Another list

Shot in my gran's garden in Graskop

Stuff I love:

• People who reply to comments left on their blogs.
• My new hair. Hah - wait till I wash it tonight and my salon blow-dry is no more. Then I'll hate it for the next week. Predictable.
  
• Ginger and peach tea with a little honey.
• My cats. One is currently sitting in the drawer of my desk next to me, just so she can be close.
• My camera, which is the most awesome tool. Just looking at my photos on canvas I am amazed at the difference in quality between shots from this camera and my little (lovely for snapshots) compact.
  
• Entertaining. Our church small group is having a bring and braai tonight and I'm loving deciding what puddings and salads to make. I'm thinking of trying a recipe for Turkish Delight Mousse. Mmmm.
• TSC, who just made me filter coffee and brought it up to my office.
• Being busy. Although I've lost my big retainer client, I've had lots of little jobs come in last week and this week that are keeping me busy and bringing in little bits of money, which will all add up.
• The fact that it's Hobby-X this weekend. Time to stock up on new craft supplies. Must leave the credit card at home! Temptation abounds.
  
• As always, ending on an even number of bullet points :-)

Stuff I don't love:

• Early morning client phone calls to talk about something that could wait until office hours. Grrr.
• People who don't do what they say they're going to do.
• Admin. 'Nuff said.
  
• Feeling tired and achy because that's how my body chooses to manifest stress.
• Our mattress. We bought it when we got married and it's supposed to last 20 years. 4 and a bit years in and it already makes a huge dent where TSC sleeps, even though we turn it every two weeks or so.
  
• My bank balance. It was looking impressive because there was a big deposit from SARS, but it belongs to my dad (not sure why SARS stuck it in my account. Maybe because one person handles our whole family's tax stuff?), so now I'm back to my usual, far less impressive, state ;-)
• Family stuff.
• Annoying and common spelling mistakes (example: lose / loose. If you lose weight, your clothes will be loose).
• Not having enough time to write proper blog posts and settling for lists instead.

Updated at 14:25... THIS POST is now also on my list of things I love... laughed so hard!

2 for the price of 1

Not really, hey. If anyone had to pay for content here, I'd be out of business. I have no illusions of tackling Google. See, I'm not Rupert Murdoch.

But that is neither here nor there. What is here, are two topics in one blog post.

World AIDS Day. It is today, people. And in the spirit of occasionally providing worthwhile and useful content, I have found six little known facts about HIV/AIDS for you. why six? Because a) it's an even number and b) the lovely Momcat gave me an awesome award which demands I tell you six random things about me, but I reckon this is more beneficial. So here goes:

• Two HIV positive people in a sexual relationship should still use condoms as re-infection is a possibility.


• It can take years for people with HIV to develop AIDS. "In some people, the T-cell decline and opportunistic infections that signal AIDS develop soon after initial infection with HIV. Most people remain asymptomatic for 10 to 12 years, and a few for much longer. As with most diseases, early medical care can help prolong a person's life." Quote from here.


• According to this site, studies indicate that condoms slip off the penis in about 1 to 5 percent of acts of vaginal intercourse and slip down (but not off) about 3 to 13 percent of the time. So using condoms means safer sex, but not 100% safe sex.


• Use only water-based lubricants with latex condoms as oil- or petroleum-based lubricants (like Vaseline) will cause the latex to break. (People with latex allergies can use polyethylene condoms with oil-based lubricants.)


• There can be a link between HIV and other STDs. According to these folks, having a sexually transmitted disease can increase your risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV. "This is true whether you have open sores or breaks in the skin (as with syphilis, herpes, chancroid) or not (as with chlamydia and gonorrhea). Where there are breaks in the skin, HIV can enter and exit the body more easily. Even when there are no breaks in the skin, STDs can cause biological changes that may make HIV transmission more likely. Studies show that HIV-infected individuals who are infected with another STD are three to five times more likely to contract or transmit the virus through sexual contact."


• It is possible to get HIV through unprotected oral sex. See here and here for info.

I hope you learnt something.

Now, the second topic. Well, it's not really actually a different topic. See that award from Momcat needs to be passed on to six Gorgeous Bloggers. But I don't want them to feel like that has anything to do with my HIV/AIDS post. So, ladies, feel free to stick to the original meme and post six random things about yourselves before you pass this on. Or feel free to ignore if you're not the blog awards type. K? Right, the list...

• Kimmi. Coz she's awesome both IRL and on her newly founded blog.


• Paula. Coz she's back in blogland!


• Helen. Coz she makes me laugh and then she makes me think.


