Seen on the streets - Jogger Fashion Fail

As I was nearing work this morning, driving a long straight stretch of road with a tree-lined pedestrian pavement adjacent to it, my attention was briefly caught by a middle-aged lady who was 'appropriately' attired (according to her) in a modern kaleidoscopically-coloured jogging set consisting of short shorts and a bikini (double D at least) top, revealing her rather saggy and wrinkly midriff with the appearance of a spare tyre. Now I am impressed by the fact that the 'ladies that lunch' in the area where I work, an office park situated in an upper class residential area, are jogging, walking and generally making some effort to keep fit but there must surely some kind of dress code or dress sense that must prevail when you surely must be aware that your body is experiencing the effects of gravity. This particular lady's one redeeming factor that she was wearing a pair of dark glasses so that fortunately I would never be able to identify her in a line-up!

My only thought as I whizzed past her in my car was, "Lady, Go home and put some clothes on!"

Failure to post...

Its been a busy January so far. I've had to get into a bit of a new routine with Bradley attending a new school. He is now closer to my work than to home and until we can organise him to get on the bus (which is also an extra expense), I have been fetching him every day and bringing him back to work. After a comment from my boss about him coming back to the office every day, he now has to sit in the car for an hour every day until I'm finished at work. This will sort itself out but the new routine of going out every day in the heat to fetch Brad is a bit upheaving.

Brad had a long face on the way to school this morning. The Grade Eights were going to be sorted into new classes according to ability today. He had already asked me this morning if we were nearing the end of the term yet! They have only been back at school for about two weeks so I can assume that the honeymoon is almost over with his attitude to school. He hasn't even had homework yet.

Dael and a friend have been walking the area flat in search of work. His friend is newly matriculated with distinctions but that still doesn't make it any easier to find work with hundreds of other matriculants also looking for work. In the meantime, the friend has been staying with me so that he and Dael can go out together to look for work. This however does nothing for my budget with having another mouth to feed. I'm hoping that some work will be found soon by both the boys.

Robynne in Johannesburg has this weekend moved into a house with 3 friends in the Sandton area. I have gained this information from Facebook and not directly from my daughter as she is not speaking to me at the moment. She is irritated with me for having brought Dael back from Jhb on the bus in direct opposition to her arrangements for herself and him, I assume.

The kittens are becoming toilet trained slowly but still occasionally have lapses where they prefer to use the soft furnishings as their litter tray. I have covered the couch upholstery with plastic bags and loose covers for easy laundering and they are also banned from my room as my bed is a favourite place to go toilet. I am hoping that this phase is almost over as it is extremely irritating and creates a lot of extra work. They are lucky the cuteness factor gives them a lot of leverage in terms of my level of patience with them. Naughty kids!

So friends bear with me. It has been a bit of an uphill battle this month and this has a direct bearing on my desire to post unfortunately.

No more babies for mommy cat..

I finally got organised to take in my little mommy cat, Kittykie, to get fixed this week. She went in on Monday evening as I had to get Bradley to school on Tuesday and wouldn't have had the time to drop her off in the morning. She wasn't impressed and I virtually had to drive with one hand while holding the door closed on the basket with my other hand as she was pressing so hard to get out. Thank goodness I've got an automatic car. I left her yowling in the vet's holding cage and waited for the vet to have a look at her one little kitten baby that I had brought with me at the same time.

The little one has a bad case of snuffles which causes sneezing, blocked nose and infected eye (conjunctivitis). I had been treating the little one and her brothers over the past couple of days with meds that I had at home but she was the worst case. The vet gave her a shot and some antibiotic ointment but didn't have antibiotic tablets for me to treat her with. Since I got her home from the vet she has actually been worse with her nose closing up even more. So much for vet treatment! Anyway I had put the spaying of mommy cat into high gear because she had managed to wean her kits off suckling mainly and had been running around a lot more lately. Her belly was very round and I thought that I had left it too late and she was pregnant again. Remember I was waiting for her kittens to be eating on their own before taking her in and then it was Christmas and New Year and the timing wasn't right. Anyway, turns out she wasn't pregnant but her bowel was distended. She is taking strain from feeding her little monsters.

"Keep the kittens away from her". Ja right! She still allows them to suckle at times apart from the first night home when she wasn't too keen because of her operation cut. I think it comforts her and them to let them have a bit of a suck from time to time. They all fall asleep together. She will let them know when she is over the mommy thing. She will just start whacking them and run away. I saw it in action with her older kittens. She's not ready yet. The kittens are 12 weeks old today. My main concern was getting this fertile little kitty spayed so that she cant procreate anymore and its done now.

Hello everyone - I'm back!

I am back at work as from Monday, 11th Jan. and greeted with a bunch of problems from owners and tenants, which I am plowing through slowly.

Christmas was a mixed bag of family fun and feuds. Usual story for our family.

In a nutshell: my kids and my ex had a major fight about Robynne leaving Jhb at night with her brothers on the 7-hour trip to Durban. They insisted on leaving and the fight turned ugly. They eventually arrived at 5.30am the next day with my ex following 2 days later, fully loaded with his other 2 kids, their mommy, the dog and the 3 bunnies. Relations were strained over the festivities, with the fight not being resolved during this period. Robynne and Dael returned to Jhb on 2nd Jan. early in the morning, with my ex leaving later on at 9am. The kids were in Jhb before their dad and used the opportunity to remove some of Robynne's stuff from her dad's house. She is staying temporarily in a rented room before moving to share accommodation with her friend. Dael is now back in Durban with me, after I bought a bus ticket for his return. It will probably take a while before friendly relationships are restored to any degree but hopefully with her living away from family, she will be able to get her life on an even keel.

Dael has been walking town this week with a friend who has just finished Matric, looking for jobs everywhere. No luck so far but they haven't given up.

Bradley started high school today after attending his orientation morning yesterday. He was a little apprehensive this morning at the anticipation of the older kids being at the school today. He has been very brave though not requiring me to go in with him at all, a total opposite of how scared and clingy he was when he started primary school. I just drop him off and in he goes. His new clothes are baggy on him as they are a little big but he will soon grow into them at the rate he is springing up. He decided to wear one of the second hand slightly offwhite shirts that we were kindly given by a lady from my work whose son has just finished at the school, instead of his sparkling white shirt that he wore yesterday. Probably a ploy to look like he has been at the school for a while instead of being a newbie!

I went for my mammogram on the 30th December, as arranged. What an experience. Anybody who has been for one knows what I am talking about. When you don't think your breasts can be squashed any flatter they squash them some more. Luckily I had some fruit juice in my bag because after 5 plates, I started to feel a little faint. I only have small mammories so with all the squashing, I could hardly breathe. The radiographer checked the xrays and then decided to conduct an ultrasound on my right breast as he hadn't checked that side before. As expected, the right side also has some cysts but otherwise the mammograms showed up clear with no tumours. Thank God! I now have to return on the 19th Jan. to see a surgical outpatients doc. for some medication to be used when necessary. I have thankfully also had no trouble with lumps over the Christmas period.

I am glad to be back amongst all my online friends and looking forward to reading all about what everyone has been up to in the last 3 weeks.