I have a problem

No, nothing major, like a drinking problem or a disease...

I have too many blinkies and buttons that I want to put on my blog... GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH................

So many icons, so little erm... time... patience... webspace....?

My new house

I have got my new house!!!!!





G went and fetched it yesterday morning...

It's so lovely! It's got secret spaces ♥♥♥♥♥♥ !!!!

And G got me a window! Since the house doesn't have any ;)



And once again, I took photos of Dude:




In the last one, he's blinking - as so many people do when photos are being taken!

Thought for the day... and more

I got a Thought for the Day this week, which made me think:

24 January 2008 – Thought for the day

Everybody always says “I don’t have enough time” or “ There is not enough hours in a day”

Well, look at it mathematically!

You have 24hours in a day right, times 7 days a week
24 x 7 = 168hours
from which you sleep an average of 7.5 hours a day, average travel 1-1,5hours a day to work and back, & work time of 8 hours a day.

Thus
7.5 x 7 = 52.5 hours of sleep.
1.5 x 5 = 7.5 hours of travel to work.
8 x 5 = 40 hours of work.

So
168 -52.5 -7.5 – 40 = 68 hours of free time!!!!
Remember sleep has already been counted!!!
So what does this mean… you have 1.7 times more free time than when you are at the office!!
68 hours!!!

People, this is a serious wakeup call!!!
Manage your time properly!!!
You DO have enough free time!!!
Stop complaining & MANAGE & USE IT WISELY!!!

I sat and thought about it quite a bit, and did some calculations of my own:

The problem is that you have to take off eating time, cooking time, bath time, chore time, “homework” time if you have a job like that, which if you take it as 1hr per day and not including homework time takes off another 35 hours...

= 33 hours per week... divided by 7 which = an average of 5 hours per day...

Bear in mind that most of those hours would happen in the weekend, say 12 hours per weekend day (for people who sleep late/take naps/etc), and you’re left with 9.

That works out to about an hour of free time each work day. Not really much time to do anything. Also, bear in mind that some of that daily hour will be eaten up by getting up and getting ready for work.

Ok so, on weekends you have 24 hours. That’s the only time you can do things, and even then it gets eaten up by catching up on weekly chores and doing things you can't do during the week (banking, shopping, doing more intensive cleaning, washing etc) Also take off time that you spend doing more infrequent chores like cleaning windows, mowing the lawn, cleaning the car. It doesn't leave you with much time.

And people wonder why they get so fed up with working their entire life away, and don't get to do the things they really want to do.

Now for the rest of this blog post. Hopefully more cheerful things...

I'm currently on medication for h. pylori... a bacteria that causes ulcers. The doctor asked whether I would like to try the medicine first and if there's no improvement go for a scope or just go for a scope. I decided to try the medicine, because a scope sounds a bit... hospitaly. Don't particularly enjoy it. Anyway, I'm enjoying the side-effects of these medicines... or I would be, if I liked such things as an upset stomach, no appetite, exhaustion and a horribly bitter taste in my mouth. It tastes as if I've let a painkiller dissolve in my mouth... really gross. There are 4 days left of my treatment, hopefully this sorts everything out and I'm back to my old self because I can't remember what that was like. I hope it is the same as the way I felt when I was on the acid-pump inhibitor medicine... that was utter bliss.

Tomorrow at 07:30 I am having a driving lesson. It is inhumanely early, but that's the only way the driving instructor can get to me, his other lessons in the day are elsewhere and where I am is pretty out of his way. I will be starting to learn the parking/yard manoeuvres... they seem quite daunting but I'm game to give it a try. I just am a bit annoyed by his car's indicator lever, it just makes this irritating, timid sound as you push it up/down/off. It might just be that I'm annoyed with myself for repeatedly indicating BEFORE doing observations, which would be quite an issue doing the test. I hope I get it right and keep it that way!

Tomorrow we are going to get my house. I will post pics once it is mine.

Right now I am really enjoying a comic strip: www.metro.co.uk/nemi. Love this strip! She's so unusual, I really love it! I also admire the way the artist draws, her facial expressions are classic!

All the bosses are out of the office this afternoon. It is a GORGEOUS Friday, and they're all going to the cricket. Least they could do is say we could go home early, but no. They really don't care about staff morale and happiness and earning loyalty from the staff... whatever.

I'm so tired. I want to go sleep, lie down and rest... shouldn't be sitting or standing upright... do... not... want..........................