• Meriel. Coz she is sweet, thoughtful and funny and let me see her wedding invitation copy before posting it. LOL.


• Shayne. Because I love her posts and she understands my garden-watching habits.


• Po. Because I have never met a more entertaining or incredible seamonkey. Or someone who will debate books with me for days in a comments section.

So, you lot, this is for you:

The REAL signs that spring has sprung

The reasons I know that spring is here have nothing to do with the fragrant jasmine in bloom, the sun staying out a bit longer in the evenings, the fact that I have a sudden craving for crunchy salads or the realisation that I no longer need a hot water bottle to survive in my office. These are the REAL reasons I know spring has arrived:

• TSC killed the first mosquito last night. The war has resumed.



• My cats are shedding more prolifically than usual. Everything black in our house is covered in white cat hair and everything white is covered in black cat hair. Sneaky buggers.



• Magazines are all running their annual "get bikini-ready in 5 easy steps" type of nonsense articles.



• You can smell meat on the braai (BBQ) on weekends again.



• My Northern Hemisphere blog friends are moaning about the onset of winter.



• People are showing their Lily-white legs (mine are unfortunately always that pale, even in mid-summer).



• People are phoning me earlier in the morning.



• My colleagues are wearing brighter colours.



• My heart is pining for Cape Town more than usual.



• The cats have stopped sleeping on the bed with us.

The shedding culprits, in all their cuteness...

Happy lists instead of lamentations

Tomorrow's my birthday.

Just deleted the rest of the lines I had written for this post which were thoroughly miserable.

Everything seems to be getting to me at the moment and I'm not sure why. I'm not (according to my mother) very good at managing my stress, so I go through these extreme downs. Blegh. But I'm not going to focus on the crap stuff today.

I'm going to list the things there are to be happy about instead. Because I need to. Please add yours so I can smile for you too.

• Tomorrow night TSC and I are going out for dinner to celebrate my 25th.
• I have proper post (not bills or ads) to open when I wake up.
• I don't have client meetings this afternoon.
• My house is fairly tidy for a change (spent Sunday turning the pantry on its head and cleaning it out to banish the moth infestation we had for some reason. There was curry powder / corn flour / moths / noodles / assorted other stuff all over the kitchen floor). the fact that the mess has gone makes me ever so slightly calmer.
• I watched Ghost Town last night. I wasn't expecting much, but it made me laugh out loud, which was so good.
• My cats have developed the habit of following me around the house whenever I'm home and lying down next to me when I sit down anywhere. There's nothing quite like cat love.
• We were invited to a birthday lunch on Sunday. We can't make it (because we're having my birthday lunch with my family), but it's nice to be invited. I often feel like TSC and I host people all the time and never get invited back. Although there are one or two people (like Phillygirl and Angel) who are super good at organising and inviting and whom I am in complete awe of.
• TSC and I have discovered the Lindt Petits Desserts range. It's ridiculously expensive stuff, but the Mousse au Chocolat in dark chocolate is possibly the best thing I've tasted in this world.

Tell me the good things in your life right now.

A post of lists

Things I did on the weekend:

• Worked till midnight on Friday to finish my big freelance project.
• Missed TSC.
• Worked till 14h00 on Saturday to finish said project.
• Had breakfast with the parentals, which was great.
• Had coffee with a friend and discussed the possibility of hosting art classes in my garage.
• Dyed the big white cotton rug my mom gave me. It's now dark brown and will match the lounge and hopefulyl be kitty pawprint proof. It was damn difficult to do on my own though - so heavy when it's wet! I'm amazed that I too am not dark brown to match the lounge.
• Finished painting and decorating the coat rack we've made for our room.
• Painted two canvases lilac to match the guest room. Added thickly painted branches and stuck on some velvety cherry blossom flowers to make a 3D work of art.
• Missed TSC some more.
• Bought my dad's birthday present.
• Bought a pair of skinny jeans (finally).
• Bought some new bras so I could chuck out the ancient falling-apart ones.
• Blew my budget (see above).
• Went to church.
• Dreamt of hosting art classes in my garage.

Things I did on Monday:

• Spent a frustrated half-day at work with no internet access.
• Went home and worked to finish my big freelaance project.
• Wrote a press release about programmable logic controllers. Coz I know so much about that stufff. Or not.
• Tried not to freeze in the icy cold house.
• Went for a piping hot supper and some good red wine with departed colleagues Icing and DK, which was awesome.
• REALLY missed TSC.

