You guys are the best!

As gloomy as I was feeling last week about this school project we have, that’s how excited I am about it now! Seriously, I can’t even begin to tell you how much it meant to me when your comments started coming through – just knowing that you were willing to help gave me the boost I needed. I’ve mailed those of you who offered help back separately and I’m really looking forward to doing this with you.

Thank you, a million times thank you…you are all super stars!

Since we last spoke about this I’ve received a carpet donation and a curtain, plus my mom helped me make (or should I say I helped my mom) a massive amount of cupcakes to sell for fund raising too. One of the other secret agents and I walked two of the floors here this morning and sold them all within half an hour. We made a few hundred bucks that will certainly come in handy, and I also think it did the team good to see it happening so that they can believe that we can do it and start gearing their thinking towards that instead of what a giant task this might be.

 

M & M visit quite a few weeks ago

I am still playing catch up with my photos…(these are from end of March)

It looked like the little cousins enjoyed themselves. Two action packed days and as you can see from the last photo, the pink terrorist was completely exhausted!

I am not in a good space today

First off I found out someone I work really hates me. Okay…to put things in perspective she really hates everybody, but she definitely hates me too. I’m quite surprised by this. It’s not that uncommon for people to briefly dislike me if we have something we don’t agree on, but I don’t think there are a lot of people that genuinely HATE me. I’m not going to let it eat at me too much. I think it probably says more about her than about me. Hating me because you didn’t do your work and I had to point it out hardly seems like a grown up thing to do.

The second thing I’d rather not talk about.

And thirdly, secret place sent us out to go see nursery schools that need uplifting in the area. Each business function got a different school to look at and a very small amount of seed money that they have to make more somehow and then do something for the school to really make a difference.

Sounds like a nice idea, doesn’t it?

Ha! I’ve just come back from the visit to our allocated school. It’s a structurally unsound shit hole, and that’s putting it lightly. It is however spotlessly clean and the people who work there obviously care a lot and are doing the best they can with what they have.

Tonight I am going to spend a looong time on my knees thanking God that I don’t have to leave my baby in a place like that during the day.

We have R750. The place needs a new roof, new ceilings, at least one more toilet, a microwave, carpets, paint, three new windows, at least one gutter, mattresses, blankets, books, crayons, bookshelves, wall mounted white board, toys…it’s mission unlikely, but we’ll give it our best shot. You don’t need to be a bean counter to figure out that R750 isn’t going to cut it.

The roof is really the main concern. The beams run through the walls of the house, the leaky corrugated iron sheets lie on top of them and the beams themselves are mostly rotting from damp, the sheets are “secured” with a few big concrete bricks, the ceiling in the one class is completely rotten from damp and is covered in what looks like black mould.

We can’t do anything about them keeping almost 50 children in two 3m x 4m rooms all day with no outside area to even play in – but maybe we can at least fix the roof they’re under. As Steamcleaner pointed out (when I questioned how the department of education and or health can let something like this go on) – at least those kids aren’t left home alone or roaming the streets during the day while their parents go to work? Imagine if the safest and best option you had for care of your precious child during the day was a place with a unsound roof?

To put things in perspective for you guys with children in day care, the kids are looked after there for about R200/month. Nicola’s school fees a month alone is more than 11 times that! Gosh…I’m so depressed and horrified after that visit. (And grateful for what I have)

Ps! If anyone feels like donating building material or other things needed, even though I probably still can’t tell you where I work, please give me a shout.

Mid week ramble & ABC’s

Obviously these photos were taken when it was A LOT WARMER than it is now…

My little princess.

Moving cars with Oupa.

Feeding the birds everywhere we go…

Special bird seed holder I decorated for her.

At home:

It’s officially slow cooker season! I got up a bit earlier yesterday to chop up some vegetables and stuff for ours and last night all I had to do was cook some rice – ta-dah! Dinner was served. What a pleasure, seriously. Of course nothing is without its own challenges and my daughter will not eat it if you refer to it as stew, so we’re calling it meat sauce and that seems to be okay. A rose by any other name right?

