothing but a few funny onions and a can of lentils. But electrified (as she calls them) objects are not her strong point. She only learnt to send an sms about 2 years ago, the earth paused on it's axis that day, I joke ye not! And she still keeps her phone switched off unless she has to make a call, whereby all the outstanding messages are delivered, her phones starts beeping like a mad thing and she promptly switches it off again out of pure fright! So you see why we were all so shocked.
Papa Bear also recently got one of those vowel phones. It starts with an ae(i)ou.......you know the one of which I speak? So now all his gizmo's can synchronise and he can now be tracked down anywhere on the planet to within a wombats armpit hair of the GPS co-ords. Yes, because he lives in fear of being lost. Well, I gather he must do because he's owned a GPS for as long as they've made them and he has a telescope bigger than his carboot just in case he's ever tricky to find. In fact you can now officially track him on other planets! If you ever wanted to of course. I think Papa Bear may be preparing for the Apocalypse but if that happens then we're all going to be vapourised anyway and nothing but the gadgets will remain I know this for fact. I've seen Wall-e! Disney can't be wrong!
To add insult to injury Mama Bear also had the latest up to date, fresh off the assembly line cellphone. The perks of Papa Bear getting an upgrade. How humbling to find out that your parents chat via Whatsapp and you can't be bothered to send an sms any longer cos your phone seldom has a pulse! Who are these people?
I too now have whatsapp and chat with both Mama and Papa bear on a regular basis. Mama Bear and I spell like dyslexic children (sodding teeny weeny QWERTY keypad thingy) whilst Papa Bear (being an Aquarius) spells like the Longman. But then again we all know he's hooked it up to his PommePad via blueteeth and the giga-gerbils are doing the typing anyway. Cheat!
Must also add that I noticed that everyone at church is no longer taking a bible. It seems the humble Word has been usurped by the PommePad. Must've seen about 10 people doing this?!?!? Is it going to become the norm? Hey, I don't have to explain myself to the Maker one day.
Moving on. Traded in my beloved green machine........Oh. My favourite colour is green. In 2008 I set about colour-matching all my gizmos. Phone, calculators, laptop, knickers, I tried for a green car but his majesty was thankful that our flavour of vehicle wasn't being made in green that year. Alas the blessed green machine took a tumble off the desk last year when in a moment I lost focus and was beguiled by a toddler. The green machine's brain was salvageable (now in a pretty black case that looks a little like the paint colour on my dream car, the Porsche 911 Carrera) but the heartbeat flat lined and resuscitation was going to be very expensive. So I wrapped her in her case and left her alone for a few months. I felt such guilt at handing her over at the pc shop. But the green machine is destined to become green waste and the salesman assured me that she was going to a better place. And now I have a new green machine that isn't green. Does the same job but I am taking longer to fall in love with this model. I do like the numeric keypad. Also helps that I no longer have to lug around my keyboard like a real spas. I hate the carpel exercises when you have to use the numbers on laptops. It always leaves me with a fit of Tourettes syndrome. Actually everything leaves me with a fit of Tourettes of late.
So I come to you tonight compliments of the A-Dell whilst my Nokiaberry snuggles next to my teacup making me feel human again. Also got a wireless printer. Where has that doohickey been all my life?
Now my giga-gerbils need a rest and I have a real book to nuzzle so Bon Nui.
20 February 2012
A particular kind of heaviness
I think its terribly unfair. His majesty's body remains the same whilst mine has been driven to the brink ,both large and small. One of my argements with life (and there are many!) is that boy's just seem to have got the better deal. Let me list some motivating factors - no make-up, hair straighteners, tampons, bra's, hair-removal, plucking, bleaching, tweezing, fluffing etcerta etectera etcetera. Sure we get to bring forth life but the preceding list does sometimes make me reconsider.
I put on 30 kgs during my pregnancy. Eeeeeeeek! I am not proud of this but my body did loads of funny things I had no control over during this time so I am citing temporary mental-dissassocaition on this subject. Sure the cheese-covered first tri-mester wasn't exactly helpful but by the time I came to my senses the damage had already been done. Irreverisbly, I'm afraid. I have since learnt that stretchmarks are for life! Did anyone else know this and if so why didn't anyone bother to tell me!?!?!
But after the investment of the Mac-Daddy of all treadmills during my gestation I was able to keep the weight gain to within a fair range and was also able to waddle it all off after I squeezed out my sproglet! It took my a year but I lost the 30kgs and then some. Thankfully because I wanted to just die being unable to fit into my beautiful pre-preggers kit!
Then what with our move last year and the stress and panic attached thereto, I lost more weight. I am acutally smaller than I was before but what with the great "body-shift" that happend during incubation things are far less perky. I am now...............gulp...........drawn to the shapewear department in Woolworths. Before I would crave and covet something killer to wear in the bedroom. Now all I want to do is find something that will masqurade a muffin-top and hoist my boobs back to where they once happily resided. I would just love for my aunty in Canada to send me a Spanx for my birthday. I won't be offended. I promise.
I now find myself insisting on being on my back during conjugal grapplings. Not because I am a lazy shagger but simply becuase I can then suck in my tummy and my boobs will fall back and lie in vaguely their old position. I imagine I look like my former, firmer self. But I probably just look silly. I blame the media. It seems that Adele is the only accpetable earthling with an inch to pinch at the moment. The rest of us are relegated to looking like a badly packaged pork bangar.
And then yesterday I slid into and old pair of shorts and felt that familiar tightness around my derriere. I can't blame it on hormones as my week of ovarian servitude is over so I have to accept that I am just putting on the pounds again. You can't get skinny just reading the Men's Health Muscle Bible, you have to actually get off your bum and burn off some kilojoules!
Now where is that short-cut button again?
I put on 30 kgs during my pregnancy. Eeeeeeeek! I am not proud of this but my body did loads of funny things I had no control over during this time so I am citing temporary mental-dissassocaition on this subject. Sure the cheese-covered first tri-mester wasn't exactly helpful but by the time I came to my senses the damage had already been done. Irreverisbly, I'm afraid. I have since learnt that stretchmarks are for life! Did anyone else know this and if so why didn't anyone bother to tell me!?!?!
But after the investment of the Mac-Daddy of all treadmills during my gestation I was able to keep the weight gain to within a fair range and was also able to waddle it all off after I squeezed out my sproglet! It took my a year but I lost the 30kgs and then some. Thankfully because I wanted to just die being unable to fit into my beautiful pre-preggers kit!
Then what with our move last year and the stress and panic attached thereto, I lost more weight. I am acutally smaller than I was before but what with the great "body-shift" that happend during incubation things are far less perky. I am now...............gulp...........drawn to the shapewear department in Woolworths. Before I would crave and covet something killer to wear in the bedroom. Now all I want to do is find something that will masqurade a muffin-top and hoist my boobs back to where they once happily resided. I would just love for my aunty in Canada to send me a Spanx for my birthday. I won't be offended. I promise.
I now find myself insisting on being on my back during conjugal grapplings. Not because I am a lazy shagger but simply becuase I can then suck in my tummy and my boobs will fall back and lie in vaguely their old position. I imagine I look like my former, firmer self. But I probably just look silly. I blame the media. It seems that Adele is the only accpetable earthling with an inch to pinch at the moment. The rest of us are relegated to looking like a badly packaged pork bangar.
And then yesterday I slid into and old pair of shorts and felt that familiar tightness around my derriere. I can't blame it on hormones as my week of ovarian servitude is over so I have to accept that I am just putting on the pounds again. You can't get skinny just reading the Men's Health Muscle Bible, you have to actually get off your bum and burn off some kilojoules!
Now where is that short-cut button again?
24 January 2012
School day blues
The little madam started playschool last week. A phasing-in process has begun and since then I've been nothing short of frantic. Heaven knows if I thought I had no time to myself before then this has got to be a new type of mental.
I now have a new-found respect for school-moms. How do they do it? Running up to school. Drop off. Back home. Patter around - me doing some housework, the privileged masses probably doing coffees at the local barrissta. Fetch from school. Do lunch. Nap time for midgets more housework for mama's then its supper, walkies for everyone and bed. No time for a manicure, not even a nanosecond for the now well-coveted solitary wee!
I go on like a looney and I've got only got a "wee-me" in playschool. Prep, Primary and High School still loom. Oh, God give me the energy. I have no books to cover.No uniforms to procure in multiples. No sports meetings to suffer under intense heat and the smell of cream sodas and sweat. I have no recitals to endure by pain of auditory failure. None of the above. And I'm already flagging. It's only week 2 for heaven's sake.
To all the mama's past, present and future - I salute thee. Kids, I am beginning to notice, are hard work the older they get. But yet you just slot in and get it done.
