Status Update

We have landed running this year - there's been no time to blog, no time to note the events on paper or online as they slam into us and rush on by.  But yes - I'm still alive.  Here's a post as proof.

We have a new addition to the home - an espresso machine.  It was recycled into a load of e-waste but is still in perfect working condition, so in the spirit of Reduce Re-Use Recycle - we're re-using! :-)  It's an older model, and has taken a day or two to get the hang of things, but we're managing to churn out lekker cappuccinos to fill that craving for decent coffee on a daily basis.  In fact, I have just managed to make the perfect cup for my breakfast.  Barrista is in the house!

And business is running.  Literally running.  Although we had no real break over the festive season, when doors "officially" opened on 3 January, we did more business in the first week than we had in the entire month of December.  And it simply hasn't let up.  There's no such thing as a weekend.  There's barely something that looks like sleep.  We have some really big projects on the go, as well as new clients signing up daily - all of which require both delicate technical work and take-a-drill-to-the-wall labour.  I've put up a considerable number of antennas this year, climbed towers small and tall, crawled around in interesting ceilings and been the Voice On The Phone for our clients.  In between all that I've built a computer or forty, handled many loads of e-waste, driven long hours and hundreds of kms in Olivia the Landy, and still fitted in the most basic of household duties.  There's a lot more I'd like to do on the home front, but most nights I'm lucky if I get supper served before 9pm!  We've gone too many days without a decent lunch, often had too little water to drink while out on site, and the groceries are a mad dash around the shops before they close or between jobs.  It's not ideal - but it's what it is.  While I'm coping with that lot, the boys also have their challenges.  As I type this (at 7am) they're on a mountain and half way through one of the day's big jobs on a high site.  We're in the process of moving to a vastly improved internet connection for our clients - which means the occasional equipment upgrade or tweak.  Tweaking and upgrading is currently in progress :-)  Unfortunately it comes with the associated really early morning, which one boy bitterly complained about and the other took with an overwhelming desire to rather be back in bed.  Eish, the things we do to keep our customers happy.  I'm not sure any of them realize the effort required in ensuring when they press "play" on the internet, it not only does something, but does it extremely well.

Back to the home front.  Didi the dog is no longer a puppy.  Born in November 1997, he's rapidly heading to elderly status.  And in recent months he's almost shuffled off this mortal coil.  He came down with a cough that got worse - and then when we aquired Codiene-based cough mixture for it, he became addicted to the stuff!  He'd stand around coughing just to get dosed.  And when we didn't comply, he then started coughing for attention.  All this fake-coughing actually made him pretty ill and there was one particular night where I was already planning where I'd bury him...  However, rumours of his death were apparently greatly exaggerated - and for the past week he's actually been bouncing around like a puppy.  I partially blame the full moon.  He sleeps all day, and when the cool of the evening plus the moon make their appearance, he's off.  Running around, wagging what's left of his docked tail (unfortunately we got him like that), "sharking" in the kitchen for offcuts, head-butting legs for scratches and generally being a maniac.  He's not done yet.

Also on the home front, now that we're in a house that actually has a bit of real soil in the yard (instead of everything being bricked up front and back), I thought I'd try my hand at a some food production.  After I'd ripped out the ridiculous inappropriate "ground cover" the owners had hurridly planted between the pavers out back before advertising the place of course - which was a succulent that took over the yard.   I replaced that with proper ground cover, some low-growing thyme and a row of chammomile against the wall - then threw bean seeds into a sunny location, couple of spinach seeds elsewhere and sat back to see what would happen.  The garden has a spray-irrigation system which my herbs in pots were loving - and pretty soon the rest of the stuff started to grow.  Including a gigantic tomato plant in the middle of the arums thanks to my usual practice of composting veggie offcuts by throwing them into the garden.  It's called "random gardening" and where I lived a couple of years ago I used to harvest all sorts of interesting things that came up in the ferns :-)  The theory of random gardening is that companion plants will grow well together, things that like the particular location will also grow well - and everything else will serve as nutrient fodder.  Well, the beans came up, the spinach did too - and the caterpillars arrived to eat the spinach and chammomile.  They got posted over the wall to the greater outdoors, never to return.  But once I got them under control the snails moved in.  Fought them off too.  And then, a week or so ago, when we were sweltering in 48 degree heat, I went out to slave away - and for 3 days didn't water the garden.  Upon which the red spider mites went "YAY!" and moved in to the tomato plant...  I think I may have subdued them but they've left a sorry looking plant behind.  I have no idea if it will recover.  And in those three days of no water, the beans shrivelled up and croaked.  We at least got one good meal out of the 8 plants though - and what came off the bush straight into the pot was a whole lot tastier than the make-up-the-volume store-bought beans added at the same time.  As for the spinach - one plant grew in the sun, the rest were planted in too much shade it seems.  They never really made it past infancy before the snails took them out permanently.

