Various

It's my birthday tomorrow. It feels like it sort of sneaked up on me this year. I can't believe it's already near the end of August! I'll be celebrating tomorrow evening at dinner with my parents, brother, TSC and my grandparents (who are here in Gauteng for this weekend's rugby). Will be fun!

The ghostwriting is going well. I am busy with chapter seven (of 10) and enjoying it, although it really does take up SO MUCH time. It's worked out well - TSC is busy with loads of tests now that class has resumed at UJ, so while he studies at night, I work. The trick is to find the time to unwind before bed, or we both can't sleep because we're still thinking about hydrology (in his case) or whether the last paragraph made sense (in my case).

I have a question about blog protocol (and please bear in mind that this is not specifically related to any particular blogger or post - it's something that I often wonder about)... How does one handle protected posts (you know, when a WordPress blogger writes a post that requires a password to read it)? I read quite a few bloggers who occasionally make use of protected posts, and I'm never sure what to do. Do you wait for the person to email you the password? And if they don't, do you assume you were never intended to read the post? Or do you email the blogger and ask for the password. Or is that pushy? And does it put the other person in a difficult spot if they don't want to give you the password?

Internet etiquette is complex!

Thought I'd leave you with this. Made me smile (pics from Inception):

"Still?!"

One of the best lines from Slumdog Millionaire.

But I am referring here to my headache, which started last Monday and has continued without pause. And it's still here. So you'll have to excuse me if I don't continue this post. Have to find some painkillers.

Have a fab weekend, everyone. Try to behave yourselves.

Happy April Fool's Day

May the pranks that are played on you not be too nasty. Anyone have any they'd like to share?

If not, read up on some of the world's best here. My favourite is the 1957 BBC Panorama piece on Switzerland's little-known spaghetti harvest!

I took pics of the chocolates we made last night and even remembered the camera cable for a change. But I forgot the camera at home. Chop.

Will post them later.

I leave you with this comic, from Toothpaste for Dinner, which could do well as a Windhoek ad:

Happy St Patrick's Day!

I hope you all have a grand day filled with leprechauns and green beer (if you drink enough of the latter, the former is quite likely).

And here, in honour of the day, are some wee Oirish jokes fer ya:

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman were reading a newspaper article about which nationalities' brains were for sale for transplant purposes. An Irishman's or a Scotsman's brain could be bought for £500 but an Englishman's brain cost £10,000. That proves,' said The Englishman, 'that Englishmen are much cleverer than Irishmen or Scotsmen.' 'No it doesn't,' said The Irishman, 'it just means that an Englishman's brain has never been used.'


Joey-Jim was tooling along the road one fine day when the local policeman, a friend of his, pulled him over. "What's wrong, Seamus?" Joey-Jim asked. "Well didn't ya know, Joey-Jim, that your wife fell out of the car about five miles back?" said Seamus. "Ah, praise the Almighty!" he replied with relief. "I thought I'd gone deaf!"



Two Irishmen, Patrick & Michael, were adrift in a lifeboat following a dramatic escape from a burning freighter. While rummaging through the boat's provisions, Patrick stumbled across an old lamp. Secretly hoping that a genie would appear, he rubbed the lamp vigorously To the amazement of Patrick, a genie came forth. This particular genie, however, stated that he could only deliver one wish, not the standard three. Without giving much thought to the matter, Patrick blurted out, "Make the entire ocean into Guinness Beer!" The genie clapped his hands with a deafening crash, and immediately the entire sea turned into the finest brew ever sampled by mortals. Simultaneously, the genie vanished. Only the gentle lapping of Guinness on the hull broke the stillness as the two men considered their circumstances. Michael looked disgustedly at Patrick whose wish had been granted. After a long, tension-filled moment, he spoke: "Nice going Patrick! Now we're going to have to pee in the boat!





And to end, an Irish blessing for you all:

May joy and peace surround you,

Contentment latch your door,

And happiness be with you now

And bless you evermore.

Why is always the irritating songs that stick in my head?

And does anyone know of a good dentist in the Fourways / Bryanston / surrounding area? Please mail me at doodles of a journo at gmail dot com if you have answers to these deep and meaningful questions. Thanks.





I thought seeing my brain has turned itself off today (like our electric gate, it tends to play up when it's raining), I would leave you with something that made me smile:



Have a good Thursday.

