September 2007

What a crazy month, my calendar looks like a pre school kids got hold of it and scribbled everywhere!
It’s been lots of fun though a bit stressful at times.

Tarryn
She survived prelims and passed all her subjects, not much studying went on I can assure you. The highlight of her month was the matric farewell that was held on the 20th of September. Her friend Garth did all the crystals on her dress and I think she looked perfect! Trevor had his hair dyed to match her outfit and he looked stunning. Trevor’s dad Gary arranged an old Jag to take them to the farewell at the Birchwood Hotel. From there they went to Roxy’s in Mellville in the Party Bus which I think was a brilliantly sensible idea. I got an sms from her at 6-15am the next morning, to say they were back at Gary’s place and he was making breakfast for them. Gary sent me a message shortly thereafter saying they had eaten and passed out for the rest of the day! Oh the joys of youth! Gary and kids joined us for Sunday lunch and the topic of Ballito came up. I said that the kids were wasting an opportunity not being at the coast this week. They could not quite believe it when we agreed to let them drive down for a week on their own!

Kiara
Her highlight is the Cape Town trip that the school arranged. She is coming home tomorrow morning and has had a great time so far. They had a jam packed schedule and she was lucky enough to get to see her cousins from Cape Town while she was there. She is still doing ice skating but deserves her colours for shopping. Took her to Greenstone shopping centre to get a few things for the Cape trip and wow she shopped. Her report was perfect as usual and she goes into the last term at primary school next week. Hard to believe.

Devin
His moon boot is finally off, although he won’t be riding in the Grand National champs for BMX. Next year maybe? He has joined “skate skool” and is learning a whole lot of skateboarding tricks that have names that are beyond me like NOLLIE, OLLIE, NOSEGRIND, POPSHOVEIT and SPINE TRANSFER. I have a whole new language to learn. He was feeling very left out when Tarryn went to Ballito and Kiara was in the Cape, so we arranged for him to fly to Darrel and Marina’s for 4 days. He is coming back tomorrow and when I asked him if he was looking forward to coming home, he said, in typical diplomatic Devin style, “Sorry to say this mom, but NO I am not, I wish I could stay longer”. Another perfect report too.

Natasha
My month has been made up of friends, fun, alcohol, laughter, smiles, book club, supper club, meeting Darrel for breakfast, dinner and strawberry daiquiris with Megan after the matric farewell cocktail party, Facebook,
MSN Messenger, TV (yes I did watch 3 program this month!!!!!!!), music (and I still love my ipod), going on
a personal effectiveness workshop that reminded me of my Lifeline training, hooking up with old friends, ten pin bowling, taking lots of photos, not much scrapping and some new goals. Will share with you soon.

Nanna and Colin are well and so is my brother.

Work is great too and so we plunge into the next month …
Lotsa luv
Tasha

Scrapping girls

Randy....................................................................John...................................................................Cody

Such sad news this weekend about Angi’s mom that passed away. She was such a beautiful person and will always be missed. Her photo is in my older posts on the blog.

Went to scrapping university and it was a great weekend. Spent my time with Dee and Derryn and what a perfect choice that was, we had great fun, lots of laughing and great memories were created.
Got to meet my blogging friend, Canadian scrapping teacher and Making Memories Idols winner Wilna Furstenburg. She got her husband to take a photo of us together so she could remember me! What a stunning person.

I got home and was feeling really tired. Kiara met me in the passage and said ”Mom, come you have to help me with a homework project”. I moaned and groaned all the way down the passage into my bedroom, my room was spotless, lights low, music playing and a bubble bath ready for me to climb into! What more could you ask for?

I have become reunited with my beloved old music and in typical Tasha style have gone totally overboard. From no music in years to listening to everything I can get my hands on.

I am just loving the sunshine and the friendliness of people in general. Don’t know if it’s my attitude that has changed but I am finding myself so abundantly blessed in all areas of my life.

Devin went to see the WWE wrestling twice this weekend at the Dome and also went to Greenstone shopping centre to see his hero John Cena. He got about 2 meters away from him and apparently John looked at him and gave him the thumbs up!

