again with the quotes

but I just love this one.
Hard work spotlights the character of people:
some turn up their sleeves,
some turn up their noses
and some don't turn up at all.

Sam Ewig

Tuesday Tip

Become an organ donor. Once you've cast off this mortal coil and moved on, allow someone else to benefit from your various body parts, you'll never need them again.
I had assumed that almost everyone is a donor until I saw a request on Sky for organ donors. If your religous belief doesn't allow that's a different matter altogether and must of course be respected but, if you're scared of demon doctors or body part harvesters well, I don't think you need worry.
I'm kind of squeemish about my skin so it's excluded on my donor card, silly of me I know, perhaps one day I'll get over it.
So if you don't already and if you think you can, leave a legacy for a few needy people.

Clickety Clix

The love of my life celebrated his birthday yesterday, so nice to have it on a sunday. I must say he's looking good. He still has most of his own teeth, walks well, nice and straight. Really nice wavy silver grey hair and the kindest eyes. All things considered I chose well.
Samantha and Sion and their families came to lunch, Timothy and his ladies were away for the weekend. Some time back an old family friend gave us a piece of venison (I didn't ask what) from her area in the Free State. Vegetarians, I'm sorry. So, the meat cooked for 5 hours at 170 in the oven on saturday and on sunday I put it into an onion and mushroom sauce, with a handful of raisins, left it to warm in the slow cooker and it was really good. I roasted a big fat chicken and cooked loads of vegetables. Dessert was chocolate and caramel mousse with two colours of jelly and apple cake. Basically we were pigs.
A while back I had a conversation with a customer who sells venison, mostly to the trade but he had asked if I wanted to buy from him. Seeing the look on my face he said "I suppose you're one of those people who don't want to eat Bambi" I agreed wholeheartedly and so he went on to make some quite valid points.
The meat that he sells is born naturally, lives completely free range and is killed humanely, unlike some other commercial meats. I have to say he made his point well. I didn't buy from him but his arguement still holds so I didn't feel bad eating the meat yesterday.
Even so, for me the best part of the meal was the gem squash, the carrots, the roast potatoes, the roasted butternut with just a hint of chilli sauce and the peas. Vegies do indeed rule.

A friend

I often marvel at friendship. The kind that starts young and lasts forever. Not all of us are blessed with such a thing. We had a neighbour whose best friend from primary school UK came to live in SA, They had been friends since the age of 9, and just carried on as if they were never apart. How great. I sense such friendships among the bloggers I follow, you are all so lucky.
Friendship can't be forced and many people will only meet like-minded folk as they grow older. We attended a friends 60th birthday a while back, the main speaker was his friend of over 50 years.
I believe the difference between a friend and an acquaintance is that no matter if you haven't seen one another in ages, sometimes decades, you take up where you left off, as if perhaps you went to the kitchen to make tea and on your return the conversation continued.
The words of todays quote in my desk diary sum it up
"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words".

Tuesday Tip

It's only three months to Christmas. Whether it's your religious belief or it's the festive season, there's no doubt it impacts on our lives. So, if you haven't already bought all the gifts (ho, ho) start seeing to that so that the ccard doesn't buckle under the stress. We're hosting Christmas dinner this year for the family so I'm toying with menus, decor ideas and just trying to decide on the tone of the day. The tip is, make it a fun day to look forward to, not a stress filled agony of a day. It's truly a time of wonder for children around the world, see to it that it carries over to the adults as well, none of that cynical "Oh it's just another moneymaking holiday" nonsense, it's only that way if you allow it to be so.
And please remember, Father Christmas needs advance warning if you want a really special gift so make out your list and post early for Christmas, it may be worth your while.

Another Copycat

How these things get around, I wonder if Pia stole it?

