Weekend Pictures 1

Two angels on Oupa's lap


Let the fun begin! "Dis lekker op Oupa se skoot!"

Nog Oupa!

Hoe later, hoe kwater!

Oupa, jy's die beste!

And this is what they did: "Op 'n stappie, op 'n draffie, Gallop, gallop, GALLOP!"

A thorn in my flesh

I've had this thorn in my flesh since I can remember, but it gets worse as I get older. I suffer from restless legs: an incontrollable urge to move my legs, as soon as I sit or lie down to relax. It is not really painful, but very irritating and uncomfortable. Attacks mostly occur in the evening, but I sometimes have them even early in the afternoon and they are worse when I am tired and desperately want to rest.





I have tried various remedies through the years. Long ago mild painkillers were enough and I used to drink paracetomol before we went to the movies for "just in case." Later on I started taking Rivotril - a drug for epilepsy, but it mostly just made me very sleepy. For years I slept well, but the restless legs attacks kept coming.





I started taking Pexola , a drug for Parkison's Disease, but soon had to increase the dosage - and still found that it wasn't 100% effective. I was really getting worried - how bad was it going to be in future? My grandmother and my mother also suffered from it. My mother had a particularly bad attack the morning before her death - I helped to walk for a little because movement relieves it a bit, but it returns as soon as you sit down again.





I searched the internet and found that an iron shortage is one reason. I started taking some of Jan's iron pills and immediately had a big relief, but this too did not last long. (I am thankful though that it helped me on the Russian tour and I had no restless legs - even on the aeroplane!) I searched the internet again and bought e-books. The one suggested that salt is the cause: this could be true, because I used to use a lot of salt and loved smoked, salty food like ham and bacon, not too mention biltong.





No salt was almost like a death sentence to me, but I found ways to make food palatable without lots of salt: real mayonnaise has little salt,(much less than light salad cream0, real cream cheese and some low fat cottage cheeses have low sodium content, and Black Cat peanut butter is also on the list of may-haves. Tuna is fish oil is OK, but not tuna in brine water. (Most of my food choices nowadays are low in salt, still tasty but fattening!) I find myself looking at rice cakes and corn cakes: the ones without salt have more kilojoules than the ones with salt added...! Which should I buy? I buy both kinds and resolve to eat one of each instead of two of the same packet and so hope to balance too much salt and restless legs versus getting fat! (Bread and margarine, by the ways are no-no's)





Another ebook suggested this was all nonsense - one needs salt. According to this book the cause of restless legs is a bladder that is not emptied completely. So now when restless legs start, I go to the toilet, drink extra magnesium... and then drink Pexola anyway.... but at least I am down to one Pexola a day!





Ah well... (What a boring post - but just had to get it off my chest! Maybe someone knows of a better way to deal with this thorn in the flesh?)





P.S. Another thorn - not in the flesh, but still. I found in previous posts, that the spaces I put in between paragraphs disappear when the post is published. This time I put in extra spaces, in case you wonder why the spaces are so big... or in case there are no spaces again. And does anyone know how I can change the font of my heading and blog description? One can barely read it now.

A little bit of news

We got our new camera and below are some of the first photos. Now I just have to figure out how to save photos on Jan's computer. I couln't find a way to create new folders in his "Pictures", so I tried Picassa - but now I do not know how to upload photos from Picassa onto the blog. I selected photos and clicked on "blog this" and this is how I got the photos below onto this post... but other photos went to other posts - don't know how to get them all onto the same post. If I try to upload images by clicking on the image icon on the New Post toolbar, it doesn't open Picassa - I am so dumb and I do so miss my old computer!! I hope I get better software than this Vista - it just doesn't do it for me!

Martelize watches intently as Thelwyn spreads a slice of bread with peanut butter.

Then she tries her hand at "spreading" and "cutting" .... puts the knife in her mouth, takes it out and says "Eina!" ("Ouch!")

