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?

Only one photo week

Only one photo this week, but it has been a wonderful week. Jan and I celebrated our wedding aniversary by going to La Fayette for supper - very romantic - loved the music. We talked and dreamed a lot.
Saturday was spent cleaning the house and Jan gave Hendrik some advice on a "labour of love" that he was working on. (Love so brings out the best in a person.) Despite working till late, he did not quite finish it and was a bit frustrated with himself.

Sunday Jan and I went shopping - not our custom to shop on Sundays, but it was fun. We bought... a white slave for the scullery - the type you plug in. He/ she / it better live up to our expectations and do a good job. At least all my plates - even the large old fashioned Noritake plates - fit in this one. Advice for anyone who wants to buy such a slave: Do not buy the type whose name starts with a K and ends with an r - not even if it is a R1000 cheaper and not unless you have tiny plates. There is a lesson to be learnt here!

We also bought the dogs better blankets than the grey ones we bought at Makro about 2 months ago. The dogs have shredded those to pieces. My plan is to cover the blankets with mini-mat. Hope the material is strong enough. The idea is to have bedding for the dogs that is warm, but also easy to wash regularly. (Now I just have to do it - along with a heap of other sewing like shortening sleeves. Any tips on how to shorten the sleeves of jerseys? And jackets with linings? I keep putting it off.)

We also bought Jan a fleecy jacket and a thick windbreaker jacket for THE TRIP later this year. These two layers are a lot cheaper than the ones with the zippered lining... like R1000 cheaper....Plans....Dreams...Fun...!

However, the Green Cross walking shoes I had bought had to be returned. I never fitted the left shoe in the shop and it was decidedly uncomfortable. (There is another lesson to be learnt here!)

We had lunch with the L's. Franco had had a terrible fever earlier this week, but by Sunday he was fine. However, he started to sport an awful looking rash. We decided it was "Baby Measles" i.e. Roseolla.

Hardly saw the H's this past week. Martelize was apparently not too well either. I hope to see Thelwyn soon. My Russia DVD's from Amazon have been delivered to her work. I can't wait to get them.... Amazon warned that they might not work on our DVD player because they are region 1, but I decided to go ahead and order them anyway. (So hope that there is not a lesson to be learnt here!)

Frans and Thelwyn had a funeral on Monday: The parents of close friends of theirs had died in a car crash last week. A terrible, double tragedy.

(What if it had been us? What if both of us had gone... right now!? What if the children had to come and sort out our mess? We'd better get our buts in gear and start... what? Sorting our stuff? Updating our testament? Book space in a retirement.....!? At least there will be some (organised) memoirs in cyberspace!)

Small things amuse small minds?

School started again for me and Tammy today. I had so many plans to do this holiday - and what did I do... apart from the Easter Drama and Franco's birthday party, mostly small little things... but things that gave me great pleasure all the same. Activities that may not be in the same league as scrapbooking, but still creative in a smalll sort of way.

I washed my mohair blanket - it did not really look dirty, but I was surprised at the dirty water: Here's how you do it:
Fill the bathtup with some cold water and imerse the blanket in it. Sprinkle about 500g coarse salt over the blanket and let it soak. No soap. No stasoft. Turn the blanket over now and then. Then push the blanket into the laundry basket. Drain the tub and then fill it again a few times to rinse the blanket thoroughly. Then let the water drain out of the blanket by letting the basket lie on its side. Then easily lift the basket, blanket and all and hang it up - the blanket is like new! (It is really 35 years old!)
I got the tip from my sister in law, Tiela. (Dankie Tiela, dit werk soos 'n bomb, soos jy gese het!) It really works and there's no strain on the back!

The bath tub is also an excellent place to scrub dish racks - almost the same age as the blanket. I can do with new ones, but in the meantime it gives me pleasure to have racks that are as clean as I can possibly get them.
My grandmother used to say that her grandmother used to say that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing it well. She (my grandmother) often resented that saying and would take off a button from my oupa's pajamas if it had been sewn on with the wrong thread. Who cares really? But if its worth doing... it worth doing it well! I too resented this saying a bit, but nonetheless took great pride in cleaning my oven until there was not a speck of brown to be seen on the racks. Did anyone notice? Of course not, but it did make me feel sort of like the woman of Proverbs 31. Luckily my oven is only two years old and not used tooooo often! (Ek's nie daardie soort meisie nie.)