I am nurturing what is promising to be the mother of all colds. In summer no less! Not only am I drained most days but this bug seems to have sucked the few kilojoules I have left right out from under my left bum cheek. Let's hope it comes back for the other butt cheek before the end of the week. I have a pool party to attend and don't want to be left with a limp.
Til the morrow......
Toodles
PS. I would like to state for the record that I love my mother very, very, very, very much! She was strict, hard and brutal. She smacked my bum. She made me eat my peas (argh!). But she also wiped my tears, coddled me when I was ill and taught me the value of hard work and sunlight soap.
PPS. Was that kiss-arse enough for you, Mummy???
17 January 2012
Four-letter words that start with an F
Today I have lost what feels like the thousandth dummy (pacifier) and thrown my millionth internal fanny-wobble.
How many times have I misplaced this rubberised item of sedation. A big crime in her majesty's eyes and punishable by torture in the King's - no chocolate for a month I hear him saying. Luckily there was an old, decaying, fuzz-covered specimen hiding away in amongst her socks.
I somedays just feel like a cosmic juggler. It's like I have these million chores on my mental chart and I go about daily saying tick tick tick to myself.
How on God's green earth am I meant to keep track of it all. Today went something like this
Get up
have a wee
get madam dressed for school
check school bag and pack school bag
get myself shampooed and clothed
slap on some war paint
make up bed
strip midgets bed
throw load of laundry in to wash
go to school
spend 2 hours there
go home
hang out laundry
fetch family
go to library
go to play place - the King wanted to try the coffee (!)
go home
bring in laundry
put madam down for a nap
remove refrigerated supper from fridge to have for supper
check mails
keep dogs quiet
think about tomorrows supper
madam awake
grab stuff to go swimming at friends
go to friends and have swim, chat, Cooley's, nice nice nice
go home
start supper
feed dogs
entertain madam
cook remainder of supper
serve supper
eat supper
clean up after supper
do dishes
entertain madam
bath madam
read to madam
make sure madam asleep, soundly enough to have an audible conversation
have a cuppa
catch some news, maybe a little telly
chat to the King
flop into inadvertent coma
And woe betide whomever asks me what I've been doing all day. Then I begin to imagine four-letter words that start with F.
Food, frog, fuzz, figs, the list goes on. Dirty minds!!!!!! Naughty, naughty, naughty!
Toodles
How many times have I misplaced this rubberised item of sedation. A big crime in her majesty's eyes and punishable by torture in the King's - no chocolate for a month I hear him saying. Luckily there was an old, decaying, fuzz-covered specimen hiding away in amongst her socks.
I somedays just feel like a cosmic juggler. It's like I have these million chores on my mental chart and I go about daily saying tick tick tick to myself.
How on God's green earth am I meant to keep track of it all. Today went something like this
Get up
have a wee
get madam dressed for school
check school bag and pack school bag
get myself shampooed and clothed
slap on some war paint
make up bed
strip midgets bed
throw load of laundry in to wash
go to school
spend 2 hours there
go home
hang out laundry
fetch family
go to library
go to play place - the King wanted to try the coffee (!)
go home
bring in laundry
put madam down for a nap
remove refrigerated supper from fridge to have for supper
check mails
keep dogs quiet
think about tomorrows supper
madam awake
grab stuff to go swimming at friends
go to friends and have swim, chat, Cooley's, nice nice nice
go home
start supper
feed dogs
entertain madam
cook remainder of supper
serve supper
eat supper
clean up after supper
do dishes
entertain madam
bath madam
read to madam
make sure madam asleep, soundly enough to have an audible conversation
have a cuppa
catch some news, maybe a little telly
chat to the King
flop into inadvertent coma
And woe betide whomever asks me what I've been doing all day. Then I begin to imagine four-letter words that start with F.
Food, frog, fuzz, figs, the list goes on. Dirty minds!!!!!! Naughty, naughty, naughty!
Toodles
15 January 2012
Holidays past and future
So holiday season seems to be over. The last of the schools are opening their doors this week and slogging starts in earnest. But all this got me thinking of our family holidays past. You know, when most hotels didn't come with a TV. Where the pool was communal and all the entertainment was free and non-motorised.
My maternal grandparents retired in the late eighties from the Iscor clogged skies of the Vaal Tiangle to a quaint caravan park on the Natal North Coast. They lived in a mobile home called a Plett - a big caravan with a permanent patio attached. This became MECCA to us grandchildren, cousin Jess aka Gecko, my sister and I in particular. Not only did we love this granny and grandpa more than Oros (the drink du jour of the tartrazine age) but Mtunzini ticked all the right boxes for us. Permanent summer. Swimming 10mths of the year. Only 10 rainy days every 12mths.
The sun rises at 4am in the summer. And we kids usually slept on the convertible sofas in the lounge. Old people are early risers and a vivid memory was my granny making us tea every morning, with 3 sugars nogal. We were only allowed 1 normally so already granny was a rebel and rule-breaker. "Don't tell your da, right!" in her cockney, Pomeranian accent with a wink and click of her false-teeth. God rest her soul.
We spent the entire summer in the pool. I remember my grandpa telling us off for being in the pool so much he said we were going to go mouldy. I remember all us girl grandchildren learnt to swim in the pool of that caravan park, each earning a big, shiny old R1 coin for our efforts and achievements. One Christmas we all got goggles as presents. We spent so much time under water that my grandpa called us La Loutre, or French for otters! By the end of the 4 week holiday our porcelain complexion resembled that of Bulgarian Gypsies complete with cozzie lines and freckled noses.
We only used to head back home at feeding time it seemed. I remember being eternally hungry. Of a persistent rumble in my tummy. Thinking back I can only surmise it was all the fresh air and exercise. My grandparents being WW2 escapees were never going to be up for any culinary awards but the spartan meals they did put out appealed to every fibre of the child in us. Bully beef sandwiches. Canned ham, home-made potato chips fried in a pot on the gas bottle out on the patio with minty peas.There was only Weetabix for breakfast. Which we ate with full-cream milk (my parents were of the powdered generation). Gallons of lemonade which my grandpa bought in the old glass 1lt Sparletta bottle and stored in a crate in the garage. Braai's. Always chicken. Even now that smell takes me back to 1990! And my granny's pineapple fluff pudding made with a tin of evaporated milk beaten by hand, a packet of jelly and a tin of crushed pineapple and lined with Marie biscuits!
We were old enough to look after ourselves, entertain ourselves. Living for the nights when they would burn the sugar cane and all the cane rats would come running through the caravan park with all the local ethnics running after them Good eating they reckoned and kids being kids we were always so puzzled why they were eating cane rate and we weren't!?!
Or daring each other to run up and touch the trunk of the avocado tree where the big python lived. Spending hours on the trampoline after lunch - 'cos we weren't allowed to swim but bouncing was healthier, erm? Playing pertanque with the park directors' kids when they were home from boarding school.
On rainy days we would play Bidgie. Gin rummy to mere commoners. We would play with my gran for real money and for real points. She was a wicked and ruthless teacher. There was no Mr-Nice-Guy with her. You learnt very quickly how much a ace was worth and not to hold onto your cards. You learnt to keep a straight face no matter how good a hand you had. And you learnt to "read" people. At the end of the game, after we had played from Ace though to King, granny would tally up the points, do a little doodle in her book and announce who owed what. We would all sit there with our velcro wallets and hand over our 5c or whatever silly figure it was. To this day we all reckon we actually owed her a hang of a lot more money but she going easy on us.
These holidays punctuated our year. We spent so much time at the coast we began to refer to ourselves as locals. We knew more about the ecology of Natal than of our native Free State. We cried on the "leaving days" and the first thing we did when we got home was count how many days til our next visit.
Those days are over. Granny and grandpa are long gone and the cousins have moved onto the cooler climes of Canada. We are older with children of our own and working on making our memories. I sometimes forget those times but just once in a while a smell or sound instantly transports me back to a moment from the past.
As the digital age encroaches I am planning a resistance. I think I may be alone in this. Her majesty will be dragged outside while there is still nature to enjoy. I will demand that her cousins come on join her so they can make the memories I have. I will seek out places without DSTV. Where fun is DIY
For now it's her majesty waking the birds and me whose less-inclined to remove myself from the linen but I am planning a whole lotta fun for the years to come. I hope you Will join me in this movement.
Til then....
Toodles
My maternal grandparents retired in the late eighties from the Iscor clogged skies of the Vaal Tiangle to a quaint caravan park on the Natal North Coast. They lived in a mobile home called a Plett - a big caravan with a permanent patio attached. This became MECCA to us grandchildren, cousin Jess aka Gecko, my sister and I in particular. Not only did we love this granny and grandpa more than Oros (the drink du jour of the tartrazine age) but Mtunzini ticked all the right boxes for us. Permanent summer. Swimming 10mths of the year. Only 10 rainy days every 12mths.
