Posts Tagged ‘friends’

Blogger Love

April 25, 2010

So this is officially my very first ever blogging award :P that I have received from the very lovely MeeA.  You can see the most awesome things she said about me here.  Thank you my friend I am truly honoured.

And now in the tradition I need to tell you seven things that you may not already know about me and then pass this award on to 7 other ladies I think are beautiful.

  1. I was once married to the most wonderful man who treated me like I was a real Queen.  Sadly he passed away after only 1 year 7 months and 6 days of marriage.
  2. I am qualified (amongst other things) as an aerobics instructor (which I clearly don’t do now as seen in my bulging waistline) and a sport massage therapist.
  3. My Ouma is still alive!  Serious, she is now 93 years young and still going strong.  She amazes me and is someone to admire & look up to.
  4. My mouth works faster than my brain.  It is impossible for me to be two faced.  I think I’m thinking something and it’s already out my mouth.  This can be a good thing but most people tend to take exception to my honesty.  It isn’t meant maliciously, it was just out before I could word it properly.
  5. I was an air hostess for 16 years and loved it. I loved the freedom, the travelling, seeing so many many wonderful cities & sites and the “lack” of responsibility that came with the job. I never had to remember to call a client the next day or catch up on paperwork.  Once I left my “office” my duty was done – no carryover to the next day.
  6. I have an insanely irrational fear of snakes.  My fiance showed me a dead one on the golf course recently and I had nightmares (the wake up in a cold sweat screaming type) for about 2 weeks afterwards.
  7. Despite the fact that my mouth is usually in overdrive and my brain in neutral, I’m actually an introvert.  I’m fine in the company of 1 or 2 people I don’t know, as long as there is at least one other person there that I know. Put me in a room full of strangers and I clam up and melt into the woodwork.

And now I would like to nominate:-

  • Sally – because she is a friend who is so different to me yet so accepting of all my differences. I love you lots my friend
  • Jeanette – because she has been so kind and patient helping me with photographic and website stuff. Thank you so much!
  • Cath – because she has strength that goes so deep and is a force to be reckoned with. I admire your strength.
  • Alice – because she is just Alice and my #foreverfriend and I love that we are often times on the “same page”
  • MeeA – because I just love her honesty and I am HUGELY impressed that she can cope with 4 kids AND a home birth.  You rock girl!!
  • Heather – because she has overcome huge obstacles and had the courage to keep on trying – and won!
  • Angel – because she has inspired me to get excited about getting married again and convinced me not to do the magistrate thing.  You have loads of work ahead of you my friend, I can’t do this alone :)

A Purple Flower for the Beautiful Ladies

@pinkhairgirl will be leaving for Cape Town to live with @majorproblem early hours of Tuesday morning.  We had a braai at her house on Saturday afternoon so that we could say goodbye to her. @laurakim123 was there and @flavid arrived after his course.  @rorieg surprised me and decided to come through from Badplaas for the weekend – which of course just made me the happiest girl in town.

Here is the lovely Sally laughing and having fun

Yme – clearly very nervous about me pointing my camera in his direction

Leon glaring at me as he tends to do when I try and take photographs of him

The lovely Laura also enjoying herself

There was no way Yme was going to put that beer down while braai-ing :P

Yme declaring his love for Sally from the top of the “world”

Friends – Yme took this photograph with my camera.  Looks like we have another Canonista :)

Such a sweet couple

Happy in love

We all had a really lovely time.  Thanks so much Sally.  Yme it was awesome to see you again.  We wish you well as you begin your adventure together in Cape Town.

An Early Birthday Party

April 15, 2010

My friend Sally is leaving on Tuesday and moving to Cape Town.  I am very sad that she is leaving as our friendship has grown so much and so quickly over the past few months.  I will miss our chats and the openness we share.

I am not the only one who will miss her.  My son was devastated when he heard that his friend (Sally’s daughter) is moving to Cape Town.  He cannot understand why she is moving now.  She is supposed to attend his birthday party in a few weeks time.

Sally and I had planned a visit for this afternoon, and so it happened that we had an impromtu “birthday party” so that my boy could have his friends attend.  The kids absolutely loved it and they played wonderfully together as they always do.

