Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Excitement in Paradise

Please note - it has taken me a whole TWO MONTHS to finally upload this post - LOL.
Hello Hello!!! I'm so terribly excited because of certain developments in my valley (aka my tiny abode).
  1. I'm getting creative with my cooking - figuring out what to do with leftovers like broccoli.
  2. I got 2 POUNDS of fresh strawberries for $2.80!!!! (4 punnets for R20 in total) - I am freezing them all to have stash for strawberry and paw-paw smoothies during the summer time.
  3. My husband bought me a Kelvinator Mini-oven!
  4. I'm cooking and baking in the very nice Kelvinator Mini-oven! (This is brown mushrooms and sliced zuchinni with shredded spinach, vegetable stock powder and lovely white cheddar sprinkled over it and baked until crispy!)
  5. My husband is very happy with the results ;-)
These are the days of a happy housewife!
Keep well and hope your week is fantastic!

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

I am happy because...

  1. God's grace and mercy carries me where no-one else can!
  2. I am in a loving marriage with a seriously understanding husband (=
  3. My family just totally rocks!
  4. I have learned to look after myself better, making healthier food choices and lifestyle changes.
  5. I completed my first ever 35 km (21.7 miles) Mountain Bike Race (Nissan X-Trail Series - Diamond Rush, Cullinan) and will hopefully be doing these distances more regularly!
  6. I have lost 5 kg (11 lbs) since beginning September 2011!
  7. I get to cook meals everyday for my husband and I (i.e. we have food in our cupboards and fridge), whilst there are people living around me who are never sure where their next meal is coming from.
  8. Jesus Christ is my HERO!
  9. My friends are kind, loving, and caring people :-D
  10. I am able to walk, talk, cycle, swim, sew - all because GOD has gien my the ability to do these things.
  11. Luke 23:40-43 & John 3:16!!!!!
Just thought I'd pop these on here :-)
Have a superb rest-of-the-week!

Thursday, September 29, 2011

The incompetence of the GSSC

I am up to my neck with frustration. Last year August the Dept of Education started illegally deducting money from my salary. I was able to stop them after two months, but I'm yet to see that R2200 that they deducted before I could stop them.

This case has been pending for a YEAR now, and I am at the point of no return. How do you fight a bureaucracy that is unwilling to change or improve? How do I get back money which was illegally taken from me? I'm so agitated by this whole situation - because along the road there are so many people who are trying to help me get back my money, but their hands are tied by faceless, nameless upper-level management CSO's who could not be bothered to sign a piece of paper to give me my money back?

Will I now do what the rest of South Africa does when calling for justice on a matter? Toi-toi outside the GSSC building? Camp out in their foyer? How do I demand that my money be given back to me, in CASH, not deposited into my account which will cause it to be taxed AGAIN (after my salary was already taxed in any case last year when these deductions were made)? I am SO SICK of the incompetence of the GSSC!

GSSC, you are the reason for people leaving the public sector! When you screw up this badly, you make people very angry, give them a reason to not trust Government in general. I don't want to wait until my pension for this money to be paid in, because I'm sure you will not pay the interest accumulated on that amount to me as well....

UGH!!!! Okay, end of this rant and rave, because it won't help in any case. I've seen how useless upper-level management at the GSSC is. Just know, upper-level management of GSSC, you make the lives of your lower-level workers difficult, since the messenger gets killed time and time again over YOUR mess-ups!

Monday, September 5, 2011

Insulin Resistance and other health problems

Recently I went to a GP who seems to focus more on family planning and diet. He immediately did a gazillion blood tests (actually more like 15 of them). The reason I went to him? I'm struggling to fall pregnant.

Two of my friends have told me they were struggling to fall pregnant, then got diagnosed with insulin intolerance and once placed on medication for that, fell pregnant. Well, who could've guessed? It turns out I'm insulin resistant. But that's not all (this sounds like a Verimark advertisement) - I also have high cholesterol (family related) and high uric acid levels (which explains my severe joint pain during the past Winter. My shoulders were especially affected this Winter.).

At first I thought, okay, just change your diet as the GP told you, and drink your prescribed medication, and then you're all set! Okay, I was WRONG. The more I read about this, the more I'm learning about the type of diet I have to follow (heck, there is SOOOO much to consider). And my lack of exercise - NOT GOOD!

So, here is the bits I have made sense of:
I'm feeling very over-whelmed at this moment in time, having to process (and then digest) all this information! But, I know that in the end this will make me a happier (potentially less-moody) person who might actually fall pregnant, if GOD wills.

Hopefully I'll learn more and more each day, and I'll try my best to share ideas on my blog to inspire others also recently diagnosed with all these conditions.


Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Unhealthy eating habits

I'm not one for over-the-top, super-creamy&rich food. But MAN, have I invested in some seriously nice food over the past weekend, and up till today?

Sunday I decided to make pumpkin fritters (actually, more like little round balls of pumpkin-mixture) that wa DOUSED with caramel sauce (homeade - naturally!). THEN, I made some more pumpkin fritter-balls last night, this time without any sauce. Added to that I sliced up quite a few baby potatoes, then fried them and proceded to cover them in salt&vinegar seasoning (read: loads of MSG).

But tonight we came home late, and that called for some vetkoek to be made. I bought some ready-made bread dough from the shops, and then made these babies!!! As my brother, Otto, explained it to a non-South African one day - it's the donut without the hole. And this picture shows EXACTLY the way we had it tonight - even had Lyle's golden syrup in the green tin... SOOOOOO unbelievably good!

Thank goodness for comfort-food South African-style!

