1. I am not a soccer fan but life after the world cup seems a tad dull.
2. Nina has been teething and sleeping so badly it is causing me to feel exhausted and is just about driving me insane.
3. Don’t forget today is Meatless Monday!
4. We are excited that Amy has been offered a place at St Cyprians Girls School from next year.
5. I have started reading my first book in about a year (since the Twilight series).
6. I had the best Pumpkin Fritters ever made, last night after dinner!
7. I have a longing to visit Turkey.
8. I am loving planning Amy’s Tinkerbell party.
9. I am bored by grocery shopping , or more accurately having to buy the same things over and over.
10. I am excited by the upcoming birth of my friend’s baby.

Apologies for being so neglectful of my blog lately, but I have not had much time to sit behind my computer. It is taking me all my time to reply to emails (sorry people!) and in all honesty while I was away in Langebaan for a week, I used what little free time I had to paint. It has been a while since I have painted, but getting back into it felt really relaxing and great. Here is a pic of my first attempt. She is called ‘sleeping angel’ and has been snapped up by our friend Lorraine. I am doing a series of paintings now all with a common theme – wings, angels, feathers, hearts and birds. Each painting has a message in it.

I had a wonderful morning teaching the first lesson of a Reiki 1 level course to two amazing women. I am always so grateful to the universe for these opportunities and what evolves from them.  Thank you also to my very special babysitters!

On this note, I think women are really amazing creatures. A friend and I were talking about the importance of regular contact and special connections with women. We need each other girls. Seriously, it helps keep us all sane. I am planning a female bonding type session soon, so watch this space.

A belated congratulations to Pioneer Woman for getting Columbia pictures to make a movie of her book, ‘Black Heels to Tractor wheels’. She is inspiration for all the mommy bloggers out there!

Another congratulations goes to our beautiful Mother City. Cape Town was voted as having the best airport in Africa. I am not sure what the criteria was (maybe a runway?) and can’t imagine outside of South Africa there was much competition,  but anyway we won! I have such fond memories of visiting the airport as a child, with my dad, brother and cousin. He would buy us a toasted cheese and we would sit and watch the planes take off and land. Now days you sadly, can’t do that of course.

It was my mom’s birthday yesterday and she spent the previous three days in the kitchen cooking for it. She is an inspiration and still one of the best cook’s I know. (ps: Nag her to get that recipe blog up!)

Amy and I made a raspberry cake while my gran made her famous chocolate cake for the party. I did the flower arrangements for my mom as usual, using a combination of Proteas and Roses. I love the whole Afro-centric look and combining textures and colours. Here is a photo of an arrangement I did for the guest bathroom earlier in the week:

Easter was really good and I will be posting some Easter photos and photos of the girls, soon.

I just read a report that mentions that Cape Town is South Africa’s most unhealthy city! People here apparently eat, smoke and drink more and exercise less. Never mind we still have the mountain (and the best airport!).

Remember this post? My fabulously talented aunt rose to the occasion and made two beautiful crocheted bags for my girls for Easter. Take a look:

Here are a few odd photos from the past week:

A bit of fun: My husband making meatballs and playing BBC Food, “Queen’s Kitchen”

I found this little gem in Langebaan (yes Langebaan, not Franschehoek!) It is a guest house and gift shop.

1. Congratulations to Veronica and Steven on the birth of little Emily!

2. Found another cool site selling posters that my mom seriously should be selling – I love my editor!

3. I am tweaking my iPhone Affirmation apps and if you only try one of my apps, try the Love and Relationship app, as I seriously believe it works!

4. Had a totally embarrassing lunch today at Greens, where Nina decided to show the whole of the northern Suburbs she is a soprano.

5. I love instant pudding.

6. I have so many things to be grateful for and I remind myself of them every day. Never the less, the little things do get to me!

