c'est la vie

So we got a flatscreen TV.  Now to 99 % of you out there this will be a pretty unexciting announcement.  But see, we never had one before.  We still had an old fashioned TV, one that weighed 109kgs and the back end of it was about the size of an additional TV ..... it stretched about 45cm beyond the screen at the back.  We have a happy teenage son.  That TV now went into his room on the proviso that it would not be connected to the aerial and the DSTV because that would turn him into a bedroom hermit.  And that is a no.  But he took his Xbox from the lounge and set up everything in his room.  So now we don't have to negotiate and run timeshare on our TV in the lounge between us trying to watch and him trying to play.  Setting up the DVD player into the new TV proved a small challenge.  The plugs were labelled differently and we were holding a plethera of red, yellow and white plugs while staring excitedly and confused at the holes. ...

Yes.  I accidentally set my Samsung S3 alight.  Yes this follows straight on from the underpants on the head incident I blogged about a few blogs ago. It was simple.  I am candle crazy .... any colour, size, shape .... scented ...... and candleholders .... big, small, glass, ceramic .... I have a huge amount on my lounge table and I love to have them all burning at night ... it looks really beautiful. So on Sunday early evening I am on the couch, candles alight on the table, family out, and I decide to have a little slumber.  Put my book down, phone on top and I am gone.  Wake up quite a while later because I smell something burning ..... open my eyes and when I see the small flame by my cellphone I just know I must be dreaming.  Or not.  The candleholder is an angel and it holds a small tea light candle.  This had tipped slightly due to having more melted wax on one side than on the other, the wick subsequently moved, taken the flame with it....

Not sleeping.  You can call it insomnia, sleep apnea, lack of sleep, not falling asleep, not staying asleep, anything you like.  It comes down to not sleeping.  Please don't tell me to get into bed earlier.  Or that it is the hours before midnight that count. Or that I need my beauty sleep.  Or that I should aim for 8 hours a night.  Some nights 8 minutes would be a blessing.  Don't tell me about coffee, or stress, or reading too late, or blogging too late.  I know all those things.  None of them, when changed, have any effect on the opening 2 words of this blog.  I have darkened the room, lightened the room, bought that airplane eye covering thingy, I have read gentle verses, hummed, sang kumbaya, meditated, did that relax one limb at a time thing, got a new pillow, warmer pyjamas, cooler pyjamas, windows open a bit, windows opened wide.  Sleep tabs?  No.  Some are too weak and don't work and the stronger ones gi...

Matric dance time is upon us.   Cue "Hey Big Spender" song for parents. Cue "rework the budget" for the 9th time.  Cue "we can afford this if no-one in our house eats for the month of October". Seriously though, tonight we were discussing matric dances over the generations whilst at an excellent dinner at the school's beautiful restaurant.  In my and my hubby's time, as well as in my parent's time, these dances were held in the school hall.  There are very few schools where it still happens in the hall.  The gr 11's did the fundraising, chose a theme and were the waiters and waitresses (this still happens) and decorations were put up which included many flowers made from 14 layers of tissues tied with florists wire and then reshaped, lighting in different colours and streamers creatively draped across the ceiling.  If the budget allowed there were helium balloons and pretzels in the foyer.  The food was made at the school, by teacher...

So today I did something so stupid I am still trying to wrap my head around it.  But first I will have to stop laughing.  And get my family to stop laughing.  And my friends.  And colleagues.  And teachers at CBC.  And most of all my son.  He has 8 stitches in his ear from a small freak accident last week.  He plays cricket 4 days a week and obviously going in to bat with the helmet on is tricky as it rubs the stitches.  He told me yesterday, before today's game, that he may have to put something over the ear.  This afternoon, around the time the match should start, he sends me a whatsapp asking me to please bring him, or buy him, a speedo or a white pair of underpants as he needs it for the game.  I realised that obviously he wanted to bat and did not have something for his ear and wanted to put this on his head.  What normal person would think that?  I am gobsmacked at my idiocy.  So I race off to Hatfield Mall....

I can clearly remember in high school we did several school projects.  Mine included subjects such as Pygmies, the Titanic, Ford Motor Company etc etc.  Tonight my son had to finish off the work he had done on a pamphlet he had to design about a Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI).  Now this is not a pretty topic.  But he turned out a damn fine pamphlet aimed at men, catchy, to the point and very, very clear about the dangers .... of the one he chose. His wording was pretty sharp I thought. The real interesting part was when he had to print out a picture to put in the pamphlet .... I told him Google images is the way to go and since I was right here he Googled and bam!!! the pics opened on the screen.  We recoiled and stepped back about 9m at what we saw.  "Oh my word mom", said my son .... I could not even get any words out to be able to say "oh my word".  Fascination and shock at what we saw overtook us and we started to look,  After looking ...

Following on my previous blog where I clearly outlined the dangers of letting me be responsible for the parking ticket in a mall, I now have to further report that I did, on Saturday afternoon, manage to lose my car key.  Of my new car.  Which I have had for 5 weeks. Luckily this tale has a happy ending. It was very uncomplicated.  I came home from the carwash and coffee with my BFF.  Pulled into my garage at home (which meant I had the key), got out the car and opened the boot from that same remote (which means I had the key), took out the shopping and my handbag and packed into the boot a box for paper pick-up, some plastics for re-use at Irene Homes and 2 other items.  When I wanted to close the boot and lock the car the key was missing.  Now it takes a special kind of stupid to lose your key right by your car ....... I was calm.  I mean it had to be right there.  Right?  Wrong!  I went through the 2 grocery bags and my handbag (t...

If for any reason you ever go to a mall with me, do not under any circumstances allow me to be responsible for the parking ticket one receives at the boom.  I am not joking.  You will regret it if you do.  When I go to any mall in the country, any other person in the vehicle except me, becomes the "responsible adult" when it comes to that ticket, irrespective of how young or old they are.  If I am alone, I park in the open area, where having to know the whereabouts of that ticket for prolonged periods of time, is not an issue.  Paying a car guard is a much cheaper exercise than paying for a lost ticket.  Repeatedly.   And so over the years my bff, my kids, my hubby, my colleagues, my everyones have taken charge of that ticket.  I can't work out where they keep it, because every time we have to pay, they always know where it is.  Weird thing that.  Last year I had to go to Sandton Mall.  I drove (this is why I always go with th...

I have a good friend who always tries to teach me "slowly, slowly" in life and "to be gentle with myself" emotionally and every other way.  And it is slowly, slowly starting to work for me.  This friend is also one of a handful of persistent supporters who feel I should start writing more seriously .... so I am happy to have got a good head start.  I wrote a short story ..... yes I ...  WROTE ... A......800 WORD CHILDREN'S STORY.  A magazine is offering the opportunity for them to purchase it if they like it and so I gave it a bash.  If they choose it will I be happy? Of course.  If they don't choose it will I be devastated?  No I won't.  I will have proved to myself that I am able to, on a very small scale, work out the outline of a story in my head, and working from the outside in, write something readable.  My normal editing guru and critic was not available last week to check it, but I also read it to a couple of people to check if...