1. What time did you get up this morning? Rowland brought coffee at 5.55 and we were up by 6.15
2 . How do you like your steak? Grazing in a field
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
4. What is your favorite TV show? House, Life, CSI (Las Vegas) Lost, The Closer and The Big Bang Theory - Sheldon rocks.
5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? Sorry to sound boring but really, Cape Town. I've always fancied Tuscany but I hear the locals aren't too friendly.
6. What did you have for breakfast? Special K and a cup of coffee followed by my lunchtime sandwich half an hour later - I was hungry.
7. What is your favorite cuisine? Italian, Greek, Moroccan, and Asian…I love it all. I could honestly survive on sushi. I just kept Caroline's answers.
8. What foods do you dislike? Brussels sprouts, Turkish Delight and Marzipan
9. Favorite Place to Eat? Lunch is always good at CTFM Canal Walk and we often have breakfast at Giovanni's in Green Point.
11.What kind of vehicle do you drive? Honda FRV - blue
12. What are your favorite clothes? I love my velvet and silk knee length jacket, anything velvety or silky or pretty or floraly and my fake leopardskin coat.
13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? Singapore again, Perth obviously, most places in the East as the culture is still so different from our own. Not USA
14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? Half full is always a good place to start.
15. Where would you want to retire? Retire??? I wish
16. Favorite time of day? I don't really have one, each segment of the day has its own ups or downs, mostly ups.
17. Where were you born? Boundry Park Hospital, Manchester
18. What is your favorite sport to watch? Oh please. Although I enjoy MotoGP, Kurling, Ice Skating and those funny things like extreme ironing and wife carrying. 19. Who do you think will not tag you back? It's true, ignorance IS bliss sometimes, I don't know what tagging is.
See above, proof of my incompetance, I lost the question 21. Who are you most curious about their responses to this? Everyone
22. Bird watcher? On occasion
23. Are you a morning person or a night person? Night
24. Do you have any pets? Daisy the spaniel, Amber the cat, Merlin the parakeet
25. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share? I'm not pregnant
26. What did you want to be when you were little? A nurse, an actress (I'll have to blog about Joe Holroyd)
27. What is your best childhood memory? Wow, I had a magic childhood. I grew up in a small seaside town (I sense another blog here) where we were "victims" of benign neglect i.e. we were allowed to be children and go out alone for the day and play and just have a good time.
28. Are you a cat or dog person? I'm 51 percent cat and 49 percent dog
29. Are you married? 43 years and counting
30. Always wear your seat belt? Yes. A seatbelt certainly saved both Sion and Samantha when they had accidents.
31. Been in a car accident? Yes I rode into a pole one day, hit a truck another and on yet another occasion I was in a shunt pile up. I like to think things have improved!
32. Any pet peeves? People who talk constantly on cell phones, ignorant bombastic types who think the louder they talk the better, people who assume they can pass on racist jokes and I'll laugh out loud. Sarcasm.
33. Favorite Pizza Toppings? Parmesan, mushroom, a little tomato
34. Favorite Flower? Daffodils
35. Favorite ice cream? Vanilla
36. Favorite fast food restaurant? Kauai
37. How many times did you fail your driver’s test? Passed first time (disregard question 31)
38. From whom did you get your last email? A customers proof of payment
39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Ikea if we had one
40. Do anything spontaneous lately? Probably not, but I have developed a new excercise where I shimmy and do an arm wavy thingy at the same time.
41. Happy with your job? Yes, I spend time with the love of my life, meet many interesting (and not) people. Home job, even better, I meet new people through Reiki sessions and embroidery jobs.
42. Broccoli? Yes I really like it but just can't even sneak in a tiny florette for him.
43. What was your favorite vacation? I should say Singapore or the holiday to Perth about 5 or six years ago when we were spoilt rotten but I have always enjoyed our trips to Wilderness so much that they have to be a collective number one.
44. Last person you went out to dinner with? Lunch actually with (Rowland of course), Timothy, Marleze, Danielle, Kelly and another guest Sara-Jane
45. What are you listening to right now? 5 fm
46. What is your favorite color? It depends on the day or my mood but it's purple, burnt orange or green.
47. How many tattoos do you have? Not a one
48. How many are you tagging for this quiz? See question 19
49. What time did you finish this quiz? 15.37
50. Coffee Drinker? Oh yes.









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Blog like a Pirate

Aaar me hearties, tomorrow 19 September be the 8th Internation Talk Like a Pirate Day as well as me brother Captain Martin's birthday. So yo ho ho and a bottle of rum landlubbers have a hale and hearty weekend else y'll be walkin' the plank.

