Being down = reduced productivity

Solution: pay more, increase perks, increase number of days leave.

So anyway, in my depression session yesterday (thanks for all the support :) )I became incredibly unproductive and decided to cheer myself up by blog surfing. I found some pearlers and am very proud to announce that I even updated my best blogs list...a chore which i realllllly avoid.

This pretty much sums me up right about now:

(This was lifted off Being Brazen's blog... thanks lady!)

P.S. Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.

P.S.S. Welcome to all the newbies: Slyde, Ruby, Being Brazen, Don't believe a word I write, Youmeher and Gill

I need a therapist and you, dear reader, are now it.

Ok guys, firstly the very fact that there are no exclamation marks in my title should concern you. I am THAT tense.

It sucks being a girl. When I get reeeeeally angry do I shout? (nope.) Kick things? (and ruin my shoes??! I don't think so) What happens? My stupid eyes well up with saline solution. It really sucks. So now I am hiding in my office, cultivating a massive wrinkle between my brows, heart thumping in my ears. Looking like a weak chick when actually this is FURY

I am over EVERYBODY! Lazy colleagues. Hopeless website developers. Useless ad agencies. It is tough being the only one who gives a damn.

Please leave me comments that either vent with me or say nice stuff to me. Jokes may also help right about now.

Klip daai blomme!!!

I got tagged by cheapthrills to jump on the competition bandwagon and I am a SUCKER for competitions!!

The Rocking The Daisies competition is the competition in question and hey, I am the only 20 something i know who doesn't own an ipod... so here goes!!

1. Blog about the competition, telling us what you would take with you to the concert.
2. Link to http://rockingthedaisiescompetition.co.za and http://www.digicape.co.za
3. Tag your friends in the post. In other words, just link to their website to encourage them to come over and look at your website.
4. Register here, tag your name and my name (cheapthrills) and copy our blog post onto their website.

So what could I not possibly do without at Rocking the Daisies?
Well isn't it obvious?

1. My GHD - I'd have to hot wire the car for a power supply
2. My copy of "Hotwiring cars for Dummies"
   
3. My she-mullet (I better start cultivating that puppy now!!)
4. My garage recording of my own soulful singing - If I could just get a producer to listen I know he'd sign me!!
5. My folder of cut out letters for the ransom note in case the afore mentioned producer refuses. Oh and some bostik (NEVER just stick it!)

So I do hereby solemnly tag:
Sweets, DBAWIW; Doodles, Glugs, Youmeher, Charmskool

THE END

Love it!

Working people frequently ask retired people what they do to make their days interesting.Well, for example, the other day the wife and I went into town and went into a shop. We were only in there for about 5 minutes. When we came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket.

We went up to him and I said, 'Come on man, how about giving a senior citizen a break?' He ignored us and continued writing the ticket. I called him a Dumb ass. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires.

So Mary called him a $#!^head. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started writing a third ticket. This went on for about 20 minutes. The more we abused him, the more tickets he wrote.

Just then our bus arrived.

We try to have a little fun each day now that we're retired. It's important at our age.

Boxing again

As in placing all my possessions into boxes. Yup this is the 3rd move in as many months. SERIOUSLY!! We moved next door so they could rethatch our place (the band was away) then 3 weeks later we moved back home (the band was away) and now we are moving to the new place... THE BAND IS HERE AND I AM AT WORK AND HE WILL DO MOST OF THE WORK! phew!
It's a good thing, really it is, moving makes me preeeetty grumpy!!

Anyway, blah blah blah.

So I am quite relieved that the time has now come... the arachnophobia is now a full blown paralysing fear spurred on my the most horrendous nightmares. I won't share them with you coz:
A) I don't want you all to become as lame and chicken as me; and
B) When I retell them I start crying!!!! (not very cool when you're in conservation!!)

Anywho. Some random thoughts for today:

• ready mixes for cakes and brownies are way underrated
• I am going to have a new boss soon and I understand approximately 5% of what he says - and I have to communicate it to the public!
  
• the move has made me discover a couple of things I forgot about like a really nice top (wearing it today) and some gorgeous vases. Stoked
• nevertheless, my favourite possession is my GHD - no contest
• woolies white hot chocolate is the business!

