Bullet point updates

Hello! Been desperate to blog all week and catch up on my reading, but it's been more of the same manic pace, I'm afraid.

So here are some quick bullet points:

• It's my birthday tomorrow. Renovations were supposed to be complete by then, but alas it was not to be. The cupboard guy's materials were delayed, so he can only come on Thursday. But the new carpets are in and they look amazing! And they feel good too. Who knew carpets could be so exciting? And yes, I realise I sound like a total loon, but I find them so awesome that I want to take a leaf out my cats' book and roll on them.
• I got rid of my accountants and found a new firm. Yay! The old ones were not very reliable in terms of communication and didn't take me seriously at all, so I'm glad to have found someone who is willing to answer my (probably silly) questions.
• My garden is coming alive again. I love it - spring is on it's way, at last! I'm enjoying peas, carrots, spinach, rocket, Asian greens, herbs and spring onions from my veggie patch, and the gorgeous primulas (two types) are in full bloom, making for pretty bursts of flowers all over the show.
• I took my brother out for coffee yesterday (had the most divine chai freezo at House of Coffees in Menlyn). I'm so loving getting along with him for the first time in my life. At long last, we can chat. And not just about jokes and the weather - about real stuff too. Without jumping down each other's throats! It's fantastic. Makes me very happy.
• TSC and I have settled on a theme for usual joint birthday bash. We're having a bring-and-share gyspy-themed picnic in our garden. So excited! Gypsy decor is such fun and virtually free. All I need to buy is a big bag full of gold coin chocolates ;-) We thought of having a picnic at one of the lovely parks, but I worry that it will rain (usually happens when I have picnics) and I'm not keen to put my friends through the traumas of the public loos (our favourite local park only has a port-a-potty). Also, I worry that if people want to drink wine, they'll get in trouble in the public parks. So our garden it will be.
  
• I cannot wait to show you renovation pics. Hoping by next week it will all be done. And then I'll post some before and after shots.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

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...

Fun times, my foot!

Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday. I was out doing interviews on a large building site for most of the day. That would suck normally, but yesterday it sucked even more than usual because on Monday evening I was stung on the soft part of the bottom of my left foot by... something (I thought it was a bee at first but the reaction has been too severe. I'm thinking wasp, TSC reckons small scorpion), and it's still giving me trouble.

I had gone outside to get some herbs from the veggie garden and stepped on something on the lawn on my way back in that sent fiery pain through my whole foot. After staggering into the kitchen, I examined the foot and found a stinger sticking out, which made me think it was a bee, although it could've been another insect whose stinger was pulled out when I stepped on it.

I've been stung by bees four or five times before and all those times it was sore at the time but quickly passed. With this sting I could literally feel the toxins flowing through my foot (I had tried to scrape the stinger out with a knife, but it hadn't worked, so in desperation and pain I resorted to pulling it out with my fingers, which probably squeezed more poison into my foot. Yes, I'm a dumbass, I know).

I hopped on one foot up the stairs and crashed onto the floor in the bathroom once I'd pulled our first aid box off the shelf. TSC was on the phone and came running when he heard me (poor man probably thought I'd fainted and fallen on something with all the noise I was making). I found some antihistamine cream and tried to rub it on the now violently red and painful-to-the-lightest-touch area.

After a couple of minutes the pain subsided a bit and I was able to hobble downstairs and make supper with TSC. My foot was a bit swollen, so before bed I put some anti-inflammatory gel on it and figured it would be better by morning.

Hah!

Yesterday I woke up to find my foot had swollen so much that I was barely able to fit it in my shoe. With a site visit up ahead, I had no option but to don closed shoes (and a safety helmet. So hot. Or not). Thankfully the interviews were conducted in the site's showroom, so I only had to pegleg my way to and from the parking lot and to the toilet. But after four or so hours, the foot was even more swollen from collected fluids thanks to gravity.

I drove myself home, made some two-minute noodles (they didn't feed us the whole day on site and I was starving). Then I collapsed on the bed with a pillow under my foot. And there I stayed for most of the evening, getting up only to make supper, call my mom (she's a doctor) and take a shower.

Following my mom's instructions, I took antihistamine and anti-inflammatory pills, applied some Voltaren to the swelling and got back into bed with my foot up high.

Today the foot looks just the same - grotesque. It's quite fascinating. In fact, I nearly took a photo. But then I realised nobody wants to see that ;-) I really wish the pain, itchiness and swelling would go away now. It makes walking, driving and normal life very difficult.

But anyway, on to more pleasant topics... Guess who found the camera cable?

So, at last, here are some pics...

The view from Sani Pass Hotel. The scenic views are one of the best things about this crumbling old place.

