I’m about to go shopping, I need a bit of a break, and I had the following thoughts…

I need to go shopping to get new printer cartridges.  This is a necessity.

I would like to look for new shoes while I’m there, because I need new shoes of course, what girl doesn’t?  I have no qualms buying shoes, but will try and not walk into Aldo’s or Nine West, because I can’t justify their prices.

I’m currently earring-less, because I realised this morning that for some reason, I only put the one on… the other one is now in my car.  Weird.  Second time this week that I’ve done that.  I would like to buy another pair of nice earrings because mine are a little old and sad. But again, I wonder about whether I should spend that money.

I’ve finished a bottle of perfume.  I would like to get another bottle, yet I wonder about the waste of money.

However, get me wandering onto a camera site like Orms or SACamera or a new site to me CameraQuip, and I have no qualms about spend x times the amounts mentioned above on a new lens, and I immediately start scheming about how to justify the cost of buying a Canon 5D Mark II.

Or, take me into a kids clothing store, and I have no issues with filling bags with clothes and shoes for the boys.

Another example, is this morning, when I was trying to work out whether I should buy a new car, just because my back gets sore in my Jazz! And you know how I am about new cars!

Is it just me?  Maybe it’s the fact that the things I ponder about are for me personally.  I immediately think it’s a waste of money, and can think of hordes of other things to buy instead.

Oh hell, enough of this thinking, I’m going spending!

We’ve had a few good months with Connor, but we’re back on antibiotics

I thought he was fine until yesterday.  The head teacher at his school phoned me to collect him because he had a fever.  I took him home, gave him mootie and the fever disappeared.  It reappeared in the evening… and was ongoing through the night… alternating between temperature below 35deg and then going to 38.

It’s been fun… I had about 3 hours sleep last night I think.

He’s got sinu-bronchitis again.  I’m glad it’s not pneumonia, which was my fear.

I’m grumpy… and sore.  I’m also not a happy camper… my back is still sore.  It’s not my kidneys acccording to the doctor, he thinks I’ve hurt a nerve in my lower back.  So I went for x-rays today, and I get the full report tomorrow.  Until then I have cataflam, and I’ve been told not to sit too long in the same position… PMSL… you tell that to the traffic!! My back is in agony by the time I get to work in the mornings, and today the pain only dissipated at about lunch time.

I’m grumpy and need sleep.  Editing will have to wait until tomorrow night.

1.  There are some very clever people in Africa.  Entrepreneurs who are making a difference, and not just for themselves.  Tech4Africa was inspirational!

2.  My back-up system at home with my external hard drives don’t like the Mac… I have to reformat them to get them to work properly and that means erasing all the data.  Not good!

3.  I love taking photos at Batmitzvahs and Barmitvahs… I just love all the tradition, and all the fabulous dancing.  Every time I go to one I learn something new.

4.  Connor needs a new summer wardrobe and quickly… the weather is warming up rather fast and all his stuff is too small.

5.  Bought the boys 4 pairs of new shoes last week from Woolies… 2 of which are already broken! Useless!! And I don’t have time to sort it out!

6.  I need to make a plan to spend more time with my boys… Bradley was heartbroken because I didn’t watch him run on Thursday.

7.  I lost an earring at some stage this week… I have no idea how long I walked around with one earring for it could have been a few days!! Yes, I’m lazy that way.

8.  My car is so filthy that I can’t see out the windows, but I don’t have time to get it washed.

9.  I’m getting random shooting pains in my kidney area… especially when I’m driving in peak hour traffic… I need to get to the doctor I think… or spend less time in traffic.

10.  The huskies have chewed Beauty’s mobile.  It’s in pieces.  They grabbed it out of her bag while it was ringing, and she found Kimo choking on the ringing object :/  I need to replace it tomorrow.

I’ve spent the last 2 days in the most awesome conference where a lot was spoken about knowing your client/user and designing solutions for them. Now I did know a lot about it, but it’s been drummed into my head again by various speakers.

Then I get home, and get immediately irritated when I see my mail that arrived today. Every single thing I receive in the mail box is a waste of time and effort.  And the one thing that irritated me the most was the letter from Wesbank, that I didn’t even open, where the envelope promised some cash if I opened it.

In fact, from research, people will only open mails and emails etc, if they’re at the point of needing it based on what’s on the envelope.  And in those 5 seconds, not that week…. your chances of anyone opening it are so very slim.

I mean truly!! How much wasted money do they spend on mail drops like that? Surely they don’t get the return.   It’s definitely not customised for me.  They need to think about something else.  I don’t even open it.  It goes straight into the paper recycling bag.  Along with the Spar specials and the other spam.  It’s all spam!

In fact, that brings me to my next point.  There’s a lot of legislation about sending spam emails… I can opt out of any electronic spam… but HTF do you opt out of this crap?!  I’m not even a client of Wesbank’s!

Bradley has finally learnt how to tie his own shoelaces.  This particular journey has been a long and painful one for all of us… he just didn’t get it!  We eventually gave it a rest for a few months, and then last week I decided to try and show him again… within 5 minutes he did it like a pro!!