Then there's all the small stuff that happens day-to-day that I'd love to blog about, simply to have a record of it as my now-40-year-old-brain slows down :-)  Things like Favourite Man's foray into the world of Apple with an iPhone.  My son's immediate future plans - and an adventure coming up he as yet knows nothing about.  Thoughts on my grandfather's farm (sorry Favourite Man - "plot"), which has been on my mind a lot recently.  Adventures and discoveries, challenges and discouragements.

But life marches on, and time to blog is at a minimum.  In fact, it's time now to get going with the rest of the day's tasks.

Friday.  Apparently.

Much like 39

Last week I made the mistake of watching "What Not To Wear" over breakfast - the mistake being that they were doing over a 40 year old chick who owns her own business.  As I have a mere 2 days left of 39 and also own a business or two, that piqued my interest, so I settled in.

And the chick came out the other end stunning.

Which is something all us chicks secretly aspire to, whether we say so or not.

This week I went shopping for a little black dress.  Favourite Man has something special planned for my birthday which requires dressing up and going out on the town - two things we don't do very often, so much so that I actually haven't owned a dress or a skirt in 3 years or more.  I found my dress, but also realized that unless you have the WNTW team paying for your shopping spree, any physical upgrade doesn't come cheap.  It took me a day or two to get up the courage to pay for said LBD, although in the grand scheme of things it probably wasn't the most expensive item on the rack.  I then went shopping for appropriate heels and stuff - but simply couldn't get up the courage to pay for anything more that day, knowing that there are still practical things like groceries, fuel and business expenses to cover, as well as Xmas looming large.

Which brings me to a couple of dilemmas when it comes to my desire to be better at 40.

Firstly there's the whole ageing thing.  Changing room mirrors love to tell you how badly things are bumping, lumping, drooping or sagging - and my shopping expedition has shown me just how old I'm getting. 



Next there's cash.  If I'm ever to upgrade how I look it's going to cost me.  A lot.  And I'm not the type to throw money at frivolities if there's better places to invest it, with longer-term rewards (such as keeping us alive or growing the business).  As a quick indication of some basics:

• Underwear starts at over R100 for a basic bra and around the same for decent panties.  Head into WonderBra territory and we're hitting around R300.  For one item.
• Want a shirt?  Fork over R150+, even at the cheap shop.  Plain t-shirt?  Around R60 if you want something that won't wear out in a month.  And if you're investing in clothes, they really shouldn't wear out in a month, so you can't shop at the cheap shop.
• Jeans - unless you buy them at Pick 'n Pay (which I do, because they fit well and are comfortable and cost R110), you can expect upward of R300 at Woolies.
• Other pants - eish.  (Yet I hear jeans are not the thing for a 40 year old to be wearing, nor t-shirts so other pants must eventually be considered)
• Jackets, jerseys etc - eish again.  If you can find decent quality ones, you'll pay for them through the nose.
• Shoes.  Hmmm.. I must be one of the few women who don't have a shoe fetish, mostly because I baulk at paying over R200 for anything and tend to live in a single pair of takkies from the Chinese shop.  However, I do need shoes - and I have size 8 feet, which aren't easy to shop for.  When you do find something that fits, it's another few hundred bucks.  Get it in lasting leather, pay a whole lot more.

So now we're up to a grand or so for the basic pieces of cloth and plastic/leather.