Flowers at the top of Sani Pass, near the Highest Pub In Africa

The mountains on the way to the pass itself

The bread baked by a Basotho woman we visited in Lesotho

TSC and I on horseback

The river at Sani Pass Hotel

The waterfalls at Sani Pass Hotel

My "baby" marrows when we arrived home (the furthest one to the left that you can hardly see is the size you normally find in stores)

A selection of veg picked from my garden

My parents' boat, which TSC and I got to experience for the first time at Bronkhorstspruit Dam during the holiday

Random thoughts

*sigh* My first working Monday of the year. Blergh.

Well, at least this was a good weekend. We watched loads of How I Met Your Mother episodes (I just don't get tired of them). On Saturday I also hit the nursery with my Christmas voucher from my folks and spent time pottering and planning in the garden. We had a relaxed braai on Sunday for lunch and then headed to church. It was chilled, all in all.

I must admit, one of the other highlights of the weekend for me was enjoying the fruits of my labour from the veggie garden - carrots, gemsquash, courgettes, sweetcorn and beetroot. Yum!

I forgot the camera again today. Dumbass. So my plan of posting loads of pretty pics here instead of trying to wade through the New Year slush of my mind to write something sensible has failed.

After such a long break, it's actually difficult to get back into the swing of blogging. I guess that's why so many bloggers fall off the face of the planet post-vacation. But I did keep a paper journal during the holiday, so I guess I just can't quit writing. It wouldn't feel right ;-) Also, despite not being in the office, I have been doing some freelancing admin and writing, so I'm easing myself back into things.

My goal is to be freelancing fulltime in six months time, so I have to get serious about this stuff. And every client, no matter how big or small, brings me closer. My other goal for 2010 is to stop being late. I hate being late and yet I generally am. And then I get grumpy. Being late stresses me out and makes me miserable, so it makes sense to stop doing it. Will keep you posted on how that goes.

I have now (temporarily) run out of babble. Have a fab week.

Because I owe you...

...A photo post. I keep promising to show you pictures and then I don't. So consider this a catch-up of sorts.

Absolutely ages ago (sometime in July), I promised I'd show you pics of how we transformed our spare bedroom. So here it is before (at this stage we had moved the furniture out, done a test patch on the wall and covered the floor with drop sheets):

And here it is after. Those pictures above the bed are the ones I created when TSC was away (I also painted the lamp shades. But they're not as pretty, IMO):

Here are the requested pics from my jungle style veggie garden. I tried to take ones where you can't see all the weeds on my pathways (I still have to find some money to get gravel to make proper paths). This pic shows my beetroot, mielies and the mint in the background. There's also baby marrow plants in between, which I'm hoping will climb up the frame.

And this one shows my aubergines (eggplant) in the foreground, the green peppers behind them and right in the background you can see some onions, lavendar and the Peppadew bush.

Lastly, some Just Joey roses from the garden, just because they are gorgeous:

Note: Blogger is buggering around again, so if you saw this post go up without the photos, sorry. It's taken me three attempts to get them to load properly.

Yet another veggie-praising post (plus recipe)

Last night I made my easy-peasy fairly healthy vegetarian cannelloni baked pasta dish using fresh spinach from my garden. That pleases me on some deep level. I'm not quite sure why.

In fact, it's quite bizarre and even disturbing how much I love my veggie garden. I rush outside in the mornings before work to check on my seedlings and I want to cry when I see my baby Asian greens have been the victims of a seven-course snail supper.

When I get home, the first thing I do is kick off my shoes and do a garden walk-through to enjoy the green-ness of it all. It's actually a little embarrassing. But my garden just doesn't cease to amaze me. Seriously! Planting seeds and watching them grow into big, healthy plants that give me delicious food is an awesome process indeed.

We have been our house for almost a year now and in that short space of time, my veggie garden has given me the following:

• Green beans


• Tomatoes (cherry ones and the juicy big ones)


• Spinach (two different varieties)


• Peppadews (before Ches craps on me, the plant was there when I arrived. It was a present from the Peppadew folk. Apparently.)


• Carrots


• Mielies (or corn, for non-South Africans)


• Kale


• Peas


• Celery


• Sweet potatoes


• Lettuce


• Asian greens


• Radishes


• Assorted herbs (mint, thyme, lemon thyme, parsley, various types of basil, sage, bay leaf, chives, chamomile and fennel)

I have also recently planted baby marrows, asparagus, eggplant, strawberries, beetroot etc, along with lots of non-foodie but useful plants (like comfrey, catnip, artemisia and marigolds) and am waiting (not very patiently) for them to grow up ;-)

But I digress...

The point of this post was actually to write down that recipe for vegetarian cannelloni. So here it is (Tamara-style, which means there are no proper measurements. Sorry):

Forgot to take a picture, but it looks something like this. Pic from here.

