Bwahaha I found this on Melinda’s blog, and had to share.  I can so see myself in this!!

So, you know that saying that things happen in 3′s… well all 3 (I think) has happened in the last week.  The question is… is it 3 things a week or a year… ‘cos if it’s not for the year then 2012 is going to be one EXPENSIVE year!!

The 3 things that have happened…

1. Lance somehow dislodged the bottle rack in the fridge and it broke in half.  Thankfully, I’ve managed to find a Samsung Service centre close by, and it’s only costing R120 to replace.  I had visions of buying a new fridge when this happened!!

2. On Monday I dropped my beloved iPhone… and smashed the glass.  It was well and truly buggered up.  After initially thinking I would upgrade to a 4S, I quickly changed my tune after discovering how much that would cost, and thanks to #Twoogle, I found 2 places that repair iPhones. I went on Tuesday morning to get it fixed on the way to work… R1550 later though!! And the place I used, Part Store in Honeydew, was R800 cheaper than the 1st place I tried, G Mobile near Northgate!!

3.  Then this morning, Beauty informs me that the vacuum cleaner started smoking yesterday.  Then she told me that she’d tried to clean the bedroom carpet with soap and water, and dropped the bucket and then decided to use the vacuum cleaner to dry the spill. It’s not a Wet/Dry.  She told me that she was “encouraged” when she noticed bubbles in the filter chamber.  She’s blimmen lucky she didn’t get electrocuted considering it was smoking from the cable!! Anyhoo, because of the huskies I needed another very very powerful vacuum cleaner… so R2000 we’re sorted again (I stopped at Makro at lunchtime today)

This has been one expensive week… not counting the school fees and new uniforms I’ve bought in the last week!!

There goes my idea of buying a couch sometime soon!

I’m going to open a bottle of wine tonight I think

Just a list of randomness from my weekend of slothfulness.

1.  No photoshoots meant that I spent the weekend like I did pre client-shoots… just with the kids… and afternoon naps

2.  I did do some editing and finalising of albums though no rest for the wicked.

3.  Yesterday, we went to Fiona’s little Zoe’s 3rd birthday party.  I had a ball!! The kids loved playing with their friends in the pool, and around the pool, while I drank homemade ginger beer and sangria Was just divine to sit and chat to people I haven’t seen in ages.

4.  We got a skip (those huge big rubbish bins thingies) for random rubbish that we needed to get rid of, as well as a few trees that needed removing.  Andrew is the most incredible gardener that works magic, and he managed to finish chopping both trees down (and don’t moan… the conifer was diseased and the lemon tree wasn’t bearing fruit anymore and I’ve already replanted new shrubs ) and mow the lawn and tidy the garden yesterday.  Anyhoo, the skip was quite something.  We put our household rubbish (you know, old boxes, old broken see-saw and slide, old poles and random scrap metal etc from cleaning up the garden and the left over carport pieces that were mangled) in the skip on Thursday, and then more on Friday… and yet more on Saturday afternoon.  And every time, within an hour, it was magically emptied.  We even heard someone rummaging at 1am on Saturday morning! It worked out perfectly actually, because then there was enough space for the trees!

5. It was hot, the pool isn’t exactly sparkling at the moment, but we swam a lot.  I told Bradley it was like swimming in a dam, he needed to get over himself. The pool is actually clean, but not blue.

6.  I took the dogs to Walkhaven this morning, and they had a ball.  I wore my new wellies so for once I didn’t get my flip flops stuck in the marsh area.  Aren’t they cute!?! They’re covered in jelly beans! It was beautiful there, and I forgot to take my camera… huge regret!! I would have loved to take macro photos of the veld flowers today.

7.  One of my resolutions is to be in more photos this year… I would love to have a shoot in the veld at dusk… in that beautiful light with the gorgeous flowers that are around at the moment.  For now, my wellies are in the photo from earlier today when we had a massive thunderstorm… on Connor.

8.  We have a bowl of nuts in the diningroom, with a nutcracker on hand for snacking.  Kimo got hold of a few nuts this afternoon, and had a bit of a feast by himself.  Silly dog!