Me on movies

Yesterday we had no phones / internet at work for most of the day. Not Telkom's fault this time. Now that the overdue account has been settled we're back online. Which is great - most of the stuff I do depends on either phone or internet.

I'm using this as a getting-up-to-speed post on a few movies I've seen lately because I can't keep my opinions to myself. Your opinions are also welcome, of course.

Ice Age 3:
I was not expecting much from this movie. The second sequel is usually not worth watching, in my opinion. But I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. It's not brilliant, by any means, but it is an enjoyable, silly candy-floss film. And it's nice to see one of those every once in awhile. My only real bone with it is that Diego didn't get as many good lines... he's my favourite :-)

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian:
I didn't choose to see this movie. The first one was more than enough for me. But we have a chap called Vusi staying with us for a few days (helping TSC to paint the house) who has never been to the cinema before, so we took him to Montecasino to see this one. He loved it, and watching him laugh made me laugh too. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Daft, but with a few good laughs. I wouldn't recommend it, but I'm glad Vusi enjoyed it. Afterwards he said, "Everything else seems so small now, after that big screen!"

Seven Pounds:
We took this out on DVD over the weekend because people keep telling me "you HAVE to see it!" I don't know why, actually. It wasn't great. Without spoiling things, as soon as I saw the jellyfish and took notice of the all the sick folks, I guessed the supposed "big twist ending", so there were no surprises for me. When a movie is supposed to be a surprise, not having one kind of makes it pointless. It was just long and sad. So we watched Crocodile Dundee II afterwards and the total eighties corny-ness (yes, it's a word. In my world) of it all banished the misery of Seven Pounds.

What movies have you seen lately that are worth watching?

If we had a South African version of Crocodile Dundee, I'm sure this type of scene would appear in it... (In fact, I think there was something in one of Schuster's flicks)...

Weird things I've seen on my way to work

Seeing my office is literally about 3 km from home, you'd think that there wouldn't be much to see on my way to work in the mornings. But you'd be wrong.

• A businessman in his suit, standing next to his shiny BMW and taking photos of the road. I have no clue why. Maybe he has a pothole fetish. If so, he'll be blissfully happy in Johannesburg.



• One of those huge trucks that has ramps on the back and transports a bunch of cars at once, which got stuck in the cul de sac where we live this morning. It was empty of cars, but I have idea why it came down our little dead end. And I have no idea how it will get out again. It's probably still there.



• An incredibly fat man who I see trying to jog down the road every morning, his stomach bouncing against his legs as he runs. I want to cheer him on - I think it's awesome that he's so dedicated. You go, guy!



• The granny power-walking club, all wearing their luminous yellow bibs, who weave along the main road, hips swaying and arms pumping. It's so cute!



• A bunch of guys in orange suits sweeping the exact same spot of the road every day. Either it gets really dirty overnight or they're actually secret agents scoping out the dodgy looking business across the road. These are the stories I make up to amuse myself in the bumper to bumper traffic.

Funnily enough, I never seem to see weird stuff on my way home. I guess all the nutjobs only come out in the mornings ;-)

The circle of life?

Yesterday saw one resignation and one newbie joining the company.

Interesting times. But then again, in the world of marketing and communications, drama is the norm, no?

Have a fabulous Chewsday... Like Toby ;-)

200th Post

Yep... This is my 200th post on this blog. It came a lot faster than the 100th post. Happiness ;-)

But also a bit of sadness... I lost a follower today. *sniff*

Concentrating on the happy stuff though - tomorrow is Friday!

Here's a funny for you:

How to make twins...

Christmas humour

Have a jolly Friday. See you when I see you!

Weekend catch-up

What a busy weekend it was! Most of it pleasant, though.


The one exception was Friday afternoon. I received a letter from the attorney handling my property transaction on Wed, telling me that I urgently needed to go to the city council to set up rates, electricity and water accounts in my name. So I book Friday afternoon off to do that and TSC and I head to the ugly governmental building in the centre of town (a 30 min drive from us) to go and do the rates and water accounts, seeing we've already done the electricity.


As we arrive, it starts bucketing down with rain. There's no undercover parking in sight, so we make a dash for the entrance and get soaked to the bone. At reception we are told that we are in the wrong building and must go to a building in the next street. Seeing the rain is coming down like cats and dogs, we climb back into the car, drive around the block and park outside the entrance to the correct building. We run inside, now completely wet.


