I wish Mondays were less regular

Weekends are so cool, even when nothing particularly exciting happens, which was the case over this one. Unless you're a rugby fan, which I'm not really.

The only real drama this weekend was that our cat, Marble, managed to injure his front left paw on Friday. My poor baby - I was so worried about him and convinced he'd fractured it. But once I got TSC to hold him still and had a good look at it, it turned out that it was just a small (but sore) gash on one of his foot pads. You'd never have guessed by the fuss he was making, hopping along on three legs and meowing piteously. He had managed to get it dirty, so we cleaned the wound, applied some soothing antiseptic cream the vet gave us last time one of the kitties had a little injury (why do they make this stuff lumo orange, I'd like to know?), and bandaged the leg.

After that Marble truly did feel sorry for himself and meowed as loudly as he could while hopping about and trying to shake the dressing off. TSc and I were convinced our neighbours were going to report us to the SPCA with the sounds coming from our house.

Marble took about an hour to get the bandage loose, but at least the cream had a chance to work a bit. Plus he was so exhausted from all his protesting that he just settled down in the sun and rested the paw.

Today he's walking almost normally again. I'm almost sure he exaggerates the limp when he realises someone's watching ;-)

We spent most of the weekend (aside for supper club on Fri) working and repainting some of the pine boxes I've been given from Red Tree's offices. One would think that would be an easy job. Not if you're married to uber-perfectionist TSC!

They had to be sanded on each side (that's eight sides per box), have the (miniscule) cracks filled with wood filler, be resanded, get coated with universal undercoat and then be painted with two coats of enamel paint. And I couldn't just slap the paint on either. I had to "cut in" neatly in the inside corners and then coat each side with a small paint roller.

We're not done yet. We've only done the first coat. Still, they do look gorgeous. And they were free. So the DIY was definitely worth the effort. I'll take photos once they're done.

Weekend catch-up

Hello fabulous people.

It's day 14 of the headache. This is getting ridiculous. I think I may have to actually visit some sort of medical professional now. I can't keep pretending it will go away.

Other than the aching head, things are good. TSC and I had fun at the chocolate-making course this weekend. Pics below. I'm so glad I have a man that's secure enough in his masculinity to come along to women-dominated events like this. But he's as much of a chocoholic as I am, so that may also have had something to do with it.


TSC having (messy) fun painting the moulds with melted chocolate to make filled choccies

Adding the finishing touches to chocolate-dipped Pistachio Turkish Delight. Yum!

The results...

We also had two dinners with two different sets of friends, which was great fun, saw my mom and gran for Saturday lunch before my gran headed back to Mpumalanga, shopped for my grand-dad's 84th birthday present and saw my mom again for lunch on Sun to hand over the presents so she can take them down to Natal next weekend. I even got some work done somewhere in between and TSC watched some rugby.

It was a good and busy weekend although it felt too short. The public holidays in April leave us a bit spoilt and the two-day weekend seemed inadequate, especially for TSC who headed back to varsity today with a barrage of tests and exams lying ahead.

But after that he gets six weeks of holiday, so I must admit that my sympathy levels are not the highest ;-)

Have a good one.

I need a weekend to recover from the weekend

Seriously, people. I am a zombie today. My weekend revolved around the Makro human chain protest we did on Saturday (see here for details). We painted placards, organised volunteers, demonstrated and then spent the entire afternoon hand delivering press releases and video footage to various media. We finished at 6pm, just in time to get ready for STOMP, which was truly awesome once again.

Sunday's early F1 race was also fabulous. It rained, which always makes for an eventful Grand Prix. It was gripping from the first lap to the last - the total opposite of the Bahrain GP two weeks ago.

Then yesterday I worked like a fiend to finish off some web copy for a client and we were on ushering duty at church.

What have I forgotten? I seemt o remember doing something less frenetic somewhere along the line... Oh ja... Saw Shutter Island on Friday night, in between painting protest posters.




It was good. I guessed the main supposed twist in the tale, but there was another twist to make up for it. The acting was impressive and it's certainly suspense-filled, but it felt very long, I must admit. That said, it was probably the most enjoyable Martin Scorsese film I've ever seen. I've disliked most of the others, including all the so-called "classics". Bite me.

Hope everyone else had a good weekend and that the four-day week ahead is awesome.