I often get to see Martelize, as the H's are living on the farm for the time being (long story with farmhands having had to go back to Malawi very unexpectedly...). We regularly see Franco too, but of course not as often. I looked after Martelize on Wedenesday when Thelwyn had to the doctor and then looked after Franco the next day when Dorette had to go to the doc. What a privilege to be able to do it - but I admire the moms. It's hard work looking after a toddler! Both of them are very, very busy - but what a joy they are. Here is a little bit of news - I could go on forever, but will try to contain myself:

Martelize:

New words: Especially animal sounds like "Wat sê die hadeda?" "Ha!" "Wat sê die duifie?" "Krr, krr"; " Wat sê die leeu?" "Gg". "Wat sê die perd?" "Prr, mmmm, prr" She is very obviously an animal lover and like her parents, horse crazy. She chases the dogs from the scullery: "Uit! Uit!" (Wonders where she gets that!)

Food: She loves fruit, especially watermelon. Insists on getting her share of whatever is in your plate or glass, but knows that coffee is "Sjoe-sjoe!"

Playing: She likes to play with her teaset, keys, telephones, the hosepipe, to walk on the treadmill (more especially to push the on and off buttons), to put fit Ouma's electric curlers on their pegs, to close anything: doors, bottles, tupperware... "Toe, toe!"

Franco News

New Words: At 20 months his speech is improving with the speed of lightning! Lifts his shirt and points to his tummy and says "Baba". (To the unenlightened: Dorette is 7 months pregnant.) Names a lot of things, but not yet the magic words "Pie-pie" and "poef". He is being pottytrained now and he seldom has an accident: dutifully does his thing in the potty, but Dorette has still to guess when to take him, he does not say yet.

Food: Franco does not like fruit at all - on the other hand he eats vegetables without any problem - loves beetroot and spinach! At the moment very much into finger foods like chicken fingers.

Playing: Very fond of anything to ride on. Favourite place to play: the stairs in their house! Bruises and scrapes on his legs indicate his wild ways on the climbing frame. Also fond of building blocks, posting forms and play dough. Loves to mow the lawn. Has recently started to "swim" on his own, i.e. he swims with his life jacket type swimming aid, without anyone having to hold him.

He is also very fond of tidying up. He has loved brooms for a long time. Recently he has started to throw washing into the laundry basket - even took out clothes out of his cupboard to fill the basket! Potties belong in the bathroom - promptly took it back when Dorette dared to put it in the kitchen! He pushes in chairs after meals or "working" at the table.

What a joy to watch both of them grow! What a privilege!

Tidy up!

The assessor of the insurance company was here yesterday and luckily there were no problems. Hopefully I'll soon have a new computer and Jan and Hendrik their new cameras! Jan must get a quote for his hairclipper today, so that he can buy it before he needs a haircut. His ring was stolen, so we can get shop for a new ring too. That should be fun. We can get married again!

Going through all the warranties and instruction booklets, to get proof that we owned these things, I realised that the study was due for a major overhaul, so this week
I tried to tidy the study!!
I sorted a pile of papers on Jan's desk into 17 different files yesterday.


Jan seemed very grateful last night and will now also drill a hole through the desk so that the spiderweb of cables can be tidied up!




My own "now" files with titles like "Addresses", "Blog and Internet", "Book", "Health" and "Overseas Holiday" I keep on their backs in a pigeon hole above my desk, so it is not difficult to shove papers into them. My desk is also cluttered most of the time, but never with such a pile of "deurmekaar" papers! Today I want to figure out a way of how to make filing and keeping tract of papers easier for Jan and I need to check the contents of some of my files - especially one marked "Recent Receipts"! We regularly keep book of our expenses and then immediately throw away the receipts, but I keep ones of things that I might have to return like small appliances, car batteries and the like.

Thanks Frans and Gert for my pigeon holes: they work well!

Making new calenders and a new Excel bookkeeping file also took up a big chunk of my last week of holiday. My last back-up was Feb 2009, so at least I did not have to do it totally from scratch, but still.

Other small opuses this last week of holiday was to really get the smaller mats clean - they never look good, even after a lot of vacuuming. I discovered that the magic broom - the green one that they advertise on T.V. does wonders to lift hairs and stuff out of the mats. I was so surprised to see how much hair accumulates in such a mat. We do not even have pets in the house, so I guess a lot of the hair is my own! Yuck. Anyway I am really chuffed with my clean mats, especially in our bathroom and bedroom. I loosen the hair with the broom or handbrush and then vacuum away. Last night Jan lengthened the cord of the vacuum cleaner with 5 metres. What a difference - no more "gesukkel" with unrolling extention cables and plugs that get caught around every nook and corner! Thanks Jan!!

