Vicky Sleet from http://www.iwantthat.co.za/ has made 2011 resolutions about gratitude and I second that.
Here's my current list.
1. The doc. He believes in goodnight and good morning kisses; makes a PERFECT cup of coffee and a remarkable tomato soup; he is good at putting the littlies to bed. Most important he loves me for what I am good at rather than resents what I am not.
2. Leila. She is accurate; pure-ist; creative; funny and doesn't miss anything
3. Kiki. She is whimsical; hugely loving and generous; passionate and friendly
4. I have a job which is meaningful and helps make the world a better place. It is not about materialism.
5. The friends I can count on 1 hand who can call me and I them at 3am no matter what
6. Blogland and tweeples
7. AIDS treatment is getting better and better
8. My beloved delicious soft gourgeous and divine cat Giji
9. Green spaces in the city and Cape Town
10. The endless supply of vintage clothes and crockery that I keep finding for a STEAL
Fable Fairy
20.1.11
Life Chapters
Do you ever name the chapters in your life? I do this all the time for different versions of my "life book." in my head.
Chapter 1: How to survive being an Air sign baby in a house with 3 Fire signs
Chapter 2: Girls will be girls. Learn to do Psycho-Judo.
Chapter 3: How not to get arrested when the country is burning.
Chapter 4: How to handle a toga party.
Chapter 5: The value of Satnislavski and Jung
Chapter 6: How to prevent and treat HIV and AIDS in SA
Chapter 7: How to fall pregnant when the usual way doesn't work
Chapter 8: How to be a smiling working mother
Chapter 9: Chase some dreams while you still can.
I saw that a recent Oprah mag can teach me how to write the next chapter. Can't wait.
Tell me the names of you chapters
19.1.11
Granny Suze's things
Today was the first day of school for my littlies. Phew!
Next week is my birthday. My gran's birthday was on the same day. This will be the first one since she has died. In the buildup I wanted to do a post focusing on some more of her things which I cherish.
These are granny Suze's chairs that travelled all the way from Nazi germany, now covered in Heather Moore's Skinny Laminx Cows.
And her esquisite bag:
And one beautiful tea cup I use to have my morning tea which the wonderful Doc brings me always with a funny comment like: "The cheque's in the mail" or "Goeie more my vrou"' or "Ladies and gentlemen Miss Grace Jones"
He is funny that way.
Love having her things...
16.1.11
The things parents SHOULD train for
These are the things one should end up training for in addition to birthing classes:
1. Untying the teeniest tiniest knots in the teeniest Polly Pocket dolls' hair - about 2 years of practice before they are 5 (you only have 5 mins).
2. Finding a needle in a haystack or a Polly Pocket shoe the size of a pin head in a MESSY house when it could be anywhere. The training for this must be done with a stop watch to improve your time, while still keeping calm and there must be a soundtrack of increasingly louder screaming as you search for it. You can't practice this in your 2 room flat, you need a big space to practice in like the Cape Town Convention Centre and it could be anywhere.
3. To practice not going red in the shopping centre when something embarrassing happens like your kid says, "Mom why don't you dance around to your cell phone music ringing like you do at home? "Or telling a complete stranger that the car guard was angry with mom because he didn't think the 2 rand she gave him was enough: You need to wear totally see through clothes and have someone drench you. Cold water is best as you can practice looking non plussed when you are actually take -your- breath -away- shocked. And, it is great practice not to feel embarrassed about things being spilled on the floor.
4. To practice not being embarrassed about plates or glasses breaking in public eateries, go to a restaurant with your partner and throw a couple of plates on the floor and see how they treat you and charm your way through it on 3 hours sleep.
5. Get into bed with nice laundered crisp white sheets and duvet. Get your partner to wake you at 1am; 3 am; 5 am and pour half a bottle of milk on your sheets and pillow each time and see if you change the sheets each time or just put a towel on it and change the sheets in the morning.
6. Run a bath and fill it with squeezy bath toys. Get your partner to sing " The wheels on the bus go round and round" no less than 10 times while you try and wash your hair, brush your teeth, exfoliate your face in 15 mins. Your partner must not let you have 1 mins piece while all this is going on especially if you need the toilet during this exercise. It is very important that the song be sung over and over again. If you beg for mercy, ensure your partner makes the singing gets louder and louder.