7. Ok, so the above was actually two sentences. So sue me. Shit, did it again.

8. Strange but true: I saw a ‘Beeeeg’(Amy’s word) Dinosaur today made out of plastic shopping bags.

9. My girls are sleeping less and less and my brain cells are dying as a result.

10. My social calendar boasts both a 2 year old and a 40 year old birthday party this weekend.

Warning: this is not a feel-good post, so keep the vodka nearby.

Hanging teacups and difficult toddlers
Today was a so-so day. Can’t complain actually, it just was one of those days that makes me feel uneasy in my skin. Things just don’t go smoothly and well-intentioned plans end up either disappointing or being abandoned. My mom and I had been wanting to visit this new restaurant called Café Delicious at The Forum centre in Welgemoed. We looked forward to a break from the stresses of life (I always say avoidance and denial are great strategies for coping with stress!) This is a beautifully decorated restaurant but more suitable for ladies who lunch than a granny, mom and two kids under three. Amy who has been tantrum free for a while now, for some reason decided to display terrible manners by shouting at a customer who tried to say hello to her and then proceeded to moan, cry and refuse to sit on her chair. Great start. Bribery just barely worked and she calmed down while chewing on a biscuit my mom had given her. Later Nina started enthusiastically shouting ‘Num, Num’ really loudly along with various other primal sounds unsuitable for such a cultured place. I shut her up by shoving more food into her mouth (great mom I am, she will really thank me one day as she stands on a weight-watchers scale). Moments later Amy developed a rash around her mouth and we wondered with growing horror if there were nuts in the biscuit she had been eating. At this moment my mom and I exchanged glances and I had a four-lettered-word silent scream.

….As it turned out there was only coconut in the biscuit and the rash subsided. Our food was tasty but in all honesty overpriced. It was still an outing and I am grateful for that, but I can’t say our stress levels were reduced at all and I am afraid the chandeliers and hanging teacups were rather wasted on me, as psychologically I was just not in that place to appreciate aesthetics.

Them shoes aren’t made for wearing
I have a shoe problem. A while ago I went through a phase whenever I was out with friends at Dinner Club or some sort of social event that required certain high-heeled footwear, my shoes would break. A strap here (I remember buying superglue at a pharmacy in the waterfront and having Wendy and Susie help glue my strap back while I balanced in a rather interesting pose), a heel there. It was annoying and expensive, this shoe breaking thing. I am not one of those people who tends to take things to be repaired and as a result still have a selection of bags and shoes in my cupboard that are meant to go to one of those little shoe and key places to be fixed. I might as well just send them to shoe heaven once my own repair jobs fail. I believe all things happen in threes and this was true for my shoe problem. Fast forward a year or two and here I am having this shoe problem again. Last week it was a pair of silver sandals I usually save for smarter occasions. Tonight it was my beloved Haviannas that I virtually live in (perhaps herein lies the problem?).  So now, I bleakly wait for the third pair to somehow break.  Perhaps for a while I should go barefoot?

Dead Ant, Dead Ant, Dead Ant
I have an ant problem. Again. Ants, ants everywhere, no matter what I do. I have cleaned and cleaned and sprayed and sprayed and those little buggers still find a way of getting in to EVERYTHING. My karma is now well and truly stuffed -and I still have ants.

2010
Lets face it 2009 sucked. I heard a radio broadcast where they said stats had shown that 70% of the UK population claimed that 2009 had been the worst year of their life. The optimistic presenter said that should it be the same for SA, it would mean that 30% would have experienced 2009 to be the best year of their lives. It was those fortunate few he wanted to hear in from. Tell me your story he enthusiastically asked. …There were two callers!……and one said actually it had been the worst year of his life, it had just forced him to try new things business wise that had made it good. Anyway, my point is that a lot of people have been looking forward to 2010 but so far so many people I love and care about have had a fair share of shit thrown at them. (And yes, I am spelling that dirty word. No asterixes or funny symbols here to disguise my foul mouth or mind or whatever you call it when you blog) I have been saying over and over again how 2010 will be a good year, a better year, a year of fresh starts and opportunities. Who am I trying to convince? Them or myself? Well it is early days and I pray and beg and hope that things will look up, but I fear that we have simply been wallowing in the dusk and that the dark needs to first come before we can truly see and appreciate the light.
Hand me a torch someone!