Here are some photographs of our time together today:

Kiddies "table talk"

Sweeties

The "Almost" Birthday Boy

Lovely Miss "Pinklet"

Cutie pie

The Always Gorgeous @pinkhairgirl

Even Stanley was chilling

Over Valentines weekend I was in Badplaas with my beloved @rorieg.  The previous week @andrevr was in Pretoria on business.  He missed his flight back to Cape Town because of all the conjestion and traffic on the highway to the airport.  @pinkhairgirl sms’d me and asked if they could visit for the day.  I suggested they sleep over rather, since it is a fair distance to drive for one day, and I know that kids don’t really enjoy long car journeys.

And so the first official Badplaas Tweet-up happened.  It started on Friday night and ended about Sunday lunch time.  I’m guessing this might be the longest ever Tweet-up too :P

Here are some photographs from our weekend.

Blue-Mouth-Joshua

Blue Face from Angel's cupcakes

Blue-Mouth-Rachel

Blue Face from Angel's cupcakes

Blue-Mouth---Caleb

Blue Face from Angel's cupcakes

Andre

@andrevr bringing sustenance for "The Queen" and "Ms Pink"

Rachel-Cut-off
Joshua-Laughing

You can view the rest of the images on my flickr photostream here.

It has been a while since my last blog post.  So much has been happening and I’ve been struggling just to keep up.  I will keep you updated as I go.  But for now let me backtrack.

On the 30th January 2010 I photographed my cousins wedding in Cape Town.  I cannot share any photos of that event with you yet as she requested that I post nothing to the web without prior approval from her.

What I can share with you are photographs of my Tweet up and of @acidicice’s maternity shoot.  There are quite a few photographs that I will share and so I will divide it up into 2 separate posts.

So for now here are some photographs of HRH @queenofcomplex having dinner with “her subjects” in Cape Town.  I must tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed meeting each and every one of you.  You are even more awesome IRL and I’m so honoured that you made the effort to come out and meet me.  From the bottom of my heart I’d like to say THANK YOU for your time, your kindness and caring.  You are an incredibly special bunch of people and I’m extremely pleased I joined Twitter and met all of you.

Enjoying my first #pinkdrink

Oh and I’m really sorry that I have to mention this – but since I tout myself as a photographer I cannot have sub standard work on this blog and take credit for it.  I allowed @andrevr to use my camera (Canon) to take photographs of me with all the great Cape Town folk.  Sadly it appears that his excellent knowledge of Nikon did not prepare him for the complex and superior workings of Canon – hence the blur and “extra ambiance” in some of the shots.  “Jammer Koosie, maar dié taak het jy gepluk”.  But in all fairness, let me point you to his most awesome and incredible work as a landscape photographer. I learnt bucket loads from him regarding landscape photography and am truly honoured to have worked with “the master”.

You can see the rest of the photographs from the tweet up here on my flickr stream.

So here we are already 2 weeks into the New Year!  Wow – time flies.  I trust that everyone had a blessed Christmas and an enjoyable New Year celebration.  I hope that 2010 brings you much happiness and success.

So much has happened in the time I’ve been away I’ve been struggling to decide what to blog about first.  I decided to start the New Year off on a positive note and blog about friends, love and appreciation.

While we were away I was really battling with a signal of any sort.  There is an Edge/GPRS signal in Badplaas but just barely.  Vodacom did install a booster aerial but it causes more hassle than it’s worth.  It boosts the signal from 2 bars to just about full Edge, but it also causes the signal to bounce between 2 towers which either results in total loss of signal and dropped calls or timeouts with internet.  To say that I was frustrated with this state of affairs is an understatement of note.

However, as with all things in life there are lessons to be learnt.  I spent quality time with my son.  We swam, we played Scalextric, we fished, went looking for “goggas” and it was wonderful.  I learnt to appreciate him as a child with his inquisitive mind and incredible insight all over again.  What an awesome son I have.  I also realised just how much my blog and twitter friends mean to me.  Not being able to be a daily part of your lives was akin to being in jail.  I felt cut off from the world and my friends.  I was lonely and missed the daily interaction more than I anticipated.

