OUR GARDENER

Our gardener started today

Its been a good week of great rain. Our garden is all smiles. We had a pool company maintaining our swimming pool every week. Its vern nice having that kind of service. When we realised we had no time to mow the lawn, we decided to hire a guy to maintain the pool and clean up the garden for a few hours. the guy will come once a week.
Recs, our very pleasant gardener started today. I am so grateful to have him. Nothing is as bad as huge dirty patch of garden. Ours is low maintenance with mostly the lawn. I bought a few roses for some curb appeal. I love roses in any colour. I cant wait to get dirty planting them.

WEIGH-IN THURSDAY

I joined a weightloss programme rum by our welness girl at work. For as long as I can remember, I battled with my weight. I am not obese but overweight. The only problem is that, I have being overweight. I dont enjoy wearing a weight bigger than 10 or 34 (SA). I wear a size 36 or 12. I am a short person (156cm). The day I hit size 34 burst, I'll celebrate big time.

Today was our weigh-in day and I lost 600g. It is supposed to be Thursday but the lady is not available tomorow. We actually pay R2 per week, which goes towards the gift of the biggest loser. I am next week's biggest loser...fingers crossed. I will buy my paleo ingredients and bake bread that loves my body. Not the sour bread that I also dearly love. Theres my big self and my outfit of the day.

GAUTRAIN RIDE

Gautrain Ride - Pretoria Bosman Train Station

Today I worked in Rosebank again. I took Gautrain from Pretoria city (picture of Pretoria station above). I usually take the train from Hatfield train station. It was amazing traveling with a colleague. We were all chats until we passed Rosebank...how embarassing. We were too early, which helped. We sat still as the machine announced "all passengers must now get out of the bus". Well we went back to Rosebank with the train heading to Pretoria. Gautrain is way better than any driving. I choose it over and over again. Who wants to sit in traffic.
I am falling in love with Rosebank rather quickly. It seems to be a great place to work and live. Not necessarily for me though. I'm more than OK with my Tshwane really.

CULLINAN DIAMOND

CULLINAN DIAMOND, Pretoria, South Africa

Most people know that the biggest diamond on earth was found in Cullinan, Pretoria. Wikipedia states
"The Cullinan diamond is the largest gem-quality diamond ever found, at 3106.75 carat (621.35 g, 1.37 lb) rough weight. About 10.5 cm (4.1 inches) long in its largest dimension, it was found 26 January 1905, in the Premier No. 2 mine, near Pretoria, South Africa."

Me and darling hubby went on a tour of Cullinan last Saturday. I have a lot of images, which I will be posting about more later. I actually bout a nice ring there... seeing ita a home of amazing diamonds. My ring is a snake shape, which seems to be making everyone around uncomfortable. I am a Christian, yet I loved the ring the minute I set my eyes on it. I didnt think it will actually bring all sorts of craziness, interpretations and fear from my friends and family. The ring was not cheap and I love it. I am wearing my snake ring at work today and we are having a conversation around it. Conversation is good. I see a snake as any other animal. I dont worship it, I am not as freaked by its sight as most people are. But the ring I am wearing is just attractive because of its artistic shape, nothing more. Below is the passage from Numbers 21:4-9 (NKJV)

The Bronze Serpent
⁴ Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the Way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. ⁵ And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” ⁶ So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died.

⁷ Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

⁸ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” ⁹ So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.

God can use anything for the good of His people. Stop being freaked by snakes, frogs, etc.

WIESENHOF AT MAKRO

WIESENHOF AT MAKRO

In our search for a PC, we landed at Six Fountains Lifestyle Centre Makro today. Apart from the fact that I was in rest arrears, I had little interest in the technical specifications of desktops. I slipped into the Wiesenhof restaurant inside Makro whilst the boys go up and down to talk this techie yada-yada. I like the restaurant but felt the prices were not as friendly as I hoped. I think I expected them to be Makro prices, I guess. A scone with cheese and filter coffee. From there, Menlyn mall and after a number of store appearances we settled for these modern screen thingies. That's where I am actually blogging today.

