The week that was

So I have this friend Mary who does Body Stress Release - WELL!!!!! this last week I have been struggling with my back. It got so bad that I finally asked Mary if I could come and see her, she very kindly agreed to come here at 8pm at night. After she finished with me I felt fine, but the next day it felt as though she had taken a 10pound hammer and beaten me up on my back. But you know the saying, no pain no gain, well its definitely getting better now. She said there was a lot of compression in my back and that is caused by one of 3 things, chemical, emotional of physical stress. the first 2 are definitely the cause of all this, but now that I have had my freak outs etc, I feel so much better and more in control again. I have also taken this week and worked from home which makes an ENORMOUS difference. Gran has also been wonderful in that she cooked supper a couple of times this week, when I just could not face it. THANKS GRAN My mom and Frances have also been great by fetching kids from school, because can you believe it, its been peeing with rain down here this week and FREEZING COLD!!!! Where is Summer????

Thursday morning the flooring contractor arrived and I thought, yay, he is here to do the skirting's, but no he had arrived to lift Christopher's floors for our other insurance claim. The problem with this was, 1) we have not yet chosen the new floor colour, 2) no-one told us he was coming, so all the stuff was still in the room and 3) the building contractor has to do the ceiling and painting BEFORE the floors go down. So now added to my other jobs, I am playing project coordinator getting paint colours and floor colours finalised.

Chris on the other hand thinks this is wonderful and thinks of himself as a bit of designer as he chooses the colour he likes for the floors (Walnut I'll have you know), with James giving his 2c worth as well.

This week, with all the rain, the boys were supposed to have an end of year swimming party at school, but it was so miserable, they cancelled it - the school pool is an indoor facility - gives you an idea of how awful the weather has been.

James has this week been going to school with a bandage around his thumb, not sure what he did to it, but anyone whose a parent know that a bandage can fix anything. I'm not saying it wasn't sore, just that it was probably milked for a little longer than necessary.

James has now also found the perfect 'nest' for Jess, who has still not popped, we are all hoping it happens over a weekend so that Rob is here as well. He took at huge big box and stuck it in our room, even cut a little door into it for her, and she seems to like it AND Mirriam hasn't packed it away, I think only because she doesn't know where to put it. Jess in her new little home.

Speaking of Mirriam, I found out that she pays R450 one way to travel by taxi to Queenstown at the end of the year. On top of that she has to pay R100 per suitcase she takes along and then her 4 year old grandson pays R250 and he has to sit on her lap!!! So off I went into cyberworld and found that she can for R260 take a city to city bus one way, or for R350 a translux bus which has aircon and a toilet. When I asked her why she doesn't use this, it was quite simple, they have to wait for their bonus to buy their tickets and then its toooooo late, so you can all guess what I am going to do, yup, buy the damn ticket - GOOD IDEA FRANCES!!

Frances phoned me this morning to say the school librarian has asked Frances and myself to come in and assist her with the audit of the library books, this will be the 3rd year we are being suckered into it.

Sucker I think is my middle name, I am organising a water safety clinic for domestic workers in our community. One of the issues I teach is the dangers of sun, so I thought it might be nice to give each lady attending a free sample of sunscreen and so my dilemma began, what product do very dark skinned people use? When I asked Mirriam, she said they use calamine lotion (you know for chicken pox - sorry Peter and Mandy, you know me and spelling), so I got a friend of mine who works at a cosmetics company to investigate and she will get back to me as she doesn't know - hmmmm . .

As I sit here typing this, I am waiting for poor Rob, whose flight was once again delayed, and smelling wonderful sausage jumbeli (sorry Peter and Mandy) that Gran is cooking for us tonight. We are so blessed to have her staying here. The animals also feel that way, it was so sweet because Titch has now realised there is a good thing going in Gran's house with milk and food on tap, so much so that he climbed onto Gran's lap the other day when it was so cold, WELL . . . Mickey was not impressed and promptly muscled his way onto her lap, trying to push Titch off and ever since then Mickey has realised sitting on laps is actually quite nice.

Here is poor gran being invaded by Splash, Titch, Mickey, Rob and myself.

The boys are playing, yes playing outside with cars and Mario men and scratching around in their old toyboxes - how wonderful, it's amazing what a BAN on TV can produce? James forgot a book at school, yet again, so he is on no TV for the weekend and Chris starts exams next week. How refreshing James has also been madly beading, not quite sure what he plans to do with all his lizards that his made, but its so good for his fine motor skills, so we'll just leave him to it.