What's bugging me

The weekend was a good one. Hope yours was too. We did supper on Friday night with friends, volunteered at Kitty haven on Saturday, found my brother's 21st present, watched the first Grand Prix of the season yesterday with our neighbours over a delicious lunch and got lots of work done.

If it wasn't for the moths it would've been perfect. I hate the moths.

Let me explain... We have a pantry in our kitchen that attracts moths like Malema attracts news headlines. They are prolific. And they get into everything! I have found the little blighters and their revolting white worm offspring in my Tupperware containers, inside packets that have been sealed with packaging tape, inside boxes that have yet to be opened and even behind labels on tins and bottles.

They give me the creeps and there seems to be nothing I can do about them!

Every few months I clean out the whole damn pantry. This involves taking out everything - tins, boxes, containers, spices etc. I blitz the tiny room with almost a full can of bug-zapping insect killer. Then I wipe down each and every item, sitting on my kitchen floor, checking for moths and worms and chucking out anything where I can see evidence of these intruders. I hate doing this because it is a phenomenal waste of money (nevermind being a disgusting and time-consuming exercise).

Then I pack whatever's left of our supplies (usually a few lonely tins stripped of their moth-infested labels with my handwritten notes in permanent ink, some onions, sachets of cat food and the icing sugar, which for some reason they don't like) into plastic containers with lids. In theory, this means that if I've missed a moth or worm or eggs in the macaroni packet, the evil bugs will only be able to ruin the pasta and not everything else.

I then wipe down the shelves with a cloth dipped in bleach, replace the newspaper lining on each shelf and put down little containers filled with mothballs. The moths find this hilarious. They demonstrate their lack of respect for me and my kitchen stock by laying their eggs on top of the moth balls.

When we use anything to cook with, we check for moths. We sieve our hot chocolate, rinse our rice (bugs float) and store our flour and mielie meal in the freezer. We are even more careful when serving guests. We once found worms in a box of previously unopened, sticky-taped closed Ferrero Rocher luxury chocolates that we were going to serve with coffee.

I have tried not using the light in the pantry for a few weeks. We still got moths. I tried not ever turning the light off. We still got moths.

Apart from spraying everything with Doom and poisoning ourselves along with them, I don't know what more to do.

Where do they come from? And why do they love my pantry so? How can I get rid of these horrible bugs?

Help, please!!!

A better weekend

Let me start this post off with a line I'm sure has been uttered around the world since time immemorial on Monday mornings:

I don't feel like being at work today.

I'd rather be continuing with my lovely weekend, which, after a surprisingly good business meeting with a new client, kicked off with dinner with fabulous friends on Friday at our place. We've decided to do a regular super club with these two couples, T&R and B&M, and it was our first turn to host. After the crudites, I served my red Thai chicken curry with glass noodles and roasted pumpkin from the garden. Dessert was my white chocolate tart topped with blueberries and strawberries. Forgot to take a pic, but it was pretty.

We enjoyed a bottle of red wine, easy conversation and then coffee and chocolates before they left, still at a fairly reasonable hour as T was working the next day. What I love about these friends is that we can see each other once a month and just pick up where we left off. We all have vastly different interests (T&R are serious touch rugby players while B&M are chess champions), but we get along so well.

On Saturday, TSC and I did our volunteer training at Kitty Haven. I love being surrounded by the affectionate cats and dogs. One cat, Forrest Gump, is blind in one eye and has a neurological disorder that makes him walk very strangely so that he looks spastic. But he is the sweetest cat and threw himself on my lap for a cuddle and a bellyrub while we listened to the volunteer coordinator explaining how things work. He was most put out when I had to get up for the sanctuary walk-through.

We followed the training with brunch at Grand Central Cafe again. And it was just as brilliant as last time. So often I find that I enjoy my experience at a restuarant and then the next time I'm there it disappoints me. Not so here. It was great. And their homemade lemonade is divine.

We went through to Pretoria to see my folks. My mom seems to be ok. We all, including my brother (who was actually quite charming for a change - he normally reserves that side of him for his mates), went out for supper at the cutest restaurant in Hazelwood, Boston Deli Kitchen.