Then there's the face.  I stopped in at Edgars to enquire about foundation, another thing I haven't had a drop of in years.  Found the right colour at the Clinique counter - the bill is R320.  "I'll be back" I say and exit rather quickly.  Head down to Clicks for the cheaper options like Revlon, but now I need "age defying" stuff because I'm not 20 anymore - another few hundred bucks, if you can find the right colour actually in stock, and someone willing to help confirm your choice.  For the rest of the things we plaster on, I can get by with cheap mascara from Rialo (R35), blusher from the same (R30), and lipgloss too (R25) - plus an assortment of eyeshadows and other things that have lasted me for years because they don't see much action.  As for moisturizer, it appears they're draining baby softness directly from babies to put in the bottles, and then flogging them on at an appropriate cost.  I don't even dare ask what those little vials of top beauty house liquid cost, as I'd prefer not to "fall flou" in the mall.

On to hair.  Mine is waist length mostly because I haven't had the time to see a hairdresser in ages.  Today it's time to find one, and hopefully get a decent cut out of it that will last a while - especially at the R200+ price tag.  Colour?  Hell no, out of my salary bracket.  Best I can do is perhaps a home kit that doesn't cost the earth - but that unfortunately also doesn't look too professional.  So my "highlights" are the grey streaks slowly taking over :-)  And the style?  Plaited.  Out of the way of drills, network cable and e-waste.  Would I like to have a sweep of silken glamour, artfully arranged?  Of course.  Who wouldn't.  And I hope to aspire to it one day, just not today.

Hair in other places?  Well some go for salon waxing and zapping with lasers - it lasts, but you do pay for the privalege.  Brow shaping, tweaking and dying/bleaching, same thing.  You must maar do what you can with a razor, a box of Mandys wax strips and a tube of Refatocil dye.  Which takes time and can hurt like the blazes.

Of course all this is a bit of a moot point.  As lovely as it would be to swan around in kitten heels, luxurious fabrics and actually look like a perfectly groomed small business owner, there's reality to think of.  Yes, I own the business, but I don't just meet & greet and sit in an office chair.  I'm required to climb into and onto client's roofs, pick up and transport excessively dirty and old electronics, and do all this driving a leaking 35 year old Land Rover that it would be best to be prepared to dive under at a moment's notice should something break.  Just this morning I was under it topping up the transfer box oil. 

Can you see me doing that in heels and business attire?  No, me neither.  Even something as simple as a coat of nailpolish goes terribly wrong a few hours later when I'm required to clean an item with acetone.  On any given day, I can go from admin to rooftops in one foul swoop - and have found that if I do make considerable effort to look good in the morning, those are the days I'll be required to do the dirtiest work.

I've come to the horrifying conclusion that, good intentions notwithstanding, 40 is unfortunately going to look much like 39 - except that now I have a pretty little black dress in my cupboard.

A House and A Home

I do not own a house - I have rented my entire adult life, as have my parents.  Being an on-the-move pastor family meant never settling down in one place long enough to invest in a piece of earth of our own, financial limitations notwithstanding.  My grandfather has a farm that could be considered "family property", but that's the closest I've come to having a place our family could say was permanent home.

However, one of these days I may well own a house, and browsing through what's out there has had me thinking long and hard about what I consider merely a house, and what I would consider a home.

I'm a bit of a Grand Designs addict - but I've started losing interest in the Australian version, as everyone is simply plonking down a big square block of walls and roof, and decorating it in the accepted current way.  With very few exceptions.

In fact, any "mansion" built today will likely be squared off and modern-looking - most smaller houses too, for that matter.  And yes, some of them are lovely - but in general they all look the same.


My son and I were commenting on this while driving through an upmarket vineyard estate recently.  There are obvious guidelines as to what your house needs to look like when built and painted, to maintain conformity and a certain "look and feel" in the complex.  But the strange thing is, any "customization" done by the residents is exactly the same as the bloke next door or down the road.  You'll see house after house with the same big square planter pots, the same square outdoor wicker type furniture (we watched new residents carting it indoors), the same furniture inside - sharp edges and dark wood generally speaking, the same stonework patterns, the same type of garden layout and plant choices.  Perhaps it's merely that it's a certain kind of person who is attracted to the place, and they all decorate the same.  Like begets like and all that.