The sun rises at 4am in the summer. And we kids usually slept on the convertible sofas in the lounge. Old people are early risers and a vivid memory was my granny making us tea every morning, with 3 sugars nogal. We were only allowed 1 normally so already granny was a rebel and rule-breaker. "Don't tell your da, right!" in her cockney, Pomeranian accent with a wink and click of her false-teeth. God rest her soul.
We spent the entire summer in the pool. I remember my grandpa telling us off for being in the pool so much he said we were going to go mouldy. I remember all us girl grandchildren learnt to swim in the pool of that caravan park, each earning a big, shiny old R1 coin for our efforts and achievements. One Christmas we all got goggles as presents. We spent so much time under water that my grandpa called us La Loutre, or French for otters! By the end of the 4 week holiday our porcelain complexion resembled that of Bulgarian Gypsies complete with cozzie lines and freckled noses.
We only used to head back home at feeding time it seemed. I remember being eternally hungry. Of a persistent rumble in my tummy. Thinking back I can only surmise it was all the fresh air and exercise. My grandparents being WW2 escapees were never going to be up for any culinary awards but the spartan meals they did put out appealed to every fibre of the child in us. Bully beef sandwiches. Canned ham, home-made potato chips fried in a pot on the gas bottle out on the patio with minty peas.There was only Weetabix for breakfast. Which we ate with full-cream milk (my parents were of the powdered generation). Gallons of lemonade which my grandpa bought in the old glass 1lt Sparletta bottle and stored in a crate in the garage. Braai's. Always chicken. Even now that smell takes me back to 1990! And my granny's pineapple fluff pudding made with a tin of evaporated milk beaten by hand, a packet of jelly and a tin of crushed pineapple and lined with Marie biscuits!
We were old enough to look after ourselves, entertain ourselves. Living for the nights when they would burn the sugar cane and all the cane rats would come running through the caravan park with all the local ethnics running after them Good eating they reckoned and kids being kids we were always so puzzled why they were eating cane rate and we weren't!?!
Or daring each other to run up and touch the trunk of the avocado tree where the big python lived. Spending hours on the trampoline after lunch - 'cos we weren't allowed to swim but bouncing was healthier, erm? Playing pertanque with the park directors' kids when they were home from boarding school.
On rainy days we would play Bidgie. Gin rummy to mere commoners. We would play with my gran for real money and for real points. She was a wicked and ruthless teacher. There was no Mr-Nice-Guy with her. You learnt very quickly how much a ace was worth and not to hold onto your cards. You learnt to keep a straight face no matter how good a hand you had. And you learnt to "read" people. At the end of the game, after we had played from Ace though to King, granny would tally up the points, do a little doodle in her book and announce who owed what. We would all sit there with our velcro wallets and hand over our 5c or whatever silly figure it was. To this day we all reckon we actually owed her a hang of a lot more money but she going easy on us.
These holidays punctuated our year. We spent so much time at the coast we began to refer to ourselves as locals. We knew more about the ecology of Natal than of our native Free State. We cried on the "leaving days" and the first thing we did when we got home was count how many days til our next visit.
Those days are over. Granny and grandpa are long gone and the cousins have moved onto the cooler climes of Canada. We are older with children of our own and working on making our memories. I sometimes forget those times but just once in a while a smell or sound instantly transports me back to a moment from the past.
As the digital age encroaches I am planning a resistance. I think I may be alone in this. Her majesty will be dragged outside while there is still nature to enjoy. I will demand that her cousins come on join her so they can make the memories I have. I will seek out places without DSTV. Where fun is DIY
For now it's her majesty waking the birds and me whose less-inclined to remove myself from the linen but I am planning a whole lotta fun for the years to come. I hope you Will join me in this movement.
Til then....
Toodles
1 January 2012
Doing it again
So 2011 is over and all and sundry are tooting to 2012. And with that everyone is contemplating and considering the prospects. As per normal you've got the usual suspects asking the introspective "what are your plans for 2012"?.
My answer : Survive it. Plain simple and completely honest.
Every New Years eve his majesty and I have our NYE boudoir conference (this is where all our good chats happen) and reflect on the last 365 days and how we fared.
Must say 2011 was a doozy. Again. Nothing gets easier it seems.
But it beats the year of THE NEW JOB (mine)
The year of HIS MAJESTY's KIDNEYS BEING BROKEN (shocker being 22 and thinking I was going to lose my husband)
The year of HYPERTENSION (mine)
The year of FINDING OUT WE COULDN'T HAVE KIDS (and finding out I wasn't the broken one)
The year of HYPERTENSION (mine)
The year BENTLEY DIED ( I loved that silly dog more than chocolate!)
The year of HYPERTENSION (mine)
The year of NEARLY LOSING HIS MAJESTY (watching my soulmate lose 20kgs in a month and being at deaths' door for the better part of twelve months)
The year of HYPERTENSION (mine)
The year of THE MISCARRIAGE (awful - saving this for another chat when I have more energy to use the tissues)
The year of HYPERTENSION (mine)
The year of DUMB THINGS JUST HAPPENING ONE AFTER ANOTHER (oh wait, that's every year if your name is Tiffany!)
The year of THE MOVE
But although terrible, heinous and all round kak to deal with there has also been :-
The year WE SAID I DO (I look back at the pictures and we seem so young!)
The year WE BOUGHT OUR FIRST HOUSE ( we had sex in every room just for good measure)
The year of BENTLEY (our pseudo-baby furry person wannabe)
The year of BUYING A BRAND NEW CAR OUTTA THE BOX (which I pranged the same day in our own yard! I just want to hide under a stone every time I think about it!)
and my personal favourite the year IMOGEN ARRIVED! (no topping this one!)
I have learnt that life seems to dish us equal parts of bad and beautiful. I surmise it's just our ability to meditate on either side of the scales that makes a year either good or bad. Our reactions to the ebb and flow of circumstance.
So my resolution would have to be optimism. But always with a good measure of realism and sarcastic spunk to keep his majesty laughing. As long as one of us is happy then it's all good right!
To you and yours I say just get on with it and live it without the endless pondering and planning, heck, it's over too soon. Smile more, eat less and live better.
Much love
Toodles
My answer : Survive it. Plain simple and completely honest.
Every New Years eve his majesty and I have our NYE boudoir conference (this is where all our good chats happen) and reflect on the last 365 days and how we fared.
Must say 2011 was a doozy. Again. Nothing gets easier it seems.
But it beats the year of THE NEW JOB (mine)
The year of HIS MAJESTY's KIDNEYS BEING BROKEN (shocker being 22 and thinking I was going to lose my husband)
The year of HYPERTENSION (mine)
The year of FINDING OUT WE COULDN'T HAVE KIDS (and finding out I wasn't the broken one)
The year of HYPERTENSION (mine)
The year BENTLEY DIED ( I loved that silly dog more than chocolate!)
The year of HYPERTENSION (mine)
The year of NEARLY LOSING HIS MAJESTY (watching my soulmate lose 20kgs in a month and being at deaths' door for the better part of twelve months)
The year of HYPERTENSION (mine)
The year of THE MISCARRIAGE (awful - saving this for another chat when I have more energy to use the tissues)
The year of HYPERTENSION (mine)
The year of DUMB THINGS JUST HAPPENING ONE AFTER ANOTHER (oh wait, that's every year if your name is Tiffany!)
The year of THE MOVE
But although terrible, heinous and all round kak to deal with there has also been :-
The year WE SAID I DO (I look back at the pictures and we seem so young!)
The year WE BOUGHT OUR FIRST HOUSE ( we had sex in every room just for good measure)
The year of BENTLEY (our pseudo-baby furry person wannabe)
The year of BUYING A BRAND NEW CAR OUTTA THE BOX (which I pranged the same day in our own yard! I just want to hide under a stone every time I think about it!)
and my personal favourite the year IMOGEN ARRIVED! (no topping this one!)
I have learnt that life seems to dish us equal parts of bad and beautiful. I surmise it's just our ability to meditate on either side of the scales that makes a year either good or bad. Our reactions to the ebb and flow of circumstance.
So my resolution would have to be optimism. But always with a good measure of realism and sarcastic spunk to keep his majesty laughing. As long as one of us is happy then it's all good right!
To you and yours I say just get on with it and live it without the endless pondering and planning, heck, it's over too soon. Smile more, eat less and live better.