It's so quirky, with a shop selling random jewellery and clothes, as well as relishes, jams and sweet treats, all inside the restaurant. Menus are Afrikaans literature books that have the actual menu pages glued onto certain pages. There's a pay-by-weight carvery too. The food was great. I had duck confit and my brother had a lamb mint pie. But the best bit was the desserts! Brownies, deep-fried nougat and Cointreau creme brulee, among others. Yum! It was a good evening of laughing and chatting.

On Sunday, while TSC studied, I popped into HobbyX. I'm not a fan of expos because there are just too many people pushing through the stands. But it's alsways worth going to HobbyX to stock up on craft equipment. I got some beautiful embossed, glittered, flocked and handmade papers from Paper World (the main reason I go to HobbyX), as well as loads of scrapbooking bits and bobs that I use to make cards. I behaved myself and stayed away from the mosaic stands (where I could easily spend my entire salary), but also bought more chocolate moulds (don't know what happened to all of mine) so that I can make my own Easter eggs this year.

Then it was back home to prep for today's round of interviews for a magazine commission I'm busy with, and to quickly write the newsletter for our complex.

It was a good weekend in all. I even got to swim, ever so briefly. This week looks like it may be ever so slightly less manic than last week, which would be brilliant.

PS: Congratulations to Meriel on her marriage. She is a special, special lady and I wish her much happiness.

PPS: What do you think about the change in colour / style here?

Weekend lessons

The weekend was not as planned. But here's what I learnt:

• When booking a weekend away next time, it would be wise to check whether it's a mid-term break for schools or not. Holiday spots are busy during mid-term breaks.
• My GPS, Gloria, does not know everything. Sometimes she is a spiteful cow and makes us drive in circles.
• You can be all set up in your nice allocated campsite next to good people and thinking life is grand only to have it ruined by a car full of revolting, noisy, drunken, loud, epically foul-mouthed brats who pitch their tent next to yours and play rubbish music at full volume until 3am.
• Talking to such brats will only result in quiet for 30minutes after the conversation. Then, magically, they will forget everything you've said and continue as before.
• People who don't know how to behave in public should not be allowed out. Especially people who think it's ok to leave dirty diapers lying on the lawn next to the swimming pool when they leave.
• I am only a people person when I am surrounded by pleasant people. Otherwise, I am very intolerant.
• Rules without consequences are only good advice. And not likely to be followed by Joe Public.
• Moving your tent to the opposite end of camp, far away from all amenitites and other people, may secure you the peace and quiet you have been craving. Good red wine also helps.
• TSC and I can have fun together despite imperfect conditions.
• There are few things in the world as refreshing as ice cold, homemade gingerbeer from a farm stall.
• I can cook a mean red curry on a camp stove.
• I love my home. It is the first place since we've been married where TSC and I have had our own garden and not shared bedroom walls with someone else. It is very, very precious to me and I love heading home after being away, even just for two days.
• If I am writing and I am in "the zone", I do not like to be interrupted, even by my darling TSC. It is difficult to pick up where I left off after being distracted.
• I may write better poetry when I am miserable, but my fiction comes more easily when I'm happy. Go figure.
• It is important to set boundaries and to say 'no' to people. I will probably need to learn this lesson over and over again.

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.

Suggestions welcome

Last year I mentioned I'd like to do a swap circle sometime early this year. And seeing the year is already getting on (?!?!?!panic much?!?!?!), I'd better get my A into G. So, I would like ideas, please. How is the best way to do this? Should people just bring their stuff and haggle among themselves (could be entertaining)?

Should I invent a currency for the day (I'm thinking Clams, like the Flintstones used)? I could make one Clam equivalent to R5. Then everyone could give their swappables a monetary value, round it off to the nearest R5 and put a Clam price on it. Then when you arrive, you hand over your stuff and get its value in Clams, which you can spend on other people's stuff. Does that make any sense? Probably not.

I think I should also give folks the option to donate any stuff that doesn't get swapped to a suitable beneficiary (not me, clowns. I mean like the books left over can go to a library, the clothes to the children's home my mom works with etc...). I'd be happy to do the deliveries of the stuff.

In fact, maybe I should ask everyone who comes along to bring something from the charity's wishlist if they can (for instance, at the moment I know the children's home needs tupperware containers and bath towels).

Of course we'll have to set some rules in place. Like no bringing your manky old socks to swap. What do you think?

