Popping the question

For months, actually - probably YEARS, I have been trying to get Arno to tidy up his room. The purpose behind this is actually multi-faceted. I was told that in order to ensure that he gets better marks at school, we have to teach him to "organise" his personal space. The idea is that the basis of learning, is being organised. In order to get his brain functioning in that direction, you have to teach him to organise his little world. (The other reason is simply to have a tidy house!)

Well, "organising" his little world, has turned me into something I NEVER was before... a NAG. I never, EVER nagged. Not in my previous life, and not in my "new" life. Until  now! Arno has turned me into a class 1 NAG. Every evening, before I step into his room, I start: Arnoooooo. "Yes mom, my room IS tidy", he pipes up - BEFORE the question is even asked. Every  morning I walk into his room and we have the same, tired conversation : Arno - but I thought you said your room was tidy? "I thought it was mom, I just forgot!"

I once got so angry at FORGOT that I told him I might "FORGOT" some things too, like feeding him. This produced an unsatisfactory result from him: he just giggled. Mom's don't FORGET to feed their children.

And so we battle on in the house, sometimes with more success, sometimes with less. Some motivational talks telling him how good it is for him, produce momentary spurts of enthusiasm, that last all of 12 hours.

That is.... until yesterday.

Last night I walked into his room, almost turned around and ran out to check that I was in the correct house. He had tidied up his room.... all on his own. Before I had asked. WELL!

I puzzled over this for a while. Quite a number of things have changed in our house over the last few weeks, not least of which is that Werner had a heart attack. We speeched the children about helping around the house... maybe that had some effect? Then Arno started scouts 2 weeks ago, and I keep hearing things about scouts honour, promises and so forth. Maybe he is working toward a badge or something... hey what do I really know about scouts.

Well, this morning the mystery was cleared up. In the kitchen, alone with his sister, he confided to Marinda: "On Friday, I am popping the BIG question!".

"What question", she asked.

"The air riffle", he said simply.

The AIR RIFFLE?

Well, the air riffle was given to us by my missionary friend, Jonathan. Arno loves that thing. But now the air riffle needs a service. We have been quite lax about finding someone who can service it. But above all, we have felt that Arno needs to show responsibility with his stuff, not leave it lying around, before we spend more money on it. Hmmm... something is sinking in somewhere!

So... I will plan out my answer - and wait...on Friday I get asked - THE BIG QUESTION!!!!

Reflections on thankfulness

Apologies, think I 've found out what writers block feels like!!!

This morning Marinda came into our bedroom saying, "Werner, it was so  nice to hear you pottering around the kitchen this morning, making mom coffee".

THAT was one very loaded statement. You see, Werner had a heart attack on Friday last week. We missed all the queues, and I have discovered, I had very little idea of what a heart attack might look like. We have funny ideas in life, and when you are convinced a thing will never happen to you, well... here is what THAT looks like:

He started with a feeling of "heart burn" the evening before. After taking Rennie's antacid tablets it seemed to ease - convincing us that our diagnosis was right. When he woke with the same terrible burning sensation in his chest the next morning we thought, SIGH, more of the same. Only, this time he was sweating and pale. I briefly wondered if I should drive him to the Dr, but he easily persuaded me that he could manage.

By 9am the Dr phoned me from his cell. "Yvonne, nothing much to worry about, but we are quickly driving Werner to the hospital to have his heart checked out. He is taking some strain, but don't worry, we are in time".
Reeling somewhat at that information, I packed up my life at work to head to the hospital. We have been listening to an audio book whilst driving around, and one phrase kept popping into my head from the story: we never know what the day will bring.

Once at the hospital, the gravity of the situation became clear. The cardio made no bones about it - "Mr Geldenhuys, I will see you in theatre in 30 minutes". Werner was agitated, and in a massive lot of pain, totally unprepared for the thought of theatre. He had some stuff to do you know!
Before I had started to fill in the necessary paper work, the first friends began arriving at the hospital. How did they get here so fast, I wondered. At the sight of a familiar face, I burst into tears.