7. You need to get dressed for work in the morning INCLUDING applying eye liner and sun screen without getting your work clothes messy while having a baby orangutan around your neck the entire time, who is eating a honey and peanut butter sandwich. Special deal with Monkey World on Orangutan hire if you quote the name of this blog.
8. This is a Memory test that I will give you. There are 30 kids in the class. You need to not only remember the children's names, but also the names of the moms, the nannies, the grannies and the au pairs who sometimes fetch them from day care and work out a clever way to save them all in your cell phone/ BB/ I -phone.
9. Get your dog or cat to eat broccoli AND peas instead of meat or pellets repeatedly every day for 2 years.
10. Make your cat or dog get into a drawer (like a bed) over and over again ten times a night without getting angry.
But what you won’t need to practice is being grateful despite all this. It will come naturally.
1. Untying the teeniest tiniest knots in the teeniest Polly Pocket dolls' hair - about 2 years of practice before they are 5 (you only have 5 mins).
2. Finding a needle in a haystack or a Polly Pocket shoe the size of a pin head in a MESSY house when it could be anywhere. The training for this must be done with a stop watch to improve your time, while still keeping calm and there must be a soundtrack of increasingly louder screaming as you search for it. You can't practice this in your 2 room flat, you need a big space to practice in like the Cape Town Convention Centre and it could be anywhere.
3. To practice not going red in the shopping centre when something embarrassing happens like your kid says, "Mom why don't you dance around to your cell phone music ringing like you do at home? "Or telling a complete stranger that the car guard was angry with mom because he didn't think the 2 rand she gave him was enough: You need to wear totally see through clothes and have someone drench you. Cold water is best as you can practice looking non plussed when you are actually take -your- breath -away- shocked. And, it is great practice not to feel embarrassed about things being spilled on the floor.
4. To practice not being embarrassed about plates or glasses breaking in public eateries, go to a restaurant with your partner and throw a couple of plates on the floor and see how they treat you and charm your way through it on 3 hours sleep.
5. Get into bed with nice laundered crisp white sheets and duvet. Get your partner to wake you at 1am; 3 am; 5 am and pour half a bottle of milk on your sheets and pillow each time and see if you change the sheets each time or just put a towel on it and change the sheets in the morning.
6. Run a bath and fill it with squeezy bath toys. Get your partner to sing " The wheels on the bus go round and round" no less than 10 times while you try and wash your hair, brush your teeth, exfoliate your face in 15 mins. Your partner must not let you have 1 mins piece while all this is going on especially if you need the toilet during this exercise. It is very important that the song be sung over and over again. If you beg for mercy, ensure your partner makes the singing gets louder and louder.
7. You need to get dressed for work in the morning INCLUDING applying eye liner and sun screen without getting your work clothes messy while having a baby orangutan around your neck the entire time, who is eating a honey and peanut butter sandwich. Special deal with Monkey World on Orangutan hire if you quote the name of this blog.
8. This is a Memory test that I will give you. There are 30 kids in the class. You need to not only remember the children's names, but also the names of the moms, the nannies, the grannies and the au pairs who sometimes fetch them from day care and work out a clever way to save them all in your cell phone/ BB/ I -phone.
9. Get your dog or cat to eat broccoli AND peas instead of meat or pellets repeatedly every day for 2 years.
10. Make your cat or dog get into a drawer (like a bed) over and over again ten times a night without getting angry.
But what you won’t need to practice is being grateful despite all this. It will come naturally.
14.1.11
antique photo booth
Have you checked out this cool site that turns your photos into antique looking shots?
http://labs.wanokoto.jp/olds
Ma and my baby in our matching vintage seersucker dresses out for a sunday cycle.
http://labs.wanokoto.jp/olds
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13.1.11
Things this working mom needs RIGHT NOW
So most of you know that I have to be at work from 8h30 - 16h30 with a half hour lunch break.
I have 2 little kids who phone me and ask for things like "patterned ribbon" at 11h00 in the morning when I am work (not expensive; not that difficult to find if you know your way around the haberdashery dept. as I do, but impossible to produce on a work day if I don't have any). And if I go buy 10 types on the way home today so that "I'm organized" for tomorrow, that won't help because tomorrow they will want polly pocket koala bears at 11am.