I spent a lot of time cleaning tiny bottles and filling them and labelling them - often by peeling the original sticker of the original container and sticking it onto my minute bottle. It was not always possible, so some products just got boring old handwritten labels. Why all the fuss? We're going to the sea for 5 days and later this year we are going overseas for 10 days. I did not like my previous cosmetic bag, so I got a new "cosmetic" bag and filled it. The sea holiday is my cosmetic bag dress rehearsal. If I use more than half the bottle, I'll know my bottle is too small.

My new cosmetic bag (a six pack cooler bag) packed with 26 products (excluding the make-up in the outside pouch). All that is still lacking is my hairbrush. Preparing for a holiday - especially an overseas one - is for me almost as much fun as the actual trip.

I also sewed on several buttons (took off the remaining 3 buttons on a shirt of Hendrik's and sewed on five new ones - all on the wrong side.... will take them off again and sew them on again on our way to the sea), I sorted socks without partners and put together 14 pairs between Hendrik and Jan's socks! I started shortening two pairs of Jan's pants: I undid the side seams and pinned up the hems, now I just have to do the sewing and will do that when I have company.

As for the Proverbs 31 woman - did she like all housework? I hate vacuuming and sweeping - no satisfaction in that. Desia referred me to the flylady website (Thanks Delia). I'm taking baby steps in housework, and it's not killing me (yet). But now I've got to fly go and get Jan something to eat and to shine the sink! Tonight at 21: 30 (bedtime really) there is a programme on Russia and I do not want to miss it. (Guess where we're going...!)

Weekend jobs and a special day for Willem

This weekend was pretty much spent like most other weekends since my life without X started three weeks ago: housework and more housework! I did the schlepp like laundy and dishes whilst having long telephone conversations with Dorette (with the phone in a bag around my neck), I found satisfaction in jobs done that were long overdue but still feel guilty about jobs that I did not get round to... not because there was not enough time, but because I could not make myself do it. I did exercise though! The scale is tipping very slowly.

My grandfather made this "blikkas" (steel cupboard) for my grandmother and it stood in her farm kitchen. It was green then. She died the year my mother bought our farm (let wel, Ma en nie Pa nie, maar dis 'n storie vir anderdag...) and it has stood in Ermelyn (our house), for the past 39 years. When we renovated the house, I made sure that there would still be a spot for this useful cupboard - albeit a difficult one to keep tidy seeing that the door does not open all the way and it has nice corners where one can hide (and forget) things.

My magnus opus on Saturday was to clean it out and to tidy it. The vynil on the shelves is becoming worse for wear, but no so much so that I want to remove it yet - the "Novilon" was my choice and my handiwork when I was a student and we came out to the farm over weekends. I had very grand ideas of how the kitchen should look. I was very inspired by the kitchen of my Belgian French tutor, a Mrs Devos . She was a fundi with walll paper. (Ermelyn's kitchen in those days had no ceiling and a low corrugated iron roof - I vividly recall the sweat running down my back when doing the dishes in the stuffy little corner.) Do I sound like a grandmother? Well, I am one!

Another job that gave me much satisfaction was to clean the copper and silver. Some of these pieces were made by my grandfather, so again they have lots of sentimental value. My good friend Alta gave me her mother's wonderful recipe for cleaning this stuff and it works. Anyone who has copper or silver must remember it. It works like a charm and it works for jewelry too! Thanks Alta!
Copper/ Silver Cleaning Recipe
50 g Acid (Alta's mother uses citric acid or tartaric acid, but I had none - as I only discovered when I tidied the grocery cupboard, so I used vinegar and it worked fine)
25 ml Sunlight liquid
Very hot water.
Soak piece in it for a short while, rinse it and it shines! Some pieces did need a bit of brasso or silvo, but I just rubbed it on and then rinsed it in the above solution. No hard polishing and no white bits in the crevices!
I used a plastic container just to be on the safe side and heated the solution in the microwave when it got too cold, but even the cold solution seemed to work well enough.
Late last night I crept out of bed and cleaned my wedding ring - it sparkled again!

??? Jan's project will be ready before Easter. It is a BIG and HEAVY job. It has and will still require a lot of muscle power and determination. WATCH THIS SPACE. I will definitely blog about this project again! Hendrik helped him all day Saturday to paint the planks (2 x 6 meters and 2 X 3 meters).
We had a problem with our electricity supply to the stables and labourers' housing
and the internet and radio tower on our koppie, so that took quite some time to get that sorted out. Many thanks to our community radio man, Rudi, who came to the rescue!

