It was the long weekend and it rained, rained and rained some more. In fact the whole long weekend was spent watching tiny droplets splatter against the window panes and listening to grumblings echo from the sky.
It rained out our god daughter's 4 birthday party and it rained out Heritage day. Heritage day also known as National Braai day around these parts was celebrated with homemade pie instead.
Thank you again for all the well wishes for our Danika. Although we are still waiting for a hospital bed for her, she is absolutely fine. She has no pain and the swelling in her mouth were her teeth broke has gone down too. It is as if it never happened, well except for the missing places in her mouth where they broke. I almost feel compelled to cancel this whole surgery. Rob seems to think otherwise and feels that it still needs to be done or there will be another flare up. I'm sure he is right - I am still just apprehensive about it all.
The sky changed late Friday afternoon to the darkest shade of grey that it has been in quite a long while. We took a chance and wrapped up warmly and made our way to soccer practice. Only to find when we got there that Garren had forgotten to pack his togs in his bag. So we excused ourselves, as he wouldn't be allowed on the field without them AND we knew that by the time we should return from collecting them practice would be over with, so made our way home. We arrived home just as the clouds began to open and gift us a fine drizzle.
It came down softly all through the night and when we woke on Saturday morning it was cold. The cold that freezes to the bone. Snow had landed on the mountains and the winds that swept of that range howled through our pines and brought back a Winter that we hadn't actually had this year at all. The sky grumbled through most of the day and with it a downpour of rain that we all gazed out the windows at. It was beautiful - but cold. Rob left mid morning to help a friend install lighting into his warehouse. When he arrived home he was drenched and battered and bruised from falling off a ladder. He is better today with a little swelling left and achy muscles. Much of the day was spent cooking up a curry in the kitchen for dinner and being curled up on the couch adding a few rows to my knitting and reading The Gruffalo's Child on repeat.
➖ watching the rain fall from my kitchen window 💦 ... all the
kids have cabin fever! If there wasn't a cold wind blowing off the snow
on the mountains I'd let them out to play 🌬❄️
Sunday the clouds cleared but that icy wind kept up it's dance through the forest. We decided it best not to venture out but rather catch up with each other around the table for Sunday Roast and then movies of Peter Rabbit (Danika's favourite) and Marley and Me ('cause who doesn't like the Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston comedy).
I am hoping for a bit more routine this week and a little more warmth to warm up these bones of mine. I could do with a little of both. How was your weekend? Did you get out or stay in?
Our weekend was far from angelic as pictured in these few moments from the days gone by.
Friday saw us calling all the dentists in our town for an appointment for Danika. Not one could fit her in that day. It was such a worry and I could see that she was beginning to get utterly miserable. Finally Rob found one in Hilton who slotted her in on Saturday morning. We managed through the evening by taking her mind off of it all at Garren's soccer practice and allowing her to feed from me on demand.
Saturday morning we headed off to the Dentist and of course, as predicted, she refused to oblige in any means or form. It was rather traumatic. But what was able to be seen amidst all the attempts is that it best to medicate and revisit on Wednesday for a final decision. I do fear there might be dental surgery to remove these two teeth. I am not sure that I am handling this news very well. I haven't had any of my older ones in surgery or hospital at this age.
Much of the rest of Saturday she napped and Rob stood the sidelines of the Soccer field cheering on Garren. In the evening we had a braai and let the kids run until late in the evening. Danika's meds had started to work so she was feeling a little better. It is strange to watch a child never medicated react on it. I messaged Tristan, who is back in China, to wish him for his 22nd birthday. They were in the middle of being filmed. He had not had a good morning with his small students and was hoping that the next classes that were being filmed would go better. His friends were going to be taking him out for supper and movie later. It feels very strange not to be baking a cake for his day. I felt a little out of place not seeing him on his birthday too. They say it does get easier.
Sunday the weather was lovely, as it had been the whole weekend. Rob and Garren were at soccer again in the afternoon. Sadly Garren's team lost both matches this weekend so he was feeling down in the dumps - his only consolation was that they have made it into the semi finals for the season. I am not a very competitive person and try on all accounts to teach the children that it is not about winning or loosing but more about that they have participated and have had fun. This always seems to fall on deaf ears with this boy child.
