Having a great weekend cont.

After a very frenetic Saturday, what with the baking, watching Rugby, making of headboards and such. We woke up on Sunday morning, with a mission on hand. Grant went off to collect the shelves he had ordered on Saturday and Jordy & I were off to Fourways to get the remains of "The List". Bearing in mind Jordy had two projects due for Monday (and sorry sweetheart, but had left it till the last minute yet again). We got home, popped the Roast Chicken potatoes and sweet potatoes (all prepared by Jordy) into the oven to cook slowly for dinner. I started cooking a broccoli & Cheese pie, whilst doing this Jordy and I got started on her tie dye project (seriously people, for those of you who ever need to do this for any reason. Do it outside, it is really messy, and was not a very good idea to do it in my kitchen on my cream granite tops). Project number one complete. Whilst I was pittering around my kitchen, Grant decided to start putting up the new shelves in the Gym. I in the mean time start making a pot of soup, whilst Jordy starts doing research on her History speech on "The United Nations and how it is involved in Humanitarian Rights". Next minute, I hear my name being screamed (very unlike Grant to scream, so I got a big fright) followed by a very loud rushing water sound (that frightened me even more). Grant had unfortunately drilled through a water pipe, and to make matters worse it was the hot water that was gushing out of the wall onto our wooden floors (I didn't think it was appropriate at this point to run and get my camera, to be able to post it on my blog, so ran to get towels) however here we were with water gushing everywhere, extension leads and plugs lying in the water, so not very safe at all (put my welly boots on as I thought at least it would earth me, these welly boots are really coming in handy). I ran and got every towel we have in the house, Jordy had to push a whole pile of towels against it to hold back the water, whilst Grant ran up to the pump house to switch off the water mains, this didn't stop the water as it must have been coming from the geyser (what with it being so hot) so two buckets later, the water eventually stopped coming out of the wall, and allowed us to then spend the next I don't know how long cleaning this lot up, really not the way I planned on spending the rest of my Sunday. Found a really nice plumber chappie who said he would come out, which he did and he had it fixed in almost no time at all, and he even cleaned up after himself. Anyway, got everything back to normality eventually and we all sat down to a lovely meal, followed by the Sunday night movie. So not a bad day after all (just a little hiccup, in between).
Till next time
xoxo

Having a great weekend, cont

Lovely, yummy raddish open sandwiches on french bread and muldon salt mmmm

Nice and clean, straight from the garden

For some reason, couldn't finish uploading pics for my previous post, so thought perhaps a new post would help.

Till next time

xoxo

Having a great weekend

Yup nice and pink

This looks ready

Out at the vegetable patch at 8:00 pm

Welly boots on (we do have snakes you know)

So much fun

Watching the Smurfs (Blue Bull's) vs the Stormers Super 14 Final

The finished head BoardMany hands make light work

Suede, Foam Mattress, Chipboard and a strong staple gun

Love working together

OK, so the icing job was a mess, but still tasted yummy

The cake before the icing (kind of looks like a cake, hey)

Nothing like making a cake in your PJ's

look see, cake mix (still amazing to me)

Lets get this done, I feel like some cake

Friday night, lovely dinner with the family, opened a nice bottle of red wine and after dinner had a hankering for cake, so, off I went to the kitchen to attempt baking a cake (please remember, I don't bake), and lo and behold, although it sort of was lop sided, and broke a part a little, it smelt like a cake, sort of looked like a cake, however icing a cake after a bottle of red wine, perhaps not such a good idea. Tasted like it should, looked perhaps like it had been iced by someone who had drunk a bottle of red wine. But pudding was had by all.

Saturday morning, off with a mission to re-do my head board, what fun. Got an urge while I was at Chamdor getting suede for my headboard to re-do Jordy's Lounge, so black suede for her window seat, 13 meters of Black curtaining material and a very large black rug later, it was now necessary to go off and get accessories for her lounge. So off to Mr P Home who just happened to have Silver and black scatter cushions and accessories (nothing to do with my Reticular Activation System, whatsoever, of course), back home, made the headboard. Watched the blue Smurfs win the Super 14 with my in-laws. Then I decide I felt like a radish sandwich, so on with the welly boots, out to the vegetable garden, picked some radishes, came back in and made myself some radish sandwiches with Maldon Salt. mmm such a good day.

Mission set for tomorrow, get Jordy's lounge re-done !!!!