Much love
Toodles
22 December 2011
Happy Birthday to me
Turned 32 today. Must admit it doesn't feel any different to 31. Ask me next winter when the aches and pains of injuries inflicted in my youth kick in.
Special day. What I thought was going to be a sedate tea and cake with a few family members turned out to be a very hush-hush gathering of mates near and dear, all of whom I thought were busy with Christmas and families if their own.
Spoilt rotten. Again. His majesty gets better at this year after year and I am always left feeling like a queen, albeit for a day. The elves come at midnight to fetch the pumpkin and tomorrow I am back to a mere commoner.
But, his majesty is on leave until mid-January so I can ease off the childcare a bit and maybe get a break in myself.
Three more sleeps 'til Christmas. Then it's another round of presents and family and fellowship.
I blame my parents for being hippies and having me during the festive season but I get to be showered with stuff, barely find place to pack it all and then it'd round 2.
Lucky me.
Now off with you all to baste turkeys, bake gingerbread cookies and overdose on sellotape and tinsel.
Toodles.
Special day. What I thought was going to be a sedate tea and cake with a few family members turned out to be a very hush-hush gathering of mates near and dear, all of whom I thought were busy with Christmas and families if their own.
Spoilt rotten. Again. His majesty gets better at this year after year and I am always left feeling like a queen, albeit for a day. The elves come at midnight to fetch the pumpkin and tomorrow I am back to a mere commoner.
But, his majesty is on leave until mid-January so I can ease off the childcare a bit and maybe get a break in myself.
Three more sleeps 'til Christmas. Then it's another round of presents and family and fellowship.
I blame my parents for being hippies and having me during the festive season but I get to be showered with stuff, barely find place to pack it all and then it'd round 2.
Lucky me.
Now off with you all to baste turkeys, bake gingerbread cookies and overdose on sellotape and tinsel.
Toodles.
16 November 2011
Fashion Faux Pas
I don't get the fashion these days. I have sadly fallen into a clothing abyss which has rendered my present wardrobe a collection of jeans, boots and functional tops. Mom camo I call it. Heck most of the time I'm too tired to care what I'm wearing. Too poor to shop better and anything I own is destined to be fouled by the inevitable banana smear that won't come out.
On a rare moment of solace, I took the time to browse the mall and was so bewildered by the 5th shop! What madness has overtaken the planet? Are all the retailer buyers doing acid during lunch because nothing seems to be made with me in mind. mWhat trippin' fool decided that Mercurochrome orange is the colour de jour this summer? Unless you have a deep, cancer-inducing tan you just look jaundice, or at least I do. Am I the only one?
The trends have all gone elasticated-ankles on us. Unless you're built like Madonna, it just looks doff. And why on earth would someone want to marry workout gear with the hallowed jean in the first place? Does Levi know of this travesty? I'm sure there are photos stashed in an old biscuit tin of my mother sporting this look in the late seventies and I am of the firm opinion that some trends go away to die in shame and this must be one of them. I also nominate the ever appearing catsuit be cremated too! Argh, they are awful. They are now making them in a hot-pant version so not only am I treated to a camel-toe exhibition but it now comes complete with a cellulite sideshow! Unless you're built like a stick insect in which case I'm just jealous so could you please stop parading your perfect body around me and go and eat a doughnut!
Know you limits I say. I would never don a micro-mini knowing that my legs are on the "heavy" side and I just end up looking like a plus-size hooker. So why are big girls wearing leggings (another nemesis!)? They must take forever to get dressed - hours in a hot bath, melting their thighs down to pour them into pants that are too tight! They always end up looking like they've got a corset on their bums! Now don't misunderstand me, I am not dissing the curvy among us, I am merely observing that just because its being sold in a size 40 doesn't mean it looks good.
About sizing. I have an issue with this. Mr Price would get a whole lot more of my patronage if they adjusted their clothing back to "real people" size! Most times I've got to take a 14! Not very good for my fragile, female ego. Hell, if I fitted into anything labelled 30 I would by seven in every colour they had just for the rush every time I got dressed.
Incidentally I was trawling the factory shop mecca in the south and ambled into a real swishy label outlet and the kind assistant asked if she could help. I said yeah sure I'm looking for jeans, I'm usually a 32/34. Then she committed the ultimate sin and handed me a 30! I told her I was flattered that she gauged me to be so skinny but that they wouldn't fit. She just winked and said huskily "just try them on would you". OMG, they fitted and I was shrieking in euphoria in the change room. I had a total Heidi Klum moment. Sadly they were too short (I am a rather tall animal - at least that's what everyone tells me) darn darn darn! But yikes it was lekker for a nanosecond. And ding dong...Vanity sizing.
This made think back to my aunt visiting from Canada a few years back and blowing the lid off what they term vanity sizing! A concept I can't say I'm against. So in South Africa you're a 10, in the UK you're a 12, in North America you're a 2 (mercy me!) but in China you're still a XXXXXXXXL! Like I say, wouldn't you want to stock up clothes labelled in Barbie size? Good way to start the day. Cheaper than cocaine. I still can't figure the size zero girls. What size is a zero anyway? Are these real people or do they inhabit lala cuckoo-land (again, just jealous!).
I am no fashionista. Post-partum I struggle to find anything vaguely flattering. It's like revenge of the body snatchers. Let's just say that bits and pieces didn't quite go back to where I expected them to. In a nutshell I ended up boobless with a muffin top! The King gets so mad at me because at the beginning of every season I just hit the cheapest outlet and pick up 5 t-shirts in different colours and choose a new skirt or two. I wish the cast of What Not to Wear lived in cupboard. I worship the ground Trinny and Susannah walk on. I must just add that it's no fun going clothes shopping solo. I need another bundle of oestrogen to tell me how wonderful I look and hear those coveted words " you have so gotta buy it!".
I need a new cozzie and funnily enough today I was chatting with 2 mates about this. You see I talked my dearest mama into buying a magic costume. She looks fabulous in it too. Basic black and I imagine her in her sunnies and wide-brimmed hat doing a Sophia Loren at the poolside. Now she's lucky. She's got a killer pair of pins and since having her gall bladder removed a year ago has lost a million kilograms! I am going to have to eat humble pie, gird my loins and go and try one of these cozzies on for myself. Sauce for goose and all. I am just weary that the science behind the costume will "magic" all my bits inside it. It's the bits on the outside I'm worried about. Perhaps I could suggest that they make an ankle-to-armpit version? They could make it all flesh toned and just make the cozzie bit a colour. Anyone got contacts at Woolworths? And as I write this the King quips from the sofa that if all else fails I can always just wear my scuba wetsuit!
As always, we can't all be perfect.
On a rare moment of solace, I took the time to browse the mall and was so bewildered by the 5th shop! What madness has overtaken the planet? Are all the retailer buyers doing acid during lunch because nothing seems to be made with me in mind. mWhat trippin' fool decided that Mercurochrome orange is the colour de jour this summer? Unless you have a deep, cancer-inducing tan you just look jaundice, or at least I do. Am I the only one?
The trends have all gone elasticated-ankles on us. Unless you're built like Madonna, it just looks doff. And why on earth would someone want to marry workout gear with the hallowed jean in the first place? Does Levi know of this travesty? I'm sure there are photos stashed in an old biscuit tin of my mother sporting this look in the late seventies and I am of the firm opinion that some trends go away to die in shame and this must be one of them. I also nominate the ever appearing catsuit be cremated too! Argh, they are awful. They are now making them in a hot-pant version so not only am I treated to a camel-toe exhibition but it now comes complete with a cellulite sideshow! Unless you're built like a stick insect in which case I'm just jealous so could you please stop parading your perfect body around me and go and eat a doughnut!
Know you limits I say. I would never don a micro-mini knowing that my legs are on the "heavy" side and I just end up looking like a plus-size hooker. So why are big girls wearing leggings (another nemesis!)? They must take forever to get dressed - hours in a hot bath, melting their thighs down to pour them into pants that are too tight! They always end up looking like they've got a corset on their bums! Now don't misunderstand me, I am not dissing the curvy among us, I am merely observing that just because its being sold in a size 40 doesn't mean it looks good.
About sizing. I have an issue with this. Mr Price would get a whole lot more of my patronage if they adjusted their clothing back to "real people" size! Most times I've got to take a 14! Not very good for my fragile, female ego. Hell, if I fitted into anything labelled 30 I would by seven in every colour they had just for the rush every time I got dressed.
Incidentally I was trawling the factory shop mecca in the south and ambled into a real swishy label outlet and the kind assistant asked if she could help. I said yeah sure I'm looking for jeans, I'm usually a 32/34. Then she committed the ultimate sin and handed me a 30! I told her I was flattered that she gauged me to be so skinny but that they wouldn't fit. She just winked and said huskily "just try them on would you". OMG, they fitted and I was shrieking in euphoria in the change room. I had a total Heidi Klum moment. Sadly they were too short (I am a rather tall animal - at least that's what everyone tells me) darn darn darn! But yikes it was lekker for a nanosecond. And ding dong...Vanity sizing.