Similarly I have the problem with finding time for shopping, or "maintenance"
And there are a million other things I need to do which I can't do because I am at work.
1. Travelling oral hygienist who brings an i-pod and foot massager while my teeth get sorted in my lunch hour.
2. Hair salon at work that I breeze into (a la Oprah) which would enable me not to do my hair prior to work (make up as well - too much to ask?)
3. Travelling botox technician who charges R25 a shot (I have never had Botox so maybe I don't understand why its worth it yet), but I do have lines.
4. Shake on (like talcum power) cover the grey hair powder - in complex shades such as Betty Draper season 2 blonde.
5. My own dress maker (again at work) who I visit on my lunch break and whose room has hundereds of samples and materials and who understands my code: e.g. (again) Betty Draper season 2 decending the stairs to the ball room blue and the same puff of the skirt. Oh, she knows my sizes so I never have to be measured.
6. A cook who is affordable, cooks healthy food and gets my children to eat healthily (bwahahaha) and could she/he also brag to those people who criticize this aspect of my parenting
7. Again a travelling plastic surgeon guy to do a boob lift, tummy suck, lipo on legs and nose job all in a lunch hour.
8. A speech writer/ briefer to make me sound clever n' cultured e.g. :" I'm re-connecting with the inner city movement at the moment in preparation for the art biennale" ; " I think that Sarah Palin's use of the term blood libel attempted to draw a parallel between her situation and that of Jews victimized by anti-semites, when it is the Arizona victims who should be central to the discussion".
9. A PAUSE button that I press when I come home from work to my hungry stomache, shrieking kids and a husband who wants me to look at maths calculations; science articles; architetect plans etc etc. I get in the bath and relax until I am ready to unpause.
10. A person who co-ordinates me having divine teas with me friends at my home on a regular basis and reminds me of what I really want to be doing with my time.
Anyone up for doing any of this?
I have 2 little kids who phone me and ask for things like "patterned ribbon" at 11h00 in the morning when I am work (not expensive; not that difficult to find if you know your way around the haberdashery dept. as I do, but impossible to produce on a work day if I don't have any). And if I go buy 10 types on the way home today so that "I'm organized" for tomorrow, that won't help because tomorrow they will want polly pocket koala bears at 11am.
Similarly I have the problem with finding time for shopping, or "maintenance"
And there are a million other things I need to do which I can't do because I am at work.
So this is my wish list, tailored to my circumstances:
1. Travelling oral hygienist who brings an i-pod and foot massager while my teeth get sorted in my lunch hour.
2. Hair salon at work that I breeze into (a la Oprah) which would enable me not to do my hair prior to work (make up as well - too much to ask?)
3. Travelling botox technician who charges R25 a shot (I have never had Botox so maybe I don't understand why its worth it yet), but I do have lines.
4. Shake on (like talcum power) cover the grey hair powder - in complex shades such as Betty Draper season 2 blonde.
5. My own dress maker (again at work) who I visit on my lunch break and whose room has hundereds of samples and materials and who understands my code: e.g. (again) Betty Draper season 2 decending the stairs to the ball room blue and the same puff of the skirt. Oh, she knows my sizes so I never have to be measured.
6. A cook who is affordable, cooks healthy food and gets my children to eat healthily (bwahahaha) and could she/he also brag to those people who criticize this aspect of my parenting
7. Again a travelling plastic surgeon guy to do a boob lift, tummy suck, lipo on legs and nose job all in a lunch hour.
8. A speech writer/ briefer to make me sound clever n' cultured e.g. :" I'm re-connecting with the inner city movement at the moment in preparation for the art biennale" ; " I think that Sarah Palin's use of the term blood libel attempted to draw a parallel between her situation and that of Jews victimized by anti-semites, when it is the Arizona victims who should be central to the discussion".
9. A PAUSE button that I press when I come home from work to my hungry stomache, shrieking kids and a husband who wants me to look at maths calculations; science articles; architetect plans etc etc. I get in the bath and relax until I am ready to unpause.
10. A person who co-ordinates me having divine teas with me friends at my home on a regular basis and reminds me of what I really want to be doing with my time.
Anyone up for doing any of this?
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