How

How does a person know how to deal with things... I will not go into detail. I seriously don't know what to do. I don't know whether to be angry, to be sad, to be upset, to withdraw, to engage and argue, to put up a defensive shield, to try help, HOW even to help. I just DON'T KNOW!

I don't think there IS any way to help. No way of "curing" it, or fixing things. Can't try demonstrate solutions so they're easier to picture and attempt. I can't keep being the ear. I can't keep being the one on the receiving end of all the SHIT and outpourings and ranting, I'm not CAUSING such upset, why am I subjected to the full blast of vented anger/frustration/hurt, when I am not the one causing it?

I'm tired. I don't know what to do. I tried to help. It's exhausting being the sensitive, patient, tolerant one. I suggest things to try, but it can't work. It's not working. There's always grief and shit flying inwards from the other side and it flies out and in my face.

I don't know what to do. I didn't sleep last night because of it. Slept maybe 3 hours. Not even, more likely 2.

I'M FINISHED! FUCK IT I'M FINISHED!

And you, bitchnextdoor, your KID IS A FUCKING BRAT! Grow the FUCK UP AND DISCIPLINE HIM! Fuck sake, what is wrong with you, ALLOWING your BRAT to scream the fucking neighbourhood down FOR NO FUCKING REASON! You're BOTH IN THE FUCKING KITCHEN! WhereEVER we are, we CAN HEAR YOU goddamnit! Give him a bloody good smack! Bastard.

Yes, I ranted. Woot. Whatever.

I feel like I have something to blog about,

but I'm not sure what that might be.

I'm really enjoying the new CDs I got. The Cure is awesome! Love Beck's Odelay CD, as always I'm enjoying the Cardigans. A Camp hasn't grown on me (yet) and the Chembros' AmericanEP is more like a set of remixes.

Had another driving lesson on Saturday. The instructor says my driving is coming along well. He asked whether I'd done any driving during the week and I had to come clean... but I didn't tell him about the snapsnap incident! Next week I'm learning the yard-manoeuvres. During this lesson past, I was driving in a rather wooded shady area, and the sun reflecting on the window from the dashboard was dreadful. I could hardly see a thing.

G and I raced through to mom's to pick up a parcel note - Mo had mailed me something for Xmas. A funky car calendar, a card and some plastic sheets/sleeves used to keep paper money in files (to protect them). Then we raced to the mall to meet G's mom for coffee. Walked around a little bit afterwards and I found replacement sunglasses. Polarised Raybans! There is just about NO reflection from the dashboard in G's car (remains to be seen in the instructor's car!), it makes the sky look a little moody because the sky looks darker and everything is brightly lit against this darker blue sky. Anyway, I'm enjoying those. Then I found 2 work shirts and a pair of black pants for work. So pleasant wearing pants that fit!

Then we met up with a girl from college, haven't seen her apart from in passing a year ago while G and I were waiting for the ride to start on the swings at the carnival! Had a yum lunch, caught up on a lot of news and just had a great time.

The rest of the afternoon G worked and I caught up with stuff online. Then rather late we watched Fantastic 4 (the first one). I'd seen it before but it was still very entertaining! Friday evening we watched Hairspray! It was very unusual but also rather fun to watch! John Travolta in drag - 'nuff said!

Sunday we slept late - or tried to. Someone must have given a kid in the complex a basketball for Xmas. Yay. Things like that should be illegal in complexes. Things that deserve to be banned are net- and basketballs, plastic ride-on motorbikes, anything else that makes a disturbance. It doesn't go on for a long time - and for that I am MOST GRATEFUL! But it is really quite a nuisance because the sound carries for the entire complex. The whole complex is joined by tar/concrete paving, so it bangs in your head wherever you are. Not the nicest wake-up but not as bad as that little shit next door.

On that note - I AM SO GLAD WE ARE CHILDFREE! It's so weird how almost every day yet another reason why not to have children is brought to our attention and we are thankful every time! The poor woman next door CANNOT EVEN TAKE A CRAP IN PEACE! This little swine brat went ABSOLUTELY INSANE this morning, bashing furniture/banging things/dragging things/going MAD (woke me up!), then I heard their loo flush, and then silence. Lovely. What a charmed life this poor woman must have.

On THAT note: Thought #1 for the day

COUNT YOUR MANY BLESSINGS AND YOU’LL SOON LOSE COUNT.

Count your many blessings money cannot buy.

Don’t brood over the riches of your neighbors but focus on the many blessings you actually do possess.

