Multimedia Post

First, you HAVE to watch this super awesome music video made with jelly bean stop-animation (yes, you read that right):

Wrote this yesterday...

...But my internet went down for most of the day. Am posting this from an internet cafe before I head home to fight with Telkom some more. Joy.

It has been a really eventful weekend. I feel completely exhausted, actually. But the majority of the weekend was good fun, so it was worth it.

My jewellery sale on Saturday was pathetic. I made a fraction of the sales I made last year and feel very bleak about it all because it impacts on my Christmas presents and holiday spending money. That said, I feel even worse for the other folks who were selling because they didn't do well either.

I'm not sure whether it was the super hot weather, the fact that it's the middle of the month or whether there were other things happening on the day, but turnout was poor. And then we had some drama too...

One of the ladies who lives in our complex, Jolie, is from the Democratic Republic of Congo and is a French speaker. Her English is quite poor, but between my extremely rusty French and her Pidgin English, we can usually get by just fine and we've become fairly friendly. We'll stop and chat if we see each other, but we're not at a point where we visit each other or have phone details etc.

Anyway, I saw Jolie on Friday and invited her to pop in on Sat, which she did. She seemed fine when she arrived, but said she wasn't feeling well. She couldn't, however, articulate her symptoms and I gathered from her gestures that she felt a bit dizzy or had a headache.

She spent about half an hour browsing through jewellery with one of my neighbours, Rosanna, and tried on various things. Then she said she really wasn't feeling well. Rosanna gave her some sugar water and she said she thought she's better go to the doctor. I followed her to the front door and as she walked out, she collapsed. A friend and I managed to each grab an arm as she went down, so she didn't hit her head on the ground, but we couldn't support her dead weight. Brett, who was displaying his photos, picked her up and carried her to the couch.

Thankfully one of my mates, Shannon, was there and worked as a paramedic for many years, so she knew what to do and propped Jolie's feet up on some pillows and took her pulse, which was racing. I managed to get her to take a few sips of water, but she wouldn’t' eat anything and Rosanna said she apparently hadn't eaten all day. We thought it might be low blood pressure, low blood sugar and the intense heat that had got to her, but she didn't seem to be getting any better and couldn't answer any questions. Of course, all my French went out the window and I couldn't think of how to ask her if this had happened before, if she was diabetic or pregnant or anything else useful.

Instead I jogged down the street in my high heels to her house and asked her domestic worker to wake her husband up as he was apparently sleeping. I'd never met him before, and I don't think he understood the situation as he only came sauntering down the road about 15 minutes later. Eventually, when he arrived, he saw how sick Jolie really was and went to fetch the car to take her to hospital.

Rosanna spoke to him later on and he said Jolie was fine, but the doctors were still trying to figure out what had happened. I don't have their phone numbers, so I'll walk across this afternoon and see how she's doing.

I think that little incident put a bit of a dampener on things too. The good part of the day, though, was getting to chat to the other sellers and visitors. Angel was selling her amazing cupcakes and I'm still trying to decide what's the best thing about them - how beautiful they are or how delicious they taste. I couldn't resist snapping a shot or two. Hopefully she gets some orders from the people who were there.

It was lovely to catch up with her, MJ, who was selling jewellery (totally different to mine, so we got some ideas from each other), Brett and Kim, selling photos, and everyone who popped by to browse. Despite the fact that so many people who said they'd come didn't arrive and I didn't make much money, I really enjoyed the morning.

I have so much stock left over though and I've decided I'm leaving it all unpacked as I have a couple of friends who couldn't be there and said they may come by later in the week to have a look. I'm also looking for other avenues to sell my stuff, so if you have any ideas, let me know.
The rest of the weekend was packed, but awesome, but I'll leave the details and photos for tomorrow's post, if my annoying internet connection stops playing up and lets me post at all ;-)

Hah! How true that last paragraph turned out to be!

Family, Formula One and irrational fear

While everyone else is rushing madly towards the end of 2010, my work has quietened down a bit as editors wrap up the last bits and pieces for Jan / Feb and even March editions. I've still got enough to keep me going, and it's actually lovely to have time to breathe again.

I've been making jewellery like crazy for this Sat. (as always, give me a shout if you want to come along to shop or sell). Starting to get scared about it. This is the third year that I've run a Christmas jewellery open house and every year I stress like crazy because there are other people involved and where there are people, there are complications. Last year I had a few sellers let me down. I'd advertised that they would be selling various things, and then people were disappointed when they didn't turn up. I've also had lots of no-shows from people who promised to pop in for a look-see, and then I worried that it wasn't fair on the sellers who were expecting a better crowd.