Ingredients:

• Bunch of spinach, washed thoroughly (gritty spinach will ruin the nicest of meals) and cooked


• Half a readymade box of cannelloni pasta (normally about 8 - 10 tubes)


• 250 ml tub of fat-free smooth cottage cheese


• 1/2 teaspoon of grated nutmeg


• 1 teaspoon brown sugar


• salt and pepper


• 250 ml tomato pasta sauce (I make my own by cooking fresh skinned tomatoes with a little salt, pepper, spoon of sugar and Italian herbs like oregano, basil and thyme)


• A little bit of grated cheese to top

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Mix cooked spinach with the cottage cheese, nutmeg and sugar. Season with salt and pepper. Pop this mixture into a food processor and blitz for a few seconds (I prefer to just use a stick blender - less mess, IMO).

Now, the fun bit: Line up your pasta tubes in an ovenproof dish and fill each one with the spinach mixture (it will be messy, but I find that using my piping bag is the easiest way of doing the filling. Just make sure your spinach is finely blitzed, or it will end up on the ceiling when you squeeze the bag. Trust me on this).

Top the tubes with your tomato-based pasta sauce and sprinkle with grated cheese. Cover (either with a lid or tin foil) and pop in the oven. Bake for 35 min. Serve with a green salad and some nice wine ;-)

Yum!

Garden stuff (in which I wax lyrical about peas and whine about my sore back)

Monday.

What did you feel when you saw that word?

Hope you're all having a good one so far. Mine hasn't been too bad. Irritating clients who don't communicate have been my worst problem so far, which is pretty good going for 11am, I reckon.

My back is killing me. I spent the whole of Saturday digging in the garden and serving TSC's ungrateful bunch of varsity people while they built their concrete boat. Which is actually more of a paddle ski, to be honest. It's quite impressive - they've made a metal frame, stuffed it with polystyrene and coated it with concrete-soaked cloth and some more concrete. They just have to paint it with a few coats of waterproofing paint and it should be ready to race.

I got one no-dig veggie bed done. What a mission! The veggies better be worth it in the end. first you make a frame, which I made with two layers of stacked concrete bricks. Then you put down a layer of newspaper, 5mm thick. Then you put down a layer of hay or lucerne (I had to get all this stuff from a horse-feed place), 10cm thick. Then you put down some organic matter (kitchen scraps, wilted weeds etc). Then you put down a layer of loose straw, 10cm thick, and some more organic matter. Then you water it well. Lastly, you top it with a 20 - 30cm layer of compost and water it again. Now I have to leave it to settle for two weeks before I can plant.

I have said before that patience is not my strong point. I want to plant NOW.

The point of a no-dig bed is that in theory, you never have to dig it (was that maybe a little obvious?). When you harvest your veggies, you just top up the bed with another 10cm compost and plant your next crop (obviously making sure you follow rotation guidelines so you keep your bed healthy).

The thing is... I ran out of bricks after this one bed. So now I need to get more to do the next oh, I dunno, five or six beds. Yes, five or six more of these back-breaking expensive bloody beds.

Like I said, the veggies better be worth it.

My current veggies are making me happy though. My peas are divine. There are few things in this world as yummy as a handful of freshly shelled sweet baby peas out the garden. Mmmm. In fact, these sparked my latest salad creation: a bed of sweet, tangy lettuce (not the boring variety) with sliced avocado and strawberries, finely chopped green pepper and fresh baby peas, dried cranberries and a handful of mixed seeds, all tossed in Pomegranite-infused white balsamic vinegar. Yum!

Hmmm... hungry now. Off to make some lunch. One last thing to say...

CONGRATULATIONS to ANGEL and GLUG on their ENGAGEMENT!

Photo post

Random snapshots of my life...

A HUGE and slightly rude-looking sweet potato from my veggie garden...

My kitties, snuggling up in the cold winter weather...

The stroppy teenage cheetah we saw when we were last at the Lion and Rhino Park...

A gorgeous tiger at the Lion and Rhino Park. Not sure if he was just yawning, or pulling a tongue at us all...

Not enough hours in the day

Because we do our office status meetings on a Monday morning (which takes up to two hours sometimes), I never seem to have enough time to do everything I need to do on the first day of the week. The fact that I write every single press release / newsletter / advert / piece of writing that this agency sends out means that my workload increases with every new client we sign. Currently, I am under the whip and battling to do all the work within my half-day. I find this very stressful. Discussions are underway about finding me a writing assistant. Let's hope that happens. If you know of a suitable candidate (i.e. good English and communication skills, in this for the love of writing rather than the love of money, able to work to insane deadlines and keen to join our hyper-emotional all-female company), please let me know.

Until then, I leave you with a picture of my vegetables that I picked out of my garden on Saturday. Why? Because (as Jackson's Mom will understand) I am incredibly proud of these fruits of my labour, more so than of the million-odd press releases I will write this week. Rightly so, I believe. The veggies definitely taste better.