Archive for category Random Blatherings

Sweet Justice for Women Everywhere

Mar 5

Posted by ness in Africa, Random Blatherings, SA Commentary | 5 Comments

So one of those official looking letters turned up in the mail.

“Ugh.” I groaned. Traffic Fine.

I’m a good driver, I keep to the speed limit (since having kids, it’s like I can’t drive any faster).

But occasionally, the traffic cops sit at one of those awkward spots, like when you’re descending a bridge and the road *just* levels out,  and they radar trap you when you’re 0.3 km/hr over the speed limit. Okay, maybe a bit more but still, I’m just saying that I am not one of those frequently fined drivers.  But I do get one or two every few years, I accept that.

So I filed away the paper work and forgot all about it.

…

Oops. I got another notification in the mail, and I remembered about it. I just thought, ugh, I really don’t want to have to go to the husband about this, I’ll pay it as soon as I have the spare cash lying around.

Filed away *that* piece of paper work and forgot all about it.

Until hubby found the paper yesterday, and had a minor freak out about it.

We can’t just THROW away money like this!

Can’t you be more careful?!

Open your eyes when you’re driving!

Then he calmed down completely and said that it wasn’t a huge amount of money anyway, and that we should just go online and pay for it, so that it doesn’t become a problem later (in SA you get  a court summons and really, we don’t need things to go *that* far over a piddly speeding fine).

So off we tootle online to the website listed to pay the fine in question and lo and behold, the photograph pops up, and I click on the ‘enlarge’ button…

Yes, that would be *two* people sitting in that car.

At this point I’d like to point out to my friends who live in countries where you drive on the WRONG side of the road, that in SA we drive on the left, so the driver is the person on the left hand side of this photograph.

Let me zoom in for you…

funny photo with captions

Sweet Justice.

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Home Perks

Jan 29

Posted by ness in Random Blatherings | 6 Comments

The UK Lotto sent me a free voucher to ‘play’ for my birthday. I believe that the jackpot tomorrow night is approximately fifteen million pounds sterling (about 30 million USD).

As is always the case when something like this happens (yes I redeemed the voucher already) the husband and I like to have the fifteen million pound fantasy (heads out the gutter please) talk about what we would do with the money.

We talk about some philanthropical stuff that we would do, you know, because we *do* care, and it’s always a good thing to let the universe know that you wouldn’t be totally self-indulgent should you win it all.

Then we have the ridiculous and self-indulgent talk about that goes along the lines of, “Okay, a bunch ‘o money has just hit the account, we allow ourselves to spend “insert ridiculous-though predetermined amount of cash here” and we have to do so at the local mall…what would we buy? What would you buy?

Then invariably our talk turns to doing things like home improvements, getting a beach pool (love those!), installing central heating/air conditioning, getting an air filter the likes of which we only see in episodes of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, me stocking the fiction library or the kindle or the iPad ! The awesome all-apple  home computer network we would install, all totally wireless and amazing.

I could go on for hours, if I hadn’t inhaled two VAWTERS and was now feeling a bit like my 5 hours of sleep a night is extremely insufficient…

Go on, tell me what you would spend your “totally self-indulgent” portion of your lottery winnings on…

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Digest…

Jan 29

Posted by ness in Headcase, Random Blatherings | 1 Comment

Friday Afternoon Bullets:

(Because I’m short on time before the afternoon school run hits).

  • I am selling my piano. I can hardly believe it myself. Had it since 1983. It’s time for it to go. The boys are interested in it, but they don’t respect it. For me, it just hurts to look at it, so it must go.
  • I am still smiling from ear to ear about all the great graphic design work in my life right now. Yes please universe, I would love even more.
  • This whole phoning for home insurance quotes stuff *every* month is quite tiresome, yes, but necessary. Insurance is something we don’t need until we need it so better to have it. Plus if you phone around often enough you can usually lower your monthly cost. We’ve basically halved our costs in about 8 months by doing this.
  • I finally finished Breaking Dawn. Wow. Love it. Best book I have read in years.
  • I am getting by at night on about 5 hours sleep. Both my boys are sleeping through the night now (or at least they have been for the past week – touch wood) so the only thing keeping me up is me. I’m up till around 00h30 usually working, or god forbid having some fun on facebook/blogging/catching up on my rss reader then I sleep till around 5h30 then start all over again. As long as I have a cup of coffee in the morning, it’s going okay. If I can keep this up, I will be the most productive person ever. Heh.
  • We have applied for a new rental, but are still waiting to hear about the house. It’s walking distance from my sons school which is *perfect* fingers crossed we get it. I am *so* sick of the place we’re living in right now you  have no idea. The new house is in a secure complex as well – which frankly would feel like a huge weight off my shoulders.
  • Anyhoo, must go and fetch one of the offspring now…toodles peeps.