And perhaps the modern day dwelling is seen along the same lines.  You build something that says "I've made it", you'll aspire to the Joneses' architects' standard of strong sharp edges, vast swathes of glass, infinity pool and imported tiles.

And clean lines are good, neat, tidy... but are they me?  Not necessarily.  They don't look like "home".

I'd much prefer to take on an older, solidly-built house with strong rafters and a good space in the ceiling (simply because I've had to crawl through so many dodgy modern ones, I know what the builders like to hide behind paint and plaster, and how some newer roofs stifle the rest of the house in summer heat or freeze it in winter cold...).  One that has history and character and comfort - not one that's been Tuscanized to death with some bloke's dodgy renovations.  And yes perhaps I'll knock down walls and open up window spaces to let in the light I love so much.  Perhaps I'll build on and build up and rip apart and redo.  I know for a fact the garden would get a ruthless green-thumb sort-out with edible landscaping in abundance, greenery all over the place.  And I'd go for the tactile, the homey but well-organized and open feel over clinical echoing emptiness.


But if it came to building from scratch, I have a plan - and have had one for years.   There's an image in the head that just says home - that contains all the elements I already love, and all the elements I would love to have.  If I could upload my thoughts to YouTube you'd be able to walk through it in detail, from the individual personalized private spaces on one side (for those who love sun as well as for those who get geeky in the half-dark), comfortable living in the centre that caters to all our big and small needs, right down to the way the kitchen floor looks, the tree-lined path, gravel drive, kitchen garden and twin workshops out the back.

Unless you throw me out into the middle of nowhere, where this will probably apply :-)

Scratching around weeding my square foot or so of arable land in the back yard over lunchtime, trying to figure out where I'm going to put the food plants between the pavers, the stone and all the ridiculous landlord-installed randomly-planted ornamentals I'm not allowed to remove, dreams of the home I want both now and in the future are loud and clear.

I guess that's what happens when I'm not out rushing around from task to task, too busy to think! :-)

All our stuff

It's the 1st of October - and on the first of any given month the roads are strewn with vehicles hauling furniture to new homes as people shift here and there.  I passed a couple of cars  with trailers piled high, every belonging imaginable on, in and around the vehicle.  Probably only one of many trips.

Having recently done the whole move thing myself, I got to wondering (as one does when driving a slow vehicle through Saturday morning "rush" traffic).

Just how much stuff do we actually need?

Way back when we were all nomads, before we grew crops and built houses, what was needed to "live" might have been merely what you could carry or strap to a pack-beast.  Something to cook in, something to kill with, something to sleep on.  You wore your only clothing.

And then someone got the bright idea that a pillow would be nice.  And perhaps sitting on the ground was not cool - another pillow would do there too.  So add two pillows to the pack-beast.  But the pillow got dirty, so add a stool to put it on - and at the same time elevate yourself above the rest of your fire-side-mates.

Then the wife said she'd like to make more than a one-pot meal - so you got her another pot.  And then added airs and graces, and a couple of bowls to eat the meal out of.  Then everyone wanted their own food-knife, so those were added to the pack-beast.  Which in turn started to collapse under the load - so you got a second pack-beast.

This opened up the opportunity for carrying a lot more stuff, and pretty soon you decided grass wasn't good enough to sleep on - a people-size pillow would be nice.  Queue more pack-beast load.

Eventually you had so much stuff you needed to start leaving some of it somewhere.  And having  a cave to store it in meant you could accumulate more stuff.  But once someone else decided to help themselves to your stuff while you were out hunting, you then went and built a house that could lock up so no-one could steal your stuff.  And then filled every room....

Which is why when we moved out of a two-bedroom house with no garage into a three-bedroom house with a garage, we had to hire a 6x3m storage unit to house all our extra stuff that wouldn't fit in here! :-)

What is it about us humans that make us want to accumulate things?  Surround ourselves with objects that gather dust, get tripped over, break and have to be replaced - but which, we've decided, make life worth "living"?

And what would happen if we stripped all that away, sat down and sorted through everything - and only kept the things we actually needed to survive?

Doubt we ever will - it's a slippery slope, this stuff-accumulation.