We checked in on our growings and again let the small ones play until late in the evening.
Monday did not fare well in my attempt to get online. Danika fussed a bit and was a little demanding of attention which I always love to give but then nothing much else gets done.
I am just thankful that it's Tuesday and that it feels like we are in some form of routine again, well for now - who knows what Wednesday's Dentist appointment will bring.
How was your weekend? I hope it was relaxing and spent with all the ones you love.
We had family friends come over for Sunday Lunch this weekend.
How is it that it has been just over three months since we last caught up with them? We used to never go a week without some form of visit. Our conversation kept coming back to this and our conclusion to it all is that life is just so much more busier than it was all those years ago when our older boys were small and we were younger and our men weren't out "hunting and gathering" to ensure that we had enough on our table for our bellies and in our home to keep us warm and safe. Times are a little more difficult now and we all have to work a little harder to keep our homes and families just as they are.
Life happens and it happens so very quickly.
We sat in awe of our young girls, who I swear, were sent to us from the same star. We also paused in deep thought as we watched the older boys play about the garden. In the next year all will change. Both will be finishing off high school and both have plans to venture out into the world.. Continents away from each other... Continents away from us!
The day was perfect. It could have past for a Summers Day. We ate well, they played well and when the goodbyes came there as always were promises of intentions of more time spent together in the days and months to come.
Hello there and brightest of blessings for the new week ahead my friends.
I do hope your weekend was relaxing and enjoyed by you and yours? What did you get up to?
Saturday was pretty glum and miserable with much needed rain. Soccer was cancelled due to this so we didn't need to venture out at all and since all the shopping (miraculously) was done on Friday I didn't have to worry about going out at all, the whole weekend or for the rest of this coming week either in fact. I have weeks were I just cant get all the shopping done for the week ahead in one day, so then I catch up with the rest on the Saturday. (or send Rob with a list to do it for me 😉 ).
Sunday, although still pretty icy, cleared and by mid morning we were able to venture outside again. In fact it even warmed for the rest of it. So much so that we got so involved with outside it almost felt that it was time for a new season of gardening. I found Rob and the younger two outside clearing what was left in the vegetable beds and prepping them for just that. I love when we get to this time of the year. It can still get pretty cold and we're usually hit with a freakish cold front that brings on in snow as close as dammit to our mountain ranges before we can even consider being in the clear for real Spring weather. But, in saying this, there are other ways we can start getting prepared. Like clearing and prepping the beds. AND then dreaming about what will be planted in them.
We have also added gardening to our homeschooling curriculum. Rob and I feel it is so very important that the kids take part in the growing of our food and of course in doing so learn to appreciate what ends up on our plates at the end of it all.
A few months back our grocery store was adding a couple of these sweet little pots with every purchase made at their store. The incentive was (of course) that depending on the amount spent that would determine how many little pots you were given. Clever 😉 right? But, for us, as gardeners it was completely the wrong time of the year for them to be planted. So we kept them to one side for just the right time. We planted all the veggies pot this weekend and have left the edible flowers for another time. Each little pot comes with instructions and it will be up to Garren to keep them going.
He really is so excited about his project. He knows that once the plants are established he will be given his own space in one of the beds to nurture them until harvest time.
Finally we ended off our day in the garden with the inevitable wheelbarrow rides.
This was Danika's first time and in true Danika style she summoned her brothers to be there alongside her through it all.
There is so much to plan for our garden for the months ahead.
I have been running. Nowhere in particular really. Maybe more like a good ol’ sprint in one place.
I have a gazillion photographs to sift through and I’m sure I will get to share them eventually. But this last week has found Rob and I filling humidifiers, filling humidifiers with essential oils of eucalyptus and lavender and rosemary and… whatever I can drain out of the last of my array of oils. It has found us slicing up bags of oranges and sneaking tiny little tissue salts into everything. The children have been slathered in home and shop bought Vicks ointments and we’ve boiled the kettle all but away for cups of homemade med-lemon drinks and shop bought ones (which ever we had at the time and whichever one we had not yet run out of).