That's about it :)

Smart? or not so much??

I found this smart-o-meter booklist back at EMCT's blog

Someone reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed (dumbasses). So here we go…

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you started but did not finish.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Highlight the ones you still want to read but just have not had a chance yet!
5) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 or less and force books upon them.

1. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
2. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
3. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
4. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
5. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
6. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
7. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
8. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
9. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
10. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
11. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
12. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
13. His Dark Materials (trilogy) - Philip Pullman
14. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
15. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
18. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
19. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
20. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
21. Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
22. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
23. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
24. Animal Farm – George Orwell
25. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
26. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
27. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
28. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
29. Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
30. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
31. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
32. Complete Works of Shakespeare
33. Ulysses - James Joyce
34. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
35. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
36. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
37. The Bible
38. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
39. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
40. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
41. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
42. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
45. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
46. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
47. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
48. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
49. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
50. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
51. Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott
52. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
53. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
54. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
55. Middlemarch - George Eliot
56. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
57. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
58. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
59. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
60. Emma - Jane Austen
61. Persuasion - Jane Austen
62. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
63. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
64. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
65. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
66. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
67. Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
68. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
69. Atonement - Ian McEwan
70. Dune - Frank Herbert
71. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
72. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
73. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
74. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
75. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
76. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
77. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
78. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
79. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
80. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
81. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
82. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
83. Dracula - Bram Stoker
84. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
85. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
86. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
87. Germinal - Emile Zola
88. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
89. Possession - A.S. Byatt
90. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
91. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
92. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
93. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
94. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
95. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
96. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
97. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
98. Watership Down – Richard Adams
99. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
100. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

New home!

So yest I left work early to check out a potential new spot and it's great!
and we signed!
and we are moving in next Friday!
and we aren't practically homeless anymore!
and it has a pool!
and it's in the neighbourhood we wanted!
and it has a great kitchen!
and an enclosed verandah with a braai!
and the people living there now are weird and gothy and have fairies throughout the garden and a painting of a creepy goatman on the wall!
and the main room has an en suite!
and the garden is big!
and we can see the sea!
and it is near a brand new Virgin active!
and the rent is what I was hoping for!
and... the most ridiculous thing of all?.......... there's a jacuzzi!

JOCKSTRAP CENTRAL!!

So for some reason at work we got onto the topic of male thongs which inevitably led to discussion of jock straps. Not having ever seen the offending subject of our discussion, I decided to do a little research. (Never am I more creative with my internet usage than when I'm on some sort of deadline)

Definition: A jockstrap (also known as a jock, jock strap, strap, supporter, or athletic supporter) is an undergarment designed for supporting the male genitalia during the performance of sports or other vigorous physical activity

Naturally, it gets even better than that.... wikipedia didn't really have a pic, so I visited www.jockstrapcentral.com - NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART! The pics are HILARIOUS - check out the fetish section - waa haa haa haa - note the ONE model who hasn't been waxed. ROUGH!!!!! hahaahahaha

just a quickie

sorry bla bla bla etc etc

ok, now that i'm forgiven for being a sucky blogger, just a very quick update on the life of caz. Not much to report sadly:

• the big news is that the band has FIIIIIIINALLY cut his hair. I don't know if i mentioned but he hadn't cut it since some time last year and was beginning to look downright Einsteiny!!! Not he looks downright Wentworth Miller-y and is very grrrowl!! ;)
• still looking for a new place. People seriously should not smoke in their house if they ever want to rent it out. sies man. Going to see a place this afternoon. HOLD THUMBS PLEASE. It's an awful thing being practically homeless :(
• just read "The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime". You should all read it. Very good. You can get through it in a day. Awesome book.
• Spent the weekend in arniston - was very nice
• Snow is gone from the mountains around stellenbosch and i am able to feel my fingers again
  
• That's all.
  

Pop the shampers people!

so i know that you have put up with a lot of moaning from me this year. "I'm so busy" bla bla bla. Well now you get to celebrate with me too! 2 cooooool things for today:

1. I fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally got a GHD!!! YAY ME!! I've been waiting aaaaages. It was imported direct from UK. No more bad hair days people. Glugs - a GHD (good hair day) is a hair straightener... not just any hair straightener, mind you. It is basically the Rolls Royce of hair straighteners.... it comes in this sleek black and gold box, complete with a DVD to show you how its done! I have probably lusted after my friends' GHDs for the past 4 or 5 years and today finally, FINALLY I have one of my very own. YAY!!!!! (and yes, after collecting it, i came to my office, closed the door and straightened my hair).

