Greetings, Blogland

It's been years since I've gone so long between posts, but I promise you it wasn't intentional. Communication has proved difficult in the last week or so thanks to various factors, such as the fact that my phone started giving me issues and wouldn't let me send or recieve SMS, the work internet was down due to a Telkom problem and I'd used up my ADSL cap at home and the Telkom online recharge facility was not working. Have I ever mentioned how much Telkom frustrates me?

So I would like to use this post to say the following:

• Happy belated 30th birthday to Phillygirl. Sorry it's a week late. I promise that I thought of you on 26 April all day. Hope the year ahead is super awesome in every way.
• Sorry to anyone who has emailed / SMSed me and not received a reply yet. I am working my way through the backlog and hope to get there soon.
• Where the Wild Things Are is one of the weirdest movies I have seen. Ever.
• Packing up a company takes more work than I would have believed. And more boxes.
• Throwing things out / donating old stuff / recycling is cathartic.
• May scares me. There is so much I need to get done this month that I just want to crwal under my winter duvet and keen. It's less than a month till my World Cup visitors arrive. Eep!
• This freezing cold weather is making me grumpy.
• I have no idea what to get my mom for Mothers' Day.
• I am tempted to click "mark as read" on the hundreds of items in my feed reader.
• I managed to get to 10 bullet points. Yay! 10 points for me.

Status: alive, if not kicking

Hello internet people. Sorry for the absence. I was knocked flat by a most revolting case of gastroenteritis and have been living on meds and dry toast for the past few days. But I'm back now. Just so you know. And I'll be back in the office tomorrow, which is probably a good thing. Cabin fever sucks.

That is all for now.

Back I am!

Yoda-style.

Just wrote a looooong post, but it's all aggro and stuff, so I'm going to leave it in my drafts for a while before I decide whether to publish it or not. It's once again about babies, offspring and other people's expectations. And that's all been said before. Besides which, it's always a sensitive subject. Right now more than ever on the blogosphere.

So publish it now I will not. But read your blogs I will.

Expect a proper post tomorrow. Maybe.

I feel like a new person

My big freelance project is almost over. I have done my bit and the work is now with the 20-odd people I had to interview. While making corrections from all these people and following up so that I can get final copy to send to the magazine will be a royal pain, at least I know the writing is done and the ball is now no longer in my court.

*huge sigh of relief*

Also, things appear to be more stable at the morning job, which is good, seeing I haven't known if the company would survive beyond this month until now.

All in all, I am feeling infinitely better. TSC and I had a relaxed braai at home last night with a bottle of good red wine, my fabulous strawberry and avo salad and some chilled music. It did me the world of good to not work until late in the night and actually unwind a bit.

Now I can concentrate my efforts on preparing TSC's birthday present for Monday. I LOVE organising presents and spoiling people I care about. Oh, and I can also give some attention to my other clients, who have had to take backseat for the past three weeks.

Human again

Sorry for the extended absence. It turned out that I didn't have TSC's headcold, but a lovely case of gastric flu. The range of symptoms is impressive - from nausea to fever, diarrhoea, aches and pains, blocked sinus, headaches, coughing, dizziness and general misery... Fun.

At least it's not malaria. The doc did a blood test to check. I am such a baby with needles I was more scared of the jab than the possibility of malaria. At least the nurse was quick. She didn't even give me a chance to swoon ;-) And I tried a new doctor. My other one is lovely, but I feel like she just wants to put me on antibiotics everytime there's the slightest hint of a cold.

Today I feel a bit better. I can actually walk downstairs without holding the handrail and managed to sleep through the night with no rushing to the bathroom or sweating the sheets wet. Progress!

I am thoroughly bored of daytime TV though. What crap! Is it just me, or do all soap operas share one script-writer? I don't know the names of any of the characters, but the plots are pretty much identical.

At least I can think straight enough to do some work today. Sorting through emails... exciting stuff. I am more cheered by the thought that I can do some blogreading. Yay! Off to do that now.

She lives (although her technology doesn't)!