The day started to tilt sideways. All the unspoken plans and routines, slowly slid off the once level platform. We never know, what a day will bring, we never know how fragile and precious a life is, and we don't realise how quickly everything can change.

Werner made it through theatre, where they unblocked an artery. The blockage had been there a long time, but that, together with stress and other factors - precipitated a heart attack. We never quite realised it, although in retrospect - the doctor had hinted at it. We thought  he had angina - which is simply a pain, but not an actual heart attack. Only when the Dr came straight out on Monday and said the words, did we realise exactly what had been happening.

Werner went from theatre to ICU. There he landed by some ironic coincidence, next to a man who had seemingly lost it. The patient's plaintive cries of : Nurse, let me go, you're drowning me. Sister, why am I here, let me go... - continued for about 6 hours, despite the nurses best efforts to sedate the distraught man. Eventually they put sedatives in Werner's drip to calm him down. It was essential to keep Werner calm, in the face of his heart problems.

I really never want to buy this post card again. This one was enough experience to last me a life time.
Once Werner came home on Monday afternoon, we looked at each other with new eyes and thankful hearts: we had had yet another 2nd chance. His every smile, his every action - precious beyond words.

It is going to take a while, to adjust our thinking. It is going to take me a while to stop flapping around him, to stop listening to his breathing at night, to stop wondering if he is still sleeping when he has gone for a 4 hour nap, or if he has stopped breathing and I should have gone in to check on him...
But - it is a small price to pay, for a 2nd chance, and if that is the price - I will gladly pay it.

If ever we wondered, what our friends and support structure were worth - we found out that we had more than we could ever have thought possible. We got love, prayers, meals, lifts, smses... we were completely overwhelmed.
So, all in all, we have as always - more blessing than we can count.
Thank you dear family, thank you dear friends.

Wedding pics

Wedding day - second time round

Wedding days ... are way better 2nd time round. You are more chilled about them!
I knew I wanted it to be different, I didn't want a traditional dress, a traditional look, or traditional music.

So it was none of that...and so much more.

We decided to let all the children be bridesmaids, and page boys - or in fact - whatever title they would have liked to be called. Next, we let them choose their own wedding garb. That was huge fun. We told each of the girls - "choose whatever makes you feel like a princess- we don't care what colour that needs to be". Colour co-ordination was also off the charts. In fact - esthetically - everything clashed horribly - and was absolutely beautiful.

Ashlyn choose purple, Carissa had pink, Marinda was in a shimmery  brown, Marielle and Nicole had purple and black and I had a burnt orange outfit. It was all good. The huge smiles we got when we bought the stuff, and their smiles on the day... proved us right . I think people faff too much with weddings.

Next, we got an unconventional minister. We found him by chance. He preached on a wedding video, taken by Werner's friend. We heard the sermon, and it touched a deep chord within us. Only later would we discover why. This minister - Jaco, does weddings by trade. Now before you think that this is unromantic (as I did), think again. I half frowned at his web site, and my  heart sank - I did not want to be married by some chap doing it as a living, who just rattles the sermons off one after the other. But on closer inspection, I discovered some gold, as one so often does if you stand still to look. This man, had been through his own trials and tribulations in life, he too had been through the pain of divorce - and he spoke my and Werner's "new" language. THAT was the chord he touched within.

We discovered that he was a careful planner, that each wedding is seriously taken, each sermon, carefully considered. He brought an element into the service that we would not have achieved with anyone else. He brought his experience of other weddings, where other people had started over, and included their children into the service. He melted together the best of the other sermons, in a way joining us up with others, brave enough to try again.

Now a venue (unconventional - of course). Well, the garden is real pretty, especially at that time of the year....we would just need good weather. It had the benefit of not costing us a cent.

