Crappy day!!!!!

Just had a very crappy day,if there is a day that takes the trophy this one is one of them.just becuase we have a small compound..... I have lost a dear dog that I hold so close to my heart. My heart aches and is painful with lots of anger and pain.No one can understand how I feel. I'm going to miss Patches.Lesson learned:Fight for what I always want.Always think ahead.Angry me.

One in a million a solution to a long hot day

I used to be a strong believer that love was the saddest song. Now I'm such a sucker for love. Its so hot here the aircon aint doing a thing so what do I do to feel good and keep smiling as I count down hours to see my sweetheart after work, Yeah.... a NE-YO concert thanks to you tube sounds doable. One in a million is the song I'm feeling right now. One in a million to a great day!

FHE - movie night =Despicable Me

For family home evening we decided to watch a movie and make it a date night. We have not had the opportunity to go out on a proper date. So last evening after a long day at work for both of us and hitting the gym we headed out to watch this movie. It was wonderful to go out on a Monday night no rude - giggling teenagers wandering around the cinema and mothers shouting at the top of their voices after kids and a bonus the theater was virtually empty I think 10 people would even have been a lot. This movie is such a lovely movie we laughed non stop. If you had a bad day and need to unwind, I would recommend it. It's definitely on our family list to buy.

Lesson learnt:
Reading bed time stories is just as important as kissing children good night

A birthday party and Cricket Match

Saturday started off as a busy one by 6am I was up ironing the laundry and had a yard sale to help out at/shop too. We then attended Aston's one year birthday party and then headed out for my sweetie's first game of the season.
It was a short visit to the birthday party and off Wayne, John and I went to the game. Due to factors beyond our control the game started late the first game started 45 minutes late so all the other games after where late. So we sat and watched some other team play for an hour and half. Wasn't too bad as Wayne was talking me through the game. Don't get me wrong I do understand the game but there are some terms used that I got to add to my cricket vocabulary. Finally the game started. The umpire was one whack one apparently he had never played the game before so it doesn't make sense how the league guys would let him umpire. On the other hand standing from 9am I think he was rather tired and just wanted the game to end. We batted first and Wayne and John were the opening guys and about five guys on our team where sent out unfairly I promise even the opposition agreed, they said out of the five wickets there could have been one genuine one that own through. It was just the sour grapes because they were sent out. The team hit a lot of fours I cant remember the score. Then the opposition took to bat and the after it started getting dark so the game was called off. Our guys did a great fielding job. I enjoyed watching the match and being a part of something Wayne enjoys and had been looking forward to the whole week. I'm definitely going to attend all his games for this season. He had no roasties so its a sign I need to attend every game .... I'm the good luck charm. By the end of the day I was so broken and just wanted to enter bed and call it a day.

getting to ready

the helmet

walking to the pitch

he was out... not impressed by umpire's call

something funny is Caity, john's girlfriend couldn't make it to the game so she sent her day to watch John, after he was balled out he went and sat by Greg who consoled him.

Wayne and John waiting for other team members.

celebrating after a wicket

Breakfast in Springs

This weekend was an exhausting one, lots of work and a little play. We had to re-arrange our house after buying some stuff from our friend Desiree who is leaving and mom and dad brought us more stuff from Durban.We got great deals. Sunday morning we headed out to springs to have breakfast with the folks they were in our area code well just outskirts of our area cord visiting oupie to spend sometime with him its been a while. We also dropped off they girls who were being given a ride back to Durban. It was great to see mom and dad. I must admit we were jealous that we didn't get to spend time with them and 2 hours didn't cut it for us. But it was better than nothing and well worth it. We are blessed with great parents cant complain.

breakfastdad with bachMegan,Becky and Emily on right

dad, me and wayne

Yay for Bank Holiday

Friday was a bank holiday for us in SA it was heritage day. I have no clue what it represents or stands for but we grateful for a long weekend. Started the day with a lovely branch thanks to my handsome and hard working husband. We had our friends the Barnett family over for branch at about 9.30am. Wayne prepared everything and it was delicious. It was nice chatting and catching up with our friends we have not been able to spend time with them for a while since they have visiting form Australia. Glad they could make it. After a wonderful branch.

while we were checking out the veg garden

we came back inside the house to this

I left Wayne home napping and took my friend Nats shopping. She is a bit of some what a tomboy well not a bit a tomboy big time so we were going shopping for girly stuff. It was interesting as the whole thing was to get her girl stuff but I had to drag her away from the men's section and lots of grays, browns basically dark colors. We were at the shop from 2pm and left after we were chased out because they had had to close shop and we left with three items that is one hour per item. One thing I learnt is going shopping when you not the one buying the stuff can be very tiring. And I was very proud of myself I left the shop without a new item.