And while I'm asking, how was the weekend for everyone else? Mine was good. Ended up having a spontaneous supper with our neighbours on Sat (they whipped up a three-course meal out of thin air. It was impressive) and went to see Phillygirl in her new place yesterday and caught up with some other bloggers too. Then it was church, coffee with mates and off to bed so that we could both get up early for gym this morning and TSC could get to varsity on time on his first day back.

He's been on holiday for almost two months (I miss that about my student days), so I think he's glad to be back in a way, despite the fact that it's going to be loads of hard work.

Well, have a fab week, people.

Bring back Saturday!

I think that it's only once you're back at work after a holiday that you realise how truly short weekends are. *sigh* And this rainy weather is not conducive to office productivity. We're all dreaming of being home in bed with a good book and a mug of Milo.

The weekend was a good one. We spent Friday evening chilling at home watching How I Met Your Mother upstairs while Isak watched some big soccer match in the living room. We could hear him cheering once in awhile, so it must have been good.

On Saturday morning, I hit the gym for an aqua class, which left me feeling alive and refreshed - a good way to start the weekend. When TSC arrived back from his golf lesson with a mate of ours (late, of course), I made us all a big breakfast of poached eggs, toast and bacon.

Then Isak finished up the last window, TSC and I did a few chores and we all headed to Pretoria. We dropped him off at the station to go home, sending some Christmas presents, veggies from my garden and a load of clothes with him, along with his pay. I think he was hoping we'd give him the R1 000 he needs to cover the monthly installments he's skipped on his furniture repayments, but we just don't have that money to give him.

We then went to spend the rest of the afternoon with my folks. It was good to see them again and we enjoyed a family supper along with my brother and a friend at the new Simply Asia near their house. My dad's latest is to wag his finger at me and say, "Don't put this on your blog!" if he thinks he's said something I could tease him about ;-)

On Sunday morning TSC and I went for brunch with them at the Primi Piatti in Irene Village Mall. The food was great, but it took forever to arrive even though we were the only people in the restaurant. We finished quite late and had to rush back to Joburg in time to make a friend's birthday braai before church. We didn't take meat with us, having just eaten, but TSC (of course) ended up cooking everyone else's food because he's brilliant behind a braai.

This is his last week of holiday before he starts varsity again. On the one hand, I'd like him to finish the projects he was meant to do this holiday (installing shelves in the study, fixing the leaking toilet etc), but on the other hand I think he should enjoy a last week of rest before the craziness begins. Third year is sure to be tough and I'm not looking forward to the stress on him and on us. That said, I'm sure he'll enjoy the new challenge and the fact that he doesn't have to do statistics as a subject this year!

I'll have to plan something nice for this weekend to end off his holiday on a high note. I would ask for ideas, but seeing he's now reading my blog, if you do have any brain waves please email me at doodlesofajourno at gmail dot com. Ta.

Have a fab week.

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.

Five days!

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Holiday in Cape Town with amazing best friends!


CANNOT. WAIT.


The weekend, in short, was exhausting and emotional. On the plus side, I discovered these amazing homeopathic drops for mild depression, grief and tearfulness that will be my new best friend in encounters of the in-law kind. Magic stuff!


I also made enough money at my open day to buy TSC's Christmas gift and presents for his whole family (which did much in putting a stop to the guilt-tripping going on) and my mom and dad.


A further discovery was that I still suck at 10-pin bowling, and that I should not be let loose in company when over-tired, hormonal and angry. Unless I've been doped with my magic drops. Then I'm just peachy.


I leave you with a pic of me and the parentals with Gogo and her family in front of her new house.

Warning: long boring post ahead*

*but it's more here for my memory's sake than for your reading pleasure. Sorry.


I feel like the weekend skipped me. That tends to happen when you spend the majority of your weekend in a car, I guess.

It all started on Friday afternoon. Remember I said I was going home early, having worked late the day before? Well, our genius *sarcasm* gardener, let's call him Special K, left the pedestrian gate unlocked on his way out. We have a gate kinda like this (except the small gate within the big gate is on the other side, close to the gate motor):



If you leave the pedestrian gate unlocked, it is not only unsafe as anyone can walk into your house, it is also likely that when you press the button on the remote for the gate to open, the small pedestrian gate will swing open, which is exactly what happened when I tried to leave the office. The pedestrian gate swung open and got firmly wedged in the gate motor compartment, meaning that the gate would not open or close and that we couldn't even get the motor open to switch it to manual.