And then once our heads hit the pillows it was morning again and we started all this all over again.
We made it through though. Usually around this time of the year we’ve spooned out on an array of anti-biotic bottles to both Joshua and Garren and somewhere I think there may have even been a hospital visit for the sickliest of them all, dear Josh. Not this time, not an anti-biotic at all not even for our littlest flower, who has cut all 4 top and 4 bottom teeth and had her first flu virus all at once - here Earthside. Now, I’m not going to get my highs on the real high right now, cause we still got some ways to go before the winter months are done and dusted. But, it’s a good start – don’t you think? There is a rattle here and there and I am determined to get as far as I can this season without a doctor.
Hold all those fingers and toes for me?
In the meantime, in between it all I am knitting up Star Gnomes (ever so slowly) for the Shop, other than peacock I will now add teaberry to our collection and I have still got soaps that need to be photographed and packaged for the shop. Packaging has become my nemesis with my soaps. I can whip up the lovelies but then I can’t get the right packaging for them. I do know that somewhere amidst it all I need to knit up another Knubblechen for a girl child that will land earthside soon and a bear with accessories for Danika’s first birthday too.
I’ll get there. Soon. I hope.
There is also talk of a new adventure into a few homemade outsourced products by other mums and dads out there that I will be affiliated with. I really am excited about it and I hope that you will be too. I have found myself gravitating towards supporting homemade and handcrafted home-grown businesses around these parts. It’s a rarity to find the likes of such treasures, so when you do you surround yourself and others with it too. But, more of that soon.
This weekend the boys every so kindly cleaned out the Lapa and we Sunday lunched there. It felt wonderful claiming back that space again. I’m sure if the weather keeps at it we will be making it our weekly shenanigan. I’ve add a quick clip from our after lunch Sunday meander up and down our road. Just for fun.
Dressed up in our winter warmests to keep out the cold front that had arrived and with fold out chairs under arms we made our way to support Garren in his first Tag Rugby Festival this weekend gone.
I had to search good ol’ Wikipedia for a little insight into this form of Rugby. As, while watching, I noticed that the game just wasn’t what I was used to watching while standing on the side-line of the field. This was Tag Rugby, slightly different and it seems that our little ones are not yet at the Velcro wearing stage (thank goodness) or there may have been a few cold bare bottoms out for the world to see! These boys are quite the ruffians out there on the field. It was just a tap here and there with plenty of coaches on the field to guide them through the game. Garren loved it and I am sure I would love the world of Rugby just as much (for him) if I could wrap my simple brain around it. I have tried, for years, and I have almost given up and come to terms with the fact that I will just love rugby because my son plays the game.
We’re still pretty much in the thick of Rugby season, around these parts, with a tournament played either home side or at another school each week for the next couple of weeks. So there will be a few more frozen field side mornings to come. It’s time to bring out our winter woollens.
"Many things that are true feel like a cheat. Kingdoms get princes they deserve, farmers daughters’die for no reason, and sometimes witches merit saving. Quite often, actually. You’d be surprised.”
Later through the day we decided that it was certainly way too cold to venture out again and so we made the most of it and turned the rest of the afternoon and evening into movie time. The boys love it - snuggled inside - under blankets - in front of the Television. The one movie that stuck with me was “ A Monster Calls” and will most certainly be added it to my favourite list. It was unexpectedly darkly intense, so much so I almost sent Garren out to watch another movie in his room for fear of how it would turn out and how he would react to it emotionally. We shed a tear together and we spoke a few words once done and I am so glad that I let him watch it to the end. I do tend to forget that he is “almost 9 MOM” and that I really should be encouraging movies that have a real story line and to remember that they are far better than the usual mindless action and fluff that seems to fill our screens more and more these days.
I am the Mother who tries to protect her children from harm.. the type that fills our newspapers and social media and television screens.
But maybe there is more harm in said mindless movies without much ado about anything much?
I have just realised that it’s only a couple of weeks left of this school term and then we will have officially reached our midyear break.