Nats being goofy

Passed by the Eppel home and took the little kids for ice cream and enjoyed catching up with Jenny we sat int he car when I dropped them off for almost an hour till grandpa came out and reminded us in a tough tone "never ever to sit in a car outside and chat because we could be targets of hijackers whether it is during the day or night" and I left for home.And had a wonderful evening with Wayne we had pizza for dinner and watched two and half men till we fell asleep.
On a cute note we can all say awwww

UTI

Dear urinary tract infection please!!!! I'm now worn out and tired of cranberry tablets and citro soda please go haunt someone else who has the patience. my life is too precious for you to mess around with. And to you my dear body I'm have learnt to listen to you and will never take you for granted when you tell me not to eat or drink anything with an orangey flavor or anything to do with the orange fruit. I'm glad you are being lenient and I don't have to go pee every minute of the day but its still uncomfortable. I'm begging you.
Regards
me

Late night Jiji hunting

Busted

There is nothing more annoying than looking for a cat in the middle of a cold chilly and windy night.This girl almost gave me a heart attack last night. After Wayne got home with a grand welcome from fudge and jiji they hadn't seen him all day so they were excited to see him with me as well. We had dinner and went to bed at about 7.30pm. We always go to bed after counting heads in our home. Jiji snack out of the window and we thought she was just going for a potty break 2 hours later she was no where to be seen. with me going outside and shouting her name in the garden hoping she would come home as she usually does. This time to no avail. Trying not to wake up Wayne I went to the bathroom window and called ... no Jiji turned up. I went back to bed and couldn't sleep eventually after tossing and turning Wayne was forced to wake up and he offered to walk around the neighbor hood to check and make sure no one had run over her or she wasn't locked out of the complex gate. I tagged along, Wayne and the security guard with their torches started looking around while calling her it was funny and I was calling more less yelling Jiji. Well a cat came to me, it was our neighbor's who live four houses from us and it just continued following me. After almost half an hour of looking we heard the sound of a bell and saw her jump over the wall into our back yard. We suspect she ventured into our neighbors house and fell asleep. It was such a relief.Had to run away from the neighbors cat.

tree climbing

Fun weekend Brai with Bridget

The weekend was great !!! Cant complain. Our friend Bridget is in the country and we had to met up. Its such a pleasant surprise when we received the text message and phone call to plan the rendezvous. After our morning exercise sessions, yoga and cricket and the chores around the house. I headed out to pick up Bridget and we went shopping. It was fun catching up from where we left and to reminisce about our hey-uni days. I actually enjoyed the girl time.It was great. Wayne remained home and prepared a lovely brai. He did everything from the salads to the main meal all i had to do was bake cake for dessert. We had a lovely evening we watched a re-run of the vmas, laughed our hearts out, Jiji teasing Bridget and her trying to run away from fudge all evening. We are thankful for wonderful friends and good company cant wait to see her tonight.

wayne brai-ing

fudge keeping daddy company

wayne and Bridget

Bridget and I

Laundry catchup weekend

I feel like it's been raining clothes in our home. I think I last ironed clothes two and half weeks ago. I do the laundry but for the past weeks haven't had the chance to be able to iron them. To a certain extent its my fault. I iron everything I do not fold clothes away into the closets or hang them after the tumble dryer. I do hang and fold but do not put them away.. you get me!! Even the dish clothes have to be ironed hence this pile. Up stairs has been my little insanity store where I keep the clothes waiting to be iron. Its up so I don't have to go there during the week to riddle myself with more guilt about not being on top on my game.
Woke up at 6.45am to rush to the chapel for the ward spring clean and got home more determined to finish the mountains of clothes waiting to get straightened out. After breakfast I helped my dear sweetheart to get ready for his cricket. Oh he plays cricket for some club the Royale Punjab cricket club. he was very excited about it. I had to do the needful.
I then took the long walk of shame upstairs to begin the journey. I ironed for hours and hours and in between had a few breaks to stretch a bit and give my feet some rest from the ache from standing. Jiji was my companion during this tough time. Fudge doesn't do the upstairs thing, he is scared of heights. the space in the stairs freak him out.

the joys of ironing and companionship

sat by the fountain during breaks

I got a lot of ironing done. But didn't finish so next weekend here I come. Some might ask why my sweetie doesn't help ... well when he does help somehow I find myself re-ironing so I would rather do it once and avoid double work. serves me right!!!