Boss Chick was not at the office, so Roo and I tried to push the gate back. No luck. Being in high heels probably didn't help. I eventually called TSC who had to come and lend a manly hand. He managed to lift the gate off its tracks so we could move it backwards, out of the motor casing (now with a nice big dent in the middle), and close the pedestrain gate, which we then taped shut. Needless to say, I ended up not leaving early.

Then, in a rush to leave home for Pretoria before the Friday afternoon traffic started, with our two cats in tow (we had to take them with to my folks' house so my brother could give Sapphire her antibiotics while we were away), I grabbed the wrong handbag. We discovered this when we'd been on the road for about 25 min. We had to turn back to fetch it, seeing my phone, purse, keys etc were all in the other bag. This wouldn't have been a train smash if one of the cats hadn't decided that now would be the perfect time to have a dump. Thankfully he went in the litter box we'd brought with, but we had to drive home with the stench. Ugh.

We eventually all arrived in Pretoria intact, albeit in a bad mood, to find Gogo's stuff being loaded onto the truck. Sad stuff. I gave her the Christmas and birthday presents I'd brought with for her and realised how much I'll miss watching her open her gifts every year. She always gets so excited.

We had supper at Primi Piatti at Irene Mall and tried to get an early night. Unfortunately the felines would have none of it. They are quite used to being at my folks' place, but in the guest room downstairs. When we stay there, they get access to the veranda, lounge and kitchen, which can we shut off from the rest of the house so that we don't wake up to midnight cat fights between my two kitties and my mom's.

But because Gogo's furniture had been moved out, she was staying in the guest room and TSC and I were sleeping in my old bedroom upstairs. The cats, cooped up in such a small space during their prowling hours, were going beserk - running over the bed, meowing at the mosquitoes and generally not letting us sleep.

Needless to say, when we got up at 6.15am, I was not in a happy place. At 7am, my folks, Gogo and I climbed into my parents' double-cab bakkie (pick-up) and started the trek to Ladysmith. We stopped for breakfast along the way and then met up with the furniture truck at Van Reenen's Pass. We reduced speed so that it could follow us to Gogo's new house.

The house is gorgeous. I am so proud of her and glad that when I'm missing her I'll be able to picture her there. Family members and friends gathered around to help unload the truck, which took all of 20 minutes. I snapped photos and followed Gogo on a tour of the house and garden area (not yet planted because there's currently no fence and the goats will eat anything green within minutes) and listened to her plans.

Her sister's daughter died last year, leaving five children behind. Gogo's lazy sister, Florence, has done nothing to help them, so Gogo has met with social workers to arrange food and clothing, and plans to build a small traditional house for the children on her property so that she can care for them. She's incredible.

Then it was time to say goodbye. 25 years of knowing someone and you have five minutes to say farewell without knowing when you'll next see them. Somehow unfair.

I waited my turn, wanting to be last, because I knew I would need silent time in the car to stop crying afterwards.

How do you tell someone with words about the impact she's made on your life or how knowing her has made you a better person? How do you say 25 years' worth of thank yous, I love yous and goodbye all at once?

I don't think I did a very good job. But we cried together, with her laughing even as she held back tears, and hugged each other tightly. And then I got back in the car and waved out the window as she and her family grew smaller and smaller as the distance grew. As we pulled back onto the highway, I sent her a text message from my phone:

Gogo, I love you and I am so proud of you in your beautiful new house. I hope I see you again soon! I will miss you.

We eventually arrived in Durban at about 2.30 and visited the site where my folks are building their retirement home. It's now half a house and things are moving quickly. The plans have been altered so many times because of city council regulations changing and the house is no longer what they originally wanted, but it's looking good nevertheless.

After that, TSC watched the rugby on TV while I snoozed at the B&B. Then we went out for a meal at Musgrave Centre, which brought back floods of school memories. TSC and I watched Shadowlands, a 1993 movie with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger, which we both enjoyed.

On Sunday we had breakfast at the B&B and set off on the road again. We stopped in Howick to see my granddad and Lilly for tea. After that it was back in the car again. We continued for what felt like forever, punctuating our journey with a stop to pick up drinks and then, much later, at about 5pm, a stop in some dodgey corner of Benoni for suspect Chinese food. When we eventually arrived in Pretoria, TSC and I packed up the cats and our bags and got into our own car to drive back to Joburg.