I am would have been happy to see Randy Orton up close and personal.

How awesome is the gold price today? I have been waiting for $700 for quite a while now.

Well, I have some interviews to do for the rest of the morning so better get to work.

August 2007 Update
Home
This month saw a whole lot of changes in our world. Our beloved pet Shadow was put down and the whole household was affected. Shadow was also the last of our pets that was around with Richard.
My Moms entire pension money was drawn out of her account while she was at another ATM trying to draw some cash. She was devastated. The response she got from the bank amounted to ‘shame, don’t you watch TV and see that criminals target old people?’
Tarryn
She is having a ball and you would not think that she is writing prelims. I hardly ever see her these days and she is just loving her freedom. She has a car, a petrol card and a credit card. Hello world! Her main concern at the moment is sorting out her matric farewell dress.
Kiara
She has had a busy month with ice skating, school activities and her latest brainwave, volunteering at the SPCA. She spent Saturday morning at the Benoni SPCA with a friend Kyle and they had to clean out cages etc. Kiara ended up with the donkeys and ostriches, didn’t even know they had things like that there! She spent the whole day sulking and glaring at me, because I would not let her bring a Husky puppy home! Now if she nagged about this cutest pot-bellied pig they had there, it might have been a different story!
She can’t wait to see her beloved cousin’s in Cape Town in September.
Devin
He is still in moonboot (he thinks it should be spelt moanboot), and is getting as frustrated as anything. He has missed so many BMX races. He still has about a week to go. He and Trevor have been at the driving range as often as they can persuade Tarryn to take them. They go and hit a bucket of balls and she shops.
He is counting down the days to the WWE experience and is going both nights!.
Work
We had the horrible news that Lorraine’s son passed away. Lorraine works in my team. I decided that I could not face the funeral and went to see her at home the day before. Went with my boss and another colleague, in my boss’s fancy BMW. We got a bit lost in Kwa Thema and I wondered what people thought seeing these two black dudes driving around with white women in the backseat. I started to get very anxious when his fuel light came on and we were still hopelessly lost. Anyway we found her and I was glad we could visit and pray with her at her home.
I am busy on 2 new projects at work and as always having fun there.
Natasha
I eventually conceded and booked for scrapping university after declaring that I would not be doing it this year. I can’t believe that the time is here already. Can’t wait to see Wilna from Canada who will be teaching this year.

I have become hooked on Facebook and all the fun that goes with that. Collected some friends that I have not seen in ages and am loving it. Reading is definitely taking a back seat and I only redeemed myself this weekend by reading James Patterson’s The Quickie in just over a day.
Went to breakfast with a friend that lasted over 5 hours. We kept getting phone calls to say ‘are you STILL at breakfast’. Had a great time and bought my first cd in 8 years Nickelback’s All the right reasons.

I have a “decisions list” that is growing day by day, not sure what this shift in my world is all about but I am being enticed into new adventures and experiences on a daily basis.
I bought 2 new blankets that have the most amazing texture. Don’t know when I turned into Linus? Got some new curtains and luckily had a whole entourage of friends to help me put them up that day. I am so spoilt hey! Hanging curtains is the pits.

Claire and I are almost done with our twin albums. The idea and the actual album was my idea, but she did most of the work. They are looking stunning and the journaling is very draining but so worth it. She bought us twin teddies to hold the albums.

Had Scott and Sue and the folks over for lunch the other day and it turned out to be a great day. We really need to do it more often. Celebrated ladies day at a function at Summer Place. Janine Starkey, the speaker, is an image consultant and I was expecting to be really bored. I was totally blown away by her. Book club is great and we have booked our Christmas outing at Mangwanani Day Spa. Can’t wait to do that again, it’s such a spoil.

I am so glad it’s Spring. Swam yesterday and today and lay in the sun reading and listening to Kiara’s ipod. The birds are singing, saw butterflies and everything is staring to look green. Love this time of year.

:) :) :)