So let’s focus on the wonders of grace, training ourselves to make a spirit of gratitude pervade our lives.

That’s the way to experience joy and to be forever joyful.

(Vernon Grounds)

After taking the movie back, we headed off to G's folks' place. We'd invited them to lunch, at Tibet. A very inspiring restaurant/gallery along the coastline. It was rather busy (with a very noisy birthday party). I got to see something there that I've been keeping my eye on, more out of admiration and appreciation than with the plan to buy it, but it's really grabbed me now and I've decided. I sent an email off this morning to the gallery owners, asking if they can keep it aside for me, I'm just waiting for the reply. *holds thumbs*

EEEEKKKKKKKKK I guess I'm obsessed with it now but I really have fallen for it ^.^

*breathes*

*obsessively checks email...*

Ok while I wait for the mailbox to open I shall carry on.

Yesterday evening we did a little sorting in the study. It's not quite a proper study as yet, it still contains a bit of unsorted boxes, so it's a jundy room... half junk-room half study-room. Heehee! Threw out some boxes, packed things a bit better in the wardrobe, but there's still a good deal of stuff to go through. It'd be good to go through it and find better places for it but we don't really have the storage space/cupboards for it. We have to get rid of the junk-junk which is under the stairs, that'll free up space where we can store stuff like the bicycles, the weights (which would be more easily accessible there for our to-be daily exercise session) etc. That would in turn free up space in the jundy! I still have to fetch stuff from mom's place to sort through. *sigh* we'll get to the end of it yet! It will not beat us, we will conquer it!

On THAT note, here is Thought #2 for the day:

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.

(Mark Twain)

Anyway, let me leave this post at that for now. 45mins til work's over for this day!

Excitement

Our oven is coming into its own - G made a first for "us": banana bread!



We had no vanilla essence but we used vanilla fudge syrup (which can be put in coffee) instead.

And here's a pic of Heremia at present:

No News

Just blopping in to make my presence felt in the blog-world.

My head is fuzzy and my sinuses are burning up. All I want to do is go sleep. And I can't. Yet. Soon though! ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I'm in the Audi, hogging your rear-view mirror!

More like I'm in the Audi, driving at roughly 70 for most of the trip!

Yesterday morning, I had my 2nd ever driving lesson. I drove around a tiny bit at the station, and then onto the open road! I'm not sure where all we went, I just drove. I'm not very good at pulling away from a stand-still (like at a robot), I stalled a couple of times and at one particularly short-lived green light, I missed it completely and had to wait for the 2nd green... apparently that'd be an instant fail for obstructing the free flow of traffic. Uh-oh. Got to drive home from wherever we were, on the freeway and all the way to our front gate - I managed to drive fine on a particularly infamous bit of road called "Hospital Bend" (so named because of its proximity to a hospital but I'm sure it's quite appropriate considering how many accidents happen there!) But other than that, I think I'm doing ok. Billy the instructor says I'm doing fine... I'm sure it'll all be revealed when I do my test!

Had only a short bit of time at home after I got home, G shaved his hair quite short! And then we were off to G's folks' to have brunch with his family from Durban and to say bye, as they are leaving (today) after their week-long holiday. Went for a lovely drive all around, even on Chapmans Peak. The weather was stunning, perfect for an outing like that.

Got home, chilled a LITTLE bit, then headed off to mom's for her birthday (supper) and to watch a movie.

G drove up our road, and stopped the car. We swapped places. He said if I felt fine driving down the long road linked to our road, I could drive. I got to the robot and somehow was stuck... we couldn't change places NOW, so I ended up driving all the way to mom's!

I drove G's 2l turbo Audi all the way, averaging about 70kmph. The drive was luckily uneventful in a hazard-related way, but it was quite eventful otherwise! I stalled quite a couple of times when stopped at robots... One of the robots near home changed as I was quite close to it and I wasn't sure whether to stop or go through, and because my mind was full with remembering the steps to take when coming to a stop (brake+clutch+handbrake+neutral etc) I didn't actually accelerate when (we) decided I should just go through. So I got snapped by the camera for going through a red robot... HAHA erm... I got my first traffic fine... or to be more precise *G* got one.

Later in the drive, I managed to wheelspin... I'd managed the DREADFUL main road along the coastline without any problems, and then the 2nd robot out of the tricky part of the main road went red. I stopped and when I was trying to pull away the wheels SHRIEKED and the car stalled. It felt so crazy!