Add a whole host of friends, willing to help, and the stage was set.

A last planning detail worth a mention was my friend Janine who makes wedding cakes for a living. "Can you take a joke", she asked. "Sure", we told her. We were in for a surprise!

The week before the wedding, we were once again packing up Werner's stuff, and moving it, this time for the final time.

The 6th of September dawned clear and bright. The weekends before, all had miserable weather. But on our wedding day, the sun shone brightly.

Looking out the window, I smiled at the sight of rows of chairs on the grass. How many people can say they got married in their garden?

My darling friend Lynette did the catering with her daughter who had just qualified as chef. Janine's wedding cake arrived - joke and all: 5 little icing children falling all over the cake, and tumbling out out of nooks and crannies! I even had Carina, at my side, all the way from Cape Town. I realised afterwards , she was my unofficial matron of honor - but we weren't doing "that stuff"!

We enjoyed the day so very much. There was no stress to it. When I realized I had ordered flowers for everyone but not myself – I simply shrugged, laughed and took Werner’s hand instead. During the ceremony, Eric got bored, wondered off, fell down on the grass and proceeded to play with the insects he found there.

The whole day was simple and sweet and full of goodness.  Our most precious loved ones were there to share our day... those same people who had seen us through so many hours of grief and tears, were now part of the joy.

My days and months since then, have truly been blessed and full of sunshine. I have never known such happiness and peace.

I will publish some wedding photos...tomorrow - SARS permitting of course!

Thieves (present)

So... if you think the world is flat and I Fell off the other end of it.... you are probably right. That flat world is my work - and the end of it is SARS. O I do love to hate SARS. They provide employment for me, but Filing season is just too dreadful for words.
So - the deep ,deep pit I have fallen in to,  is called FILING SEASON.

All my creativity and time and energy have fallen in to that endless pit.

Apparently - that pit will end sometime - they tell me this weekend.

But hey - when our programs go live - we suddenly have millions of users to find the bugs that all the cute testers did not!

On to other subjects. My friend at work was smash and grabbed on her way home - after working a late shift at work. (I knew working late was bad for your health). They hit out her window, which had anti-smash and grab on it. Apparently very little effort to get through that stuff. Those folks at the window places tell you that they will need to hit your window 4 times at least to get through the glaze on the windows...well they are wrong. So - if you thought that stuff kept you safe...then you are definitely NOT right.

Keep all your possessions in the boot of your car. They may still smash and grab you - but there will be nothing to take. Rehearse through your mind how you will react in certain situations, and train your mind to think of alternatives. My friend saw this coming, and was aware throughout the ordeal. She actually stopped far back when she saw them running between the cars, and she tried to keep her car moving. The red robot eventually caught her - and she could not go through the light due to oncoming traffic. She might have been able to go through the yield road in the opposite direction, but she was just not thinking that fast.

That is why I say - try to think through situations to help you react fast if it should be necessary. Isn't it so sad, that we have to think and behave in this way.

Your thoughts about overtime please? What do you do when pressured to work extra, and everyone else does it? It really looks bad if you are the only one saying "no". Now I am saying "no" in my heart, but yes with my actions...eish.

Writing down my stories, often puts such perspective into things. I was thinking about a title for this post and it suddenly hit me like a bolt out of the blue. The theme of both my stories has a common thread. The only difference is the one's action had violence in it, the other has coercion. Both have the element of something stolen.

Getting to know one another (present)

Starting over with someone new, means that you need to get to know that person (all over again ).  You love the person - but it takes time to build a level of understanding and confidence - just like starting a new job and learning everything from scratch.

So last week, Werner and I achieved a milestone of sorts, and it almost slipped me by... but for the fact that it made me smile.