This morning I feel like it should be Friday. I always forget how exhausting doing nothing for hours on end while stuck in a car can be.

Have a good week, all.

Hello Monday

What a weekend!

Friday night we had some friends around for supper. Sadly, the vegetarian and partner couldn't make it as they were both feeling sick, but everyone else seemed to enjoy the roast veggie lasagne and warm chocolate pudding.

On Saturday morning, we went for our sushi-making adventure. My folks gave me a voucher for two for my birthday, and this is the first chance I've had to use it.

Can I just say that if you live in Joburg, like sushi and ever get the chance, you should do a course at Miya's. It is awesome! Chef Miyamoto is a fully qualified sushi chef (that means five years of training). After he'd explained how year one is spent just training in hygiene and cleaning, and year two is solely about how to cook the rice, I felt a bit bad that here was this group of South Africans all expecting to learn how to make sushi in just a few hours.

But he was really patient with us and his wicked sense of humour made it very entertaining. He was full of fascinating info about the differences between Japanese and South African sushi, how using a different type of rice affects the way you cook it, where the names of the sushi types come from and where to buy the best fish in Joburg. I was astounded to learn that there are only a handful of properly qualified sushi chefs in the country and that in Japan, you don't get wasabi to mix with your soy sauce - the chef just grates the horseradish into the sushi as he makes it.

It was a long morning (9.30am until just after 2pm), but we both had such a great time and really enjoyed eating the sushi we'd made (even though it didn't look as professional as Chef Miya's). Maybe I'll post some pics tomorrow.

After that, we rushed home, did a quick clean-up of the previous night's dishes and then our Zimbabwean mates Sarah and Phil arrived for a visit. I met Phil through my best friend, Nic, at varsity and then TSC became friends with him when he too moved to Cape Town. He was the MC at our wedding and is one of the most lively and entertaining people I know.

Phil introduced us to his sister Sarah and she became a friend too. When we moved to Johannesburg, we got in touch with their parents and now we are friendly with the whole family, bar one sibling (who lives in Australia. We may meet her for the first time in Dec).

We had a good catch-up with the two while we watched rugby as Phil told us some of his bush adventures (he's a professional hunter and photographer) and Sarah told us where she'd been placed for her physiotherapy community service year. It was great fun.

Yesterday we went to the Rosebank craft market again to pick up some stuff my mom wants and then I spent the afternoon making a Christmas wreath and bottles of mint jelly before church.

Tonight we have our church's annual Christmas carols concert at the Barnyard, which is more like a dinner theatre production, actually. I'm lookinf forward to it, although our neighbours who were supposed to be coming with us knocked on the door to tell us they're sick this morning and can't make it tonight, so we now have four empty seats at our table of 12. Anyone keen to come?

Have a good week.

Of soundtracks, suppers and stress

This weekend was like the damn interval training programme on the step machine - up and down, up and down.

Friday we tried to watch Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs at Fourways Mall. Don't ask me why. It seemed like a pretty boring movie, made infinitely worse by the fact that the soundtrack was warped. The music constantly sounded like a stretched cassette tape. Not cool. We complained four times and when they still hadn't fixed it, had a little discussion with the manager. He tried to tell me it was supposed to sound like that. Whatever, dude. We're not stupid. I think he reckoned if it had been that noticeable, other people would have complained too. But most of the other people in the theatre were about 10 years old ;-) Eventually we got vouchers from him and headed home to watch a dvd instead.

I spent Saturday in my garden, happily planting and trimming. The veggie garden is finally beginning to look like the jungle I want it to be. I'm not one for things planted in neat rows. I like Jane's Jungle Style of gardening much more.

Went to Papachino's at Crowthorne for supper with TSC and my folks on Saturday evening. We had such a nice time! Good wine, great food and enjoyable company. It was probably the highlight of my weekend.

Yesterday was the ushering team thank you function I'd organised. I had specifically asked everyone to be there by 1.30 latest, as the show starts at 2pm sharp and you need time beforehand to order drinks, have your picnic lunch and socialise.

At 1.30, there were two people there aside from TSC and I. In the end, three people still hadn't arrived when the show started and came in during the first half. Two people didn't pitch at all.