But fun nonetheless to ponder on a day that sees much moving in and out across the land.

Success

How do you define success?

It's something I've been thinking about for a long time, brought to the fore again when a friend commented that it felt like his career had ground to a halt before he'd hit 40.

At the end of this year I'll be 40 too - and looking at where I am now, would I say I've made a success of life?

In general-society terms perhaps I'm a failure.  I don't own my own home, I haven't steadily traipsed up the corporate ladder to an upper rung, I'm not on the school board, I don't have my name on a charitable plaque somewhere, I don't have 2.4 children and a 20 year marriage, and I don't have a couple million in investments. 

I have often felt like a failure, trying to measure up to all these things and coming up really short. 

The facts are I drive a beat-up old Land Rover, I rent a 2 and a bit bedroom house, I spent most of my adult life as a single mom, I work like a dog for the two companies I own - in jeans and takkies every day, busy building them up, and pizza on a Friday night is still considered a luxury.  I can't afford to fly overseas for a holiday (what holidays?), I don't sport an expensive haircut or designer shoes.  And I still feel like a 20 year old trying to find her feet in the world most days.

So am I successful?  To all outward appearance, not.  I don't have the trappings of success - aah, there's a nice word, "trappings".  Doesn't it just inspire a feeling of freedom?  Not.. :-)

But contrary to what society dictates, I think I may just be a success.

Why?

Well in spite of a multitude of challenges, we haven't starved yet.  The rent is paid on time.  The Land Rover is paid off.  The two businesses have their good months and their bad months, but are on the up - and hey, I OWN them!  My son has managed to reach 18 without too many incidents and I have every confidence he'll turn out OK.  I have the love of my life with me day and night - pure bliss.  And every single day I wake up knowing that, come what may, I have what it takes to get out the other side happy, confident in my abilities, and knowing I've done my best, given my all, to the tasks that face me.

What is success?  In my books it's living a life you love, morning to night, relishing each new opportunity and facing challenges with enthusiasm, adjusting your trajectory as needed to go where you want to go, and knowing you have the means to get there.  It's coming one step closer to your goals each day - even if your goals look different from what the rest of the world thinks they should look like. 

And you know what?  I'm there, I'm successful.

Summertime

Officially, as of tomorrow, there will be one month left of winter down here at the bottom of Africa.

Officially....

Yet I doubt we'll see Spring springing up with any eagerness this year.  We've had little rain, only a light dusting of snow on the mountains, and more days of still sunshine than storm.  Good for the work we need to do, not so good for the water levels come summer.  The worst winter weather is likely still on its way.  The windows still mist up with sleep-breath at night, and as soon as the sun dips it gets very very cold.  Unfortunately we're also living in a house that needs a bit of attention when it comes to damp-proofing, with a large expanse of cold cement floor in the living area and high ceilings that cause any heat to disappear very quickly.

I'm a summer chick.  I don't do well in extended cold periods.  Where everyone else is throwing off their jerseys, I'm adding layers.  The most unsexy (yet warm) clothing appears at bedtime, and I crave every ray of weak sunlight I can get.

A recent spot of good weather saw me setting up office outside for the morning:

I suspect that table will see more of me and my laptop as the year progresses... :-)

At the same time I'm craving summer food.  It's all good and well to braai in the corner pictured above, while semi-protected from winter rain - but it's MUCH better to not only braai while summer's hanging around, but also braai the tastes of summer.  I had the unfortunate experience of watching the Food channel at lunchtime while eating leftovers, and with the northern half of the planet out on their decks with the barbie fired up, it leaves those of us in mid-winter feeling a bit left out.  Summer-ripe tomatoes, fresh green herbs, gigantic bursting-with-taste peppers, and flavoursome meaty stuff for my favourite carnivore... eish.

But you know me (well, some of you do!).  My brain doesn't like to sit still - and here I am, mid-stride in winter, contemplating summer.

Specifically, what I can achieve with my little back yard, and how soon I can start.  I've been wanting to try those hanging tomato plant things for years - this year I have somewhere to hang them.  I have a very hot sunny corner that the herbs will love, and a self-watering misting system all round to keep them happy.  There's a bar counter that would do well for an edible potplant or two against the wall, and the cool, damp corner for things that like that kind of environment.