Pulled away alright the 2nd attempt, and got to the road to get off the main road, managed to turn right across fine. Trundled along, got to the circle at the corner at mom's place, turned sharply left, didn't straighten up enough and mounted the pavement and promptly stalled. It was as if I'd intentionally parked across the road from mom's place! The mag wheel wasn't too scraped - there were scrapes already. But GAHHHH hahahah... I got from our house to mom's house! A 30km trip, averaging 70kmph, taking 45mins to get there. What a trip! Literally and figuratively!

Today is going to be pretty busy. Gotta do chores, then going to mom's - we're eating out at a steakhouse. I'm gonna post this and then get to it! Vacuum, where AAAARE YOUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!

As promised!

Heremia, as of tonight:

Kussingkussingkussingkussing

If you say that ^^^^^ fast without really saying the vowels much, it sounds a bit like percussion ^.^

Last night I had rather strange dreams. They were angry dreams, I ended up shouting and swearing at and hitting people who had dome horrible things which had shocked me.

In the first dream, the dude I went out with in high school had met G and written something down which really really upset G. I'm not sure what that was, but it really made G very upset and I went up to the two of them (G was sitting at a small table and this guy had approached the table and put a hand-written note on the table), and started seriously shouting at this guy! I flipped my lid and was swearing and cursing him to hell and gone, and then I started slapping him and hitting him in the face, basically I was trying to beat him up.

The second dream was also weird. In reality, Mo (in the US) posted something to me, to mom's address. It hasn't arrived yet which is weird but not out of the ordinary for the postaly system here. Anyway, in this dream, I went home to visit mom, and when pulling up in the driveway, noticed the next door neighbours' dirtbin was overflowing. And in the rubbish were envelopes tied together. They had my name but the neighbours' address. Like 43 instead of 45, so it was delivered to them, not mom. I started pulling out these envelopes, to find quite a lot of them were mine, just addressed to no. 43! And these bastard neighbours who have lived next to mom had just tossed them in the bin, despite the fact that they KNOW our surname (sis and I grew up there), have known us for nearly 30 years and would definitely know it was a mistake and should have put the envelopes in mom's letterbox, and not thrown them away like "receiver unknown"!!! I grabbed all these envelopes, and went into mom's. The neighbours were visible over the fence, all of them out in their garden and stuff so I started yelling at them and cursing them and shouting and swearing and just going OFF at them about how horrible they are and that I'd been waiting for these letters for ages and surely they could have had the decency to give them to mom etc etc etc. I was practically lunging at them over the fence trying to hit them.

I don't know whether I was lying in a strange position and wasn't able to move, causing me to get subconciously angry, but I certainly would have been pissed off if the neighbours had done something like that.

What else is news. Can't think of anything right now. I've been working on Heremia again, I took a pic the night before last but didn't upload it for some reason... will do that tonight most likely :D

Can't think of anything else right now - I will blog again when things come to mind.

New pole

I have a "scratching pole" now, I doubt it'd take over from my clawing post, but we'll see.

I know there's something wonky with the layout of this page, it's going to be sorted out - G and I have to tweak it a bit so everything fits!

's all for now folks!

Belting up my armour and heading off to the salt-mines tomorrow

So much has happened since I blogged newswisely - I had my first driving lesson yesterday morning. The instructor fetched me from home, drove to a quiet, residential kinda area and then explained a whole LOAD of stuff about the drivers' test. The pre-trip inspection, the manoeuvres I'd have to do and other things. Then I got to drive! Very funky, I didn't stall or jerk the car cos he showed me the right things to do. My steering isn't as great as it could be but hell - it's my FIRST LESSON!! Wheeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!! He said afterwards that he usually tells his pupils to drive home, but he didn't feel I was ready yet - no kidding, I haven't driven before at all apart from around in circles in an empty parking lot outside a supermarket one Sunday evening!

I bought Dude some new toys - a set of "Olympic rings" and a car. He loves both of them. His favourite toy, however, is a piece of string! He will sit for HOURS on end, silently munching it. It's very strange. Whenever we want to watch a movie and he starts babbling and translating into Budgie, we just give him his ball+string. Here's a pic of his car(sports model, please note!) with his cat ball-toys in the passenger seats, his Olympic rings (they aren't as clear - there is another toy behind it) and a pic of him doing his pre-trip inspection.







While I was snapping happily I took some blackmail shots of my fish:





I will most likely blog some more tomorrow (hopefully work is quiet), but for now, I'm gonna sign off as it is 23:24 and I still have to go sleep before the Saltmine Shift begins!