Veggie cart

I mentioned in this post that another project was in the pipeline regarding my wee carrot seeds. So I took on this nasty old rusted braai resting just outside our flat, making us look less like people have employment and more like characters from 'Raising Hope'.

After a couple months as newlyweds, J brought this red braai home from one of his business trips. See in our culture we love to braai. We love to build a coal/wood fire in it and sizzle the life out of steaks/chops/chicken/potatoes/corn on the cob. Many a weekend you would have found us braaiing on the deck of our previous flat, chatting and enjoying the cool breeze of the evening. Fast forward 3 years and this poor sucker has been used till it developed an ever-growing hole. And so there it sat...Until I had the genius idea to transform it into a veggie cart.

So after taking off the braai bits and bobs and had a good chuck out of all that rubbish perched on top of it, our friend Mark from the best hardware store in town, Vincent Hardware, gave us a free piece of wood (which he even cut to size! Talk about good service and charity!) to stick on top of it as the shelf. I then simply bought another planter and a bucket to finish off my lil 'garden'. There aren't too many veggies to plant in winter time, so these will have to do until the spring.

And that's all there is to it. Next time you want to have a chuck out, think about what you could recycle into something functional. Eish that's the mentality of the characters from 'Raising Hope' eh....

Mthatha

Check it! Yesterday we travelled together on stake business all the way to dear old Mthatha (aka the cash generator). It usually takes about two hours to arrive there, however, due to the constant road works it takes about 2.5 hours. So we woke up at the crack of dawn, packed our bags, a light lunch, picked up two other sisters (one of which is J's mom) and made the journey. On the way we listened to recent General Conference talks, chatted about various topics, made a pit stop for someone to puke on the side of the road, dodged the abundance of pot holes and the Transkei big 5 (dogs, goats, cows, sheep, pedestrians), stop to hurl out a super long, hair, dangerous looking centipede chilling near J's leg, and made it to church with literally 5 minutes to spare. Whew!

The people of Mthatha Branch are amazing! They are humble, diligent, hard workers. They fulfill their callings with zeal. They listen to and apply the counsel they receive from their leaders. They make us feel like we are part of them. And that, dear readers, is a wonderful feeling. The Church is currently renting the little building located next to a shabeen...not the most convenient of locations. They have to fight the constant noise of loud kwaito music and drunken souls speaking that the top of their lungs. And yet somehow they always manage to give beautiful lessons where the spirit presides.

After a few meetings we climbed back into the car to make the long journey back home. Sure we feel positively exhausted by the end of the day, with little to no energy to do any thing but crawl into the the warm covers on our  bed, but inside we feel pure joy and gratitude to travel around the stake, meet new people and hopefully help them in their service to the Lord.

Seeds

Last weekend. Sigh. It was brilliant! We fed ourselves with spiritual and physical seeds of sorts.

Finally it was Africa's turn to watch our Church's annual General Conference where we heard from our prophet, President Thomas Spencer Monson, his counselors, the twelve Apostles and other General Authorities. They gave us counsel on how to improve ourselves to become more like our Saviour and what to do to prepare for His second coming. We love that as conference approaches we specifically pray for certain counsel and every.single.time our prayers are answered.

Last week during one of our stake meetings, our stake president reiterated the need for self reliance and making sure we are contributing weekly to our personal food storage. I have felt for the past few months to put more effort into it as petrol went up a couple weeks ago. That affects everything. So like a diligent little soul I have been researching, rotating, re-organizing and stocking up on everything from earbuds to baking soda. One of my goals this year that I carried over from 2011 (clearly I'm brilliant at keeping resolutions...haha!) is to plant veggies. We don't have our own plot of soil, but we are now owners of a planter of soil with some wee carrot seeds that I whisper sweet somethings to everyday, encouraging them to grow. Weird much?

With another project in the pipeline, I am determined to grow my own food so I can stop shovelling out our dime to Checkers who rip us off. Here's to hoping it actually grows... 

Celebration of brothers S

You know the year is whizzing by when these two of our darling bro's are having a birthday again!

On this day, the 17th of April, we fondly think of these two as they are so far away (one in USA the other in P.E.) and reminisce on some of our favourite memories with them...which is a lot because they are getting old now...hahah!

If you look up characteristics of those born on the 17th of April it says says these people are accident prone, have an innate understanding of the world at large, are wise, financial security is important to them, their goals are in line with their abilities and interests, failures encourage them to try harder to succeed, are rational individuals, finicky eaters, and retain close relationships with family members. This description sums up Seth and Scott to the T!

They really are the most wonderful brothers and we consider ourselves very blessed to be in their lives. When you're around them you can't help but feel happy and thoughtful about life. They are brilliant minded souls and we love them to bits!

Brothers, we miss you and hope you are having the very best of birthdays!

A weekend of...

...relaxation to the max!

It's official, Easter weekend is my favourite! Rarely do we have the opportunity like we did this Easter to put our feet up on the couch, watch enough television to last us for the next 500 years, eat tasty food, walk the hound, and enjoy each other's company.