First my theory… it matters not how much you push your kids to do something.  It won’t work.  They will only be able to do it when they are ready.  He just wasn’t ready before.  The fact that he was supposed to know how to tie his laces before he got to Grade 1 is besides the point, he was unable to get it right.  Now his fingers allow him to do it. It’s like crawling… you cannot force a baby to crawl until they’re ready… it just won’t happen!

Second the results of this feat… he has gained independance of sorts.

Seriously, it’s true.  Now he wants to do sport at school again.  He’s wanting to play soccer and hockey… and the reason… he can tie his laces himself without asking anyone for help!!

It’s been a big thing in his life.  The ONLY reason he told me that he didn’t want to stay at aftercare and do sport in the afternoons was because of the laces issue.

This tiny tiny step has meant an immense change in his life and I’m so so very happy that he’s finally got it.

I asked Bradley to take a few photos of me… and the dogs decided that it was play time… it’s utter chaos at home!!  I think the photos are pretty awesome actually, considering Bradley is 7 years old.  I’ve done no cropping to these photos, just used a preset to pop the colours.

I needed another haircut today.  Yesterday I decided that I needed a new stylist too.

The last hairdresser I went to was ok.  OK, she was pretty good.  When I started going to her in January this year, she was based in a funky hair salon in Greenside where you got cappuccinos.  It wasn’t the busiest hair salon in the world though and the salon actually shut down and she had to move.  So the last time I went, she was based at her old salon… a place in Robindale… 2 things have made me look for another stylist

1.  The cut wasn’t as funky as I would’ve liked, and my hair looked crap quite quickly.

2.  The stylist next to her was knitting, and the certificates on the wall were from the early 80′s.  Seriously, there was nothing up to date in the place.  There were adverts for perms!  And those drying machine things on the wall.

I’m probably a snob, I’m quite happy if you tell me that in the comments but hey, to me, having a haircut is not only about the cut.  It’s about whether I feel comfortable in the place.  Whether the salon resonates with me.  That place didn’t.  I also wouldn’t refer her to anyone because she’s there. 

So, I decided to not find out how much it would cost at Jeauval in Clearwater, and I went there today. And OMG it was expensive… but I like the results.

Now that place resonated with me.  They served cappuccinos again ooh and there was wine on their drinks list!! And they asked me 3 times if I wanted some cake. And the hairstylists looked good.  Plus, the stylist I went to understood when I said spunky.  In fact, I felt comfortable enough to say yes to everything she suggested and left it completely up to her

LOL, not that Lance likes my new do he doesn’t like the hot pink streaks (it was supposed to be red but she decided after the processing that it was too dark).

Anyhoo, the moral of the story… ambience and experience in all things matters… not just your talent.  To me anyway.

Oh and if you’re wondering who took the photo? It was Bradley   he’s getting quite good.  He used my camera and the 50mm lens.

My mom is going away for 10 days and I’ve needed to organise transport for the boys while she’s gone, with the view that this would happen more and more often now because my parents want to travel more.  So, Beauty is going to walk to pick up Connor, because the school is about 2 blocks away…but Bradley was an issue.

So after much debate about afterschool vs transport, we’ve decided that a school transport system is the way to go for now, and we got the names of a few places from the school.

I met with the dude that we finally a. chose and b. managed to get hold of (the others didn’t even return our calls), this morning at the school.

I hope we chose right. He looks ok.  His car/van looks ok.  What he told me about his service sounds ok.

But it’s a leap of faith.  I have to trust that he’s been truthful.  I hope and pray that he was.

It’s a parenting debacle.  This trust issue is huge.  You trust that when you go back to work after maternity leave, that the person looking after your baby is trustworthy.  You trust that the school you organise for your kids is trustworthy.  And now I’m trusting that the person driving my child is trustworthy.

It’s BIG!

And the worry is not unfounded either.

This dude was telling me this morning about some of the stories he’s heard… or at least I pray he’s heard and it’s not about him. Firstly not all the parents actually meet him before they arrange transport… they do everything via email and phone… sounds a little odd to me especially when your child is 5 or 6 years old… sure you’d want to meet the person who is going to collect and deliver your precious child.   Then he told me about some of the other  services where the service is outsourced to a third party, and your child ends up being carted by a person driving a car with smooth tyres and without seat belts.

Now I had that on my mind the whole day, and then I got to my mom’s house and we were discussing this whole thing, and she told me what she’d seen that afternoon when picking up Bradley from school.  A car stopped next to her, and this lady started piling kids into her car.  It was a white VW and there were too many kids for the car, so they were all squashed on the back seat.  Then she tells the one kid to get into the boot, and tells the other kids to keep quiet until they get out of the school premises.  She piles the bags around the child so the security guard (I’m assuming here) can’t see what she’s done.. and she drives off.