This made think back to my aunt visiting from Canada a few years back and blowing the lid off what they term vanity sizing! A concept I can't say I'm against. So in South Africa you're a 10, in the UK you're a 12, in North America you're a 2 (mercy me!) but in China you're still a XXXXXXXXL! Like I say, wouldn't you want to stock up clothes labelled in Barbie size? Good way to start the day. Cheaper than cocaine. I still can't figure the size zero girls. What size is a zero anyway? Are these real people or do they inhabit lala cuckoo-land (again, just jealous!).
I am no fashionista. Post-partum I struggle to find anything vaguely flattering. It's like revenge of the body snatchers. Let's just say that bits and pieces didn't quite go back to where I expected them to. In a nutshell I ended up boobless with a muffin top! The King gets so mad at me because at the beginning of every season I just hit the cheapest outlet and pick up 5 t-shirts in different colours and choose a new skirt or two. I wish the cast of What Not to Wear lived in cupboard. I worship the ground Trinny and Susannah walk on. I must just add that it's no fun going clothes shopping solo. I need another bundle of oestrogen to tell me how wonderful I look and hear those coveted words " you have so gotta buy it!".
I need a new cozzie and funnily enough today I was chatting with 2 mates about this. You see I talked my dearest mama into buying a magic costume. She looks fabulous in it too. Basic black and I imagine her in her sunnies and wide-brimmed hat doing a Sophia Loren at the poolside. Now she's lucky. She's got a killer pair of pins and since having her gall bladder removed a year ago has lost a million kilograms! I am going to have to eat humble pie, gird my loins and go and try one of these cozzies on for myself. Sauce for goose and all. I am just weary that the science behind the costume will "magic" all my bits inside it. It's the bits on the outside I'm worried about. Perhaps I could suggest that they make an ankle-to-armpit version? They could make it all flesh toned and just make the cozzie bit a colour. Anyone got contacts at Woolworths? And as I write this the King quips from the sofa that if all else fails I can always just wear my scuba wetsuit!
As always, we can't all be perfect.
9 November 2011
Why do we do it?
I am by no means a model mother. In fact I am still waiting for the zen-earth-mother-experience to set in!
Her majesty is onto that testing stage. Old enough to babble, too young to be understood. I akin her frustration to that of stroke victims whose minds are still able but whose tongues are unwilling.
Not a day goes by that I don't consider quitting. Motherhood ain't for sissies and God only knows why I signed up for it full time. I must be some kind of stupid. Or secretly made of tough stuff I just haven't discovered yet.
I wonder how my mother muddled through without killing my sister and I at toddlerhood! But I can now relate to her then perceived moods.I commented to a friend on Facebook the other day that I wonder how people have more than one child. Are they mad????? Are they daft???? Are they seriously gluttons for punishment or did I miss some cosmic memo that promises a pot of gold and a day off?
I have learnt/am learning that children are embarrassing. Until they are old enough to understand social graces and decorum they basically make you cringe in a corner picking snot off their fingers with a smile on your face whilst hoping nobody noticed that they discovered the all-you-can-eat buffet up their noses.
Her majesty has just taken to licking the grass in our back garden. Hello? We have four dogs ranging from ankle height to jugular range. And they poo and pee all over the place. Why on earth would she want to ingest it? Is this normal? And yet I am often tempted to let her do it and get it off her to-do-list! Eat poo - check. Stick fingers up dogs' bum - check. Pull wings off a fly - check. Madness.
And all this being said I am thankful that I am surrounded by many other women at a similar life stage whose kids are being just as gross if not worse. Phew, thank heavens for that. While everyone is watching little Fred doing a Picasso likeness with his own poo, they haven't noticed that my princess has walloped an unsuspecting child with the xylophone and then dropped it for something seemingly more interesting. Attention span of a gnat!
I envy all those women swanning around in perpetual serenity. How do they do it? Do they have a closet drinking habit to help them cope because they must be doing something and you can't tell me they rely on the power of prayer and meticulous journal keeping. Lies lies lies I tell you.
In an effort to up my parenting ante I invested in the Supernanny book. I hold it in very high esteem. For a woman who has no training or children of her own she sure has the toddler brain sussed. Her techniques really work, if you have the inner strength to see it through. We now have a naughty spot and it works so well I am sometimes tempted to banish the king to it! Don't judge. It works for our family but it may not work for yours.
Life is fraught with struggle I am learning and for the most part I can take it all in my stride. I have a frustratingly understanding husband who is ever patient. But some days the wheels come off and I run out of funny. That obscure moment when you instantly lose the ability to laugh at yourself and situations and crumble like a cracker. This happens often too. I swear when I had my Caesar the doctor removed my coping mechanism!
But like all other full time moms I wouldn't change it for the world. I am tired all the time. I haven't had a full night's sleep since 2009. I can't remember when last the king and I went on a date. My beloved pets have been downgraded to just being dogs. I tend to bark orders like a Sgt, Major and have discovered my "Mommy Voice". I am a terrible person but this is what having children does to you.
PS. I think my bum is getting bigger. As if I don't have enough to worry about.
Toodles
Her majesty is onto that testing stage. Old enough to babble, too young to be understood. I akin her frustration to that of stroke victims whose minds are still able but whose tongues are unwilling.
Not a day goes by that I don't consider quitting. Motherhood ain't for sissies and God only knows why I signed up for it full time. I must be some kind of stupid. Or secretly made of tough stuff I just haven't discovered yet.
I wonder how my mother muddled through without killing my sister and I at toddlerhood! But I can now relate to her then perceived moods.I commented to a friend on Facebook the other day that I wonder how people have more than one child. Are they mad????? Are they daft???? Are they seriously gluttons for punishment or did I miss some cosmic memo that promises a pot of gold and a day off?
I have learnt/am learning that children are embarrassing. Until they are old enough to understand social graces and decorum they basically make you cringe in a corner picking snot off their fingers with a smile on your face whilst hoping nobody noticed that they discovered the all-you-can-eat buffet up their noses.
Her majesty has just taken to licking the grass in our back garden. Hello? We have four dogs ranging from ankle height to jugular range. And they poo and pee all over the place. Why on earth would she want to ingest it? Is this normal? And yet I am often tempted to let her do it and get it off her to-do-list! Eat poo - check. Stick fingers up dogs' bum - check. Pull wings off a fly - check. Madness.
And all this being said I am thankful that I am surrounded by many other women at a similar life stage whose kids are being just as gross if not worse. Phew, thank heavens for that. While everyone is watching little Fred doing a Picasso likeness with his own poo, they haven't noticed that my princess has walloped an unsuspecting child with the xylophone and then dropped it for something seemingly more interesting. Attention span of a gnat!
I envy all those women swanning around in perpetual serenity. How do they do it? Do they have a closet drinking habit to help them cope because they must be doing something and you can't tell me they rely on the power of prayer and meticulous journal keeping. Lies lies lies I tell you.
In an effort to up my parenting ante I invested in the Supernanny book. I hold it in very high esteem. For a woman who has no training or children of her own she sure has the toddler brain sussed. Her techniques really work, if you have the inner strength to see it through. We now have a naughty spot and it works so well I am sometimes tempted to banish the king to it! Don't judge. It works for our family but it may not work for yours.
Life is fraught with struggle I am learning and for the most part I can take it all in my stride. I have a frustratingly understanding husband who is ever patient. But some days the wheels come off and I run out of funny. That obscure moment when you instantly lose the ability to laugh at yourself and situations and crumble like a cracker. This happens often too. I swear when I had my Caesar the doctor removed my coping mechanism!
But like all other full time moms I wouldn't change it for the world. I am tired all the time. I haven't had a full night's sleep since 2009. I can't remember when last the king and I went on a date. My beloved pets have been downgraded to just being dogs. I tend to bark orders like a Sgt, Major and have discovered my "Mommy Voice". I am a terrible person but this is what having children does to you.
PS. I think my bum is getting bigger. As if I don't have enough to worry about.
Toodles
26 September 2011
What's for dinner?
I am a self-diagnosed OCD perfectionist. I am sure I may fall short of the actual medical requirements but if spending your life feeling like a loopy headcase is enough then I most definitely qualify.
In line with this behaviour I agonise over what's for dinner each night. True. Some friends (you know who you are) may argue that it's simply because house-wifery is dead boring and I obviously have nothing better to worry about. What with everyone else breaking their noggins over world peace and the state of the National Health System, I feel I can leave well enough alone. But alas, dinner is one of my top frets.