This year, I've been quite blase about the whole thing. If people don't show, that's their problem. I haven't made promises to anyone, so whomever turns up, awesome.

But I'm still stressed. I want the people who are selling their stuff to do well (last year's crowd all seemed to do ok, except the friend selling lingerie, because nobody wanted to be seen purchasing. But everyone took her business card and she got some sales in afterwards). And I want to do well because my jewellery sales determine my holiday spending cash and what I can afford to shell out on gifts.

Thankfully, my mother bought a whole bunch of jewellery from me this weekend for Christmas gifts and it came to the exact amount that I had spent on materials. I went to my fave bead place yesterday and got more glass beads, some beautiful pendants and a bracelet display unit, so I've got to pay that lot back, but from there on it's all profit.

Anyway, jewellery aside, it was a great weekend. My uncle and his boyfriend are in SA for a bit, visiting from Kuwait, so we did a big family supper at one of my favourite Pretoria restaurants, Smoke Cafe and Grill Lounge. I knew it was my type of restaurant the first time I saw that they place the dessert menu first so you can plan ahead ;-)

I had the Chicken Byzantine, which is chicken breast stuffed with fig, lemon and feta in a light cream chicken jus with fresh rosemary and garlic (no - didn't remember that off by heart. Had to copy/paste it from the menu) and TSC and I shared the nougat ice-cream for dessert. Yum on both counts!

Sunday's Formula One race was the second last of the season, and although Red Bull Racing tied up the Constructors' Championship, with one race to go, the Drivers' Championship is still wide open with four contenders ready to fight for the trophy this coming week.

In between family, jewellery and Formula One, TSC and I prepped the remainder of our veggie haul from Fruit and Veg City - almost 5kg of carrots and 5g of tomatoes - for freezer storage. We now have rows of neatly packed bags of steamed carrot portions and tubs of tomato puree, so if we're flat broke in January (usually the case), we can always live on carrot and tomato soup ;-)

Off to buy some labels for the jewellery now. I've run out, which made me happy seeing it means I've got more stock than I expected.

Two pics of flowers in my mom's garden. Not sure what they're called, but thought they were both very pretty...

More jewellery pics and my kitties

How cute are my darlings? Well, I think they are. You don't have to ;-)

My little Sapphire cat...



My gorgeous Marble boy...



It's been a bland day... rain, updating a client's website with all the press releases I've ever written for them, laundry, invoicing and photographing my jewellery. *yawn* Nothing exciting.

Deep blue necklace with pendant...




Some alice bands. This is the first time I've tried these. What do you think?




Gold sparkly earrings...



This eve is my final photography class. So sad that it's nearly finished :-( I've loved every minute. I'll probably take the Photoshop course too, seeing I now have the fancy software and no idea how to use it. I love being able to keep learning new things. I want to be doing that for as long as I live. That's one of the main attractions of journalism for me, actually.

Before then, I must finish the work I'm busy with, visit the lady doctor (joy), exercise and make supper. So I'm going to say cheers for now and get to it.

Jewellery pics

Hello all. Still recovering. It's frustratingly slow.

That said, I have kept myself busy. Been making jewellery for my annual Christmas open house, which I'm hosting this year on 13 Nov. If you're a crafter and would like to sell your wares, or if you want to come along and browse the jewellery for Christmas gifts or just to spoil yourself, drop me a mail at doodlesofajourno at gmail dot com and I'll send you the info. For now, here are a couple of pics...

I'm dreaming of a green Christmas...

This year, I'm making a little effort to have a greener Christmas. And it really is that - a little effort. But it still makes a difference. Here's a few small tips I'm trying out to make less of an impact on the environment this festive season:

• Switching my fairy lights for LED ones. They use less energy and, IMO, they are prettier.
• Not buying wrapping paper. I am re-using wrapping paper, gift bags and ribbons from previous occasions, and wrapping some presents in newspaper with pretty bows tied on and others (the small ones) are being packaged in cute re-useable drawstring fabric bags. I'm also re-using old jam jars, which I've discovered make beautiful jewellery gift boxes once decorated. Maybe I'll be brave and try my hand at the Japanese tradition of Furoshiki (wrapping presents in fabric).
• Not buying a tree. TSC and I cut some long branches from our laurel tree and made them into a cone-shape to act as a tree. I'm putting it up this afternoon, so I'll post pics soon.
• Rethinking my Christmas cards. Close family and friends get handmade cards crafted out of scraps of paper, fabric and last year's Christmas cards. Everyone else gets an email card (I still go to a little effort making something pretty and personal to send out).
• Maximising the romance of candlelight at meal times. Switching off the lights and lighting the candles not only soothes the soul, it saves loads of electricity!
• Enjoying South Africa's summer Christmas weather. Sipping a cocktail on my veranda or having a game of tennis while we're on holiday means I'm not wasting electricity watching TV or wasting money at the mall ;-)
• Not doing disposable. Instead of using paper napkins, I use fabric ones when we entertain. They're not only more classy (so long as they're not stained!), they're also greener. I'm also trying to resist the temptation to use paper plates and cups when we have large groups over, although sometimes we just don't have enough crockery to go around!
• Recycling. Making sure all those extra bags of paper, glass and plastic from the festive excesses get sorted and recycled. And the table scraps go in the compost heap.

Any tips you'd like to add?

Also, here are the long promised photos of my jewellery. Sorry they're not great quality - my little snapshot camera's flash is evil, so I was trying to shoot these at night without using it. Also, this is a very small and randomly picked selection (every piece is a once-off, so if I have to shoot and post every piece I've made it will take six years). Right, now that the excuses are out of the way...

red heart earrings

purple and silver choker

chunky red keychain

gold butterfly and blue sequin chain


chunky gold bracelet with fresh water pearls

Green and silver delicate choker

Assorted nonsense

Yes. I'm back again. Hopefully for good now. My stupid PC has been driving me mental the past few days... Have been able to receive email but not send it and get online but not post. The I-kinda-have-internet-but-not-really is actually more irritating than not having it at all I have decided.

But today, mercifully, technology has not yet tried to thwart my evil (or other) plans and I am coming to you live from my new desk in my new office on our new ADSL line. Can I get a cheer?

I have been so frustrated by the fact that I've been unable to blog over the past while and I've realised that it really is therapy for me. In fact, it's more effective than a few shrinks I've seen in my time.

Now I don't have much time because I am super behind in my work (having not had phone lines the past week and having not been able to send emails to my clients to even tell them we have no phone lines), but I'd love t0 hear how your Easter weekend was.

Mine was great. So nice to have TSC back again! We spent Saturday at the Rhino and Lion Park with our friend from Britain and his lovely fiancee and made them potjiekos for supper. We nearly didn't get them to the airport on time that evening due to a huge accident on the freeway. They were the last people on the plane as we sprinted (NOT an exaggeration) through the almost deserted airport.

Sunday was spent with the family who seemed to enjoy lunch at our house. Monday we chilled and finally finished making our path through the veggie garden. Now it's time to start planting winter crops. Can't wait to have peas out my own little patch ;-)

I'm off to catch up on a bit of blog reading in between my piled up work. I leave you with a few shots of what I got up to during my extended time away from posting...

Making jewellery!

*Having just written how nice it is to have working technology, my PC just froze twice on me and had to be rebooted each time. Nice. Not.

Better pic of the blue necklace prize

Well... maybe it's not that much better. The bronze looks gold. But you get the idea. If you don't know what I'm on about, click here, find out and enter.

What else? I'm selling my jewellery at a Christmas open house on 6 December. There will also be make-up, home-made yumminess and other people's stuff on sale, so if you're in Gauteng and you're keen to pop in, mail me and I'll send you the details - doodlesofajourno@gmail.com.

Yes, today is a day for shamelessly plugging my wares. But it's my only shot at earning some Christmas money, so you'll have to excuse me.

Giveaway

I finally found my camera cable! It was in my fruit bowl. Can you tell I'm in the process of packing to move?

Anyhoo... I decided that seeing I've taken pics of the jewellery I make and sell, I might as well post an image or two and... do a GIVEAWAY!

There are two prizes available:

This one:

And this one (excuse the bad pic):

To win the first (the purple pearly bracelet and a pair of matching earrings), leave a comment on this blog entry. Next Tuesday (25 November) I will put all commenters' names in a hat and draw a winner.

To enter the competition for the second prize (the bronze and blue chain necklace), post a link on your blog to this post to direct your readers to the competition. Tell them to post a comment mentioning that they were referred by you. The person with the most referrals wins.

Postage will be paid by me, so you will need to be prepared to send me your postal address if you do win.

The competition ends at noon on Tuesday 25 November. So if you're a lady who likes shiny objects, or a man who is looking for a shiny object for the lady in his life... please enter ASAP ;-)