There is fear in my heart.

As a mother, I am constantly aware that I have a beautiful blonde haired, blue eyed beauty and that the world is full of people who would want to take her away and either sell her body parts or enter her into some sort of sex slavery. 

Every single day I see posts on my Facebook timeline where someone has tried to take a child out of a trolley at a shopping mall, or pick up a child and walk off with them, or (the latest) smash car windows with rocks and try to take babies out of their car seats. As a mom, I am constantly aware of these situations and it’s driving me to the point where I just don’t want to take Alice out on my own, and my mother is absolutely forbidden to take her anywhere alone unless it is absolutely necessary. I can’t begin to tell you about the soul destroying; sleep reducing nightmares I have about my child going missing.

How do parents deal with the fear? Surely I’m not the only one who feels this almost crippling fear that something is going to happen to my child?

Jumping ahead to the future...

So, wow... Much has happened since June 2013, the most amazing (and challenging) of which has been the birth of our baby. Alice is 16 months old already, would you believe!?!?!

Wayne and I will be celebrating our 4-year anniversary in Pretoria this year, as his cousin is getting married. We've decided to turn the occasion into a family holiday.

I was asked to submit an inspirational story about myself at work the other day. If you're asking why, the best I can offer is that my company is a little odd... Awesome, but odd. Anyways, I put together a recap of the great "fat-struggle" that was my life...

Here it is if you're keen on some random reading...

Obesity in South Africa is on the rise. 70% of all women and 40% of all men above the age of 35 are overweight. Obesity is an ugly word; it’s a personal word and an offensive word. But it was also a word, which in 2007, you could comfortably use to describe me. At 27 years old I weighed a whopping 117 kilograms. Healthy diet and fitness regime were foreign concepts to me.

I’ve often had people ask me, how did you get to that size? The simple answer is that it’s easy. I was a fat kid, a fat teen and a fat adult. An average woman, who leads an average, healthy lifestyle will consume around 1940 calories per day. Now look at a Cornish pasty for lunch (776 calories), or two ham and cheese sandwiches (704 calories), or 5 cups of coffee a day (400 calories). Now add breakfast, dinner, snacks, juices and the total just keeps adding up.

My best friend visited me one day and told me about a diet she was on. She’d changed her eating habits completely and was going for weekly weigh-ins. Before I continue, I have to say that losing weight is not a physical thing, it’s a mental thing. Yes, you have to eat the correct foods in order to lose weight; but that’s not going to happen if you can’t get control of the hamburger or loaf of freshly baked bread hanging around in your head all day saying “eat me, EAT ME!”

So I started the “diet”. It was not a diet, not by a long shot. A diet is something you go on for three weeks, get bored with it, lose two kilograms and put on four at the end of it. This was a lifestyle change. R700 per month, two bottles of the most revolting medicine, a weekly injection to speed up my non-existent metabolism, and the healthiest eating plan I had ever seen meant that I was broke and grumpy (fighting constantly with the hamburger in my head).

I was blessed though. I had my best friend… Who would make me grilled chicken salads at lunch time and phone me to keep me constantly motivated. As the years and months went by I lost the weight. It took almost three years to lose the 48 kilograms that I lost, but it was worth every step.

Yes, over the past year or so I have put on a few more kilograms that I would like to, but that’s about to change. “Diet” and an exercise routine will see me back at 70 kilos, which is my goal and ideal weight.

Just so you know...

... I LOVE my husband.

They said what? Really? Are you sure?

*NASTY LANGUAGE WARNING*

I’ve come to the conclusion that book reviewers (not all, and yes I’m generalising… bear with me here) are bullshitters… or liars… which of the two, I’m not sure.

My cousin wrote a book on parenting; a topic which he knows nothing about. The reviewers gave it positive feedback. Said it was enlightening... amongst other things. Look, I got through around 30% of the book (unfortunately it was free on the Kindle store, so I opted to download it to see how “great” the book is). The book is crap. Sorry Daniel, but there’s no other way to put it other than, it’s crap. Really crap…

The book is, essentially, badly written, full of typos (have we never heard of spellcheck?), a sad excuse to complain about his ex-girlfriend and his (non-abusive) alcoholic father.

At the end of the day, he made some stupid choices, and decided to have a cry about it in a really, really awful book, instead of doing what the rest of us would do… man-up and move on.

Sorry Daniel, you get a 0 out of 10 rating from me.

Fast Forward...

... to April 2013!

Me and my hubby (pulling his funny camera face)

Wow, I knew I was behind in my posts, but I never realised that the last time that I stopped by was in 2011! Holy snackwich!

Ok, well... Big changes have happened between then and now. I got married! I finally found Mr Right, and I actually don't know what life was like before I met him.

I also changed jobs. Not such big news, but definitely a positive in my life.

Hello? You still there?

Gosh it's been forever since I posted on this thing. Big things are afoot in the land of Ash; it's all very exciting. More updates to follow as soon as certain events have rolled around.

In other exciting news... Maxine is half way through her pregnancy... Her baby is due on the 9th of May, if I'm not mistaken. It's all very exciting :)

Counting Blessings...