Holy moly that has freaked me out!! I wish my mom had gotten the woman’s number plates because, by God, I’m going to tell Bradley’s teacher about it on Tuesday.  That cannot be allowed to happen!

I just pray that this dude I’ve organised is ok.

Still not a normal day, because I’m not working from the normal office, but I thought I’d do this every day this week.

5:45am – get up.  Get dogs fed.  Make Bradley’s lunch.  Make tea.

6am – wake up Bradley and take tea upstairs.  Catch up with twitter and FB via phone.

6:30am – Bradley is dressed and I help him with shoes.  Connor needs convincing about school and getting dressed. Lance leaves for work.

6:40am – get kids breakfast.  Shower and get dressed

7:20am – find my facilitation tool kit and picnic chair

7:30am – leave home to take kids to school.

8:10am – get home.  Have breakfast.  Open laptop to look for address for todays work session. Answer some emails.  Catch up on twitter and Facebook.

8:40am – leave home to go to shops for goodies to eat and Prestik (it was missing from my toolkit)

9:10am – hit the traffic… and oh my word it was insane!!While I’m in the car, try and organise Lance to find out about transport for the kids for next week.

10am – get to Johannesburg CBD

1pm – hear protest in streets. Go up to roof to take a few photos.

6pm – leave Johannesburg CBD.  Damn Garmin GPS takes me on dodgy roads out of Johannesburg… very dodgy roads… and it was too dark for me to try and figure out another route home.

6:45pm – get home to find dogs fed, and Lance getting food from MacD’s (I did buy food for him to cook but he didn’t want to).  Open Macbook and download photos from today.

7:15pm – they finally get home, and we can eat.

7:30pm – start editing photos from today.

7:45pm – kids bath time

8:30pm – kids bed time

8:45pm – blog today’s photos, and catch up on a few blogs.

10pm – start editing sessions… I’m now way behind… it’s going to be a long night.

The plan was to have an easy day working at home… reality was slightly different.

5:40am – get out of bed to make Bradley’s school lunch and tea.  Keep dogs from coming inside so that Kitara didn’t eat anything (she was Nil per mouth this morning)

6am – wake Bradley up and convince him to get dressed.  Connor wakes up and wants milk.

6:15am -Lance leaves the house and I have tea, and get the FTP’ing started for the wedding photos that were due.

6:30am – check on kids eating breakfast and check on FTP, before having shower.

7am – leave the house with boys and Kitara (while listening to Kimo howling because he’s left behind)

7:45am – get back home after dropping Kitara at the vet (she got neutered today), then Bradley at school, and prying Conno from my leg when I dropped him at school.  Check on FTP

8am – have breakfast, and set up work laptop in diningroom.  Check on FTP which is now having a problem (there were over 1000 photos to transfer). Check photo email and Facebook and Twitter for goings on.  Get hold of my mom to let her know not to pick kids up from school

9am – FTP finishes and send email re wedding to bride.  Answer 2 requests for quotes. Fiddle around with router settings for the wireless connections for the work laptop.

9:15am – have coffee and start working… my day job work… with Kimo lying at my feet.  Have a few Skype conversations with the office

12:30pm – drama at work… have to try resolve by email and Skype before leaving to pick Bradley up.  No time for lunch now.

12:50pm – leave for Bradley’s school with Kimo howling in the garden for his sister.

1:15pm – get home with Bradley.  Get him to change.  Try work a little more.

1:50pm – go to pick Connor up from school.  Take the kids to Wimpy for burgers.

2:30pm – leave Wimpy… go to Lifestyle.

2:45pm – Manage to squeeze in a eyebrow wax at Body Therapy.  Go to Chop-It to see if kids can have haircuts.  End up with 30 minutes to spare so kids play in playground, wander around the nursery and visit the pet shop for dog treats before their appointment at 3:15pm.  All the time watching Twitter and replying to emails and replying to work tweets.

4:10pm – get home again.  Kimo howling again. Check work email and see that I got an email which means that I have to redo all the work I’d done in the morning.  Also discover that I’m working late tomorrow night.  Lose my sense of humour completely.

4:30pm – Decide to take him for a quick walk around the block with the kids.

5pm – Leave the house with the kids again to pick up Kitara from the vet.

5:30pm – get home with dog.  Kimo stops howling.  Get shopping bags (I use the reusable bags) and leave the house again, after fighting with kids cos now they’re tired and want to stay at home.

5:45pm – shopping at Woolies for supper for 3 nights.  Kids performing.  Cashiers just smile.

6:15pm – get home.  Bradley starts his homework.  Lance starts supper, while I feed the dogs, and try and keep Connor out of mischief.  It doesn’t work… he uses the eraser and rubs out all of Bradley’s homework and then gets timeout.  After which Bradley reads Connor his reading book… as part of his homework.

7:15pm – Kids get bathed.

8pm – Kids having milk and milo and I try and redo finish my work.  Kids then go to sleep

9:30pm – I can finally get back to my photo stuff and blogging and have some coffee and reply to photo emails… and blog.

10:50pm – the time right now.

I’m tired… and you?