As most of you are aware (well all 3 of you who read this blog are) my culinary skills are somewhat challenged - and don’t get me started on baking. I’m world famous for being able to screw up an ‘anyone can learn to bake a cake from a box in 2 hours’ cake. So it wasn’t surprising when I came home yesterday and told Jessica and Tamsyn I was going to make a strawberry cheesecake - that this declaration was met with some scepticism and derision. In fact Tamsyn went as far as to say ‘this should be interesting’. She swore afterwards she wasn’t being derogatory - but I heard the tone. Undeterred by the blatantly obvious lack of confidence from my nearest and dearest I proceeded to make a strawberry cheesecake PIE. 

Okay so it’s a little flat….. and there was rather a lot of laughter when it first came out of the pan….. but it’s a strawberry cheesecake PIE….. they’re not meant to be more than an inch high, are they?

Besides it tasted remarkably like a baked cheesecake to me, which I have to admit is gratifying - not that I’m particularly fond of baked cheesecake.  Still I’m mighty chuffed with myself.

And now for something completely different…..

Gymmie managed to get himself bitten by a dog, well the vet and the rest of us are assuming it was a dog.

We’re also assuming the dog was somewhat bigger than the one in the picture.  Poor stupid blimmen cat…. he’s been limping around for the past week and I’m sorely tempted to re-christen him Ilene, except of course he’s a boy. (yea I know…. crummy joke)

On the other hand…. in Bagheera’s life…. she’s as bored as anything because she can’t chase and annoy him, he just won’t co-operate… all she can do is wait it out… till he’s well again.

Gymmie’s doing much the same thing.

As for Tamsyn - she discovered toe socks and now I can’t get them off her! She’s also getting back into gymnastics, albeit only at home - we’re still not sure if her foot has completely healed, until then she’s practising in the garden.

And my personal favourite - of course she’s going to kill me for posting these - she only dressed up like this as a lark - and then spent the entire time when we went down to the shops in the car petrified someone from her class would see her. (I think she looks really cute)

I probably should be more diligent about logging onto (into?) my blog - then I wouldn’t have to wade through 76 comments all of which had something in common - completely unmentionable topics in polite society.  I did enjoy the ‘you must have worked really hard on your iguana site to make it look so good’ one though … pretty damn sure I’ve never mentioned iguana in a blog post - ever. Still whatever floats your boat.

Not much to tell - to be honest… life is mossying along as usual - did make a killer mac & cheese last night - Gymmie is still as nuts as ever. I look at him sometimes and depending on the mood I’m in - I either want to commit him to an insane asylum for cats or give him a hug and tell him just how ’special’ he really is.  To be honest, most days the asylum wins.

We now have dimmer lights in our lounge which is rather grand - although the dimmer switches these days are a bit funky - gone are the round knobs (this is bound to generate a whole host of new comments to mark as spam) that were so easy to turn.. now it’s a flick switch which has a nasty habit of doing the opposite to what you want.  Still they work which is fabulous.

One of these days I’m going to have to write a book of all the really stupid things I’ve done to myself  (yes I know, it’s going to several volumes thick{or is that long?}) I’m rather hoping by writing them all down - my kids won’t follow in my footsteps.

It went something like this - had a truly awful night Tuesday night, hardly slept a wink - felt bloated, nauseous and rather out of it. Managed to bash my right wing mirror on the gate leaving for work in the morning. (Wouter was really good about it - didn’t yell or anything). Half way through the morning my colleague offers me her anti-nausea pills - says they work like a bomb.  Gratefully I accepted them (key point here) and asked innocently - “do they make you feel drowsy?”.  She assured me they (again key point here) didn’t, and then blithely added “if they do make you feel tired you can always hide away in a corner and sleep”.

Half an hour later I start to feel a bit odd, 45 minutes later I’m feeling distinctly odd, an hour later I go a horrible shade of pale, get cold sweats and can’t stand up for fear of passing out. I suggest to my colleague that perhaps the tablets are making me feel like this, she assures me it can’t possibly be.

Two hours later - still feeling like I’m on the edge of death’s door I ask to see the little slip of info that came with the tablets.

Doseage: Adults… 1 tablet

I must say it is the first time I’ve ever had someone try and get rid of me at work.

As an aside - I always figured they put those side effects on to scare people - wouldn’t appear so - ‘cos I got every single one of them! Had to get Wouter to come pick me up and drive me home.

Suffice to say I wasn’t at work yesterday - effects of the pills wore off but I’m still feeling grotty *sigh*.

And before you say it!!!!!  I know how fundamentally stupid I was, won’t happen again… well at least not in that way *sigh*.

I guess I got a little too used to short working weeks, ‘cos these past two weeks have seemed to really drag, doesn’t help that I’ve picked up Wouter’s cold either. Feel like I’m sleep walking most of the time - then again 3am frollicks by the delinquent two (and no I’m not referring to the kids) is adding to the feeling of somnabulism. One of these days they’re both going to find themselves on the street corner with a tag around their necks saying…. ‘owner will pay to have us relocated’.

And who’d have guessed that PT could be so rough? Tamsyn came home on Tuesday with the nastiest bruise I’ve seen for a long time….on her nether regions. Now before the paranoid leap to the conclusion that some dastardly event had taken place - let me try and describe it for you - using her words.