I count my blessings every day, times two, for my boyfriend.

*sigh*

Transcending into the madness

OK... so I've got my first trans-party with the trans-hippies on the 15th. I've decided that I'm going to take my fire toys and flowlights and hide behind them all night. I'm even hunting for a tie-dye t-shirt, which is hippie camo :P It's on the 15th of next month, and I have to say, I am looking forward to it :) This is like home territory for Wayne because he used to DJ at these things, so at least I'll have him with me :) Fun fun :)

A Day of Celebrations

There are three wonderful things to celebrate today...

1. It's my and Wayne's 4th monthaversary! It's been a wonderful 4 months with my bean

2. It's Google's 13th Birthday! Happy Birthday Google :D



And finally...

3. Maxine is pregnant! I can post this now because she's told her family :) How awesome is that? Congrats Max!

A fun weekend all round

I don’t know about your weekend, but mine was just far too short. Other than a minor hiccup on Saturday afternoon (Wayne and I were both grumpy… He was suffering from cigarette withdrawl symptoms and I was suffering from stomach ache, so I went home and left both of us to our own miseries) we had a lovely weekend.

Saturday
Cupcake Day! Mom and I went to a cupcake decorating course out in Everton. Fun was had by all! We decorated 6 cupcakes each. Zolita and her mom, Zola, showed us various techniques from mixing icing to creating grass. She also gave us cupcake embellishments which she had already made up. Those were made of plastic (sugar-paste) icing and are actually relatively easy to put together by the looks of it. As soon as mom has a decent mixer again I’ll be baking. Watch this space for my own designs.

I’ll be organizing a mixer for my mom for Christmas. Going to buy her a Kenwood Chef and hopefully not put myself in debt until the cows come home because of it, but we shall see.

After the course I headed over to (a very grumpy) Wayne’s place. Shame, the poor bean seems to have acquired back ache. He called me later in the evening to find out what pills he must get from the chemist, sounding like he was on the verge of tears, so my irritation levels dropped instantly. After rattling off a list, he popped to the chemist and then came over for dinner, took his meds and went home. Poor thing. He needs to go to the chiropractor and get run over with her steam roller.

Sunday
A very late start to the day and well, to be perfectly honest I woke up and put on a video game and well… that was me for the morning. I arrived at Wayne’s place at about midday and we popped to Galleria for a round of glow-in-the-dark putt-putt. That was fun! Look, we both suck, but I did manage to kick his bum at it, so my competitive side was stoked. We really should do it again, but in a big group with friends.

We spent a fair amount of time wandering around Galleria, after which Wayne did some grocery shopping; topping up on the basics.

And that was my weekend. Not a bad one all round actually.

My Cupcake Creations!

My box of cuppie-cakes!

The bug (aka Mom) making her garden :)

Sheepish Sheep

Pretty pink flowers :)

In the garden!

The bling swirl

Mr Ted-E-Lion!

Bug putting eyes on her "dog"

The ginger

These are mom's cupcakes :)

Loooooooooooong day

Well, yesterday was an adventure. It turned out to be a very long day ending in me not having enough money to pay for the parking at the airport. Thankfully, my awesome boyfriend came to my rescue. It’s a long story, and one that I’m just too tired to tackle at this point. The painkillers I took last night have left me tired and grumpy the whole day. I can’t wait to get into my bed tonight… Tomorrow I will tackle all the bits and pieces that I should have tackled today, but just didn’t have the brain power to.

BTW! It costs R105 – one way – to get from Marlboro station (on the outskirts of Alexandria township) to the airport on the Gautrain. Can you spell R.I.P-O.F.F!

Adventuring we will go...

I'm off to Johannesburg tomorrow. Here's hoping I don't get lost in that dismal city. Catching the Gautrain to Sandton. Wish me luck!

Absolutely amazing!

It seems that sculptures have been popping up around the libraries in Scotland.
Read the story, it's absolutely wonderful :D

Mysterious Paper Sculptures

I am Number Four

This is a movie that I never got around to watching in the cinema, but did want to. Since then I'd heard mixed reviews from friends. Some loved it, some said it was too much along the lines of the Twilight movies... all soppy romance and no action. I'm not really Twilight's biggest fan, so the prospect of it being anything like those movies put me off a fair bit. Anyways, mom and I got take-aways for dinner last night and so I thought I'd pop into the video store next door. The DVD was in the corner that I usually frequent, you know that one, the lastest releases corner, every video store has one. I looked at it, scanned the rest of the shelves to see if there was anything better, and ended up taking it.

Ok, so the movie...

Alex Pettyfer (John Smith) was very much under my radar until I watched Beastly. He's not a bad actor at all. Look, he's no Nicholas Cage or Sean Connery, but as far as the young, up and coming actors go, he's definitely one to watch.

Ok, so John Smith and 8 other kids are from another planet, Lorien, which was destroyed by another race of aliens called the Mogadorians. These kids were all referred to by a number. As the other "Numbers" were killed off John grew stronger and came into a set of powers called Legacies. Each child apparently has different Legacies. He is guarded by a Cêpan (warrior) called Henri (Timothy Olyphant).