Robbie the landlord has had quite a collection of contractors around lately. First, he had an alarm and armed response installed – which I thought was kind of hilarious since he doesn’t even lock his door most days (I did tell him that, and he said it’s mostly for his wife’s peace of mind and she’s paying for it too). Then yesterday he had a whole team of tree fellers in there. Almost all of the trees on his side of the property have been taken down because he was scared one of them would fall on the house. What a mess! The whole side walk and driveway was covered under debris and pieces of palm tree yesterday and it’s a real challenge getting out into the road at the moment cause you can hardly see past all the crap. He did say sorry for the chaos and that most of it will be carted away by the end of today.

Nicola is very upset about him chopping down “her” trees and wants me to give him a hiding on his bum…”So hard as jy kan mamma!” Mwahaha, I did try to explain that they aren’t actually our trees, they belong to Robbie and he can cut them down if he wants to – but she remains unconvinced.

At secret place:

There’s a new sheriff in town. At long last Box-Of-Frogs’ replacement had started working here officially…and we had such great hopes for him, but it looks like they will all be dashed. I’m only getting to meet him later today, but based on what I’ve heard so far I already dislike him so much that I am actually considering NOT doing business with the place he worked at before anymore. We have recently had a massive influx of people from there and they’re all the same – good old boys club, if you know what I mean?

In this week, New-Sheriff felt it appropriate to end off a meeting by saying that they should wrap it up because the women probably needed to get home to cook dinner…in a meeting with only two women and about ten other men…neither of those women married or even responsible for cooking in general. Like seriously, WTF?! I can’t believe that anyone thinks that’s acceptable generalisation in this day and age? That’s probably not the worst thing he’s even done or will be doing, but it could be a sign of things to come and attitudes that will have to be put up with or not. (It’s probably just as well that I don’t get to rub elbows with the upper floors round here, there is no way that I would have kept my mouth shut after hearing something like that). He could just as easily have said that they need to finish because everyone would like to get home to their families, instead of making it a gender thing.

Anyhoo…I believe it’s time to dust off my paperwork and investigate alternative locations of cheese.

Nicola:

She very proudly informed me this week that she had another run-in with the L-bully at school this week, and that she hit her really hard like I showed her. I asked if L-bully started it and she said yes, then I congratulated her and told her well done. I asked her what L-bully said after this happened and she says the little girl told her to go away (not so nice getting some of your own medicine, is it?).

Anyway, there haven’t been any incidents since and Nicola was positively beaming at having defended herself succesfully – so far so good. I’ve contacted the Judo club for which I received the link on my previous post and asked them if they would consider giving lessons at Nicola’s school from next year – or if they could tell me where they have lessons on Saturdays. Also Vonnelize’s company, Manners4Minors are coming to do a Bully Workshop at our school next week – and I’m really looking forward to see what Nicola makes of that! (Thanks for organising that Vonnelize, I really appreciate it).

Now onto more light hearted stuff!

Nicola has become very aware of the letter N. She knows that her name starts with it and feels quite strongly about it being HER letter and no one else being allowed to use it! So I thought it might be a good time to introduce an alphabet chart? No rush, but if she’s interested in letters then I want to give her the opportunity to learn more about them.

I bought the Afrikaans one, but now there is only one problem…Nicola argues about what almost each picture means, so her alphabet is going to look a bit crazy! Mwahaha, I’m not really stressed about it – it will work itself out in the end, but let me share with you what the alphabet according to Nicola currently looks like: (the blank ones I can’t remember now off-hand, sorry. I should have taken a photo to remind myself!)

• A – Arend (Eagle) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n griffen.
• B -
• C – Chinees (Chinese) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n pappa.
• D – Donkie (Donkey) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n perd, en hy het ‘n baie groot neus.
• E – Eiland (Island)
• F – Fiets (Bicycle)
• G -
• H – Huis (House)
• I – Iglo (Iglo) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n grot.
• J – Juwele (Jewels)
• K – Koerant (Newspaper)
• L – Lam (Lamb) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n skaap…hy’s baie wollerig, en jy kan nie hom touch nie, hy sal jou byt!
• M – Muis (Mouse)
• N – Neute (Nuts)
• O – Oranje (Orange)
• P – Pikkewyn (Penguin)
• Q – Quiche (Actually that is the english word, but afrikaans doesn’t really do Q’s – in Afrikaans it’s called Souttert) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n pizza.
• R – Radio (Radio)
• S – Slak (Snail)
• T – Tande (Teeth)
• U – Uurglas (Hour glas) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n sand glas.
• V – Viool (Violin) – Nee mamma! Dis ‘n kitaar. (I’ve tried showing her the difference, so now she tells me it’s a guitar you play on your shoulder)
• W – Windmeul (Wind mill)
• X – Xilofoon (Xilophone)
• Y – Yskas (Fridge)
• Z – Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe ) – I’m not sure why they didn’t just go with a zebra on this one but Nicola recons this is a map, and she’s not wrong.