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Why I Love The Kiwis!

Nov 21

Posted by ness in Horseriding, Horses, New Zealand, Random Blatherings | 7 Comments

Here’s a little weekend activity for you all…

One of the reasons I love the Kiwis so much is their unbridled sense of adventure. I don’t use the term ‘unbridled’ in the figurative sense, but rather the literal sense. Years ago, I taught horsebackriding on a Summer camp in the USA, and the kiwi girls I worked with, quite literally used to ride their horses unbridled during the times it was just us instructors, messing around. I developed a profound respect for the downright ballsiness, and by the middle of the summer, they had me vaulting off a horses back in the *very* gymnastic sense of the word (think: going from a riding astride position to whipping one leg over the horses head so that both are over on the right side of the horse, then throw yourself backwards so that you back flip over and off the horse on the left).

So, thus my use of the word ‘unbridled’.

I caught this on youtube today, and though I would share it as the perfect piece of weekend entertainment.

Only the kiwi’s could be this crazy. After all they *did* invent bungi jumping! (I’m not sure it was them who invented the colon cleanse but yes, they did invent bungi jumping, and a whole host of other extreme adventure sports).

Awesome!

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Sugar, Peanut Butter, and Harry Potter

Jun 12

Posted by ness in Activities, Harry Potter, Movies, Random Blatherings, Recipes, The Pioneer Woman | 4 Comments

I’m not joking.

Yesterday, in a fit of madness (theoretically before I actually had sugar, but that’s totally beside the point), I decided to make The Pioneer Womans Chocolate Crusted Peanut Butter Cream Pie.

The only difference with mine, is that I called it PMS Pie. Because darn it if my PMS symptoms weren’t shouting (((FALL BACK TO MINAS TIRITH))), sounding their orc horns and disappearing over the distant hills like a bad quote from Lord of the Rings.

Seriously, if you like chocolate, and peanut butter, you need to make this pie. It’s so freakin’ easy too, that I managed to remember all the ingredients without a shopping list and just had to check the recipe once for the order of chucking it all together. It’s one of those recipes where you chuck it all in, and bung it in the fridge, the only effort required is cleaning up afterwards.


I gave a slice to my husband after a hearty pasta/bolognaise bake for supper, and took it from me, with a doubtful glance (implying that he was already quite full), took one bite, and said, something which sounded like, “OH MY GAWD!” and when he’d cleared his plate in exactly 2.6 seconds, and helped himself to another slice, he mumbled something like, “Pi-nr Mun?” in between gob-smacking sounds, which I translated as “Pioneer Woman?” (because of course I couldn’t possibly think up something quite so delicious – no really I can’t!!).

I said yes, and then because I did want to put my own stamp on it of sorts, I said, “It’s PMS pie. She didn’t call it that, but I am.”

He didn’t answer me because he was too busy making, oomph, nom, nom, lick sounds.

So do yourself a favour and make it. It’s tewtally worth it man.

In other news, did anyone else notice that we’re just over a month away from the release of the new Harry Potter movie? I keep seeing advertisements that say ‘in cinema’s July 15th’. I have yet to see a Harry Potter movie more than a DAY after it’s released. This one is going to be *really* good too, I’m sure!

Remember it’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6), and the third last in the series of movies because book 7 is being split into two movies.

I think I’ll make the man stay home, since he’s not a fan, and the poor thing wouldn’t know his expelliarmus from his wingardium leviosa, and, and well… those of us *who know*, know just exactly how that can get you into all sorts of unneccessary trouble.

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