Werner loves disks... LOVES what is ON them - should I say. It doesn't matter if they contain movies, music, photos - if you have it on a disk - he loves it. On top of it being a huge passion - it is the quality of the stuff that concerns him. If it is sound, then it must be clear, balanced  (and I don't know what all else), if it is a movie - it must display just right. You can't have "viviting", jagged lines, must have good black levels.... and above ALL - no "motion blur". Huh - I hear you ask. Don't fear - before last week - I had never heard the expression before either.

We have had a gorgeous big screen job that seemed just fine to me. Hubby dear, went to buy himself a blu- ray disk. With great excitement, brought it home and zapped it up on that screen.
The whole world came to a SCREETCHING halt. This HD "Ready" screen - could not cope with the blu-ray disc - so HD "Ready" - cleary doesn't mean it is "ready". The images showed "motion blur":  when the movement on screen was too fast for the refresh rate of the screen ( Um - I think that is the reason!)

Well, he phaffed this way and that way - putting in new cables, changing settings - all to get rid of the "motion blur". Then there was the day where he disappeared from skype for a few hours. (He and I chat on skype during the day.)

When he came back I asked him - "so - do we have a new TV?" I could just "hear" the laughter coming down the computer line. "Noooo".... he said... he just went to look, but how did I know?
Yes well, I wasn't born yesterday you know. I just have this funny feeling that the "HD ready" is somehow not good enough any more.

As though to prove that he too has an uncanny ability to read me, he was watching (self same blu-ray disc) a few nights later. I was making supper, and he was left pretty much to his own devices. He must have felt a bit lonely, because before long I heard a tune I love.
Peering round the corner, I hoped to catch a peek of the show. There sat Werner, huge smile on his face, like a cat that got cream:  "I knew that would get you to come over."

As for the TV... well, anyone want to buy a HD ready plasma screen? It looks just fine to me...but has this thing called "motion blur" - which is apparently "not cool" when you love everything disky.

The scary scarecrow (present)

We have a wonderful gardener. He stayed with me, after the Prof left - lucky me. I think the Prof asked him to work for him too, but at the time Owen didn't have extra days open, and chose to stay with me instead.

He was a saving grace in this big, daunting world of taking care of the property and garden by myself. I have never needed to tell Owen what to do, he just gets on with it. When I arrive home, the whole garden has been taken care of. How he manages to do it all in one day a week, I can't understand.

He started a veggie garden for me too. His enthusiasm is infectious. I have an understanding with him now; he takes veggies as he wants for himself, leaving more than enough for us. He asks for seeds, and when I see again - we are eating fresh veggies. This year - has been a bit harder. With all the rain - we had "crop failure".

Not daunted, Owen has continued to plant into the autumn. He started up some spinach, and to his disgust, the birds began eating it. His first attempts at solving the problem, was to put up some net. This only had the effect of giving the birds some nice shade to chow in.

His next attempt had us in stitches. When we got home one evening, we found a new character had been added to the plot! Yep  - he constructed a scarecrow. Where on earth did he find all the "parts" needed for this?

Our mirth at the new resident, only increased when the birds, quite happily carried on their destructive ways, right under SCARDY's feet.

We sort of forgot about Scardy, and the weekend arrived. It was a "kiddies" weekend. Carissa and Eric grabbed their bikes from the shed, peddled up and down the driveway for a bit, and then, unsuspectingly drove round the side of the house to the back yard.
It took but a moment before there were 2 screaming children coming like banshees through the door.
"Daaaaaaaaaaaddddddddyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.......there is a SPOOK in the garden - there is a monster there..."

Ummmm - it took us quite some time to recover from laughing. We introduced them to Scardy, and he has since been given facial features by the children. They stuck some sticks into him for hair, and had some fun.

So - Owen's scarecrow doesn't do much in the way of scaring birds, but works real good on scaring kids!

And Owen? Well, he has decided that if he can't scare the birds away - perhaps he can "outplant" them. My veggie garden is now completely planted up with spinach. In his heavy accent, he says to me: let's see if the birds can eat up ALL that spinach.