Good for you my baby – question EVERYTHING! This might spell potential disaster for her spelling, but there’s nothing wrong with her reasoning.

April seen arounds – flowers

Can you believe that I didn’t even see one odd thing in traffic for all of April?!

Me neither…

1. A flower given to me by my darling daughter – I just liked the look of it on that wall, so I had to take a picture
2. Strelitzia at my parents’ home – such a robust plant this one – it’s always trying to take over the drive way no matter how vigorously my dad cuts it back
3. The weavers found my day lily and ripped it all up for nesting material. They left only the poor flower stem in the end – not even a single piece of leaf survived their onslaught. It still flowered beautifully, and I really hope it makes a recovery from the attack by the birds.

The very last batch ;-)

And it’s all about the journey home…

1. Brother bear sitting on the fence watching the sunrise with a cup of coffee in hand just before we started the big journey home again
2. Wimpy breakfast – a must for any proper road trip
3. I think Nicola only orders the chips so that she can save some for the animals – very little of the chips bought for her over the course of the vacation actually ended up in her own stomach

Last week and weekend

Don’t get too excited, I still have one batch of Balitto photos to release.

This is a drawing Nicola did last week. Isn’t it amazing? Till fairly recently most of her drawings were just scribbles, but these are definite things and people right here. I remember Cat writing about how sometimes when something clicks it’s such a big change (especially on the drawings) and here I have some of my very own proof.

Anyhoo, the figure on the right in the Mr. Incredible suit with the pirate beard and without arms is what nicola believes her dad might look like (he doesn’t look like this at all, just so you know). The three blockish things on the rest of the page are glasses and then there’s the sun, must be hot and he must be thirsty? Pity he can’t drink any of that without arms.

I must say I really like this drawing and I’ve stashed it in a safe place. (usually she enjoys cutting out the things she’s drawn almost straight away).

On Saturday we went shopping, and Nicola who doesn’t usually dress herself got bored and started fitting anything she could yank off the shelves. “How do I look mommy?” Hahaha, so cute! You should have seen her wandering past the lingerie department. First she complemented the manequin on her choice in underwear and then she was holding up briefs against herself to see if they would fit. The shop assistants were literally on the floor laughing.

At least we all had fun…

Cuddles!

Last week my gran’s house in Thabazimbi had to be packed up because it’s been sold. One giant trailer of things came to my parents’ house and we all helped to unpack it. Nicola insisted on helping too of course!

Drama, drama, drama! The pink terrorist was baking cookies with my mom and made a grab for one of the cookie sheets to help take them out of the oven. I had her under a cold tap before she could even start crying and I’m glad to say that I think everything will be okay, even though we all got a giant fright! She’s got two blisters on her hand now, but I think they will heal up quickly – thank goodness.

I bet you’ve never had a sandwich with sugar paste flowers on it as a topping? Neither have I. My mom promised Nicola a hot dog, and then discovered that she didn’t actually have any viennas in the house – this is the only thing she would take as a substitute.

Last week was rough work-wise, as it was my deadline for the secret tool reporting and the general chaos that comes from that and shaking the necessary information out of all the nooks and crannies as per usual.

I had a really nice mother’s day with the family. We decided to order in instead of braving a restaurant and play area with Nicola’s still pretty tender hand and we all had a great time.  My brother tried to prank Nicola by saying he didn’t get any food for her and she was so upset with him that she refused to eat the food once he came out with the punchline, so she had part of mine instead and I had hers. Luckily we were both having ribs, but she made very sure that she didn’t eat any of the ones bought for her that were involved in the prank.

The wedding arrangements are coming along for the kids. They will most likely be headed down to the coast again this coming weekend to check out possible venues and I think my parents will be joining them on this round. My mom keeps asking me what I’m going to wear but i haven’t even given it a thought yet, since we don’t even know when the wedding will be yet (so far it looks like some time in September).

Do you stress about that kind of thing well in advance? Ireally don’t…well I guess I would if I was the bride, but other than that I’ll probably end up wearing the first thing I yank out of my cupboard.