Friday 5 December 2008

I'm Back!

Hey y'all! Boy, am I glad to be back in action. Well, at least Anton managed to get my beloved pc back to me today...not bad going! I am still experiencing a few problems as various things seem to have changed (I suppose that is bound to happen when your motherboard blows up!) & who knows what has exploded into cyberspace?! Have just checked Picasa & all my beloved photos are still there...phew! So hopefully nothing too important...

Moving on...my apologies for dear old Shane's little "addition" to my blog, with regard to his very OBSCURE & (not in everyone's opinion!) BRILLIANT music. I have told him, in no uncertain terms, that this is MY soapbox & if HE wants to convert you all to Glasvegas, The Killers, Cinerama, The Editors, Draw, The Colourfield, Wire Train, The Big Dish, Boo Hewerdine, Ivy,
etc, etc, blah, blah, blah he will have to start his OWN blog! He tells me his fingers kinda just took over...mmm, you know how it is!

While on the topic of music...have just returned from Gateway (my favourite mall! Sure you all know that by now...) clutching the new Dido CD, Safe Trip Home, that has just come out here. Well, all I can say so far is eeeuuuwww! I sure hope it grows on me...Very disappointing thus far, I slammed it straight into my CD shuttle in the car on the way home, only to bitterly regret it, & I am a BIG fan! Well, I was...

I am feeling totally "out of it" now that I am back on line but sure I'll settle back in in no time. I plan to answer all my comments individually but for now THANKS to all of you who sent them in, together with your commiserations, I received them via my cell phone & was very touched, only can't reply to "no-comment-at-blogger" & all your blog/e mail addresses were in my pc, so it was also frustrating...Now the spring is back in my step (probably also due to the fact that I have finally got some sleep,lol)...but I like to think it is because I am safely back in my beloved Blogland.

I have been up to all sorts...of course I am already behind on my JYC album, because I couldn't receive my daily prompts via pdf. files (dumb cell phone can only handle e mails under 100kb's).
I did manage to get Shane (bless him!) to e mail Shimelle, who very kindly also sent them to HIS e mail address daily, & he printed them out for me at the office & brought them home, but it's not the same when you can't "click on this link", etc, etc, or access the forum & the like, & as I had already printed my Manifesto in "Word" I couldn't switch to hand-journalling for the rest of the pages, so I was stuck! Hopefully this weekend will rectify that situation & I will be able to post some progress next week...

I have made great strides on the Christmas front & have wrapped about half the presents, including all the stocking ones this year, just to make things a bit more fun & add to the suspense for the kid's sake...I also went out & bought a giant Christmas tree for our lounge, to add to the puny little one we have up in the passage at the moment. I used to always have two up in our big house in Zimbabwe, but since we have been here (this is our 3rd Christmas) we have always been away for 3 weeks of the holidays, so have never worried about "going the whole hog" with a big tree too. Well, we certainly have no plans to EVER go "home" for Christmas again, (with the situation there being incredibly dire & absolutely not a drop of water in the whole of Harare & a cholera outbreak claiming over a thousand lives so far) , so we needed a big tree! I decided against a genuine pine, which I felt a bit sad about as I love the aroma, & went for an artificial one (far more practical now that I have to clean up the mess it would have made in my car, lol!)

The kids had a blast decorating it & it does look fabulous! We only used about a quarter of the decorations we own & less is definitely more...it is all-gold & pretty stunning! Complete with twinkly lights & a shimmering gold angel on top, no-one can say I'm not trying to enjoy Christmas this year. We even put on the Christmas Carols CD but I must say that DID make me feel a bit like Mrs. Brady! I also splashed out on a chrome & glass desk I have been coveting ALL year. The price has not gone up (a miracle in Africa!) & there were only a few left SO I bit the bullet & nabbed it, together with a very mod chair to match. I spent 2 hours assembling them both (everything reasonably priced here comes in "knock down" form) before dh arrived home, as I wanted it to be a surprise for him. He was so impressed with my D.I.Y efforts that he even forgot to ask me how much it cost, now there's a first!

So that has pride of place in the bay-window section of our bedroom & the dining-room table is also cleared of all my paperwork, ready for my attempts to get the family to eat around it TOGETHER...surely I can manage this in the holidays?! It has been a bittersweet end-of-year for 2 of my 4 children, with their last day being today & the last time they will dress in their school uniforms & see their familiar classmates. Cami is moving to Senior Primary, Grade 4, to join Reilly & Jack is moving on to High School at last. Each of them knows a few people who will be joining them but everyone is heading in different directions & it is the end of an era for them & the starting of a new beginning.

2 comments:

Vicki said...

You can tell Shane "who" are they on the music stuff. Never heard of any of them.

Heres the lady to credit for the blinkies
http://www.sandysworldonline.com/christmas_blinkies_1.html

Anonymous said...

Firstly may I say a huge welcome back ... and I need pics of your tree and new table - so get to it!! oh, and also one of those transluscent geckos!