2. WOOOOOHOOOOOOO the marketing campaign that I have eaten, slept and breathed this whole year - WWF's Be The Hero campaign - has been nominated for 10 Loerie Awards.
The Loerie Awards are like the Oscars of the advertising industry. We have really worked our butts off on this campaign and I have to say that I am JUBILANT at the nominations. Hopefully we will bag some awards at the end of the month! Hold thumbs with me, k?

Raindrops are falling on my bed

Not reeally... but that random song has been in my head for 5 days... coz that's how long it's been raining.

My family in Durbs spent yest morning on the beach, my folks in EL had a braai by the pool. And the band and me? We just tried to fight off hypothermia whatever way we could. (and all the dirty minded people's grinned wickedly)

The Cape is frrrrrrrizzzing. It's doing NOTHING for my hair or my self-control on the food intake front. I am just a frizzy haired, many clothing layered eating machine.

This weekend the inlaws arrive. We are going to go spend the time in one of those little white seafront cottages in Arniston. HOPING for decent weather. We still have to break it to the inlaws that we've been evicted. The MIL is probably going to want to do our landlord physical harm. The band is her youngest and she is protective.

The MIL is very sweet, she ALWAYS brings me jewellry when she visits (even though i wear the same necklace just about every day of my life) and she always stocks us up on woolies food. She always brings the band clothes which he ALWAYS returns to the shop and exchanges for other clothes. She reckons that Rafael Nadel looks exactly like the band. hahahaha. Loved that one. Just as long as it doesn't encourage the band to grow his hair again... I've endured a lot of his hair "phases" already thank you very much.

Why is it that...

People are so doff?
Seriously.

So I may have mentioned that since my boss left I am doing her job and mine.... Stressed is the mild, shy, dorky, diminuitive cousin to what I am. Anyway, most people are savvy enough to know this, or at least ONE WOULD THINK SO! But nope, suddenly people are asking me to do the most inane things for them. It's RIDICULOUS.

Let me expand the situation for you:
My job is currently looking after marketing and communication for one of the biggest brands in the country, which includes keeping 2 LARGE websites up to date, writing 2 'work' blogs, compiling an entire annual review (a month's worth of work on its own), compiling a newsletter, putting together a campaign with Cape Town schools, organising the calendar which we want to sell, managing the creation of a cell phone based carbon calculator, writing press releases, organising press launches, managing our participation in a number of expos and events, etc. (and that's just the average week)

I am eating, sleeping and nightmaring WORK. It's bad. I love the stuff I do, but I'm only one little me, you know?

ANYWAY, amidst all this, whilst my hair steadily goes from rich chocolate brown to dull ashy grey and bald spots appear (well probably) I get requests like this:

From the JHB office:

• "A bunch of new staff have started at the Stellenbosch office, maybe you can go around taking photos of them and write a little something about each of them so we know who they are and what they look like. " (WOW! So THAT'S what I spent 7 years studying for!!! I delegated this one to our receptionist to do when she has a moment)
  
• "I DESPERATELY need my letter that I send out to corporates updated. PLEASE can you help me URGENTLY" (NO! It is YOUR job. YOU write it and I will proof read it for you.)

From my colleague here:

• "We URGENTLY need to write a thank you letter to xxxx shop to thank them for providing our snacks for staff socials. Please put something together. There names are XX and XX and keep it casual and upbeat." (Well, sure, after all I do sit around picking my nose all day.... Um... let's just think about it... NO!!! I'm not your little flippen PADAWON. Do it yourself. It is YOUR relationship to manage, not mine. I will proof read stuff and that is it.)

SERIOUSLY have these people no frikken idea whatsoever?? Even our most senior staff compile their own thank you letters. CRIKEY MAN STOP BEING SO BLUDDY LAZY!! AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!

Anyway, that is my vent for the day. Thank you for enduring it.

Self portrait