We were playing a game of war - where the boys were one country and the girls another - each team has a flag which they keep in their pocket and it is up to the teams to try and get the other sides flag. As I’m not allowed to do any physical running (*) I was at the one end when this boy came running towards me with the flag. I grabbed his shoulders and made a grab for the flag. He wouldn’t let go, I wouldn’t let go… he pushed me away.. I still wouldn’t let go… he then kneed me really really hard.

Voila one decidedly sore girl - and one decidedly ‘needs a good talking to’ boy.

Must say though - have to give Tamsyn 10/10 for tenacity

(*) she’s on foot rest till we collect her sports innersoles to help with her collapsed arches.

It started this morning with Tamsyn giving me a hug and saying “Gee Mom, you’re getting thicker” [she wasn't referring to my intellect] and hasn’t really got better since then.

Ever been in the situation where you were entrusted to sell a motor vehicle, which you’d been driving for several years but was still registered in your mother’s name, you then lost any buyer details you might have had and got hauled over the coals by your mother because a year later she received not only the license renewal but a traffic fine to boot?

Well here is what you do if you ever do find yourself in that situation.

Get your mother to sign a sworn affidavit that she entrusted you to sell the car, ask her nicely to remove all defamatory comments about your apparent lack of responsibility, organisational skills and uselessness. Take the renewal license to your nearest traffic department (in my case a very long walk down to the bottom end of Cape Town), stand in the queue. Once you get to the counter explain the situation to the counter clerk, who will frown a little at you and ask if you first went to enquiries. Admit you did not. Leave the counter and proceed back to enquiries where the pleasant gentleman will give you a yellow form to fill in. Do not attempt to fudge any details because the counter clerk will spot them and send you packing with yet another frown. Go back the next day with an amended affidavit giving the date the car was sold which apparently needs to correspond with the date on the yellow form (don’t worry if you can’t remember the date it seems thumb sucked dates work too). Once again join the queue and end up with a different counter clerk. Wait anxiously whilst he processes the forms and disappears behind a closed door to get his supervisor to approve them. On his return practically kiss him through the glass when he hands you the acknowledgement of receipt.

Mom’s going to be really happy with me tonight, for once.

I’d also like to give a thumbs up to the staff at the traffice department - even though I had to go back twice, the atmosphere was pleasant, the queues moved at a steady pace and most people seemed happy with the service they were getting.

I arrived at the house on Saturday morning to have a quick look around to see how Frank and his team were getting on, to discover a hole in the ceiling of the kitchen. Frank had fallen through the day before, he didn’t seem any worse off and cheerfully told me, whilst up a ladder plastering the lounge wall, that he was fine (will post pics tomorrow, seems I’ve forgotten my camera lead, again).  It is a bit of a shock to the system to see a gaping hole in ones ceiling, which wasn’t intentionally made, but we are very pleased that Frank didn’t hurt himself.

Quick update on the weekend’s activities and house progress.  We went tile shopping on Sunday to find tiles for the kitchen, T’s bathroom and to suss out potential hopefuls in the bid for pride of place in our bathroom.  Having been assured by both Wouter *and* the salesman at CTM that I only need a nominal amount of ’spotters’ in the bathroom I acquiesced and opted for 3 instead of the 10 I originally suggested (in my defence, 10 was a thumbsuck and suggested in the spur of the moment, having been placed under pressure by the question ‘So, how many of the patterened tiles do you think you’ll need?’ - I didn’t have a frigging clue!).  I actually can’t wait to see how T’s bathroom is going to look, ‘cos the tiles we’ve (ok, mainly me) picked are beautiful.  We found a suitable tile for the kitchen as well, fairly plain, one of those ‘goes with anything’ kind of tiles.  Now the tricky bit is going to be deciding what colour the counters should be.  I did spot a beautiful border tile for our bathroom, which we have noted - as we don’t know how much space is going to be tiled, it reallly didn’t make much sense to buy any now.  T and I had fun , carrying sample tiles around the show room and holding them up against other tiles, baths, basins (pretty much anything we could lay our hands on) to see if they matched.  I want to go for a pale green theme in our bathroom picking up the colour of our glass basin we’ve bought. 

Once we’d exhausted the salesman and ourselves it was on to light fitting shopping. Being a Sunday our choice of shops was limited but we did manage to find two really cute chandeliers for J and T’s rooms. (Not what we’d originally gone out to find, but one has to carpe diem sometimes - not so sure W would agree with me :)).  It has been J’s dream to have a chandelier in her bedroom, and now not only does she have one, but it is black as well! (very fitting for a wannabe/sortabe Goth gal).  I saw a gorgeous fitting which I believe will look stunning above my bath, but we’ll have to wait a bit for that one (pretty much ‘we’re not there yet’ kind of thing). 

On the house structure side of things, the lowered ceiling in the lounge is a thing of the past and we should be putting in ceiling boards soon.  I believe that removing it has really made a difference and opened up the lounge a lot, one doesn’t get that claustrophobic feeling any more.  T’s bathroom is ready to be tiled and fitted out, the bath is sitting in J’s room at the moment. The kitchen needs a new celing board (still can’t quite get over that one), but W knows more about the structural side of things.