TSC graduated last night

National Diploma in Civil Engineering.

I couldn't be prouder.

Assorted updates

Hello people. Happy Valentine's Day.

How do you feel about V Day, out of interest? I have mixed feelings. I love the idea of a day to celebrate love, spoil TSC and eat chocolate. But I hate the plastic roses and restaurants filled with smug couples and drunk singles offering exhorbitant V Day set menus.

It's a day that makes some people go totally overboard with cheesy rhyming Hallmark cards and stuffed toys, while others go overboard in the opposite direction with the whole I-hate-V-day-because-it's-a-commercialised-marketing-ploy-to-pressurise-us-into-buying-things-covered-in-red-hearts-and-remind-us-that-Hollywood-love-is-a-lie rants.

I'm somewhere in between.

I flat out refuse to go to out for dinner on V Day (have you ever seen how many couples end up in huge fights in restaurants on V Day?) and I won't let TSC buy me the ridiculously priced red roses (I'd rather have sunflowers). And I love it when the day falls on a week night so that there's not as much fuss about it.

But we do spoil each other a bit because it's fun. I woke TSC up this morning with bodem coffee and breakfast in bed, along with some little presents and a homemade card, and he made me a card and earned big brownie points with a gift voucher for me from Rain.

This evening we'll enjoy a candlelit dinner of Woolies readymade yummies on our veranda with a bottle of bubbly so there's no cooking or cleaning.

For me, that's perfection.

After such a hectic week and weekend, it's nice to have a chilled night at home planned. It's been such fun seeing friends, meeting new people, hosting big dinner parties, doing supper club and catching up with people we haven't seen in years over the past few days, but now I'm quite peopled out for a bit.

We've also been exercising hard. We did a killer V-core class at gym on Thurs and I had an equally hectic aqua step class on Fri (so much fun though!). By the time we woke up on Saturday morning, I was painfully stiff. But we headed off to a special Battle of the Sexes training event where we got pushed through an obstacle course, running drills, sit-up and push-up events and more. I was so glad to have a Pilates class yesterday just to stretch all my poor exhausted muscles. Still stiff today though! But it feels good (the exception being my pathetic feet, which are in spasm again. Joy).

In other news, I have to admit that I have become a convert. From hating my BlackBerry to embracing the joys of BBM, whatsapp and not having to rush home to check my work emails, I am convinced, especially since I've managed to set up the predictive text on my phone. Now all I miss about my ancient Nokia is the one-handed typing.

What's new in your world?

Urgh.

I have spent the last day and a half between bed and bathroom with a horrible gastro bug. This is the second time this year! At least it's taught me something - if we ever redesign our bathroom, it should be so that I can sit on the loo and throw up into the basin or bath at the same time.

Sorry for that charming mental picture.

My cats and my husband have been wonderful. TSC has sorted himself out for food (me standing in the middle of the kitchen bent over, trying to control my gag reflex was probably some indication that I was not up to the task of cooking), done the pharmacy run for me, fed me dry crackers and Lucozade (the only things I've been able to keep down), undertaken all chores and generally been an absolute sweetheart. I don't like being crowded when I'm sick, so although his instinct is to cuddle me, he's learnt to give me space.

My cats, the darlings, plonked themselves on each side of me on the bed and put up with my feverish tossing and turning, taking turns to follow me to the bathroom each and every time I got up. They seemed to know I needed their furry distraction, although Sapphire did take it too far at one stage.

I had just showered and washed my hair (not by choice - it had puke in it. Lovely) and ventured into my office to check emails (I have a big story deadline coming up and I was waiting for some responses from interviewees). I suddenly felt very hot and dizzy, so I lay down on the carpet. I still had my towel on my head and Sapphire thinks that all towels are hers, so when I lay down, she promptly climbed onto the towel, on my head, and happily starting kneading away and purring. She wasn't even fussed by the strange noises I was making - somewhere between a moan, a gag and an attempt at a giggle.

Today I'm feeling a bit better. Thank you Lucozade and Petrolyte (an amazing concoction, that besides tasting and looking like banana-flavoured cement mix, worked wonders for my stomach). My stomach is still bloated, aching and generally unhappy, but at least projectile activities have ceased from the various orifices. The fever comes and goes, but the nausea is much improved.