Today we went to Jan's brother Willem's "bevestiging" as a church minister. He has been the director of Youth@ Heart since its beginning many, many years ago. He will continue his youth work, whilst also ministering to this congregation. This photo is not too clear (we should have sat in the front pew), but I think it is the only one where his wife, Rina and his daughters presented him with his toga.
The service was about the parable of the sower: God wants us to sow abundantly. We need not be careful with the seed. Only one of every 4th seed will grow, but these fourth seeds that do indeed grow will yield a crop way over what man expects!!
Willem was welcomed on behalf of the "Ring" by Ds Wouter de Vos, the man who videographed Gert and Dorette's wedding and Inkululeko's (my previous nursery school's) concerts. Who said it is amazing how many old acquaintances we do meet?

Willem's family: Righardi (Grade 11), Rina and Tani (1st yeat B.Com Accountancy). The eldest daughter, Marianne, could not be there. She is studying to become a vet.

Jan, Noella and Chris, Willem's older brother. (Jan's father married their mother and the combined family had ten children. Jan's one sister has since died, but the other 9 are all well and married. A very big family indeed. Willem is the youngest of the 9 brothers and sisters.)

Willem greeting some congregation members at the tea afterwards.

In deep conversation with another congregation member.

Noella and Rina.

Afterwards Jan and I went to the H's. Martelize has ear infection - again! She was not too keen on eating, but she managed a sort of a smile for her Ouma. Ouma se pampoenbekkie!

She loves to stand and pulls herself up against the furniture, (7 1/2 months) but I sat behind her ready to catch if needs be, but it wasn't necessary. Here she is having her portion of the newspaper.

Smile for the camera.... After her medicine and bottle, she was cheerful and babbling, but the moment Thelwyn gave her her blanky (the one I knitted), she closed her eyes.... She falls asleep so easily and usually sleeps very well, but Thelwyn says the ear kept them up, pretty much of the night.

Franco is also sick again - not serious, serious, but feeling pretty grotty and miserable, so we never got to see them this weekend. Tomorrow he will be 11 months! Can you believe it! Tomorrow it will be a year since my mother died. She died on Easter Sunday, exactly a month before Franco was born. (Ons mis jou, Ma! Het wanneer laas patat geeet. Geniet dit daar in die hemel saam met Pa.)

2nd Christmas on the G's farm near Fauresmith

This past weekend the B's (Jan's family) got together on Daan and Tiela's Free State farm. We picked up Jan's eldest sister, Louise and her husband Marthinus along the way and the big "kuier" (visit) started in the bakkie on the way there.

Jan in the kitchen

The kitchen was the hub of activity and talking! Tiela and Louise Jnr putting a lot of teatime treats on plates, while Louise (left) and Rina (right) do some catching up.

Another round of tea and coffee: Rina, her daughter Louise and H.P. (Daan and Tiela's youngest son).

Sitting around Tiela's beautiful table for a scrumptious feast: Louise, Gerhard, Rina, Miekie, Jan, Hendrik, Gerhard Jnr, Louise Jnr.

Louise and Tiela relaxing after lunch.

Louise, Daan and Marthinus. Louise got a camera for Christmas and she put it to good use!

The 4 B's. (Jan's younger sister, Noekie, died years ago.): Louise, Tiela, Jan, Rina

The B sisters are all three great cooks. Although Tiela was the chief cook and bottle washer this
time, Rina and Louise also brought cake for tea. My contribution was Cokes! One New Year resolution is to improve on my hostess score, but I don't give it much hope. I'm not really that kind of girl!

Capturing the family of the weekend!

I just love this photo of Marthinus and Louise. Louise retired recently, but next year she is going to teach Grade 3's. Never a dull moment for a teacher! Since my homeschooling is also on Grade 3 level, we had lots to talk about!

The Bloemfontein family: Gerhard and Rina in front and Gerhard Jnr and Louise at the back. Rina had a nasty fall in November and broke her leg and foot very badly, so she still has to hobble about on crutches. We are just so glad that Rina is alive and that the the leg is on the mend even though it is still going to take some time!

With Hendrik.

H.P. Isn't he a handsome young man? He is going to do mission work in Africa this year. Many blessings on your work H.P. !

The 4 cousins who were there on Sunday - at least there were 4 cousins there, but Gerhard had already absconded when this photo was taken. Louise just completed her B-Com degree.

Tiela's elegant sitting room - we only sat there for the photos, because it was very hot and there is air conditioning in the T.V. room! It is still very dry in the Free State and we pray that the clouds will turn into proper rain and not just a few drops like it happened all weekend long despite predictions of 60% rain.

These window panes were her grandmother's.

Another corner in the sitting room. Tiela's whole house is filled with much loved antiques - there is even an everyday ivory handle knife for each member of the family.