Till next time

xoxo

Blessings in disguise

I am very blessed in so many ways, and this week was no different. A while back I get an email, inviting me to attend a two day course called "Investment in Excellence", no info supplied on what it is, what it is for or anything (honestly I didn't ask either and pretty much ignored it) get a second email inviting me to attend another two days for this course, by now I am thinking "Yeah right, like I can afford to take four days out of the office", this to be followed by another email saying there is an additional five days two weeks after that. So nine days in total over a four week period, Mad I tell you. So yes, again this wasn't a priority (didn't know what it was, what it was for and was far too long to be away from the office) until I got the call saying, this actually wasn't negotiable, had to cancel all meetings on these days and attend. So off I go to the Pacific Institute on Wednesday (still not knowing what this was about) to find the next two days were life altering. This program is about being the best version of your self you can be and reaching your true potential and the techniques they give you are truly amazing. I look forward to the next two days in eager anticipation (The following five I found out were facilitator training, so I can be trained to train the course, myself). This came about at exactly the right time in my life, it is almost karmic, still trying to get my head around how aligned this is to what I need right now. Really amazing...
Till next time
xoxo

Quiting Smoking One day at a Time (day 2)

I have been smoking for many more years than I would like to admit, however Grant has always said that he would give up smoking when he turned 40 (I think at the time it seemed so far off it wasn't scary) so I said I would give up with him as I didn't think that it would be fair for him to give up and me smoke around him. So the big day came and went and I have now had my last cigarette at 7 pm on Sunday 23rd May 2010. It is now 25th May and let me tell you, it really isn't easy. However I need to do this for so many reasons. They say if you want to give up smoking you should write down the reasons why, so here goes
1. Health reasons: I am a fully fledged chronic Asthma sufferer and am the last person who should be smoking. My lungs probably look like some very over done, burnt steaks at this point of time
2. It smells: my house smells, my carpets smell, my curtains smell, my furniture smells. I smell, my hair smells, my clothes smell. I don't want to smell like cigarettes
3. Financial: between the both of us we are effectively spending about R.1 400 a month on effectively something that is killing us (are we mad) we could rather spend that on going out for lovely meals
4. Fitness level: I am very unfit, could possibly cycle my bike to the top of the driveway before collapsing on the floor. So by giving up smoking I hope to feel much healthier and then can actually start using the trampoline, treadmill, stationery bike, yoga balls, mats etc that I have in my gym (biggest white elephant ever that gym)
5. Social Aspect: very few, and I mean very few of our friends smoke anymore, they have all gradually given up and stuck to it, so going out for dinner now becomes a non smoking event (which Grant and I have to excuse ourselves from to go out side and smoke). Smoking anywhere has become so difficult that it really just isn't worth it any more
6. Apparently after stopping smoke your sense of smell and taste will improve

So here goes, I will wake up each morning and say "Today I will not smoke" and will hopefully be one of those successful quitters, who gained back control of their life. Wish me luck as this is going to be a bumpy ride.
Till next time
xoxo

My darling husband turns 40

It's my party ......

and we'll dance, dance ........

and dance some more ........

and some more ........

emmm Ozzy your hair turned pink

Debs & I (and this was before we opened the Moet)

Eddie, Jason, Ron

Andrew & the Rubiks cube cake

up, up and away

at least one of us was focused

Cally & I

Hayley, Stephanie & Debbie

Oooo a bottle of Moet, mmmmm

Patsy & Indiana (aka Mum & Dad)

Doing 80's punk in style

Laura & Kian

Donna & Debbie

Couldn't keep the boys from peeping at the Rugby score

Glen getting ready to carve Darryl/Larry II

Nice Pose Dad

Ann & I

Grant obviously enjoying himself

Hayley

Glen & Debs

Georgina & Trish

Michael, Andrew & Dean

George & Dave

Yvonne, Caroline, Val & Cheryl

Cally, CJ & Ross (Ozzy)

Dad with Darryl or is it Larry II

Ghostbuster (Grant, aka Birthday Boy) Patsy (Mum) Indiana Jones (Dad)

Cindi Lauper (Jordyn-Leigh, she really is a very beautiful young lady)

My darling hubby turned 40 on 23rd, so we invited close friends and family round for an 80's themed dress up party. For all the moaning and groaning (about dressing up) that I received from everybody, they were outstanding, what a fun, mad, evening.

Till next time

xoxo

Time for a holiday

Between work deadlines and organising things for Grant's Birthday party, and, and, and, I feel like a holiday is definitely required. So I am on the lookout for somewhere to go. I have applied for leave, (just waiting to see if it is approved). I am convinced that with the poor take up of holiday destinations for the Soccer World Cup, that the market is about to be flooded with really good specials, so for the first time ever, I am going to book leave and then decide where we are going to go to (how adventurous). We have also decided that we are going to go away, just the three of us (never done that either) and we are going to just relax and unwind and spend quality time together as a family. I see boardgames, roasting marshmallows over a wood fire, large mugs of steaming hot chocolate, perhaps a book or two and long walks in my future.
Till next time
xoxo

My new toy - are you ready for your close up ...

If you are going to blog, you need a camera. Right ? Well I don't have one, Jordy does, a lovely little pink one. Grant has two (a film one and a digital one, both of which are rather large ones that really need to be lugged around). So I asked very nicely this morning if I could have a little one that I could pop in my bag, so I could take pics whenever the fancy took me. Got the go ahead :), popped downstairs to our little C N A and bought myself a little Nikon. Very cute little thing that has 12 megapixels (apparently this is a good thing), 3.6x zoom and really is a click and go type camera. So I am very chuffed with my new toy. Took a picture of the sushi I had for lunch, don't think I focused it very well though, however by the time I uploaded the pic and realised, there was no going back for take two, as the sushi had already been been consumed.

Till next time

xoxo

Lunch today, mmm, sushi