A TRIP TO THE DAIRY FARM

A TRIP TO THE DAIRY FARM

Trips to Du Plooy dairy farm in Rayton, Pretoria are some of my amazing times. Rayton is a small town near Cullinan. I love the farm itself. Today, we took one of those trips to the dairy farm. I honestly wish to live in the farm at some stage in my life. Were it not for my fear of crime, I would probably living in an isolated kind of ranch with rolling hills of landscape. I wish, I wish... One day is one day.
We bought the usual, raw milk. But we did add eggs, manure to dress our lawn and some handmade jewellery. The lady of the house makes some. We'll be there in another two weeks, I think.

FRIDAY DESSERT

We don't go out often with hubby. I blame it on two pairs of little hands we have waiting at home. I think it is necessary for us to start a habit of Friday Dessert out. OK, anyway, I bought a pudding from Checkers on Wednesday. I think it will just do me good to microwave that and have it tonight. It doesnt matter what dinner we are having.

JACARANDA TREES

Jacaranda Trees

Pretoria Jacaranda Trees

"The name JACARANDA is believed to be of Guarani origin, meaning fragrant." Wikipedia. Its a nice name, I think. But what is even more interesting is that "The Chinese use the leaves to make a distinctive purple dye" and that "Brazilian Jacaranda is also used as the wood for the body of acoustic guitars".
I live in the city passionately refered to as the Jacaranda city (Pretoria, South Africa). These trees grace our city with a purple glow every single year, in October. Its a beautiful reminder that its still Spring and close to the year end. Gorgeous reminder in that. Almost everyday I drive or walk past Jacaranda trees. I never tire of them.

SOURDOUGH BREAD

Homemade Sourdough Bread

 My sourdough bread came out great. It tastes very well with a tiny sour twist. I love sour, a lot. Thats the reason I go stock on raw milk from the Cullinan dairy farm named Du Plooy and ferment my own maas. Nice and very sour in a few days. I love it. For the sourdough, I had to exercise my patience. It took a full week of preparation for the soughdough starter, which is essentially a natural raising agent made from flour and water. They say this bread has a longer shelf life. I will probably need that as I am trying not to eat too much wheat.

ROSEBANK HOLIDAY INN

Rosebank Holiday Inn

Today was an amazing spring day with the sun in full shine. Not a drop of rain in sight. So our rain managed to last the full 3 days. I appreciate it still. Poor hubby wished we had the water harvesting tanks to catch the rain drops for later use. Half of today was spent at a meeting in Rosebank at a Holiday Inn. Apart from a bit of getting lost in the building, I had a great produtive time. What I love about hotels is their classy decor. In my other life I am a designer. I also have ambitions to design interiors of hotels. The image above is that of the Rosebank Holiday Inn snack room. Rosebank is in Johannesburg, South Africa.

AT THE OFFICE

My Job

There are things I never thought I liked about working at the office. Dressing up, make up and the type of work I do. I just love economic work. The sight of spreadsheets and graphs is one of the things I missed about waking up tp go to work. Problem solving is just too beautiful. Today, at the office, I looked at various countries' production and export levels of certain products.

Some days I miss being a stay-at-home mom and some days I am excited by being in the office. I am happy with both mom and office lives, I realise. I just love doing what I do in the office and dressing up every morning. I'm strange like that.

CHURCH

Hatfield Christian Church

After a mild storm yesterday afternoon and a gentle rain through the night and morning my garden must be thanking God. I know I am. The rain continued through out the day. Its rained on us from the car to the church hall and back. It rained on us in the post office parking to the post box. From there it was Menlyn Park shopping mall. Thank God for architects and under-cover parking. Only yesterday, I placed umbrellas in the mud room but stupidly left them there at the time of need. From Menlyn Ocean basket back home to preparing sour dough for yeast free sour dough bread... my very first attempt. After a week long trial of sour dough starter, my patients were tested to its limit. Fingers very much crossed that the dough rises tomorrow and is actually usable and bread edible, tasty and all that.

LEMONADE

lemonade

It promised to rain today but a few light hail stones fell and left our grass as dehydrated. As we sat in the veranda, chatting the afternoon off, the Geek served us lemonade. That, after he prepared a delicious omelette for breakfast.