When I do the weekly shop I break the week down into meals and try to shop accordingly.
When I open my wee lids each morning, one of my first thoughts is "what's for dinner?". Forget the need to be thankful that another beautiful day has dawned and I am alive.
When I'm at a mates' having a cuppa I wonder what's for dinner.
When we're eating dinner, I ask his majesty what he wants for dinner tomorrow.
And if his majesty surprises us all and arrives with dinner then it really throws me off kilter. It takes me days for my mental menu to get back on track.
What's for dinner, what's for dinner, what's for dinner?!!??!?!?!??!
Tonight it was crust less tuna pie......very yummy. And tomorrow its pork steaks with roasted veg and tatters. Just in case you were wondering.
I am I the only daft fool who does this?
I gingerly add that I also worry that none of the "black" in my wardrobe matches. Life is too short some may say but unfortunately this is how I am wired.
In line with this behaviour I agonise over what's for dinner each night. True. Some friends (you know who you are) may argue that it's simply because house-wifery is dead boring and I obviously have nothing better to worry about. What with everyone else breaking their noggins over world peace and the state of the National Health System, I feel I can leave well enough alone. But alas, dinner is one of my top frets.
When I do the weekly shop I break the week down into meals and try to shop accordingly.
When I open my wee lids each morning, one of my first thoughts is "what's for dinner?". Forget the need to be thankful that another beautiful day has dawned and I am alive.
When I'm at a mates' having a cuppa I wonder what's for dinner.
When we're eating dinner, I ask his majesty what he wants for dinner tomorrow.
And if his majesty surprises us all and arrives with dinner then it really throws me off kilter. It takes me days for my mental menu to get back on track.
What's for dinner, what's for dinner, what's for dinner?!!??!?!?!??!
Tonight it was crust less tuna pie......very yummy. And tomorrow its pork steaks with roasted veg and tatters. Just in case you were wondering.
I am I the only daft fool who does this?
I gingerly add that I also worry that none of the "black" in my wardrobe matches. Life is too short some may say but unfortunately this is how I am wired.
12 August 2011
Senseless
I am now getting over what was either a millions bouts of mini-colds or one REALLY long one.
Anyhoo this one really did a number on the old bod. And quite literally rendered me senseless.
Firstly, my sinuses were so clogged and backed up that I honestly was convinced that I may never again enjoy smelling my supper. Or my really expensive Dolce & Gabanna perfume. I must say I would've been more shattered over the perfume actually.
I am also just getting over the loss of hearing. Because of the pressure in my noggin, my ears got blocked with fluid - the left one is still not playing nice yet! - and I couldn't really hear much. The hearing loss just had to coincide with Sissa's 30th birthday weekend and a mega gathering which, while charming, brought me to a social impasse. Because I was temporarily deafened I kept asking people to repeat themselves. The "pardon me?" and "excuse me's?" were beginning to wear on peoples nerves. I could tell. I also have a keen sense that my Father Darling thought I was scuppered! Looking back I think I mustv'e looked sozzled too!
This also added to strain between His Majesty and I. You see I normally maintain that he suffers from selective deafness, a terrible male disorder. But when I kept asking him to repeat himself I could tell he was loving this shoe-on-the-other-foot skit. All at my expense I add!
Another funny thing happened during all of the fluid and mucous and such-like wonderful side effects. I lost my sense of taste. This was new. It also had to happen on the day when I made a super-duper coffee mousse. The entire time I was eating it I kept repeating to myself that this must taste like chocolate surely. My tea tasted like boiled water without the trimmings! And His Majesty was pushing me to test the scientific research that suggests when you can't smell anything you can't taste it either. Well, luckily I stuck to my guns and the onions got a reprieve. But even I was tempted.......just to try!
All of this sensory deprivation also needed to take place on a day when it was so bone-achingly cold that I couldn't feel my fingers or feet. Just my luck! So bye bye touch!
It was also the week I lost my precious specs. So I was blinded, to a certain degree too.
And His Majesty being a real boy wanted to try the funky monkey with me in this state! I did a double take?!?!? Like, I can't believe you want to play the nookie card when I'm feeling like death with legs! He maintained that a good bout of exercise would exorcise the virus from my system. What is it about men who can rationalise just about ANY daft and would be catastrophic situation as a reason for horizontal experimentation. I am neither going to confirm or deny whether the act took place. We can talk about that one a whole 'nother day.
Tally - no smell, no taste, no proper vision, no hearing and practically no touch - although thank heavens that was just temporary!
I have consumed enough ginger to make Asia blush. Gone through what seems like zillions of homeopathic "pilluiles" and enough triple ply tissues to keep the Carlton/Twinsaver company in the black for a very long time.
Tick tock 'til the next infection. I am trying to be a good girl and eat my vegetables but some days the wheels come off and I know I am going to get sick anyway!
I am much better now. I am doing research on music therapy. I have found that a mix of Alice In Chains and the Muse seemed to make me feel a whole load better. Now I just need to compile a hit list for tummy bugs and I'm set.
Anyhoo this one really did a number on the old bod. And quite literally rendered me senseless.
Firstly, my sinuses were so clogged and backed up that I honestly was convinced that I may never again enjoy smelling my supper. Or my really expensive Dolce & Gabanna perfume. I must say I would've been more shattered over the perfume actually.
I am also just getting over the loss of hearing. Because of the pressure in my noggin, my ears got blocked with fluid - the left one is still not playing nice yet! - and I couldn't really hear much. The hearing loss just had to coincide with Sissa's 30th birthday weekend and a mega gathering which, while charming, brought me to a social impasse. Because I was temporarily deafened I kept asking people to repeat themselves. The "pardon me?" and "excuse me's?" were beginning to wear on peoples nerves. I could tell. I also have a keen sense that my Father Darling thought I was scuppered! Looking back I think I mustv'e looked sozzled too!
This also added to strain between His Majesty and I. You see I normally maintain that he suffers from selective deafness, a terrible male disorder. But when I kept asking him to repeat himself I could tell he was loving this shoe-on-the-other-foot skit. All at my expense I add!
Another funny thing happened during all of the fluid and mucous and such-like wonderful side effects. I lost my sense of taste. This was new. It also had to happen on the day when I made a super-duper coffee mousse. The entire time I was eating it I kept repeating to myself that this must taste like chocolate surely. My tea tasted like boiled water without the trimmings! And His Majesty was pushing me to test the scientific research that suggests when you can't smell anything you can't taste it either. Well, luckily I stuck to my guns and the onions got a reprieve. But even I was tempted.......just to try!
All of this sensory deprivation also needed to take place on a day when it was so bone-achingly cold that I couldn't feel my fingers or feet. Just my luck! So bye bye touch!
It was also the week I lost my precious specs. So I was blinded, to a certain degree too.
And His Majesty being a real boy wanted to try the funky monkey with me in this state! I did a double take?!?!? Like, I can't believe you want to play the nookie card when I'm feeling like death with legs! He maintained that a good bout of exercise would exorcise the virus from my system. What is it about men who can rationalise just about ANY daft and would be catastrophic situation as a reason for horizontal experimentation. I am neither going to confirm or deny whether the act took place. We can talk about that one a whole 'nother day.
Tally - no smell, no taste, no proper vision, no hearing and practically no touch - although thank heavens that was just temporary!
I have consumed enough ginger to make Asia blush. Gone through what seems like zillions of homeopathic "pilluiles" and enough triple ply tissues to keep the Carlton/Twinsaver company in the black for a very long time.
Tick tock 'til the next infection. I am trying to be a good girl and eat my vegetables but some days the wheels come off and I know I am going to get sick anyway!
I am much better now. I am doing research on music therapy. I have found that a mix of Alice In Chains and the Muse seemed to make me feel a whole load better. Now I just need to compile a hit list for tummy bugs and I'm set.
11 August 2011
Struggles
Dear Fans and followers
Sorry about the long leave. Between losing the goggles and family visits I simply havent had the time.
I am working on my next piece as we speak!
Sorry about the long leave. Between losing the goggles and family visits I simply havent had the time.
I am working on my next piece as we speak!
11 July 2011
The Help
Now I am not a stupid girl. I also used to be one of independent means too. I had no want for anything really. But being an utter and total control freak I have never been able to hand the state of our household over to anyone else. I also get a creepy feeling at the thought of someone other than his majesty knowing where I keep my "kinky knickers" if you know what I mean!
Sometimes life has cruel quirks. After vehemently denying the need for a a maid/servant/domestic for years I have now found I have inadvertently become one.
