I am an awkward creature

I'm not a very flexible or coordinated girl. I played Basketball in 7th grade (they started me on Varsity because I was a 5 ft 10" freak of nature and I scared the other team, nevermind the fact that I couldn't play). After a whole year of shooting 3-pointers for the enemy, I finally gave up. My junior year I was short a P.E. credit and being in a small school I only had three choices; P.E with the 7th grade boys, trying out for basketball, or trying out for cheerleading. Oh the horror!
Well, I made the cheerleading team. I was the only one who couldn't do the splits and half the girls were eye to eye with my belly-button, but I got my P.E. credit.

Over the years my flexibility has not improved, despite my attempts at yoga and a year or so of Pilates. Now, I'm 34 and pregnant, and this is what we sleep on.This is a cause of great amusement for me. Its a mattress on the floor. Its small, and hard, and lumpy. Thats not so bad. Whats bad is the fact that there are only 6 inches between my body and the floor. I sit up in the morning, swing my legs over the side, put my feet on the floor, and my knees are past my ears. Have you ever seen a fallen giraffe trying to get up off the ground? Sometimes Randy has to give me push and I still barely make it up. I often wonder if I'm missing vital joints that other, more coordinated people have.
I do a lot of laughing in my head (and grunting and struggling) when I'm getting up in the middle of the night (47 million times) to go to the bathroom.

7 days till spring....

Our days here vacillate between warm sunniness and cold pounding rains. Buts its the in-between moments that are so striking. The sky will be gray with clouds and then the clouds will all bunch up and retreat towards the mountains. You know they'll come back, but at least they give it a rest long enough for us to see some blue sky. People come out of the woodwork when they get the chance. This guy was rafting around in a flooded area off the highway outside his township. Just something to do, I guess.I stare longingly at our new porch chairs (the landlord lent them to us) and I can't wait to plant my rear in one of them. But for now, everything is wet and cold (and green and beautiful).But we're content here on the inside. It won't be long until we can play outside every day.

Birdies!

Randy is working from home today and so we went outside with the dogs for a while just because it is so beautiful. The air is pretty cool, but the sun feels great.
Amongst all the greenery we spotted a bright red blob. (can you see it? Its in the reeds)) I grabbed the camera and went closer. It turned out to be a cute uber-fluffy bird. I wanted to grab it and carry it around with me and and kiss it on the head every 30 seconds!Spring is only a couple weeks away and the small furry creatures are beginning to appear. I love this time of year!

Gauthier Monkies and Raiford Piggies

Randy and I have our two monkies and Andrew and Cristin (our brother and sister) have their two piggies. We actually lead parallel lives.......

Nesting. For real.

I've always seen these nests hanging from the trees by the....pond-thing in front of our house, but I never knew who they belonged to. Randy, on the other hand, has seen these birds all along. I don't know how I missed them.They are a brilliant yellow and there are tons of them. Some of them are refurbishing old nests and some of them are building brand new ones.They are all couples and they work two to a nest. The nests are attached to vines that hang from the trees over the pond. There is a whole little neighborhood of these bird houses. The opening is on the bottom of the nest so the birds hang upside down from it while building.Randy took these pictures and he got some great ones. I think they're beautiful. I also think I was supposed to figure out what the birds are called before I posted this......
But I was too busy obsessing over the state of my own nest.

Dorp Street

We went into town this morning because Randy found a cute little street we'd never seen before. There isn't a lot of retail creativity in this neck of the woods, but this street had some of the best shops I've seen so far. There was this "Trade Stall" full of the coolest most bizarre goodies I've seen yet. I could go in there and blow all kinds of money on things like "Zebra Pate". Fun stuff! Randy took this picture of me and then said "One more"But right when he took the second picture, this weird guy started stumbling towards him with a bucket. This is a mixture of me smiling politely for the camera and giving the staggering man a wary glance.
I keep wondering where all the young people are. Stellenbosch is full of students (really young) and then old OLD people. I have yet to see anyone our age, or anyone with young kids. But then we walked into this cute little shop called Cupcake and there they were. Pregnant women, nursing women, young hip women. The shop had a cupcake/pastry counter. They served coffee and quiche and salad and all kinds of really pretty cupcakes. But then they had a retail section and it was mostly baby stuff. Like a bizarre collection of baby stuff. They had a big outdoor patio, so Randy and I got cupcakes and coffee and sat outside.Then we walked around town a bit. Its amazing how different one street is from another.

Juicy

I feel like an 8-year-old girl when I say this, but I love rainbows!! There's nothing like seeing a fat, juicy rainbow hanging in the air right in front of your face.
We walked out this morning at about 7:30 with the dogs and this rainbow was diving into the hill in front of our porch (sorry, no zoom lens). The sun was coming up behind us and there was a fog creeping over the hill to greet it and the combo resulted in this. The sky was several different colors and the air was cool. It was spectacularly peaceful.