While feeling sorry for myself, I would sit on the stoep in the early morning before the staff got to work and switched on music and vacuum cleaners, I would enjoy my coffee and do some bird watching.  This is the view that I wanted to share with you on those glorious mornings.

View to the left of my chair

View to the left of my chair

View to the right of my chair

View to the right of my chair

There was a Kingfisher that used to sit in the tree opposite my chair and catch goggas.  I didn’t really have the proper lens but I tried to get some shots of him to show you.

Kingfisher in the tree opposite my chair

Kingfisher in the tree opposite my chair

During this time away I had lots of time for reflection.  I learnt:

  • I love my son very much and he is truly the most precious gift I have ever received in life
  • I am blessed by having so many “cyber” friends in my life who show an interest and take time to talk to me and comment on my blog
  • No matter where I find myself in this world, despite any difficulties I might perceive I have, they are far outweighed by the blessings in that same situation
  • Above all, people matter.  Words of encouragement or sympathy may seem so small, but they can change the course of someones day
  • Be quick to forgive and love, it will always result in blessings for you

Thank you my cyber friends for being a part of my life.  I love and appreciate you all.

I have been feeling particularly miserable the past few days with my sinus infection.  It is something I have suffered with most of my life, and for the most part it is not a problem.  Sometimes it does get really bad, and then I suffer the most excruciating headaches.  My face feels like it is under pressure, because it is, and my eyes feel like they’ll explode out of their sockets.  I won’t go into detail about the other side effects.  Driving is totally out of the question when I have these headaches as it affects my sight and my balance.  So I am confined to home.  Thank goodness for social networking like twitter.  I think without my friends there I would have gone totally insane the past few days.

Before this infection started I bought a new bird feeder and installed it in a tree in my garden.  This afternoon while sitting on the stoep and feeling rather sorry for myself, I noticed that there were quite a few birds at the feeder.  Here are some shots of the birds at the feeder.

Birds-in-Garden

Top birds are male Red Bishop’s in their breeding colours.  The bottom shot are Cape Sparrows.

When I went back to my room to download the photos I found the kitten asleep on my bed.  He has a tendency to suck his tongue like a baby would suck a dummy.  It really is quite sweet to see, so I thought I’d share this with you too.

Garfield

Once my head has cleared I hope to share more interesting snippets with you.  I’m afraid that this is a true reflection of my rather sad and boring life the past few days.

My New Blog

November 26, 2009

After much debate and discussion with friends, I have finally decided to start my own blog.  I will attempt to share with you, events that make up the hectic circus that is my life.  I shall also share a rant or 2 (probably more) and possibly even make you laugh on occasion.  I am new to this whole blogging world so please feel free to offer advice, words of wisdom and guidance.  If you wish to voice your displeasure at something I have said, please be nice.  If you are nasty to me, I probably won’t like you very much anymore.

With all that said I guess it is now time to say a few “Thank you’s”.  Thank you Ian for always humouring me when I ask the complicated questions and your endless patience in teaching me to be self sufficient with things “IT”.  As a self confessed “control freak” I can attest that holding the “reigns” to my website & blog satisfies my addiction and has effected a thoroughly frustrating yet strangely satisfying learning curve.   Thank you Andre for helping me to make sense of the blogging and search engine stuff, and helping me to get it up and running.  Your abundant knowledge of all things IT and photographic never cease to amaze me, and I’m eternally grateful that you share your “power” so freely.  The ability that you both have to “dumb” everything down so that I can understand it, is a testament to your superior intelligence.  I am humbled in the company of such “awesomeness”.

Some Flowers for you from my Garden

Some Flowers for you from my Garden

I am unsure of how often I should post, but I know that if I am too long in adding posts, one of you will surely rattle my cage and tell me to get a move on.  But for now, getting this far is a major achievement.  Especially in light of the fact that I currently have the most horrific sinus infection and this entire post and set up has been done with the assistance of Schedule 3 drugs (red & green are my favourite colours today)