Things on the list for today:

• Say goodbye to latest departing colleague, JK.
• Try not to freeze in the office (we have no heaters).
• Have my hair cut (yay!).
• Welcome TSC back.
• Snuggle in a warm bed.
• Discuss the possibility of hosting art classes in our garage.

The aggro is back

My blog has been all chipper and dandy lately, so I thought it might be time to return to a little cynicism and snottiness for today. Especially seeing I am in need of a vent. As such, here's my list of things that pissed me off this week:

1. UJ. University of Johannesburg has been my single greatest stress-causer over the past few months. And I'm not even a student there! See, TSC applied to study there, starting this year, and has has endless problems from them ever since. From telling him he was accepted then denied then accepted to moving the date of the entrance exam without telling anyone, they have excelled at sucking. He eventually found out two days ago that he is indeed accepted. Which gave him a whole week's notice before he needs to start the academic term. The award for inefficiency is undoubtably theirs. Well done, useless UJ.


2. My to-do list. It is pages long and as soon as I do one thing, five more get added to it. Usually not-nice things either.


3. Clients who think my world revolves around them. No explanation needed.


4. Gauteng BMW drivers and taxis. They piss me off every week. Unfortunately I don't usually handle it as well as Louisa.


5. Lurkers! All you folks who stop by and don't comment, I ask: why not? Am I not worth your comment-love? Please, please, please... delurk now!


6. Blogger. Yes, even beloved blog host has annoyed me this week. It wouldn't let me access any blogs yesterday. Just RSS feeds. Which meant no commenting for me. Tlak about depriving me of joy!

Right, now that I have that out of my system, I can have a chipper and dandy Friday. Wishing you one too. I leave you with this...

What goes through your mind when someone says "let's go for drinks"?

More awards...

Yes, it seems to be the season for these. Thanks to Blonde Blogshell for mine (you legend, Blondie).

Now, of course, I need to pass this along to those blogs I rate E for Excellence. Now Blogshell has already nominated many of the blogs I love, and I read about 35 blogs regularly, so I am going to randomly select five of the blogs that I adore from those and nominate them. in other words, if you're not on this list, don't bite my head off. It doesn't mean that I don't love your blog, k?

But here are five blogs I think are uber-excellent:

Mother Jungle: Susan writes beautifully from Costa Rica. I have recently started reading her and really can't stop!

Shared Insight: MsBehavin can be naughty or nice, but is always a good read.

Chester Pillow: Ches is a blogger who keeps me in stitches with his random observations and 70s disco dancing ;-)

The Life of Sass: Also one of my new reads, Sass has a whole heap of alter egos. Each one is entertaining.

The Kattbox: The thoughts of a woman slowly going insane on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Or so she says. Good reading.

Edited in later: And because somebody did not listen to me and decided to take offence.... I hereby also award:

Spacebook: Caz in the fair Cape can even write in Latin!

Tagged

So Leez tagged me to do the 8 random things meme. Here it goes:

1. I hate people touching my neck. It freaks me out completely. Even TSC has a hard time getting near my neck without being smacked.

2. I love office stationery. It makes me happy when I have lots of pens, pencils, highlighters and other paraphernalia on my desk. It's the simple things.

3. When I forget to wear my watch, I feel naked. I have to hide my wrist so people don't see it without its clothing! Strange, I know.

4. Although I loathe shoe shopping, I absolutely LOVE shopping for gifts for other people. I could spend all day trawling a shopping centre for that perfect something.

5. I am terrified of the telephone. I hate, hate, HATE having to call people I don't know. In my job, I have to do this A LOT, so you'd think I'd get over it. Sometimes I write myself a script, which makes it a bit easier.

6. My name, aside from meaning 'perfection' (hah! I wish), is of Hebrew origin and means palm tree. Joy.

7. Being an absolute heathen, I drink my white wine with ice. Shock, horror! Funnily enough, it drives me mental that my in-laws insist on chilling a good bottle of red wine overnight before drinking it. I mean... really!

8. I desperately want my own house and garden so that I can paint my walls, hang as many pictures as I'd like and plant my own veggie garden.

I'm not tagging anyone, but please feel free to do this meme and let me know so that I can see how random you are too.

Best and Worst Feelings

Eish! I just got back from a really long interview and barely made it to the loo. That about-to-burst feeling is one of the worst in the world, which got me to thinking about my best and worst feelings.