Thursday

Today Randy is speaking at a conference. Scholars from all over the word have shown up for various speakers and Randy is one of them. He's not nervous but I am. I can't imagine doing something like that without barfing. I wish I could be there, but its just for the geniuses. So I'm at home sitting in my chair, loving on my dogs. They have no clue that there are 4 of us in this chair. They're in for a real shocker here in a few months.

Trustworthy Food

Just in case you were wondering why Hullets is South Africa's favorite brand of sugar, someone in their marketing department has made a thoughtful list of reasons to answer this question gnawing at the back of your mind.


First of all, this sugar dissolves quickly. Secondly, this sugar dissolves completely.
Thirdly this sugar dissolves easily and rapidly (not to be confused with "quickly") Fourthly, this sugar is made of quick-dissolving grains.But if you're a man who happens to be making muffins, go somewhere else. This trusty sugar is a ladies sugar.
Just in case y'all are wondering, I got an email from the head honcho of the "other blog" saying that hackers had breached their security and the whole site was down for a while. Its back now, but I'm sticking with the bloggity-blog (like Huletts sugar to its female South Africans).

Happiness is a warm......day

We're supposed to be in the dead of winter right now. Maybe we'll get hit with another storm, but right now I'm thanking God for this weather. Today is laundry day and me and The Doon have been out on the porch hanging stuff and inspecting stains.....Right around noon, me and Wumpy walked to the farm stall and I got an orange drink (Fanta! Fanta!). I couldn't believe how warm it was. On our way there we passed the spot where gangs of men like to hang out on Sundays. They drink and smoke "dagga" and wield weapons.
I look around and this place is so beautiful and the weather is so incredible, and then I look down at the broken wine bottles and other gross unmentionables lying on the ground by the road and I think of all the kids who were there to watch bad things happening. Leave it to mankind to ruin paradise. I know its our sin nature to destroy, but it makes me long for heaven. Its hard for me to imagine an untainted paradise, but days like today give me a minuscule glimpse of it.
This move hasn't been an easy transition, but I think God is using it to change the way I think and the things I expect (or demand) from life. Right now I'm thankful to be alive and healthy and pregnant! I'm thankful for my dogs who ease my loneliness. I'm thankful that I have been forgiven, despite my continued wretchedness, and I'm so thankful for those of you who keep writing me even when I'm a big hormonal spaz. Thank you, friends!

No more palm trees

I know we've mentioned the palm tree nursery before. An old friend of our landlord's (from Amsterdam) came here and moved into the big house and built a palm tree nursery on the land. It was beautiful. Then he just up and left. A few huge trucks came and cleared out the trees and he hasn't been seen again. We're guessing it was because of money issues, but the landlord woke up one morning to find his friend's house empty and him gone.

This afternoon we took the dogs out to run around and were disappointed to see all the dirt where trees used to be.
But the dogs loved running around on it. Enkidu has put on some serious ounces, so we're trying to run it off of him. He likes to sprint long distances.

Feathery Eggs.....

See. What did I say about the eggs here? They don't even wipe the darn things off!I have to go through and scrape chicken remnants off the shell before I cook them so that we don't get feathers in our breakfast. I know you can't see it very well, but the thing is covered in little tiny feather chunks. yummy!

Here is another pregnant shot. I sneezed about two seconds after the flash went off, hence the weird look on my face. I feel like I got big really fast and now I'm just barely growing. This is a good size though. I can still sit on the floor and play cards (and of course that is all that matters....)

My one and only Sister

Happy Birthday Hayley!
I wish I had my personal stash of old photos so I could embarrass her (with pictures of her in her favorite Little House on the Prairie dress), but they are all in San Antonio. So instead I'm posting more recent "babe" pictures.
:)

For those of you who don't know, my brother Andrew and I are almost 3 years apart. (I am the oldest) When I was 11 and he was almost 9, my parents started having kids again (had 4 more!). Hayley was born when I was eleven and she is the only other girl. I spent many of my early teenage years with her on my hip. Now she is grown and she happens to be getting married (on my due date). Who knew we would both have such big events planned for the same day (on separate continents)?
She is marrying Seth (I can't wait to meet you, Seth) and we are all excited for her!I wish I could be there, Hayley Mel. I love you! Happy Birthday!
Heather

The weekend

We drove into Cape Town this weekend. Mountains line the coast and at sunset it is beautiful, even on a cloudy day. In this picture we are driving into the peninsula of mountains and the sea is on both sides. The city of Cape Town is just to the right of this mountain (between mountain and sea).

In other great news, we got our water back on Sunday morning......so exciting.....

Winter

Winter time right off the Atlantic may be cold and rainy, but its still beautiful. Driving around, we always see an amazing contrast between darks clouds and green earth, mountains and streams of sunlight. People are still outside doing what they always do. Laundry is still hung in front of the worker's houses and kids are still hitchhiking. The African trees are always spectacular standing against a stormy sky or a sunset. The trees are what make this area "feel" like Africa (when there are no people to be seen). Stellenbosch has a lot of trees, but many of them are not green year-round, so it feels more like winter in the city.Still, this spot on the planet is very lush. Its amazing to be here to see it. I would have never guessed that this is what the bottom of Africa looks like.