His majesty is a very spoilt boy in some regards. He will argue black is white that I am Hitler incarnate but the way I see it he's got it pretty cushy.
Back to controlfreakamania - I am wanting to get this named as a real syndrome. I do EVERYTHING in our house. Not only did I give up my most precious possession, aka my body, to bring forth our offspring but I am starting to believe I lost a fair amount of my sanity too! I will give you an example of an average weekday. Weekends sometimes go a little off kilter because of the excess of testosterone lounging in my bed at 7am, but this is a story for another day.
Righty-o -here we go :
Hear the princess babble from her room
Lie in bed in attempt at denial
fall out of bed, trip over his majesty's discarded work boots (that he left out whilst dressing this am and couldn't be bothered to put back!)
Knock shin on kist at foot of bed
Use the s-word against my better judgement as princess will start chirping it in a matter of seconds
Go and see to the princess
Dress the princess
Drag my sorry ass to the kitchen where I make podd-idge for the little miss and attempt to procure the biggest serving vessel i can find for a cuppa for myself
skip breakie, as usual, crave a cigarette (old habits die hard!)
feed the princess and try to drink my cuppa before she can pour it over me
go to bedroom and attempt to dress
have to repeatedly hand the princess things as she keeps pointing to the wardrobe and babbling incoherently
succeed in slapping on a pair of jeans, t shirt, cardie and some boots - somehow got the undies on too without too much hassle - her majesty likes to put my knickers on her head and run away (this is alarming for the neighbours as I have to chase her to get them back)
Brush teeth with madam grabbing my toothbrush
try to have a wee - not easy with an audience, albeit helpful as she keeps trying to pull up my pants
back to kitchen to wash dishes from night before and breakie
sort laundry and out a load on to wash
entertain madam
try to hang out laundry while madam screams for kitchen gate - i do not let her outside because i just cant face picking up doggie do at 7am!
the rest of the day pretty much consists of entertaining the madam, cleaning up after her and doing the odd bit of housework, spiriting up fab supper from next to nothing most of the time, and some days even slapping on some panstick before his majesty arrives at the door and gives me the what-have-you-been-doing-all-day look.
I get tired just listing it all never mind doing it.
I clean the loo, I wash the windows, I do the laundry, I have even been known to whip out the iron on the odd occasion too, I feed the dogs, I polish, I scrub and I don't ask for anything in return. Well, at least not often.
I must be some kind of stupid. I ask myself this daily. Whilst men scoff that marriage is the last legal form of slavery I often wonder if they have considered the gender roles reversed. Is it us keeping them at heel or the other way around.
Yes, I have deduced that I am indeed a slave. I work for a minor and sleep with the boss. I get no pay, no allowance, no severance of any kind. I am not entitled to sick leave and right now I am convinced that the only vacation I will ever get may honestly start in a morgue.
All things considered, I DO THIS WILLINGLY! Shocking I know but it's true.
And tomorrow I get to do it all over again, RINSE, LATHER and REPEAT! Yippee lucky me.
Sometimes life has cruel quirks. After vehemently denying the need for a a maid/servant/domestic for years I have now found I have inadvertently become one.
His majesty is a very spoilt boy in some regards. He will argue black is white that I am Hitler incarnate but the way I see it he's got it pretty cushy.
Back to controlfreakamania - I am wanting to get this named as a real syndrome. I do EVERYTHING in our house. Not only did I give up my most precious possession, aka my body, to bring forth our offspring but I am starting to believe I lost a fair amount of my sanity too! I will give you an example of an average weekday. Weekends sometimes go a little off kilter because of the excess of testosterone lounging in my bed at 7am, but this is a story for another day.
Righty-o -here we go :
Hear the princess babble from her room
Lie in bed in attempt at denial
fall out of bed, trip over his majesty's discarded work boots (that he left out whilst dressing this am and couldn't be bothered to put back!)
Knock shin on kist at foot of bed
Use the s-word against my better judgement as princess will start chirping it in a matter of seconds
Go and see to the princess
Dress the princess
Drag my sorry ass to the kitchen where I make podd-idge for the little miss and attempt to procure the biggest serving vessel i can find for a cuppa for myself
skip breakie, as usual, crave a cigarette (old habits die hard!)
feed the princess and try to drink my cuppa before she can pour it over me
go to bedroom and attempt to dress
have to repeatedly hand the princess things as she keeps pointing to the wardrobe and babbling incoherently
succeed in slapping on a pair of jeans, t shirt, cardie and some boots - somehow got the undies on too without too much hassle - her majesty likes to put my knickers on her head and run away (this is alarming for the neighbours as I have to chase her to get them back)
Brush teeth with madam grabbing my toothbrush
try to have a wee - not easy with an audience, albeit helpful as she keeps trying to pull up my pants
back to kitchen to wash dishes from night before and breakie
sort laundry and out a load on to wash
entertain madam
try to hang out laundry while madam screams for kitchen gate - i do not let her outside because i just cant face picking up doggie do at 7am!
the rest of the day pretty much consists of entertaining the madam, cleaning up after her and doing the odd bit of housework, spiriting up fab supper from next to nothing most of the time, and some days even slapping on some panstick before his majesty arrives at the door and gives me the what-have-you-been-doing-all-day look.
I get tired just listing it all never mind doing it.
I clean the loo, I wash the windows, I do the laundry, I have even been known to whip out the iron on the odd occasion too, I feed the dogs, I polish, I scrub and I don't ask for anything in return. Well, at least not often.
I must be some kind of stupid. I ask myself this daily. Whilst men scoff that marriage is the last legal form of slavery I often wonder if they have considered the gender roles reversed. Is it us keeping them at heel or the other way around.
Yes, I have deduced that I am indeed a slave. I work for a minor and sleep with the boss. I get no pay, no allowance, no severance of any kind. I am not entitled to sick leave and right now I am convinced that the only vacation I will ever get may honestly start in a morgue.
All things considered, I DO THIS WILLINGLY! Shocking I know but it's true.
And tomorrow I get to do it all over again, RINSE, LATHER and REPEAT! Yippee lucky me.
5 July 2011
Razor
I sometimes whine to his majesty that I want to be the boy! Just without all their fiddly, delicate plumbing.
I can see it, no having to do your make-up, agonising over whether you need to start applying your winter foundation because your tan has gone into hiding. No having to whip out the self-tanner because your skin has now taken an oddly green palour due to vitamin D deficiency. No having to shave 96,4% of your body hair either.
Who deemed that girls had to be furr-free anyway. I bet it was a man. I bet it was the same bloody daft tool who gave us waxing and eyebrow tweezing too.
I have bony legs, or knees at least. No matter how podgy I get above or below the patella, my knees remain knobbly and un-shaveable. I end up with copious blood-loss and serious sense of humour failure just trying. And won't you know it if his majesty will always notice that I my knees are fuzzy. "I see you skipped a spot" he will always say.
I have tried most things. Hair-removal creams that reek. They create a cloud around you that seems to announce "I-HAVE-JUST-USED-DEPILATORY-CREAM-KEEP-AWAY!". It stinks when you use it and stink for days afterwards. So that's a no. Same goes for self-tanner quite honestly.
I have tried the preferred method of the celeb and saved my follicles for waxing. The concept is horrible and the pain is blinding - especially your armpits! What they don't tell you about waxing is that after they have wrenched you precious downy hairs from your legs and other regions, it makes the roots super sensitive. So you don't just get the goosebumps, you get the SUPER goosebumps...You only get it on the waxes zones. So if its cold a blustery day and you've had a Brazilian only 5 sleeps prior you may produce an odd smirk when the wind changes because the SUPER goosebumps are kicking in!
So that leaves shaving. Now I have tried many types of razor. The fancy ones with the guy-wires that are meant to save your life, pffffffffffft NOT! I have even used his majesty's open blade, purely for academic reasons of course. He says I blunt the blade with my wiry leg stubble. Suppose now is not a good time to inform him that I have used it on the nether region too(?). I just can't get no satisfaction in this regard. I by no means have high faluting standards on grooming, I am merely after a happy medium.
So at the start of every winter I declare that I have shaved my last til spring. I imagine all the millions we will save on razors and loo paper (to patch my knees). I fancy I can keep warm with all the extra body hair I will be conserving and I will no longer agonise on how to keep my socks up my legs - they can simply grip onto my "wigglies". But his majesty, true to form, wishes me well but add that I will de-fuzz before the week is out because I just can't take it. And he's right.
I feel like a failed feminist. I must also add that I decided to stop wearing a bra too, on account of the fact that my boobs have all but disappeared. This is not going well either.
I am such a girl.