P.S. I have started on the filing cabinet and came across 2000 (the year) Pretorium Trust statements: Shoprite amounts were mostly R30 - R40; big Shoprite amounts were between R250 and R300 and the monthly total for Pretorium Trust (including several tanks of petrol circa R150) was between R2000 and R3000 a month... and those days we still fed three students! Our latest Pretorium Trust total is R8168 - without any petrol. Generally Shoprite and Spar amounts are above R100 and a big one at Menlyn Hyper was R1,785.24! What will our Shoprite shopping trips cost in 10 years time?

Christmas and New Year

As always we and the F's got together on Christmas Eve to share with one another what Jesus has meant to us this year. We have been doing it for years and we find very enriching. What made it special this year was that Jan's sisters Louise (with hubby Marthinus) and Rina joined us. However, it was sad that the L's could not be here - again! Last year they spent Christmas with Dorette's inlaws and this year - our Christmas - Franco had chicken pox! He had been immunized, so it was very slight, but it was chicken pox nonetheless.

On Christmas Day the H's went to Frans's mother for the day and we went to the F's for Christmas lunch. The L's came over later the afternoon so that we could give Franco his gifts: a motorbike and a lawnmower. Both gifts turned out to be real hits and he was beaming - "mowed" the lawn until he was red in the face. A pity it wasn't a real lawnmower! I hope he'll be as enthusiastic once he can really take over from his dad!

Martelize's gifts were a teaset and a rocking horse. She loves fitting lids and she is mad about horses. Like mother like daughter! (Wat sê die perd? Prrr...mmm....prrr)

On the fateful day that they broke in and stole my computer, Thelwyn, Dorette, kids and I went shopping for decorations for "Sussie's" room. Dorette is expecting a little girl in March. It was great fun and the little ones were very good, but I realised again how difficult it is to go shopping with a little one! Sterkte Dorette vir die inkopies met twee kleintjies! Been there, done that with three under four years, but that was nearly 28 years ago!!

After the shopping spree, we swam in the L's solar heated pool - great fun, but Martelize was not so happy in the big pool. Franco on the other hand is turning into a real water worm - almost "swims" completely on his own. He wears a swimming jacket because wings are still too big, but this little jacket works very well.

On the 31st the community had a big operation to search for criminals and Jan and Hendrik were the watchmen on our koppie - very, very hot work! The community effort led to the arrest of one thief who had the stolen DVD player in a black bag with him.

On New Year's day the L's came for a braai. When I wanted to peel a mango for a salad, I discovered that my whole box of mangoes (a gift from my sister in law), was missing. I couldn't understand how a whole box could dissapear in thin air, until I remembered that they had also broken in next door and stole the kettle and the pineapples!

Thief (thieves) I forgive you, but why could you not have left me at least one mango? Why did you take my half-used toothpaste and soapholder out of my toilet bag? Thanks for leaving Hendriks wallet on Jan's computer.... and thanks for leaving the cash in his drawer... but please you can have the cash if only you will return Jan's wedding ring... and his camera... and it would have been so nice if you had made a back-up of my hard drive, before you took off with my laptop. I guess by now you have realised that it is useless without its power cable...! And please, why did you break TWO security gates?? I saw Jan's Bible was among the stuff you left at the front door - You know, the Bible would have helped you more than the Disprin you took out of my medicine bag...!

Anyway, after lunch, Franco and Martelize splashed in cool water and afterwards, Franco followed Martelize and Thelwyn all the way up to their house (about 35 metres)... he wasn't going to let his cousin be taken away from him...! I tried to take photos, but my camera is very slow (sport setting??) and most photos are just a blur because the little ones are not still for a second! Here are a few of the better ones:

Martelize on Old Year's Eve. (I have trouble with my camera, but a dark pic of her smile is better than none...)

Martelize (17 Months) and Franco (20 Months) eating dried fruit on New Year's Day: they have to sit still while they eat and are generally very good. (Thank you Nursery Schools for insisting on good manners.)

New Years Day 2010: Franco 20 Months. (It is difficult to get Franco to sit still long enough for my slow camera to snap him. )

An exhausted Hendrik after doing Community duty as watch on the koppie.

Cooling off after lunch on a very HOT New Year's Day. (Video does not want to upload?)

Thank you God for such precious little bodies and the wonderful way in which they develop! Help us to teach them your ways!