I am not dead, in case you were wondering. Please excuse my long absence from the blogosphere. It was due entirely to happenings outside of my control, namely:

• Despite every effort at flu prevention, I ended up getting sick after all. Flu plus a nasty ear infection and impressively disgusting sinusitis meant that I was confined to bed for a couple of days. Seeing Hellkom STILL hasn't sorted out my DSL at home (7 weeks now since I ordered it), I had no internet. Hence no blogging.
• We moved offices. And I still don't have access to my own work email or internet connection, more than a week later. Hugely frustrating. Hellkom, the devil of an IT guy and various other evil forces have conspired to keep me unconnected from my beloved intertubes. I am currently writing from a colleague's PC. Yes, every other person in the office is hooked up, except me. NOW do you believe me that technology hates me?
• TSC is away for a varsity practical week, so I have been in hibernation, enjoying my own company and not really communicating with anyone other than the voices inside my head.
• Aliens abducted me and removed the part of my brain that blogs, leaving me without anything worthy of writing.

Ok, so I made the last one up. Partly.

But just so you know... I am alive. In the same way that the hopes of the Azanian Peoples Organisation of winning the upcoming national elections are alive... Not really.

This has proven one thing to me. There is life away from the intertubes. It's just not that exciting ;-)

I will try to blog again soon. Hopefully I get internet access on my own computer this week. And once that happens, I will begin the slow task of trying to catch up on all my blog-reading.

Back at the Blog

Wow... Reader is full to the brim of posts I've missed. Inbox is overflowing with spam. January weekends are already fully booked...

2009 is truly here.

Retreating under desk...

Returned from a long absence

Hello loyal readers *she says optimistically*, especially Charmskool, Phillygirl, Angel, Boldly Benny and Sleepyjane (who were kind enough to leave a comment on yesterday's pathetic three-line post). After temporarily falling off the face of the earth, I am back in blogland.

has been a busy period indeed. I am on day two at the new job. So far, so good. I went to my first client meeting this morning, which I really enjoyed, and I like the people I'm working with. In true blogger fashion, I will come up with suitable nicknames for them in good time. Today, I'll start with my new boss, who calls eveyone 'chick' or 'dude', which is slightly bizarre coming from the company MD. So, very unoriginally, she will henceforth be known as Boss-Chick. She is very cool and bluntly honest. I foresee a time when I will need to tell myself "don't take it personally" when she exercises that particular character trait, but at least I always know exactly where I stand with her.

In other news... If you haven't see Kung Fu Panda, you HAVE to see it. Laughed my butt off, Well, actually I unfortunately didn't managed to rid myself of my behind, but I got a great ab workout. Jack Black was the perfect casting choice, as was Dustin Hoffman. Hubby and I saw it on Friday night, and it was a great start to the weekend.

Speaking of hubby... I have decided he needs a better nickname too. Any suggestions? Here are some facts that may help in procuring him a worthy name:

• He is a big, strong rugby player of an Afrikaans man;
• His parents are sheep farmers in the Northern Cape;
• He is currently studying;
• For the past few years he has worked in the construction industry;
• He likes to think of himself as a rough and tumble kind of guy, but he turns into a gooey softie when he cuddles our kitties;
• He also turns into a big puppy when near baby doggies, rolling aorund on the floor with them and making dog sounds;
• It took him six months to remember my name when we met during our gap year;
• We hated each other when we met. It took a slap for us to get along;
• After four months of long distance dating (which sucked) at the beginning of our romantic relationship, he completely freaked me out my telling me I was the woman he wanted to marry;
• He has a complex about his chin. For some reason, he thinks it's too big. I, of course, reckon it's perfect;
• He sucks at suprises;
• He doesn't read any of my work. In fact, he doesn't read. This studying thing will be interesting.

I look forward to your suggestions!

Internetlessness sucks eggs

As much as I slag Eskom off, Telkom deserves a beating too.





Sorry for the absence of a post yesterday, but dear Telkom stuffed up and cut off our ADSL because they decided we hadn't paid. Numerous phonecalls later, and much quoting of reference numbers by our harried accountant, we are online again. But I'm still not happy about the fact that our business (and my blogging!) grind to a halt until they shuffle their papers around and realise that proof of payment is staring them in the face. Makes me wanna pull a crazy recluse ketteh stint and lock myself away. Not sure about the house full of ladies though.





Growl*.





Anyway, I must go catch up on everyone else's blogs, but first, my exciting news for the day: We've booked into a guest farm for two nights of the long weekend and I CANNOT WAIT! I just need to escape the city and my routine for a bit to get some fresh perspective and have a bit of a rest. So looking forward to it.





Have a fab Tuesday, people!





*Does anyone else remember how Ling (Lucy Liu) used to growl in Ally McBeal? So wish I could do that ;-)