Date night

Of late our schedules are so busy that by the time it says Friday evening we are usually walking like zombies eagerly waiting to get to bed which equals not going out much. We are encourage by the church to take time off for ourselves as couples. There are two days that one is free from their calling if I may use that phrase it is not a break from ones calling. Mondays and Fridays. Monday is for family home evening and Friday is date night for the parents. We aka the cooks are believers that parents or couples even without children should take time off to spend some down time with their spouse. When we are not swamped by life's obligations we usually go out on a date, on the other hand if we are so tired to go out we have a date night at home. Its not a must to go out as its usually expensive and for families with children it just gives the couple that time to be alone from the kids. We have dinner at the table and chill out by watching series or a movie. Cell phones are usually switched off or put on silent to avoid any interruptions. On Friday I decided to make a chicken roast with baked potatoes and veges. I got the recipes by mixing Jamie Oliver's and Nigella Lawson's recipes. I have tried both recipes individually before and the combination of the two came to number one on our list.
Ingredients:
Whole chicken
parsley
sage
carrots
1 lemon
onions
potatoes
spices
olive oil
black pepper
Chop the veges ie carrots,onions, potatoes to smaller pieces
Mix the chopped veges and stuff the chicken with some veges and leave space for the lemon.
A trick from Jamie was to put the lemon in the microwave for 40 seconds and it actually brings the juice out.
Pierce the lemon at several points with a knife then stuff it in the chicken..Make sure its fully stuff .
And tie the chicken legs together with a string. I didn't have a thick string so i used normal sewing thread but folded over several times till it was thick enough.
Place the chicken on a tray and marinade it/braise with some olive oil.and add some black pepper and spices .And some of the remaining veges around the chicken and also sprinkle some olive oil over it.
Pour some water not a lot I used half a cup on the tray underneath the foil over it. It helps to keep the chicken moist.
And put in the pre heated oven at 170 degrees for an hour and 20 mins and leave to cook .
When the chicken is done it turns a olden brown. I preferred to keep it longer to crisp it.
The potatoes, I cheated , I boiled them first then braised them with olive oil and placed to bake till crisp in the oven.
And enjoy !!
Before sitting down the babies had to have their dinner too in order to join us by the table. They don't beg while we at the table they sit and wait.When we are done they have their share of people food as well.





fudge eating his dinner with yogurt & jiji on the kitchen counter to avoid fights over food

listening to daddy at the table
jiji sitting on the table

Spring equals gardening

On Saturday as previously noted in the post it was time for us to get our hands in the dirt to prepare our garden and vegetable garden. After our Saturday squash session, we headed home and after breakfast began the dirty work. The weather was great which helped a lot. Lots of spring cleaning going on; in the garden.

Before

Our garden was a mess but we didn't want to work on it when we moved in we decided to wait for the right season as per my sweetie's advice. So during the week we went and bought potting soil, seeds and also the grass soil plus dolphin shaped baby basins. Wayne was convince we needed something that was out of the ordinary a,d well we had our little assistant who totally jumped on his ship and I could not argue against two. They do look lovely except that jiji now thinks we had bought her three litter baskets. I mean she has been going outside to potty I don't know what would make her think oh wait its now five months and time to go back to a tray.
There was lots of trimming and cutting not much digging going on as we decided we were not going to plant any grown cover flowers in the garden. We are still trying to kill the ones the previous owners of the place planted what a mission. Wayne then dug the corner where we have been struggling to get some grass to grow and we spread the seeds all over the place and placed the final layer of grass soil.

During

trimming the bush

the grass seeds

the grass compost
After

We then went on to sort out the basin vege gardens we collected some soil from the garden for one but the ground was so hard and decided to abort that plan and instead used potting soil for all the basins and added some to the plants. We then set them up by the wall and watered them to balance the hp to get ready to plant the following day.

compost and potting soil for the veges

Wayne then went, prepared and got ready and was off to his cricket practice as decided to stay around to finish with cleaning and planting some flowers in pots to put around the fountain. The pavement and bathing fudge. It got too dark for me to take the pics after we have cleared the garden and cleaned the paving.
I then had to bath our baby Fudge who was not thrilled after he had gotten wet from playing with the sprinkler. Wayne got back from cricket to watch the rugby and I was not done.While at cricket he had an accident, his fingers were hit by the ball so he was in so much pain. We thought he had broken his fingers but after a trip to the ER and three hours of waiting and an x-ray, it turns out they were torn ligaments. So he is being careful with his hand and hoping it heals by Friday so he can play his match on Saturday. I guess boys will be boys.
had Fudge on lock down -the table as he wanted to run into the house before we were done because daddy was home

you can see wayne's strapped fingers and a clean fudge lying next to daddy

And I was done at 8pm. Then set u the fire and we had a brai. It was a wonderful way to end the day. so proud of ourselves especially Wayne for all the hard work he put into our garden.