The caffeine from two glasses of Lucozade has given me more of a buzz than my usual morning coffee, and although the head is fuzzy and the body sore, this self-employed chick has got to get back to work, so off I go.

But I thought seeing I've probably grossed you out with this post, I'd leave you with something from my inbox to make you smile:

Weekend happenings and various random metaphors

The weekend felt like a very welcome water stop in the middle of a marathon - we were briefly refreshed and hydrated before hitting the road running again on miserable old Monday.

I don't know what I would do without TSC. Seeerrriousssly. When I arrived home on Friday I was bushed. I felt about as fabulous as a wrung out dishrag. And he let me drag myself up the stairs, throw myself on the bed and immerse myself in my book for a bit of an escape while he stacked the dishwasher and made supper - courgettes stuffed with mince. Yum! Then we watched a couple of Scrubs episodes to laugh a little and went to bed. Happy days.

Something else I realised again this weekend is that we generally get along with people who are older than us better with people our own age. There are exceptions. We have close couple friends Brett and Kim who are of similar age to us. But most of our friends are older. For example, we had our neighbours, let's call them The Italians, for supper on Saturday. They're a couple in their late 50s and are closer to my parents in age than to us. But we get along like a house on fire. They only left at midnight once we'd all devised a plan to bomb the new warehouse shopping centre should it ever come into being.

On Sunday we slept in.

I felt that sentence deserved its bold font.

It was wonderful. I have missed spending quality nap time with my bed. And my pillow. And, of course, my lunatic cats who climb on top of me and poddle away when I'm trying to snooze. As someone once said, "There's no such thing as a snooze button on a cat that wants breakfast."

We also went for a picnic at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens with my folks. It was my dad's idea. I was surprised, seeing he's not generally one for finger food or sitting on the ground. But a great time was had by all. After some delicious chilled wine, samoosas, roast chicken sandwiches and then candied cashew nuts (dessert), TSC and my dad were so relaxed that they fell asleep on the picnic blanket. My mom and I went for a walk to the waterfall and brought ice-cream back with us.

On Sunday evening we also had pizza with some mates after church at Ciro's - one of my favourite local spots. It was good to chat about stuff on our minds with other people (also much older and wiser than us). We needed it. I think they needed to share too.

Monday morning was a smack with a frying pan after such a great weekend. It was my only free night of the week. We have meetings galore this week and I'm on a few freelance deadlines too. Plus I am supplying Roo's birthday cupcakes. So I had better hop to it and do some work.

I can spot an oasis in the distance though - this weekend we're going camping. Yay! No emails, no meetings... can't wait.

I have a new ADSL router!

Which means home internet is up again. Which means that after a busy, rubbish day yesterday, I am calmer today.

And my tickets to Taste of Joburg ARE for Thursday. I was right the first time. Not sure how I ended up convinced they were for today. I think it's because I thought it started on Thurs, then found out it actually starts tonight, so assumed that our tickets were for the first day. *sigh* Senior moment.

Feeling a little down today (probably the weather and lack of sleep), so thought I'd list some of my reasons to smile:

• It's pay day!
• I just discovered that Neurofen makes a nice uber-strong period pain pill. That should assist in lifting the mood at certain times of the month.
• I have a new router. I know I said this already, but now it's a Telkom one, so if I have problems and call their help line, they might actually know how to help me (as soon as they hear you have a private modem, they're not interested).
• We're going to Taste of Joburg tomorrow and we can make life group tonight. Planning on showing the group an interesting DVD, so glad we won't miss the discussion. And popcorn!
• Our new once-a-week gardener is brilliant! He works hard and does a neat job so I can do the things I enjoy in the garden on weekends instead of the hard work (which I was doing with the previous gardener who hardly ever lifted a finger).
• I sent out my invoice for the big project that was stressing me out so mych a few weeks ago, so should get paid for my efforts soon.
• Roo is back today (she was off for a religious day yesterday) so the office is less deadly quiet.
• I have the most awesome husband I could wish for - despite my foul mood yesterday (I was so snappy with him when he was trying to "help" me set up the new router), he still agreed to come with me to the church new members' evening and work onmy laptop in the background, just so we could have a bit more time together. And when we got back, he ran us a hot bath and helped me clean up. He is truly the best.

Yay... feeling a bit better just reading all those things.