WIWT = What I Wore Today

Cat’s been doing this meme and Gina has joined in a few times too, and I’ve been dying to do it, but I just never get around to taking photos of myself so I haven’t been able to… until today when Connor took a photo (with my DSLR) of me and my mom .  So I can finally play along, although you can’t really see my whole outfit.

So this is what I wore today…

Tunic dress from last year at Big Blue.  Beads from Woolies.  Black leggings from Woolies.  Black flat suede boots from Woolies (2 years old).  Grey cardie for the morning when it was chilly from Woolies )

It’s not my particularly favourite outfit, most because I think it makes me look huge… but anyhoo, I was really comfy

Oh wow, was just doing some googling to find some main site to link to and discovered that there’s a WIWT site run by a blogger that does this daily… not sure I’d be that disciplined!

I had a haircut late this afternoon at the new HAND salon in Parkhurst.  And yes, I heard about it via a few blogs and Twitter and decided to try it out.

First, the name… HAND = Have a Nice Day! How cool?!

Can you say awesome?! They offered me wine as I walked it… and that word came before the “coffee” word!! Not that I should have said yes on an empty stomach but anyhoo!  

So now my hair is chocolate brown again, and short again, and he’s cut my hair in a style that I’m not quite used to yet (so there are no pics of me until I get the hang of it)… and I befuddled them slightly with my hairloss story, but thankfully Alain, the dude that cut my hair, knew his stuff and knew immediately that the Nioxin that was on offer was WRONG for me because it removes testosterone from the scalp… no WONDER it didn’t work when I tried it years ago (remember I have zero testosterone in my body and even less will cause more problems)

The owner Shanon, took me on a tour around the place, and although I didn’t take out my DSLR, I took a few iPhone shots… this place will be awesome once the coffeeshop/waiting area is finished… and even more awesome once the attached beauty salon has a tenant (which she’s looking for BTW ).  How rad are the apple mirrors?!

So it was cool… and they were nice… and the price was slightly less than what I paid at the other salon I’ve been going too… and it’s on my way home from work kinda… so I’ll be back

Disclaimer:  I wasn’t compensated at all for this post, and I wasn’t asked to post about it… just did it cos I felt like it

If you follow me on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook, you may know that I bought a ring yesterday.  It was a spur of the moment birthday present from me to me.

At lunchtime yesterday I heard some of the girls in the office talk about a person selling jewellery in the building, so I went to investigate thinking a funky black stoned ring would be a great addition to my wardrobe.  There are often private people selling stuff in the building and you have to be on the mailing list to know about it… but this time I didn’t get the email… and I’ve discovered that there are 2 mailing lists (both of which I’ve now ensured that I’m added onto).

LOL, you know how much of a shopaholic I am… so of course I was keen to see what she had on offer, especially after I’d scoped her website out.  The lady (can’t remember her name) from Silver Garnet was selling silver jewellery with semi-precious stones.

So anyhoo, I go and look, and nearly buy a black ring as planned, but then spot this ring… it’s much more organic in design than the other rings she had on offer, and the stone is green.

Not what I was looking for at all, but when I put it on, it just felt so right. So I bought it, and I LUUURRRVE it.

Anyhoo, then I get home and decide to google the stone… a Russian Amazonite.

According to all the sites I found, the stone’s benefits include (just copied the things that relate to me)…

worry; fear; negative energy; aggravation; hair loss.  Its energy is that of personal truth, allowing one to express ones heart through communication. This stone also assists one in identifying how ones words have created current reality, and how to change ones communication to reflect a higher, more aligned reality.  Amazonite is helpful for those who dont know what they want, what they feel, or what they have to offer the world; this stone can assist them in gaining clarity, gently pointing them toward their knowledge and gifts. Amazonite also assists those who have difficulty setting appropriate boundaries. Because of its ability to help overcome fear of conflict, it frees one to identify and set strong and clear boundaries on physical, energetic and emotional levels. These can be internal boundaries helping one to develop self-discipline, or external boundaries assisting in defining ones personal space.

And now the question is… did this ring choose me?  Seriously, I could not have chosen a more perfect ring… I think I’m going to have to wear it every day.

After getting so many hits on my blog with people googling “Kia Sportage” I reckon I’d better do my follow-up blog post on Part 1

I actually have the car!! After Northcliff fumbling with the order, and Fourways telling me that it would take approx 6 months to get it, and the Head Office not knowing what to tell me, I have got the car in less than 2 months.

About 2 weeks ago I got a phone call from Kia’s Head Office asking me what was going on.  LOL! I told her that she should be telling me… surely they should have got an update from the dealers before phoning me… anyhoo, I told her I’d heard nothing from either dealer, but I wasn’t really expecting to so it wasn’t really a problem.

Imagine my surprise the very next day when Andrew from Kia Fourways phoned me to tell me that they’ve got a car.  It was an order that was cancelled, and he phoned to find out if I wanted it.  It was the model I wanted but not the colour… it was black.