If you ask me, the year only starts on the first of February…

I have been wanting to do a decent post for a while now, but am so tired, I will just leave you with this…

The girls had a late sleep this afternoon, and Amy ordered us to all go “OUT” when she woke up, so after dinner and baths, we went for a drive to see the lights in town. The roads were closed, but she was easily satisfied by her outing and the sight of one lit up Christmas Tree. Oh, if only I were a child…

1. I had a wonderful early dinner with my folks and made an unintentional but tasty brinjal dip as part of the meal!
2. I am excited to read the next chapter of Chain Story as my mom has some good ideas.
3. I am feeling tired due to lack of sleep caused by a rowdy young neighbour last night.
4. Busy trying to read the Post Secret site but my connection is slow.
5. Nina has been too cute for words this weekend and already has a fan club.
6. I have recently been thinking about how just so many people I know and care about are actually deeply unhappy.
7. I am excited about the approaching festive season but am just praying Santa has the finances for a good Christmas this year.
8. We have so many children’s parties to go to at the moment!
9. I really miss seeing my aunts.
10. I am looking forward to the meditation evening this Thursday.

My mom is a brilliant decorator. She is also way too humble to admit it, despite professionals in the field telling her so. Anyway, my mom has a philosophy that in order to determine how attractive a room is, you must view it from the outside and look in. This is especially true at nighttime, when the correct lighting inside a room can make it look all cozy and magical. I took a look at my bedroom yesterday from our balcony. It is my favourite room in our house (admittedly probably because it has the most furniture!) It has rich, warm colours(reds and golds) and all of my favourite objects in it(mainly various Buddhas and objets d’art from India, photographs from my wedding and of my children etc). From the outside you catch a glimpse of my carpet (a fake Persian in reds and greens), my large golden Buddha on a stand, the old Camphor chest from my aunt and the Indian silk cover that is draped over the edge of my King size bed. It looks beautiful and welcoming from the outside looking in.
I am sure many of you, like me, also like to take a peek into people’s houses. (I seem to remember a post by Louise on this topic). I love looking into the various rooms and getting a taste of people’s lives. There is a house in the complex next to the one where I live, that I always take a look at when driving past. It caught my attention as it has a baby’s nursery upstairs that faces onto the road. I can tell the baby is a girl as it has been done out in pink and white. It looks like it has been decorated with love and care. At one stage there was a compactum up against the full-length window, which I thought was rather dangerous, but now that has been replaced with a pink feeding chair. Sometimes when I drive past, the curtains are closed and I presume the baby is sleeping. Yesterday I commented to Craig their baby sleeps more than ours. He cynically responded, “ No, I bet the mother is in the room now comforting her.” It is amazing how much we can gather about someone or their life by looking in, even if sometimes we make up our own story about them in our heads. I notice the bedroom next to the nursery has a desk in the window and presume the mother is trying to work from home now that she has had a baby. I love to people watch in public places and tend to do the same thing then. If you have ever watched the movie the Wonderboys you will see what I mean as the characters in it do the same thing at a bar, like a game. Getting back to the baby’s room. For some reason I enjoy looking in to that bedroom. Not just to observe the pretty décor, but there is something about getting a glimpse of that mom and baby’s life and their daily routine, similar to mine, that makes me feel connected to her. It makes me feel sort of warm inside. It reminds me of how we are not alone.

