When I got a Whatsapp message from Mandy last night telling me about her pop-up shop that’s opening in Bryanston for a limited number of days this week, I knew I had to share the news

I think I’m going to pop past during lunch! See you there!

It was my last day of leave today, and I left the boys in Lance’s care (he’s on leave for the whole week ), and met up with my mom (you have to visit her blog if you haven’t already) for a coffee date at Vovo Telo in Parkhurst.  It’s a bakery/cafe that’s recently opened it’s latest branch on 4th Ave.

First I need to say that I wish I could meet her for coffee more often.  When I was on maternity leave with both boys, I would meet her regularly for coffee in the mornings, and I miss it. She also likes browsing shops as much as I do, especially interesting little decor and clothing shops so it’s always nice to wander around with her.

And such awesome coffee too!! I just loved the decor and the way that they kept the pressed ceilings in the building.  As for the food, I’m going to have to go back there for a lunch because I loved the sound of the lamb burger as well as the black forest ham and strawberry pizza!  I’d already had breakfast, so opted for the pain au choc… which is the rolled pastry with chocolate and covered with toasted almonds in the photo above.  It was stunning because it wasn’t too sweet.

I simply love wandering around Parkhurst, so after the coffee we went window shopping… and I was so very tempted to buy a dress… in fact, I think I’m going to have to go back there… maybe on the way home from work one evening.

Hmm… I just love shopping!

(The photos… I only used my iPhone and the first one is edited using Instagram, and the others edited with Camera+ )

I bought myself a Kindle with the idea that I would have time to read a lot this holiday.  It arrived on Friday just in time for my holiday. We arrived in Ballito today…  and I have yet to use the Kindle.

And the reason… because Bradley discovered that it’s got a dictionary built into it.  I showed him the dictionary, and he spent a few hours reading a book about animals and running upstairs to look up words that he wasn’t sure about.  And then I bought him a Famous Five book by mistake (seriously it was by mistake, I got a sample to see if he would read the book on the device, and then pressed “buy” by mistake).

And guess what he did for most of the journey down to KZN?  Read his book on MY Kindle.  And in fact, after there was a tussle around Pietermaritzburg, I quickly bought a story about a dragon for Connor too, and the book read to him using the “text to speech” function (thankfully he’s not that enamoured by it yet)

***sigh*** so now I’ve, in essence, lost both my favourite toys… my iPhone gets nabbed by Connor to play Talking Gina and Angry Birds as soon as he sees a gap… and now Bradley is reading books on my Kindle.

I supposed I should really get him one.  Now that’s one device I really have no qualms buying the kids! Something to encourage reading.

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!

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.

It may be because I’m not feeling all that well… have a cold/flu at the moment… my head is all fuzzy.  It may be because it’s just too much.

I had the day off today because my shoot that was planned, got postponed cos the mom-to-be is not well.

I want my weekends back.

I want to be able to garden.

I want to be able to shop without a time limit.

I want to be able to go on a photo expedition into Braamfontein today because there’s an interesting sounding market.

I want to find a venue for the photo workshop I want to organise for next month.

I want to fix up my house.

I want to get curtain rods and new curtains

I want to look for a new door for the guest bathroom

I want to look for new lights for the house because I hate the ones we have

I want to find a builder to sort out our upstairs area and staircase and patio area (it’s a desperate issue)

I want to buy paint so Lance can start painting inside.

Except I can’t.  The kids drive me INSANE if they come shopping with me for more than half an hour, and today is the first day that I’ve had off since Christmas.

I just don’t have the time.

Today, I went to the nursery really early this morning without the kids so I could get a few plants to rescue my garden.  Lance then went to work.  I took the kids with me to meet a bride at a venue… they went ballistic after 30 minutes and ignored all my threats .  Then  took them to lunch at a kiddy friendly place just to have some peace.  Then brought them home to have a swim.  I now have to coax them to get them to come grocery shopping with me (and I know I’m going be a screaming banshee through most of the trip because they’re a disaster together), and then I want to take the dogs for a walk, before starting supper because Madelein is coming over.

And I’m tired.

I should really be organising stuff for Connor’s birthday next week… but there’s no time for that either.

And tomorrow I have to meet friends for breakfast.  Try fit in curtain rod buying.  Organise food.  Try fit in organising canvases to get printed, and follow up on the books I’m waiting for.  And I really really want to go to the new market at Arts on Main!!

All with the kids.

And then I have a photoshoot.

PS.  Promise my next few posts will be a bit more positive

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!!