I can see it, no having to do your make-up, agonising over whether you need to start applying your winter foundation because your tan has gone into hiding. No having to whip out the self-tanner because your skin has now taken an oddly green palour due to vitamin D deficiency. No having to shave 96,4% of your body hair either.
Who deemed that girls had to be furr-free anyway. I bet it was a man. I bet it was the same bloody daft tool who gave us waxing and eyebrow tweezing too.
I have bony legs, or knees at least. No matter how podgy I get above or below the patella, my knees remain knobbly and un-shaveable. I end up with copious blood-loss and serious sense of humour failure just trying. And won't you know it if his majesty will always notice that I my knees are fuzzy. "I see you skipped a spot" he will always say.
I have tried most things. Hair-removal creams that reek. They create a cloud around you that seems to announce "I-HAVE-JUST-USED-DEPILATORY-CREAM-KEEP-AWAY!". It stinks when you use it and stink for days afterwards. So that's a no. Same goes for self-tanner quite honestly.
I have tried the preferred method of the celeb and saved my follicles for waxing. The concept is horrible and the pain is blinding - especially your armpits! What they don't tell you about waxing is that after they have wrenched you precious downy hairs from your legs and other regions, it makes the roots super sensitive. So you don't just get the goosebumps, you get the SUPER goosebumps...You only get it on the waxes zones. So if its cold a blustery day and you've had a Brazilian only 5 sleeps prior you may produce an odd smirk when the wind changes because the SUPER goosebumps are kicking in!
So that leaves shaving. Now I have tried many types of razor. The fancy ones with the guy-wires that are meant to save your life, pffffffffffft NOT! I have even used his majesty's open blade, purely for academic reasons of course. He says I blunt the blade with my wiry leg stubble. Suppose now is not a good time to inform him that I have used it on the nether region too(?). I just can't get no satisfaction in this regard. I by no means have high faluting standards on grooming, I am merely after a happy medium.
So at the start of every winter I declare that I have shaved my last til spring. I imagine all the millions we will save on razors and loo paper (to patch my knees). I fancy I can keep warm with all the extra body hair I will be conserving and I will no longer agonise on how to keep my socks up my legs - they can simply grip onto my "wigglies". But his majesty, true to form, wishes me well but add that I will de-fuzz before the week is out because I just can't take it. And he's right.
I feel like a failed feminist. I must also add that I decided to stop wearing a bra too, on account of the fact that my boobs have all but disappeared. This is not going well either.
I am such a girl.
29 June 2011
Flashlights
I often maintain that his majesty and MacGyver were separated at birth or possibly even just closely related. I am in awe his majesty; at his ability to fashion some semblance of fire out of what appears to be garden detritus and how he can spirit up a walking stick out of a warped twig and a grotty old shoelace. He is also of the distinct mantra "be prepared" and as such ours is a home often kitted out to Armageddon-ish degrees.
Thus, we have often got a surplus of flashlights - or had before we moved. Torches. Call them what you will.
Now I am by no means unreasonable with his majesty's insistence at keeping these, I merely develop great irritation at the fact that they seldom if ever are in working condition. And they usually display the said broken down tendencies at stupid 'o'clock. When you really, really, really need them to work.
The Mother-In-Law (hereafter referred to as the MIL) graced him a million candle power specimen for his birthday one year. I still argue what a townie like him would possibly need a million candle power torch for? But hey, what do I know. And whilst it was in working order (albeit brief) the local wildlife were subjected to nightly raids of their privacy. I am quite surprised we were not sued by some passing owl for retinal scarring and loss of condition due to starvation, a direct result of it's inability to hunt.
Or how about the G**E special he bought that never worked and he kept meaning to return and simply never did.
Or the lantern-like item we got for the power cuts of 2008 whose battery just died one night and has never been able to charge since. Yes, still got that one!
The list goes on. At the height of his collecting zenith his majesty had about 8. And only 1 was ever able to sputter out a barely visible flicker. I think I could've shoved a lightbulb into my belly button, clicked my heels 3 times and produced a far superior glow!
I am a practical person of form and function. If something breaks, fix it, replace it and if it beyond feasible correcting then for heavens bloody sakes CHUCK IT OUT. But nooooooooooooo. You see I married into a family of hoarders. The MIL's very own house is populated by mutilated figurines of hippos missing legs, carvings cracked and split out of years of moving, broken furniture, chipped ornaments and dented silverware. But you can't throw any of it away! Shock, horror! And my own family is just as bad. My father (now partially cured, thank goodness) would replace appliances as they broke, but...he would keep the old one, you know, just in case he needed it say for I dunno, a reunion of old tedelex tv owners?!?! Wait for it. He still has the component HI-FI he bought in 1982 (?). I am doubtful as to which bits are still functional, but he's still got it.
Back to our flashlights. Post move we cleared out, reduced our possessions to a mere third of what we originally owned. Heartbreaking though it was for me, I think his majesty suffered most. You see he was forced to rid us of some of his beloved torches. Now, one would think the old, damaged, not working, never-going-to-find-a-new-battery-for-it, etc ones would go. Guess again. We are now left with a black ensemble that can either be used a free weight or doubles as a nightstick ( I swear you could kill someone with it if you tried) - this one does not work at present. Nor will it ever because it takes those HUGE round batteries that look like silos and cost a fortune. We are also left with a quaint green version of the black night stick. It too does not work as years ago the glass thingy above the bulb broke and after the little madam had at it recently, the bulb blew. This too will never be fixed as it has been relegated to his majesty's cupboard - a place I like to call "The-Place-Where-Broken-Things-Go-To-Die" so I don't figure seeing it anytime soon.
So I am now left to rely on my cellphone back light in the dead of night.
The flashlights now lie, broken, in the cupboard for our next move. No they will not be disposed of, they will not be repaired, they will simply become one of those annoying items that just moves with you wherever you go.
Thus, we have often got a surplus of flashlights - or had before we moved. Torches. Call them what you will.
Now I am by no means unreasonable with his majesty's insistence at keeping these, I merely develop great irritation at the fact that they seldom if ever are in working condition. And they usually display the said broken down tendencies at stupid 'o'clock. When you really, really, really need them to work.
The Mother-In-Law (hereafter referred to as the MIL) graced him a million candle power specimen for his birthday one year. I still argue what a townie like him would possibly need a million candle power torch for? But hey, what do I know. And whilst it was in working order (albeit brief) the local wildlife were subjected to nightly raids of their privacy. I am quite surprised we were not sued by some passing owl for retinal scarring and loss of condition due to starvation, a direct result of it's inability to hunt.
Or how about the G**E special he bought that never worked and he kept meaning to return and simply never did.
Or the lantern-like item we got for the power cuts of 2008 whose battery just died one night and has never been able to charge since. Yes, still got that one!
The list goes on. At the height of his collecting zenith his majesty had about 8. And only 1 was ever able to sputter out a barely visible flicker. I think I could've shoved a lightbulb into my belly button, clicked my heels 3 times and produced a far superior glow!
I am a practical person of form and function. If something breaks, fix it, replace it and if it beyond feasible correcting then for heavens bloody sakes CHUCK IT OUT. But nooooooooooooo. You see I married into a family of hoarders. The MIL's very own house is populated by mutilated figurines of hippos missing legs, carvings cracked and split out of years of moving, broken furniture, chipped ornaments and dented silverware. But you can't throw any of it away! Shock, horror! And my own family is just as bad. My father (now partially cured, thank goodness) would replace appliances as they broke, but...he would keep the old one, you know, just in case he needed it say for I dunno, a reunion of old tedelex tv owners?!?! Wait for it. He still has the component HI-FI he bought in 1982 (?). I am doubtful as to which bits are still functional, but he's still got it.
Back to our flashlights. Post move we cleared out, reduced our possessions to a mere third of what we originally owned. Heartbreaking though it was for me, I think his majesty suffered most. You see he was forced to rid us of some of his beloved torches. Now, one would think the old, damaged, not working, never-going-to-find-a-new-battery-for-it, etc ones would go. Guess again. We are now left with a black ensemble that can either be used a free weight or doubles as a nightstick ( I swear you could kill someone with it if you tried) - this one does not work at present. Nor will it ever because it takes those HUGE round batteries that look like silos and cost a fortune. We are also left with a quaint green version of the black night stick. It too does not work as years ago the glass thingy above the bulb broke and after the little madam had at it recently, the bulb blew. This too will never be fixed as it has been relegated to his majesty's cupboard - a place I like to call "The-Place-Where-Broken-Things-Go-To-Die" so I don't figure seeing it anytime soon.
So I am now left to rely on my cellphone back light in the dead of night.
The flashlights now lie, broken, in the cupboard for our next move. No they will not be disposed of, they will not be repaired, they will simply become one of those annoying items that just moves with you wherever you go.
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