At reception we are told that we are at the wrong entrance. It's the right building, but they won't let us walk through it to get to the department we need to be at, we must run around the outside of the building in the pouring rain and go through the other entrance.


So we do. And we get the correct form, fill it in and stand in line. There are two people at the counters for registration and deposits. There are three people in the queue in front of us. A full hour later, we finally sit down with the man who can help us.


"Why are you here?" he asks, having scanned through our form.
"To register the rates in our name," I say, thinking that he is a useless power-tripping bureaucrat.
"But that happens automatically," he says. "You don't need to be here. You need to be opening your water account."
Seething inwardly, I smile politely and say, "But the attorneys said I needed to be here. Uhh... so where do I open my water account?"
"I don't know why they told you that. You need to go to *address* to open the water account. But it's 15h30, so they'll be closed now."
"Oh, ok. Well... thanks for your help, I guess."


Stupid damn attorney. What a waste of time and petrol!


We then sat in Friday afternoon traffic for an hour and a half to get home. And I have to trek back into town again today to do the water account. And they can't tell me how much the deposit will be. And they don't take debit or credit cards. They only take bank guaranteed cheques or cash. Why must they make everything so difficult? I know, I know... Because they can.


Anyway... Friday night was spent making a last few pieces of jewellery to sell at the Christmas market on Saturday, and I ended up packaging and sorting my wares until 2am. Saturday morning I had to be up early to get to the house and set up my stuff. We didn't have that many people turning up, but I made good money and will now be able to spoil TSC for Christmas. Yay!

Then my folks dropped off some curtains they've donated to us (we're their top charity cause) and after a quick lunch with them, we rushed off to the Bloggirls Christmas event. What fun! It was awesome to meet everyone's partners and kids and to hook up with one or two blog ladies I hadn't met before. We were ridiculously late and it poured with rain, but much fun was had by all and we arrived home to two very hungry kitties at about 10pm.

Sunday after church we spontaneously had a bunch of people around for lunch, which was entertaining amidst all the boxes. I ran around like a headless chicken looking for things like the grater, a vase and my hairdryer to restart the fire when the rain and then hail arrived (this always seems to happen when TSC and I are at a braai). It was lovely to have people in our house for the first time and I can't wait to have a proper house-warming party early next year.


This morning at 2am, TSC left to go to Namibia to renew his blasted driver's licence, and I didn't manage to get back to sleep after that. I would so like to be doing this right now...










But work is beckoning, so I must do some writing. We close at the end of the week for Christmas holidays, so there's lots to be done before then. Have a great week!

And the winners are...

Sass is the winner of the purple bracelet with matching earrings, and Gill is the winner of the blue chain necklace. Well done, ladies, and thanks for entering.

Please email me at doodlesofajourno@gmail.com with your postal address so that I can get your prize to you.

I have no real news otherwise. I'm in that end of year slump. So I leave you with this:

Daydreaming of my duvet

I didn't get a wink of sleep last night. My dear demented cat, Marble, went missing. He's a house cat and only gets to go out when we're home, so we usually know where he is. He's back now (he arrived at 5am this morning in the pouring rain), but between my lack-of-sleep headache, the miz weather and the flickering flourescent lightbulb, I am twitching like I've been plugged into an electric socket.

My monitor seems to be reaching out to me through the glass and then swirling itself around while flashing a bright white light. Soon it will start singing... "Lucy in the sky with diamonds..."

Hmmm... I guess this is kind of what tripping on LSD feels like. Anyone with experience wish to comment?

Celebrations

Today is my first blogoversary. Yup... exactly one year ago I began this blog adventure. It has been supremely awesome thus far.

This was my first ever post.

I don't think I realised that it was Halloween when I wrote that, but it does make the date easier to remember now.

Here's a Halloween pic for you - what happens when pumpkins get pissed. Have a fab weekend.

Explanation and stuff

So I was bleak yesterday.

See, I got an email from an ex-colleague, L, who was very upset with me because she thought I'd stolen her story idea. I'd also be upset if I thought someone had hijacked my article proposition, but the truth is that we both happened to suggest the same person as a source for two very different stories. It's more complicated than that, but I'd rather not get into it because it will just bore you and have me in tears.

Anyway, I admire this ex-colleague and was gutted to discover she was cross and hurt because of me, especially seeing I honestly had no idea she would be offended. It came as a huge, out of the blue shock, especially because she informed me that my ex-boss is also hurt and offended. I felt like the time I came flying off my bike on a steep hill, landed on my back on the road and winded myself. My worst feeling in the world is disappointing someone, especially when it's someone I respect and I haven't even known that I'm hurting him or her.