After thinking about it for about 15 minutes…. I phoned him back to say YES… I’ll take it… at least it wasn’t orange or that yucky yellow colour!!

So, 2 days later, I took possession of a gangsta looking Black Kia Sportage… and I love it!!

It’s an awesome car, and the kids love it too… and the black has grown on me

Kia Fourways is the shizz… just saying…

You know my skin is crap right?  I’m nearly 40 damnit and I’m still having skin issues.  Well, as you also know  by now… it’s partly hormonal.

Every now and then though my face just rebels completely and it gets horrendously bad… without me changing anything.  So I know then that it’s time to change cosmetics.

This time, it was a gradual change, and I can handle some acne (I just ignore it), but this time I got eczema again.  I haven’t got that in a few years, but this time I just suddenly developed it on my eyelids… and do you have any idea how uncomfortable that is?!

Now, I’ve been through most brands and the following now give me eczema within a few days:  Clarins, Clinique (completely red within a day), Este Lauder (this one just stings as soon as I put it on), RoC, Elizabeth Arden, Justine, Loreal, Woolworths Nature range, Innoxa.. and the latest one being BioNike.  So as you can imagine, the hunt for a new brand is not an easy one for me.

This time, I decided to try a natural product… a green product… so I went to Woolies in Cresta to hunt.  And ended up choosing Dr Hauschka.  In fact I only chose it because the lady that explained it to me was from their head office, and she knew more about her products than the other sales people that were there.

And I love it!! My skin has not felt like this in years!! Seriously! Who would have thought that this chicky was right and you don’t need a night cream with their products.  I must say I was rather sceptical, but it seriously works!

I’m just hoping it carries on working… because I have a clear skin for the first time in years!

I wasn’t going to blog about my car saga until I had gone a little further down the line of buying the car, but I’m so frustrated tonight that it has to be written down. And it’s Part 1 because this is not ending here… there will be installments until I actually get a new car.

Please note that I haven’t even mentioned the make of car yet. Weird, you may say, but I have had my heart set on one particular vehicle, but after my experiences in the last 2 weeks, I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ve made the wrong choice.

If you follow me on Twitter you’ll probably remember the endless tweets towards the end of last year pondering which car I was going to get next.And after driving a few, and chatting to a few people online like F1Sasha and a couple of other car guys on Twitter and some car loving colleagues, I decided to buy a new Kia Sportage 2l 2WD Auto.

Now, I’ve had a lot of cars in my lifetime. In fact, it was a bit of a standing joke amongst my friends at one stage because I bought new cars so often (in fact I owned a new Citroen C3 for 4 months before selling it again).  So buying cars is something I’m quite familiar with.  I’ve been frustrated in the past too, especially with dealerships that don’t take you seriously when you’re female.

But I’ve never had an experience like this one.

Two weeks ago I went to the Kia dealership in Northcliff with Lance.  I had made my decision.  I wanted to order the car.  So I speak to the sales dude who adds my details to the system and tells me that’s enough detail… and I’ve apparently ordered the car.  I tell him that I’m not that fussy with colour because I know there’s a long waiting list.  I just don’t want orange or yellow… but any of the silvers, or the white will do… even the black for that matter.  He tells me sure thing… he couldn’t give me a timeline, but said that he’d be getting the allocation list for the month during the next week, and that he’d phone me by Friday (last week that is) to tell me how long it would take.

And so I left it at that.

Friday came, and Friday went.  No phone call.

So on Monday I decide to try and phone the dealership.  The receptionist answers… and then the phone promptly goes dead as she transfers the call.  So I try again a few minutes later… and realised that the phone wasn’t actually going dead when she transferred… they’ve just got a shocking phone system that doesn’t let you know you’re on hold.  Eventually someone on the sales floor picks up the phone and I have to leave the sales dude a message because they can’t find him.

And I wait… no phone call. So on Monday evening Lance gets fed up with me because I haven’t followed up enough (like I have the time), and he sends Kia a message on their site.

Anyhoo, this blog post is getting too long, so fast forward to this afternoon (after one of my tweets yesterday eventually got Kia’s Head Office to get hold of someone at the dealership to help me).

I get a phone call from Shahid at Kia Northcliff.  He still apparently doesn’t have an allocation sheet.  He takes down my colour preferences again… WTF happened to our previous conversation?  He has no idea yet how long it’s going to take for me to get the car.  And to top it off, he gives me his mobile number, and tells me that he wants me to phone him every Friday to find out when it’s going to come.

WTF?!!