Monday, August 22, 2011

My Geeky Husband's 30th Birthday Party

My husband celebrated his big 3-0 birthday 1 1/2 weeks ago. Since he did not have the best of birthdays last year (my brother passed away 3 days before my husband's birthday, and then my sister-in-law's brother passed away ON my husband's 29th birthday), I thought this year better be fun.

First he wanted to have a mountain bike party with just family. But I thought friends should really be included. Then another birthday party and a bachelor's was organised for the 6th of August (when we would've had his party), and he decided to cancel everything.

I, on the other hand, decided to throw him a surprise 30th! The theme??? Android and GEEK! (My husband is an absolute geek, he likes ANYTHING geeky, his website is www.geekworld.co.za, catch my drift???)

I spent several afternoons at my 3rd brother's house cutting Android stencils out of X-rays, and stenciling Androids onto paper plates using green food colouring. I proceeded to cut an Android stamp from a potato to stamp the serviettes with (using lime green craft paint). My brother's kids, Ivan, Zoë and Joël, all got pulled into this Android-spirit by making cards with Androids, drawing Android men until they perfected it, and Ivan and Zoë even made an Android poster for Thinus at 23h00 the night before the party!!!! My sister-in-law, Brenda, is a WHIZ when it comes to decorating cakes, and so she was summoned to make a lovely, BIG, chocolate and vanilla marble cake (2 layers) with caramel treat in-between and decorating it with none other than: ANDROID! We even made cupcakes decorated with little Android men (once again, the kids were a GREAT help, since my husband pitched up at my brother's house 2 hours before we expected him to!).

Sooooo, here's the link to my husband's website. Go check out his "Turning 30 the Geeky Way" post and all the lovely pictures he took (using his Android phone, a Samsung Galaxy S) and attached :-D

At least now I know I will one day be able to pull off themed parties for our kids :-)))))

Monday, June 27, 2011

Having faith

I'll just jump right into this post today. I'm experiencing disappointment, heartache, jealousy and lack of faith. Why? Because we've been trying to fall pregnant for more than a year now following the loss of our first child. And all that's happening is...nothing. Every month I slowly but surely build up the excitement that, 'this might just be the month it happens', only to come crashing at the end of my cycle when, once again, nothing....

I'm struggling with this, asking 'why, why, why???'. I don't for one second believe that I serve a cruel, heartless, distant GOD, but One that gives life, and that in abundance. Yet I find myself asking, 'Am I not a good enough Christian? Don't I pray or read the Bible often enough? Is my faith THAT lacking? Is my body just not willing to give us the child we so want?' But I've come to realise that my desire for a child overrides any other heart's desire I have. It came to the point that I had to admit that it's my top priority, not my relationship with GOD nor my husband.

I know that I have to work on that, and just last week I could reside in GOD for the first time in a long time, and say to Him, "Okay, not my will but YOUR will". That was difficult, since I am a control-freak. To hand over control (even though I never really had it, eh? Since biology is not dictated by my whims) is very difficult for me, to say to GOD "You really know what You're doing" when things aren't going the way I want it to, that's hectic for me. Yet, I know I have to release myself from this, because it's busy driving me crazy. My life comes to a halt, to a sudden breakdown every month, nothing being as important as the answer to 'Am I pregnant or not?'.

I've been spending a lot of time reading Job, and also James. Job is still difficult to read, but he kept his faith even though he endured all that pain. He never forsaked GOD, even though he had lengthy conversations with his friends and GOD about his dire situation. I want to have faith like that...

In Hebrews 11:1 it says "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." (NIV). I have to have faith that GOD knows what's best for me, the same way He says in Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (NIV) He has a hope and future for me that I cannot begin to fathom, even though I would love to have a sneak-peak.

GOD says in James 1:3-4 "because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (NIV)

HE also promises:
7
“But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
8 They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.” (NIV, Jeremiah 17:7-8)

I have to keep on holding onto these promises, otherwise my heart will break time and time again. I don't want to have all those feelings I first described. I don't want to feel inadequate as a woman, struggling to bring forth a next generation. But most of all, I don't want this to come inbetween my relationship with GOD, the way it has in the past year.

I want to be released from this continuous sadness and brokeness and inability to not let go of my 'control'. I want GOD to be the centre of my life, not my obsession? over the desire of having a child. And I want this not to interfere with my relationship with my husband...because marriage is not only about reproducing, but about building on a already wonderful relationship between two beings to experience fellowship with GOD on a completely new and elevated level.

GOD, help me to surrender completely, laying all at YOUR feet, relinquishing control and my will, and believing in YOUR perfect timing.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Easy Makeshift Clothing Line

I hate hanging jeans / denims on my el-cheapo wire clothing line... SOOOO... being an OT (occupational therapist) and having excessive amounts of creative and lateral thinking / thoughts this is what I came up with just now:



This is such an amazing ladder! It has also served as a jungle gym when I had my nieces and nephews over and the weather wasn't playing along.

Here's all it can do:

Jungle gym: Read: A child's dream come true!
(link: http://www.saladder.co.za/products/wonderladder_KL7338.jpg)

Normal ladder to change light bulbs, etc.
(link: http://www.saladder.co.za/products/wonderladder_KL7338-A.jpg)

Or a REALLY long ladder for those hard-to-reach places.
(READ: Our flat's 3.2 - 4.2 m high ceilings)http://www.saladder.co.za/products/KL-STRAIGHT.jpg
(link: http://www.saladder.co.za/products/KL-STRAIGHT.jpg)
Serving as a work bench - just add a piece of wood on top.
(link: http://www.saladder.co.za/products/KL-M.jpg)

Just thought I'd share this - I think it's ingenious!