The show was excellent and I sang my heart out enjoying all the musical hits I love so much, but I must admit my day was seriously dampened by the stress. I know it's silly, but I felt downright panicky when it was 1.45pm and there were only six of us out of 23 people. Anyway, at least that's done now.

I also had a row (such a quaint word) with TSC about him taking up more responsibility. We supposedly lead the ushering team together but I actually do everything on my own. I think he got my point, so we'll see how that goes from now on. Poor man - he looked so bewildered when I got all upset about it. I think sometimes we women forget that men don't catch our subtle hints - we have to actually spell out what the problem is.

In other news, I've decided that in order to make a little Christmas money, I'm going to have an open house to sell some of the jewellery I make (and various other crafted stuff) on 5 December at my place from 9am until 1pm. So if you are interested in selling your wares or in coming along to do some Christmas shopping, please drop me a mail at doodlesofajourno at gmail dot com.

Have a good week, everyone.

Updated, 11.20: THIS is the best post I've read in ages.

Singing cats and search terms

How was your weekend? The highlight of mine was seeing CATS at the Teatro at Montecasino. Most of the "cats" had incredible voices and when they harmonised I got goosebumps. I was also impressed by the fact that they could keep perfect pitch and rythm while dancing like mad things. It was great.

TSC didn't enjoy it quite as much as I did. Although he said the second half was much better, once I'd explained to him what was happening. Before that, he said it was just "people running around onstage wearing cat ears". Shame. The fact that some of the actors didn't annunciate very clearly meant that if you didn't know the storyline, you might get a bit lost. The lyics are all-important.

Those people in cat ears did a far better job than our two looney felines who thought they'd wake us up with a pre-dawn serenade / fight with our neighbour's cat this morning.

Anyway, my brain has not yet kicked into gear (I use dup most of its reserve fuel summarising two of TSC's subjects and teaching them to him this weekend), so I'm copping out on writing anything sensible and leaving you with some bizarre search terms that have led people to this blog recently. Some I vaguely understand, but others...

• climates in africa in swaps hot or cold (huh?)
• mxit pics Sorry - you won't find those here!
• a song the words which have not gone bad (Hate to disappoint you, but most song lyrics suck these days)
• what era is the side ponytails and leggings (You obviously weren't around in the 80s)
• milky lane ice cream cakes midlands (When you find one, can I have some of your ice cream cake from the Midlands?)
• WOMEN MAKES LIVING OFF DOODLES (How? Let me know!)
• how have boarding schools changed in south africa (Most of them haven't.)
• clients that dont understand PR (You poor thing... have a quiet cry here. I feel your pain.)
  

Have a fabulous week everyone!

The non-weekend and other stuff

This weekend passed by in a total blur. We saw My Sister's Keeper on Friday evening. Blegh. The book was so much better. The movie ending was just not the same.

Saturday I left the house at 8am to help my mom out at a charity fete. I was in charge of the temporary tattoos / stickers / face-painting stall. It was a LONG day. I only left at 4pm, so Saturday felt like it went on forever, but at the same time lile I totally skipped it, if that makes any sense. TSC was at Germiston Dam, racing his concrete boat. His team won "most original boat design", but didn't get far in the heats as their boat is shaped like a paddleski and none of them could stay on the thing (which floated really well). He was there from 7am to 3pm, so he was also pretty exhausted.

We chilled at home and watched The Boat That Rocked - a sincerely strange film. Great moments, but wasn't sure what I thought of it as a whole.

Sunday we had brunch on our balcony - farmstyle omelettes and home-brewed lattes - and then cleaned the house and prepped for a church meeting we were hosting. After that (at 5pm) we left for church, got back, had supper, did TSC's studying (I teach the theory to him, which seems to help. I know all about the construction methods of dams, bridges and tunnels now) and fell into bed at 11pm, dead tired.

And that was the weekend over. I've been given Friday off (Thursday is a national holiday in South Africa) as my boss figures nobody will be around, so I have a very long weekend. I was hoping to go camping with TSC, but he's away on a varsity practical week from tomorrow till Sunday, so I'll be on my own. I guess I'll get some house stuff, freelance work and craft projects done. My only plans thus far are to watch the F1 with Angel and Glug on Sunday.

I need to go and write a motivational 35-minute speech now for my boss to deliver at some conference next week. Coz I'm so good at being motivational. Huh.