My landlords have landscaped the "garden" (ie non-paved section) with a variety of ferns, arums and such, but there's still room to bring in the tastes of summer, and have a spot of "let's pick supper" going on.

And this year we have a marvellous entertainment / summer eating spot available in our new home.  A place to sit, a place to make a fire and cook stuff, and a place to simply hang out and work in.  All this protected from the usual raging south-easter wind.  I'm looking forward to making full use of it.

Bring on summer, I say.  Meantime I'm getting ready to meet it head-on.

Wasted Education?

Been pondering the whole education thing lately.

I spent 12 long years in school - as did most of you.  Then on to the Cape Technikon to complete 3 years of a Food Technology Diploma.  I was lucky to land a job as a cheese & butter maker right out of tech, which lasted 2 years until the factory was shut down to save costs on the farm. 

Equally lucky to be offered a job by my godfather in a completely unrelated field, for which I had no official training, as his secretary and assistant admissions chick at a private college.  I spent the next 11 years working there, mid-way ditching the "secretary" part of things (I was a particularly bad secretary :-) ) and becoming a full-fledged Admissions Officer.  I had to play catch-up along the way, teaching myself to type at speed, to use the various computer programmes, and eventually to design web sites.  The college website was among my first.  I added in design of the informational yearbooks to that - and then managed to put a certificate to the skills with an Intec diploma in web design and a few other bits and bobs of paperwork.

But after 11 years it was time to move on.  Thanks to the good graces of an online friend, I was offered a position as Technical Writer for a tracking device / management organization.  Again, a learning curve, with new software, processes and procedures as well as products to discover.

And during my work there, quite by accident, I fell into the e-waste business.  What started out as seeing a pile of electronics slated for the bins and offering to find a way to dispose of it, gathered momentum - I finally found a use for the domain name I'd registered many many years ago, formed a concept around the business, and it grew!  At the same time, Favourite Man was putting his skills and considerable knowledge together building a second business with my name on it - wireless internet provision, with a bit of web design on the side.

Both of those again steep learning curves, but strangely based on everything I had learnt and done in the past - from food production to administration to technical stuff.

Now you may look at my "career trajectory" and think it horribly random.  50 years ago this would have been called less a career and more an aimless wandering!  Back then you did one thing until you retired.

You may also think I've wasted the education my parents invested so much time and cash in.  That National Diploma in Food Technology is not being used at all!

But you'd be wrong.

You see, I see education like this:

It's an ongoing process.  You don't have to study something for a few years and then spend the rest of your life perfecting it (unless that's truly your mission in life).  Everything you do, day to day, is an education.  Whether it's figuring out how a coffee machine works, sorting a dripping tap, putting up an antenna on a roof, figuring out code on a screen, or merely driving a car - it's all education from point A to point B.

Which leads me to a quick mention of my son.

He's been out of official schooling for 3 1/2  years now.  Initially I had hoped to get him to write his GCSEs via an overseas instition, correspondence-based.  But that didn't happen (too many factors to discuss here).  Instead he's been dragged out into the big world with Favourite Man and myself.  He's learnt how to terminate a network cable and put an antenna up.  He's learnt how to navigate around Cape Town using the map book, and how computers and other electronics come apart.  He's taken some of those bits and built his own computer.  He's then taken that computer and figured out how to get at least one game running optimally with mods on it - and believe me, that's taken a few months!  He's dealt with clients, he's answered phones.  He's learnt that if you don't work, you don't make the money you need to eat (though that lesson still needs a few more hammerings into the head and less sleepings-in :-) ).  He's now learning to drive.

Does he have a paper-in-hand-butt-on-bench education?  No.  Has he learnt more about the world out there than many of his classmates have from their desks?  Quite likely.  Does he still have a long way to go?  Yup :-)

So here's the summary of my thoughts on education.  You can never have too many skills.  You can never know too much.  If you keep delving into stuff you don't know and stuff you haven't been able to do, until you can do it and know it - that's education.  It may not have a piece of paper attached, it may not be "formal".  But that's what I'm pushing for myself, for my son.

And in this day and age, that is worth a whole lot.