On top of that, my two-year old nephew has been in hospital for a few days with a hectically high temperature. He was fitting and swallowing his tongue, but doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong, even after lumbar punctures and loads of blood tests. Thankfully he's out now and is doing much better, but his parents have driven him to Bloem to have him checked out by a specialist who also doesn't know what's been going on. The conclusion seems to be that it was a virus, so hopefully it's over and gone now.

And then I realised that the company where I work probably won't give us anything extra for Christmas, which means I won't be able to spoil TSC for our anniversary or go away aside from our holiday with my in-laws. Joy.

Then I discovered that I needed to drive out to one of our clients in Meyerton (about an hour and a half's drive) this morning, which hacked me right off, seeing petrol costs a flippin fortune.

But, after arriving home and crying myself to sleep, I awoke to find TSC at home. He cuddled me and took me out for sushi before our church meeting and made me feel so much better. And then I realised that although this feud with L still hurts like hell, my problems could be infinitely worse and that I am blessed to have such an amazing husband, two crazy cats, a wonderful family, fantastic friends and many other good things in my life.

And then the trip today ended up being a really nice break from the office and a fantastic chance to bond with my new colleague, let's call her Icing (seeing she loves nothing better than to frost a cake).

And then I got this in my inbox, which just made me smile:

I've seen it before, but I'm a twisted freak and this never fails to get a giggle out of me.

See y'all tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have time to catch up on my blog reading from today.

"Why is it that weekends go by so fast?"

I find myself asking this question every Monday morning as I stumble out of bed and trip over one of my cats (they lie there on purpose, I tell you).

This weekend was good. My folks are back from their holiday and it sounds like they had a great time. We had dinner with them on Friday evening and they showed us all their photos. Jealousy! They brought us a beautiful hand-crafted blue glass bowl that I can't wait to display in the new house, and TSC got a gorgeous belt, some chocolate and a "funny" T-shirt very similar to this:

Unfortunately, none of the shirts they bought me really fit, but my mom found the cutest little brooch. Will have to take a pic and post it.

And my dad, who is the world's greatest car fanatic, gave the thumbs up on the repairs to my Ella*. Which is great, because he didn't actually know that aside from the bumper that got scraped in the pothole, I also had the left side of the car fixed where I scraped it on a pillar in the parkade. I figured that if he didn't notice, I was safe.

Little did I know that my mother had told him about the second incident! All that skulking around for nothing! What a waste of my talents in the sneakiness department.

Truth be told, I'm actually glad he knows. But he doesn't know that I know that he knows. Did you follow that?

Well, I just saw that I have an award from Kitty Cat (yay! Two awards in two weeks), so my Monday is ok thus far. Hope you all have a fabulous week!

Says it all...

Too full of yet another head cold to write more bull.

Friday post

Wow! Another week has flown by. So loving some of the clients I'm working with (including the one with the blog). Not so much the one that's been giving us headaches because of an ad they flighted that has caused much offence. But I've learnt about PR crisis management.



In other news, I'm giving a beading lesson at the office this afternoon. Yay! I think the last time I gave anyone a lesson was in varsity. BossChick had this awesome idea of doing something creative every Friday, so last week we iced cupcakes and this week we're beading. I've brought a huge bag full of my bead boxes to the office, which I had to sort through last night. Poor TSC waited for ages for me to come to bed, because I was happily seated on the living room carpet, surrounded by beads and two naughty cats that were trying to steal them.



Grand Prix this Sunday. Yay!



Anyway... Friday Funny:

I [particularly like this pic, coz the kitty looks just like my Marble.

Random thought

First Monday in the new office

Seeing I started the new job last Tues, this is my first Monday in the office. So far, so good. I had my first status meeting, which was actually a lot of fun (especially since I brought home-made cake - the bribery starts). We have a chill room, filled with beanbags and stability balls, and everyone is very honest and open, which is cool.



The end of last week was quite hectic, and I had my first taste of PR crisis management, which was thrilling, if a little stressful. The weekend was good - we had a potjie and wine lunch on Sat, which was lots of work, but lots of fun. And we wtached loads of DVDs and chilled, so I got a bit of rest, which I think I really needed. I forget how much energy big changes take out of me!

Here's a Vernie pic for you...