Stepping away from the movie a second here, does anyone else think that Timothy Olyphant is just the most delicious thing we have seen on the big screen in a very long time? At the ripe old age of 42 (born in 1968), the saying "men get better looking with age" certainly applies to him.

Ok, back to the movie... Look, I've no interest in running through it play-by-play. I'm not a movie reviewer, I'm just here to tell you that you should watch the movie. Yes, it does have a bit of a love story attached to it, but that's ok. It's not a soppy, gooey movie like the dismal Twilights.

The action scenes in the movie were fun! And well, any movie that has a Chimera in it will already earn 10 brownie points in my life. How cool was Bernie? Unfortunately Google is not offering up a decent image of him in his Chimera form for me to post.

Another great reason to watch the movie (especially if you're a guy) is the very awesome Australian, Six (Teresa Palmer). This girl is HAWT. Her Legacies include*:
*Courtesy of Wiki

Telekinesis — Like John, she can move objects with her mind. It is not told how developed her strength is.

Invisibility — Six can make herself invisible. She manages to sneak around outside the school despite the numerous Mogadorians outside. Six can turn people invisible just by touching them; however, this is limited to only a couple of people. John's grandfather had this power.

Elemental Manipulation — Six can control the four basic elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. She can apparently mix these powers together, shown when she makes a storm appear in the final fight.

Ok, well that's all I have time for today. The movie is definitely worth a watch, and I'm going to see if I can get the books too. I think they'd make a great read. I'm off to spin poi with my boy :P
Have a great weekend all!

x

I always hear a lightsaber's "wong wong" sound when I see these lights come out of his hands

A pinch of salt, a dash of ... biltong?

Today's What's for Dinner recipe is biltong and pepperdew loaf. It sounds both strange and delicious and seeing as my boyfriend loves biltong I thought I'd give it a bash this weekend.

If you'd like to tackle the recipe yourself, click the link below:

What's for Dinner - Biltong and Pepperdew Loaf

It's FRIDAAAAAY!

Good morning everyone! It's FRIDAY!

And in the spirit of Friday, here's a video to get you in the swing of the weekend :D



In other news - here's a few photos of Barry at Fire in the Park the other night :)

This is my favourite of the lot :)

Ok...

Quick lunchtime catch up

Okay, so yesterday was D-day for the meeting with Darren to discuss the brief for Robyn's website (Fire and Lights). Overall I think the meeting went very well, Darren completely understood the concept and came back with a few really good suggestions on how elements of the website should function. The only problem is that all in all, the website is going to cost around R150k to develop. Yes, you heard me right... One hundred and fifty thousand rand. So, at this point I'm not sure what decisions Robyn is going to make, but a few will need to be made. Darren will be sending back a proposal / cost estimate on Tuesday and we can take it from there. I feel heartsore for her, because I really don't know if that amount is reachable for her and at the end of the day, this is what she should be doing. Robyn is not designed to sit in an office. She is designed to be a connector, she needs to travel the world and connect performers with people who need them. Also, her first attempt at the website was a bit of a failure for various reasons, so she's already put a fair chunk of money, time and effort into the thing. I'll see her tonight and see how she's doing.

Fire in the Park last night was lovely. It did start to rain at one point, but by then Wayne and I were so tired that it was time to go home anyways. I took a good number of photos of Baz, which I am going to use to put together an article for Robyn's Fire and Lights blog. The article will be entitled something along the lines of Shooting Poiple. Hopefully one or two of them came out alright! I must check the settings on the photographs that I took of Rayson, and maybe use some of those images too. Will see how it goes. Baz was in "cute mode"... friendly, funny and just enjoying himself. I love it when he's like that and just want to squeeze him. He really is a lovely guy. I hope his new girlfriend is awesome. Wayne didn't spin fire or play drums, which I think made his heart a little sad, but his violin exam is on Monday and if he damages himself then he won't be able to do it. So no fun was had by my bean unfortunately :( Poor thing. At least he brought his friend Dave with and they had a bit of a chin-wag. Martin was in "teacher mode" which meant that I got 6 weeks worth of poi lessons in the space of 2 hours. I'm not complaining though, I learn a great deal when he's in that mode.

I'm so excited for Wayne about his violin exam. He's been practicing like a demon and although I've only ever really heard him play once, he's doing very well. If nerves don't get the better of him I'm sure that he will rock that exam, and in 9 years or so I will have a boyfriend (or a husband, who knows) who plays violin in an orchestra. How cool is THAT!?! He's such a talented bean :) I love my bean :)

Tonight is the night market in Toti. I'm going to see Robyn, but I won't be staying for too long. I'm just too tired. This has been a very long week of late nights and I want an early one.

On a random side note, should you be at the Gateway shopping centre this weekend you can go to the Durban International Astrology and Psychic Festival. Ya, take it with a pinch of salt hey, but it looks like it could be fun. Katia wants to know what colour her aura is, LOL :P

That's me... Over and out :)