9.  I really need to sort the house out this year, we need so much, and it’s going to cost ever so much money

10.  Lance broke the drinks compartment in the fridge… and he can’t fix it.  So this week, in addition to looking for an electrician that’ll actually pitch to do this work (there’s a crap load of work that needs to get done), I have to find a Samsung parts place… or buy a new fridge.  I wish we had a bigger space for a fridge in the kitchen, but one thing I’m considering doing is buying a fridge, and then a small seperate freezer.  Or buying a new fridge, and keeping our current fridge in the garage for extra drinks etc for when we have guests.

And now, I’m going to pour myself a glass of red. Get the kids to bed, and hopefully finish editing a wedding!

OK, this is sad, really sad, and if you’re a softy like me then you’ll cry…

I found a video made by Ben on Alex Beadon’s blog this morning. It was the first thing I read in my reader. The original videos were made by Ben on 18 Dec, which happened to be a week before he died. He died on Christmas night.  I’m going to share the original 2 videos he posted onto Youtube.

They’ve gone viral since his death and I can see why.

I did a bit of Youtube surfing after watching the videos, and this dude was quite incredible.  He had his own Youtube channel too, and I’ll leave you with that… you can go and look at his older stuff…

Did you know that Baa Baa Black Sheep and Twinkle Twinkle are in fact the same tune?

I didn’t!!

Just another useless fact I found on my twitter stream today

You need to watch this woman dance. Nicci… hope it’s something you haven’t seen yet, but my word you have to watch it.  I found it on Deb’s blog, and just have to share.

Most incredible pole dancing I’ve ever seen… you need to watch the bit where she’s literally walking… and where she’s parallel to the floor… just AMAZEBALLS!

- Connor loves to dance and sing.  Our neighbours threw a party yesterday and had a live band.  He was jiving in our garden, and eventually found a spade to use as a guitar

- Bradley has got a guitar and drum kit on his Christmas list… not sure about that!

- The live band, which was phenomenal, made me think that I want to do something similar for my birthday… except my birthday is in the middle of winter and it’s not conducive to evenings out in the garden listening to music!

- I need to get wellies for me and the boys to go to Walkhaven… I’m tired of squelching in the mud with my slip slops while the dogs ramble through the marsh land!

- I went to buy the kids new slip slops on Saturday and to my surprise Bradley has gone up another shoe size… he now wears a size 4!! Holy moly that’s large for an 8 year old… or is it?  Connor’s feet haven’t grown in ages… still a size 13.

- Bradley’s Christmas list is much shorter than last year… but oh so much more expensive – and Connor changes his mind about his list every day!

- Every time I read a blog post or FB update about someone’s holiday that’s coming up, I get jealous… I also want to go away this year… we never go away at the end of the year. I’d love to get to Cape Town to see my cousin, who is visiting from the US.

Love this video that I found on Seed’s blog this morning… and it helps that I’m quite into indie music at the moment.

Hudson – Against The Grain from Dropbear on Vimeo.

I used to love colouring-in and drawing. I don’t do it nearly enough with my kids, and I think it’s so very important.

I was telling my dad the other day that I think he should take up art again when he finally stops working… would love to have some of his work hanging in my house.

Bwhahaha!! This is brilliant.  I’m sure my husband can relate to many of these… and I just have to share it… I got this from here:  50 Reasons not to Date a Photographer