Oops

Well, it seems I was wrong, my (awesome) iPod did need something else. A teeny weeny speaker. For my birthday the boys and their families gave me an external speaker for my iPod, it plugs into the base of the iPod and produces enough quality sound to be heard across a very crowded room. It's smaller than a tennis ball, slighlty larger than a golf ball and can be re-charged by plugging in to the usb port on my computer.
Just what I needed.
On the subject of birthday, the love of my life spoilt me as ever, a necklace and the most adorable piggy bank. The pig is wearing sunglasses so I've called him Jack. Number one daughter and her family bought me daffodils - I just love them and added a donation towards a blouse I'm eyeing.
We had such a great family evening, a school night so they left early giving granny time to clean up and then watch CSI.
Good times

Tuesday Tip

I have a freezer bag marker pen which I use, not surprisingly, to mark containers that I'm putting into the freezer. I usually cook double quantities and those meals are really welcome after a long, late day when I finally arrive home. However I also find the pen to be useful when marking things to go into the fridge. I know, someone, somewhere is sighing, rolling her eyes and saying "Virgo!" I like to know when the Organic Tomato Paste will expire so I mark the tube, a normal marker pen wipes off but this one has staying power. So, from jams to mayo to paste if the container reads "use within 30 days of opening" I'm too sissy to regard that as a guideline, I stick to it and my trusty freezer bag marker pen helps me out.

Gigapixels

It seems that we're in the era that believes size does matter. It has to be tiny but big with immense capabilities. I have what GD2 refers to as my "olden days" cellphone. It's a comfortable size, it shows the time.When I'm doing important banking stuff it receives my top secret bank code and if my car breaks down or I run out of petrol (been there, done that) I can call for help. I have a camera to take photos, a small, basic digital camera and I take small, basic photos, granny stuff. What I'm getting at is, we don't all need masses of mind blowing capability in our small appliances. My (awesome) iPod has all I need. A few family pics, quite a bit of music and some of my meditation discs as well as my "How to play the djembi drum" CD. When I acquire an appliance I don't need to know how many gigawhatsits it has, I want to know how many CDs it will hold, how many photos. Don't start a sentence with "Well..." just give me a ball park figure.
For most of his adult life my dad was a professional musician so to me a gig is what he went on most Saturday nights. I'm often reminded about an old comedy sketch, it may have been Dudley Moore, where the poor shopper is ridiculed by a sound system salesman. He asks trick questions about woofers and tweeters and causes untold embarassment. I don't care if the saleperson thinks I'm a daft old lady, I don't need to be blinded by science, I know what I want and perhaps more importantly what I don't need.
I'm trying to stay on track, be natural etc. so that the day the electricity runs out I won't be too dependent on these newfangle gadgets.

Tuesday Tip - sorry it's late

Take a self defence class or course. This suggestion isn't just for the girly, girls, or the young ladies, it's also for the golden girls and the men.
I read in yesterdays Aussie newspaper that a woman was attacked at home in her kitchen, early morning, by a would-be-rapist. When he tried to remove her clothes she kicked him in the groin and broke a ceramic bowl over his head.
Way to go lady!!
He ran out and the police are looking for a man in his early forties who may have an injured groin and head.
Three of us attended a self-defence workshop a few years back. The lady who gave the course had no tales of doom and gloom nor tales of heroism, just sensible advice and really good hands-on combat training.
We left there feeling ready to take on the world but as our instructor pointed out, this is the first step, never forget to scream and run if you can. So, she didn't give a false feeling of greatness, just the basics that even 90 year olds can follow and a sense that if push came to shove we would be able to kick him in the groin and break a ceramic bowl over his head.

Tuesday Tip

Get a hobby.
As the years fly past I can't help noticing a difference between those who have a hobby they love and those who don't. Perhaps you're one of those people who don't have time for such things but the truth is the day will no doubt come when you have time on your hands, a lot of time and if you haven't developed an interest in something other than work/family/work/spouse/pet poodle or whatever, you are going to get bored, tired and OLD.
We're in the lucky position where our friends and family cover all age groups and it's easy to spot the ones who have something extra in their lives. We know people who cook, travel, caravan, sew, paint, go bird spotting, belly dance, cycle, play golf (why I ask?). There are those who can't wait to get home to tend their garden or perhaps carry on building a replica of the Eiffel Tower out of tooth picks. The love of my life really enjoys photography and takes hundreds of photos every month, now he's cataloguing them by subject, family member etc.
We've seen too many vibrant folk retire from the job of 40 years or so and when they wake in the morning they have no idea how to spend the day, they become dull and old and slowly seem to fade away.
I suppose this post partners the "never stop learning" one but it's a sort of survival kit to keep the mind as young as we'll wish the body could be. So, give some thought to reviving your love of knitting, perhaps macrame will come back into fashion, who knows, but try to find your groove and by the time you're old you'll have done so many fun things that you smile more and certainly walk taller.