I have a few issues with this now…

1. Don’t Kia need my business?  I know that the Sportage’s are selling like hot cakes at the moment, but don’t they need my business?
2. I don’t have the time to phone the dude every Friday.  It’s his job surely.  Why should I pay him commission if I’m doing all the running around?
3. I’ve never ever heard of a car manufacturer that doesn’t know how many cars are coming in the next few months.  When I test drove the Hyundai ix35 in November the guy told me exactly when I could get the car, and he had a board with all the orders… it was organised.  Every other time I’ve bought a car they could tell me roughly what the waiting list was, if there was any at all.  This makes me question Kia’s processes.
4. Is this just Northcliff?  Or all dealerships?  Should I even bother trying to go to another dealership?
5. If I’m having this much hassle getting the car, what’s the after sales service going to be like?
6. The main reason I chose Kia over Hyundai was the gear lever (I’m not too partial to the way the automatic gear lever works in the Hyundai)… maybe I can live with the Hyundai gear lever, at least I’ll be able to plan my life!!

Anyhoo, I’ll let you all know what happens.

I went to collect a few photobooks at QPhoto in Design Quarter, and on my way to the shop I stopped at the Lindt chocolate studio to get a few chocolates for the QPhoto ladies cos they had really truly gone the extra mile for me this week.

And wow!! I’d been in the shop before, but quickly, and this time I looked around properly and I bought some hand rolled chocolate for the first time.  Yummos!!

But what they do have there, and what I really really want to do… is go on one of their chocolate courses.  They were busy setting up for a course that was being run last night, and it looked just like something I’d like to do!

I asked the sales person behind the counter how much the courses were… and apparently they range from R150 to… wait for it… R2500!! Woah!!

Anyhoo, the details are on their site (and I see there’s a Cape Town branch too)… now I think this would make an awesome gift!

Oooh they also sell cappuccinos and hot chocolate… yummos!!

I had a few minutes to kill while I waited for photos to be printed, so I popped into Mr Price Home.  Now I’ve been eyeing out a huge corner leather couch effort from Coricraft for our lounge.

In fact, our couches are finished… and desperately need to be replaced… so I went wandering around the big furniture section for a change, and I came across this couch… (photo taken with phone hence the quality)

I love it! I love the retro feel to it, and it’s so well priced!

So now I’m thinking… 1 3-seater and 1 2-seater couches!  But I am concerned about the longevity of Mr Price furniture.  Hmm, what to do.  It’ll definitely be cheaper for me to go with Mr Price.

what I did do though, was follow through with my last blog post… and bought a new rug for the lounge.   What a difference that small change has made to the room already!

Somewhere along the line my priorities when it comes to spending money changed.

I used to spend a lot of money on the house.  Buying new things, and making sure the house always looked good.

Nowadays that’s not the case.  I don’t bat an eyelid blowing a few grand on a new piece of glass, or a dress or a pair of shoes, or kids clothes…  but my oh my… let me go into a home shop (which I do regularly) and I’m so loathe to spend money.

Even R500 on something that I know will make a major difference to the way my house looks is questioned in my mind.  It’s crazy man!!

I need to stop this.

I think my plan from now on, is to buy one thing for the house every month.  That way I should be ok with the amount I’m spending.  And I’ll get my house back into the shape I want it.

It has to happen.  I just have to do it.  I cannot handle the way my house is looking at the moment.  We haven’t really bought anything new since we moved into this house 4 years ago, and I think it’s looking shabby now. We need new curtains, new couches, new rugs, new TV, redo the dining room chair cushions etc etc.

And that makes me feel very stressed to be here.  I don’t like it any more.

I need my sanctuary back.

I just LOVE that line… it’s from Yuppiechef… and it just spoke to me when I got my box of goodies today, taped up with tape covered in that saying,  that I ordered from them on Tuesday.

A while ago there was a Twitter auction run by @nosh4noah raising funds for Noah. Noah is 3 years old and lives in Cape Town and his mom needs funds to get him the therapy he needs… he’s on the autism spectrum.  So of course I helped… and won !!  My prize was a R250 voucher for Yuppiechef which I’ve been very slack in using!!

Anyhoo, I decided that this week I would get my butt into gear and start buying Christmas gifts… but first I needed to use my voucher. I bought myself the new Jamie Oliver cookbook.  Yeah, I know, I have a few of them… but hey, this one is about quick meals and I so need some inspiration on that front!

So, I bought myself the book, and a gift for someone which is why I’m not showing you everything that was in the box.  And then I actually went back to the site on Wednesday and bought more… for someone else too!

My box arrived today, at the office.  Not bad timing hey?  I just LOVED the way it was packaged… down to a personal little card an’all.

It was a fab experience shopping from them.  In fact, while I was buying another gift from @Home this afternoon, there was a lady behind me in the queue who found the tiniest tagine dishes.  I commented about the size and she mentioned she was actually looking for the big one, and she hadn’t been able to find them anywhere… I told her to try Yuppiechef.  LOL!! I will be shopping there again, that’s for sure!

Really glad that I could help a little boy get some therapy at the same time as quenching my shopping need!