1. They rather hold their bulky camera, than hold hands with you.
2. On a romantic date, you’ll watch the sun go down and think “Wow this is gorgeous” and they’ll go “mirror lock, tripod, and stop down f/8 at 1/125.”
3. You’ll never be able to enjoy tv, movies, or magazines because they’ll point out all the visual flaws.
4. They like to sit in obscure coffee shop and voyeuristically watch people for great lengths of time.
5. If you’re taking a walk outside and you come across some “interesting light” they will make you sit/stand/pose in public so that they can take a photo.
6. You’ll never get to enjoy freshly cooked meals because they’ll spend 15 minutes taking 20 variations of the same dish with their iPhone.
7. They get angry when your friends go up to them and say “I am interested in photography, can you recommend a good camera for me?  Nothing professional I just want to take pretty pictures.”
8. You’ll wait longer for them to finish analyzing art in a museum than you’ll wait at the dmv
9. Same goes with old used bookstores.
10. When you think they’re giving you their undivided attention, they’re really wondering how they could fix you with a little Clone Tool and Patch Tool.
11. Or they are actually using you to not look so creepy as they people watch everything going on around you.
12. They rather drop $1,000+ on new glass than a purse for you.
13. You can’t take a photo with them without taking at least five more.
14. If you ask them if you look fat, they’ll say “don’t worry I can photoshop you later.”
15. They’ll never photoshop something simple for you if the content is not up to their “standards.”
16. That photo they randomly took of you yesterday?  Good luck getting them to send it to you.
17. They spend all their time on the computer (and not for porn.)
18. They can’t have a normal conversation with throwing acronyms and random numbers.
19. They still use film cameras.
20. They spend a lot of time with people cooler than you i.e. models, actors, musicians, successful rich people.
21. They’ll be fussy over the position of a common household object, like a coffee cup.
22. They won’t return your calls or text messages, but you can bet they’re still posting pics on Instagram.
23. They like watching old films that you’ve never heard or will ever understand.
24. They like looking at weird things in general.
25. Instead of having penis-envy, they have camera-gear-envy.
26. If there’s a natural disaster in a far away land, they’re already on a plane going over there.
27. Everything is watermarked.
28. They think everyone else’s photos suck.
29. They want to color correct a lot of scenes from Twilight and Jersey Shore.
30. They hate rainbows, especially ones spinning in a circle.
31. Whenever you’re in a group talking and the conversation goes deep, they’re taking notes in some form of Moleskine.
32. They use over priced Moleskine notebooks.
33. They like trespassing into old abandoned buildings filled with health hazards.
34. They always want to show a new photo they took, but don’t really care if you like it or not.
35. They hate your n00bie friend’s new artsy profile picture.
36. Bright, sunny days make them sad, but cloudy, overcast days are apparently great!
37. They’ll take you into places that have “culture” as well a high chance of getting mugged.
38. Your birthday present will be a portrait that they’ve taken of you.
39. You can’t go anywhere new without them stopping to take a photo of everything and anything.
40. They will always bug you to be a test subject.
41. Nothing can ever be naturally pretty, everything must be fixed in Photoshop.
42. Bringing their camera means, bringing 50lbs of equipment.
43. If you break any of their things on accident, you’ll owe them thousands of dollars.
44. You can’t get them a birthday/Christmas present without spending at least $500
45. They are natural hoarders, collecting and keeping piles of old newspapers, packaging, magazines, and other things that “inspire” them.
46. They are weird and geeky.
47. They have hard drives of photos, but probably have printed 10 images.
48. They are always secretly judging your creativity.
49. If you’re ever in auto mode, they laugh at you.
50. They orgasm every time they learn a new lighting technique.

I haven’t done this meme in a while, and I’m literally bursting with random things that are not big enough for a post

• I’m driving to Dullstroom tomorrow for a wedding. I’m really really not looking forward to the drive, because I’m going on my own… but the wedding will be gorgeous.
• I’ve been invited to the long-service awards at work… just the thought that I’ve been working at a company long enough for an award makes me feel old
• My hair looks much better when it’s really short… and this week I dyed it a purply shade of red
• I’ve lost touch with most of my friends now I’m quite sad about it but I seriously have no time for myself let alone phoning someone to chat.
• I hate randomly chatting to someone… I can never think of anything to say
• I haven’t got a clue what to buy the kids for Christmas this year.
• We’re trying to plan our big bucket list trip for next year… it was going to be Vic Falls, but that’s ended up being too expensive.  Now we’re thinking Mauritius, but OMG that’s so expensive in April!
• Did you know it would cost us R50k to get to New Zealand to visit Michelle (Lance’s sister) and Marlise… that’s JUST for the flights!! Holy moly I had no idea it would be that expensive!
• I just love getting the Yuppiechef emails… and I want this new toy… a Zoku Quick Pop Maker.  How cool is that?! (excuse the cheesy pun)