Our microwave officially gave up the ghost so we invested in another, we laughed until our stomachs ached over words on urbandictionary.com, watched every show we wanted to catch up on and even shows we really couldn't care less about but watched them anyway (for e.g. Everybody Hates Chris!?! man alive...), baked a peach dessert together which turned out to be divine (yes yes you were right J! haha!), ditched expensive Easter eggs for slabs of Beacon choc on sale for R5.99, ate ice-cream from Steers, L prepared a 5 min talk for church on Sunday on the life of the Saviour (yes, a 5 min talk on his entire life lol!), gave said talk, cuddled under fleece blankets, bought new lights for the driveway, taught Molly a lesson and gave the dawg a bone...

One of the best things about this Easter was that my perspective broadened somewhat about life...in the grand scheme of existence, this life is very very very very very very short. Did you get that? Its very short. Very short and incredibly significant. As I sat pondering about life and how decisions determine destiny, I thought that it is in my best interest to make the best choices that will get me to where I want to dwell for eternity with J and my Saviour and Father in Heaven. Sure I've known this all along, but this weekend it sank in a little deeper. So I encourage everyone, no matter how old (or young), if where you are in life isn't going to bring you eternal joy, do something about it. Pronto.

L's winter plan

I love the fact that E-town has great weather. Summer is boiling hot, perfect for the beach. Spring is warm, perfect to lounge around in the garden, soaking in the warm rays.

But dear E-town, what happened to autumn!?

Folks, we’ve just dived from boiling hot to MEGA COLD in the span of a week! Every year I keep telling myself to prepare for the cold. Then I convince myself that I am prepared and consequently freeze to the bone. So this year WILL be different. I am determined to face winter head on and NOT be cold. Sadly in Safrica there is no central heating system in houses or practically anywhere really. So that leaves me grasping at any bits of warmth I can find…

With that said, here’s the plan:

1) Purchase electric blanket (I refuse to sleep in that tomb of a room without one this year!)

2) Invest in some fuzzy socks

3) Become best friends with FLEECE

4) Several mugs of hot choc is a MUST

5) Wear gloves

6) Stock up on hand lotion, lip ice and eye drops

7) Do all uni and other work in bed, with the electric blanket turned on and a mug of hot choc next to the bed.

8) Use the foot machine thing…hahaha, helps my PVD and circulation.

This is one plan I definitely intend on sticking to. Come rain or hopefully plenty of shine!

Anyone else feel number than ice during winter? What do you do to stay warm?

B-U-S-Y

So this year started off with unexpected assignments and non-stop busyness! It’s the first week of April and really with all this non-stop activity going on it feels like it should be December already!

In January I was re-assigned to teach the early morning daily seminary class. This has been a truly wonderful experience to prepare lessons everyday, study the Old Testament and teach those bright eyed and bushy tailed young men and women every morning at 6:00! You'd think I'd be tired waking up at 5:00Am everyday but in all honestly I'm motivated and energized everyday when the alarm clock sounds. Obviously as a teacher I feel that I learn way more than my students do, but I sure hope they are internalizing the principles of the gospel. So far we have studied The Pearl of Great Price and Genesis - the first 11 chapters of Leviticus. We are smack bang in the middle of Easter school hols so we have a 2 week break before we dive head first in the next few books. Schools open again next Tuesday. As I'm re-reading the wonderful stories in the Bible I've developed a new found love for some of the prophets and people of old and have been touched by their demonstrations of faith. People like Abraham, Rebekah, Rachel, Sarah and Joseph inspire me to be a better person and to handle the trials I am faced with in life with similar grace.

In February I was released from my ward calling in the Young Women presidency. By February I was feeling rather exhausted with adapting to my new schedule and studying and adjusting my work schedule due to an increase in English students (any other teacher out there who also works during school hols? yikes!). So when this release came, as sad as I was to not be super involved with the Young Women anymore, I was rather relieved. And then 3 days later I was called into a meeting with a member on the Stake Presidency who extended the calling as a councilor in the Stake Young Women Pres! HAHAH! I laughed! But accepted with zeal, knowing that this is what the Lord wants me to do right now. This calling is TOTALLY me! I get to travel to various parts of the Stake 2-3 times a week. So branches and wards in our stake are 2-3 hours away from our town! Anyone who really knows me knows how much I love going to new places and meeting new people. So far I have travelled to Ilinge and Mthatha. Next on the list is the township Mdantsane! The people in those 2 branches I have been to are so humble, so willing to adapt and learn, and each person has the desire to live the gospel and draw closer to the Saviour. It is humbling. After each visit I feel dually inadequate and inspired to try harder to be more like the Lord. I'm telling you, once again I feel that this is a selfish calling in that I'll be learning more from others than they will be from me.

In between all this buzz of STUFF, I've been tackling the most difficult modules for my degree to date. Crikey! Who knew there was SO much theory about writing a story!?! It makes me wonder who REALLY had THAT much time that they felt to fill pages and pages of a book with what in all honestly is useless information. HAHA, I guess my professors don't agree. I've had assignment after assignment due, and finally, after this afternoon when just a couple hours ago I submitted my analysis of Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist for my Italian module, I am one step closer to finishing assignments for the semester. 1 more to go for Russian. Phew!

It is with great eagerness that I look forward to this upcoming long Easter weekend to sit back, relax, not analyse a text, eat good food, prepare a talk to give on Sunday, cuddle with J & M, and reflect on the Saviour's atoning sacrifice. Me thinks it shall be swell!