My worst:
1. Needing to sneeze and not being able to!
2. Regret, especially about words spoken that I can't take back.
3. Guilt. This is a biggy - I feel guilt around so many things, from overeating to the boyfriend I dumped really harshly a few years ago. I guess growing up Catholic it was a big part of the culture that I'm still learning to let go of.
4. That helpless feeling of waiting for the inevitable to happen. I clearly remember the feeling I felt the split second before our bakkie flipped when we were hit by an ambulance in a massive accident in the centre of Cape Town a few years back. I could see it coming, but I couldn't stop it from happening.
5. Loss of something / someone special. Not like losing a piece of jewellery, although that does suck, but losing a pet or a friendship.

My best:
1. Times with my hubby, family or friends when everything just feels right and there's no tension at all.
2. Getting into a warm bed in winter with my purring cats.
3. Being somewhere completely beautiful in God's creation. It feeds my soul.
4. Standing in the wings, waiting to come on stage in front of an audience. I haven't felt this in a while, seeing I'm no longer part of a drama studio (I was all through school - 8years, in fact). I miss it.
5. Discovering something new.

Now, I will ruin this all and turn this into a meme. MwahaHAHAHA! *Evilest of laughs*. I hereby tag Angel, Gill, Sweets, Blonde Blogshell and Sleepyjane, as well as anyone else who'd like to give it a shot. Hit me with your five best and five worst feelings in the world.

Yay - long weekend!

Right, first things first... I read Caz's lastest post yesterday on her blog, Spacebook, and I reckon it's my favourite post of the week. She just wrote something that struck a chord with me. nOthing earth shattering, and you may not get what I'm on about, but I thought it was brilliant. Read it here.

And then... IT'S THE BEGINNING OF A LONG WEEKEND. WOOHOO!

Can you tell that I'm excited? I've been drawing up lists in my head of all the things I want to do. The number one is: nothing. This is followed by: sleep, read and sleep.

Hehehe... no, I also want to explore the sights, eat out at new restaurants, take loads of pics, spend quality time with hubby, and enjoy a little spontaneity.

Till next week, when I will bombard you with pics. Have a good one, Saffers. And for those of you from other parts of the world, have a great non-long weekend.

Things I wish had been invented

Really! There are some people in the world that I wish would not come into my little world. A particular person that I have to interview today, for example. But rather than vent here about all the little things that are ticking me off (which will go on forever and bore everyone including myself), I have come up with a list of things I wish had been invented:

1. Mute buttons for people who spout crap incessantly
2. Long-lasting anti-idiot spray that can either temporarily turn people into non-idiots, or just clear the room of all twits
3. Internal watch-synchronisers installed at birth, so that when you say you're meeting someone at 12, they don't turn up at 12.27
4. Instant-friendliness chocolates, to feed to certain rude PAs and their even ruder CEO bosses
5. Bitch-alert radar
6. Invisible capes
7. Teleportation devices
8. Anti-taxi forcefields for cars
9. Compulsory training in manners for all business people
10. And, of course, free therapy for all members of the media!

So tell me, what do YOU wish had been invented?

Winter post

Winter is well and truly here. Freezing fingers on the icy steering wheel in the mornings; putting off going to the loo because the seat is sure to freeze-burn my bottom; wearing a minimum number of three layers; craving hot comfort food; and getting up in the dark.

I'm not really a fan of winter. In fact, I'm cold-blooded, I'm sure. But I'm trying to look on the bright side, so I'm writing a list of all the things I like about the chilly season:

1. Curling up with a warm blanket, my purring cats, a cup of Milo or hot chocolate and a good book. This doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's paradise.
2. A plate of my home-cooked lamb curry after a long, cold day. Hubby's parents are sheep farmers, so we get lamb quite often. Noice.
3. A long hot bath with a glass of wine.
4. Snuggling on the couch watching DVDs with hubby and the cats.
5. Gluwein.
6. Not needing to shave my legs as often, seeing they don't get exposed much.
7. Getting into the bed once the electric blanket has warmed it up for me.
8. Roaring fireplaces in restaurants.
9. Hot puddings. Mmmmm....
10. The crystal-like frost formations that you find on the grass in the mornings.
11. Soft leather gloves.
12. Scarves (I must have about 30).
13. The feeling of coming into a warm room out of the crisp outdoors.
14. Putting my cold hands down hubbys neck to make hi shiver. Hehehe...
15. Knowing that after winter must come spring, bringing with it beautiful blossoms and freshness.
16. Standing in front of the braai and feeling the warm in front of me and the cold behind me.
17. Soup. Especially MY soup. I may suck at baking, but I can do soup.
18. Marshmallow socks (socks that feel soft and squishy, not socks made out of marshmallows - that would be really gross).
19. Sketching winter trees.
20. Misty breath in the chilly mornings.

What are your favourite winter things?