The Baby
Well the past few weeks have been rather hectic on the baby front. For a few days in a row Nina was waking every 40 minutes during the night and I have been unable to discover the cause.  She is now into a 3 hour (sometimes with a 4 or 5 hour thrown in between) schedule at night. As I had gotten used to her sleeping through for almost 2 months, this is rather unfortunate, but after existing in a brief zombie state my body has now adjusted and I am feeling vaguely human again.  Other than that, she continues to be a really wonderful baby and is very content. She is very vocal and spends a lot of time gurgling and talking to herself. I don’t feel she is as alert as Amy was at this age and to me she still feels very much a baby, which suits me fine.  She is a very strong baby and loves to stand and is able to move herself around her cot and even slide out of her carseat when not strapped in. I have realized that she gets over-stimulated very easily and therefore needs enough quiet time and rest in between outings and play time in order to be happy. Since I have figured this out and adapted her routine more, the excessive crying has stopped. She really is adorable and has a smile that just melts my heart.

The Toddler
It is now the school holidays and Toptots only starts in 2 weeks time and Amy seems to miss it. I have been doing lots of painting with her and we have gone on a few good outings such as to the Blue Train (the Mouille point one, just in case you make the mistake of thinking I have a jet setting life, like one of my single, child-less and still funky friend did – lol!); The Tygerberg Zoo with my mom (A great time was had by all and Amy loved the Lions and Pot-Belly pigs) and today we went to POP at Canal Walk. Amy decorated some Marie biscuits, played with playdough and loved going on the slide. Slides are her latest thing. She loved the whole experience so much she threw a little tantrum when we had to leave.  You’ve got to love toddlers.
Amy loves her music and has a thing for Boccelli, watching a music DVD we have of him in Tuscany, over and over again. It is her favourite thing to watch and she gets very excited when she sees him and claps passionately after each song. It is rather funny to watch and very sweet.
I am busy planning her 2nd birthday party at the moment. It will be a Barney party, although I joke she should have an Andrea Bocceli theme! I am rather excited about it, although goodness knows why – perhaps it is just that I love planning things? Let’s hope it is that and not that I am turning into some type of boring human being.

The Mommy
It was my dinner club on Tuesday night and I had chosen a restaurant called Boo Radleys in town, which turned out to be rather nice. For various reasons, this actually was only my 2nd Dinner club this year and so I was really looking forward to it. We had drinks in the bar beforehand and I had a very tasty pasta dish for my main that I have had cravings for ever since. I over-indulged though and felt a tad ill the next day, not to mention guilty as the large amount of milk I had expressed for Nina and hoped would see her through turned out to not be enough and so my child had her share of alcohol flavoured milk from me an hour after I arrived home. Bad mommy. I made a mental note not too make the same mistake ever again, but like paper notes I shall no doubt discard it, sometime in the future. I enjoyed dinner club and seeing my friends so much, I did not want the night to end. I have this thing you see, I used to think it was a Taurean thing, but perhaps it is just a Caroline thing. I am bad with endings. Any kind of ending, but especially when I am having a good time. I was enjoying the conversation so much and suggested we continued it at a coffee shop for another hour, but  got no takers. You see when I am out (especially since it was my first time out in 2 months!!!) and relaxing with friends, having scintillating conversation over tasty cocktails and divine food, why would I want to go home, only to return to the harsh realities of life? Why would any of us?? Yes it is a bit of escapism, but hell I think I have earned it. I live for exciting conversations and stimulating evenings and I just never want them to end. It upsets me that others do. People needing sleep was a reason to all go home. I probably was the most sleep deprived person at the table but did not care. I will sleep when I am dead. I just want to live in the moment and have it never end. Unfortunately I am usually alone in that wish. Anyway we all had an enjoyable evening that I think helped to keep us all sane in some way. Unfortunately most of us don’t see nearly enough of each other these days and women need each other I believe for support, understanding and good laughs.  I miss you my friends, here’s still hoping for that late night coffee…;)

Where is everyone? No comments, no new blogs by my favourite bloggers.

HELLOOOOOO!!! Anyone out there???
First sign of madness: Talking to yourself
Second sign of madness: writing to yourself