My Year of Meaningful (2011)

... ugh, I hate writing accounts of my rendezvouses with the great african bush, but I'll try and do it in 100 words or less:

the last 1/2 of the easter trip was great. we continued to eat and drink well, and drive around and read and watch the sun set and the moon rise and all that stuff. I worked on my animal track identification and can now pretty much 90% tell you a brown hyena's tracks from a spotted one. And lion from leopard and all that rot.

ok is that enough?

oh wait, and we blew a tire coming home somewhere along the cut line we followed from the Kgalagadi to Khokhotsha.

Pictures were taken, they're all on FB, yadda yadda yadda.

Right now I'm in a foul mood because I'm supposed to be writing my assignment plan for my course, and it's due tomorrow and I'm having a hard time keeping my mind on my research. I mean who cares about this crap, really? I mean, latest developments in energy law and policy MY ASS. Sooooooooo not interested.

But alas I press on.

I miss my friends. :'(

P. keeps writing me from the Netherlands and making me realize all my BFFs here are well and truely gone. Have moved on. Doing great things with themselves. -sigh-

BUT! The autumn has come to G-city and it is beautiful. I love this time of year here, and it comes on so suddenly (Botswana is a land of very few slow-transitions. It's all very black & white, weather wise). I love it love it love it. And I love FINALLY being at home once in awhile, enjoying our new place, and particularly enjoying it on the weekends... I mean when was the last weekend we were actually HOME ALONE?! Even now as I write that, we've only had one, and it was this past weekend.

It's confusing when all of my Northern Hemisphere friends keep carrying on about spring... I want to carry on about autumn and how awesome it is, but it just feels wrong somehow, as everyone on twitter and the FB and blogs and whatwhatwhat is talking crocus and flower buds and green grass and long days... whereas here I am sitting in the orange and yellow Mophane trees and early darkness and pumpkins. Eish!

Labels: BW-general, camping, house

I have a few photos of the new house PRE-furniture, as just a big old empty canvas. But of course I forgot the camera today. Oops. The past weekend has been nothing but an absolute blur of unpacking, organizing, hole-drilling, cramming, up the stairs, down the stairs, up the stairs, down the stairs, lifting, shifting, and not a lot of relaxing.

My feet have never EVER hurt so much in my life. Never. Not even after my first weekend on the job as a waitress. NEVER. And I only peed once yesterday because I haven't been hydrating - let alone eating - but yet I still manage to be 1kg heavier than I was BEFORE the move!??! WTF?!?!

Friday was semi-pleasant, crashing in our neighbour's little guest cottage by the river (just opposite our old house) with Al and the Mr. and the puppies. We had a braai and listened to all my cool new music on the ol' laptop, and tried to get the puppies to go on a canoe ride, but they were having none of it. Up with the birds before 7am (ON A SATURDAY), fetched Mary, drove through the bush (the back way) to G-village and met the movers and the chaos ensued.

We actually had a house full of stuff by lunch time, which I was amazed at - I really thought it would take longer. But even the big things like the fridge and sofas etc pretty much just flew themselves in there and set themselves up like lightning. BUT!

Of course carpet guy let me down. Alas there was some issue with his truck being stuck at the border, etc etc, blah blah, and carpet never showed. Carpet was supposed to show this morning, monday morning, 1st thing in the morning. Never showed. 10 phone calls and some rather unruly language later I find out his truck was in a wreck last night and was impounded at the cop shop so he couldn't deliver. Ugh. So now he's going to deliver the material (today) but not install it til tomorrow. first thing. supposedly. we're runnin out of time here, people! jeeeez. SheofDC is arriving in a wee few days and I need carpet! And linoleum! Which I managed to find today. Shortly after realizing these carpet fools weren't coming, I went into town (after hanging at the house WAITING til 11am) and found the lino. It ain't pretty. But at least it's dark blue & light blue. Much more bathroomy than pink & maroon-red. blech! We'll lay that tonight (on our anniversary ~sniff~) and have that out of the way.

I AM SO FRICKIN SORE! My dogs are barkin! My dogs are barkin! I can hardly stand up straight. My legs hurt because apparently they don't remember what it's like to live in a 2-story house anymore and I must've made at least 100 trips up and down over 24 hours.

ANYWAY, today is the day of my 7 year anniversary. And I couldn't be happier. As 2009 is the year of love (and good luck) I think our 7th year is going to be the best. This whole 7-year-itch thing is way ridiculous. When you're married to a guy like the Mr., how can you NOT just keep falling more and more in love with him every year? As far as I'm concerned, I got love in logarithmic style... each year it grows exponentially and I say bring on the 7s. Then again I know I'm lucky and I got lucky and not everyone gets lucky, so I'll just keep counting my blessings and remind myself to stop complaining about the little stuff. My life could have been very, very different and I would be less of a person if it wasn't for meeting the Mr. 9 years ago and marrying him nearly 2 years later.

Unfortunately there's still too much work to be done in the house, to really go out and celebrate love and romance tonight (but we knew that, which is why we pulled out all the stops on valentine's day) but I'm not sweating it, because I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Saturday night we all went to bed with not even an open square inch of floor space in the whole house, due to boxes of junk and random bits and pieces everywhere. Sunday night we went to bed and you could see that people did indeed live in the house, and that it wasn't just a Federal Emergency/Disaster Zone. Hell, there were even pictures hanging up on the walls. Just shy of "presentable". Tonight, things like clocks and decorations and books will make their debut out in the open, after 2 weeks in a box, and then tomorrow there will be carpet and lino upstairs in the master loft. Just in time for SheofDC on thursday.

Along that line is Emelda, my new maid. She was helping the previous tenants move out and was cleaning the place up for them on the day we moved in. She's lovely and from Zim, like Mary, and she and Mary had a nice chat and liked each other, and I kind of felt like it was Mary "handing me off" to someone else, that day.... it was just a vibe, I can't really say what, so after watching her work that day I thought she would be great and asked her if she wanted to work for us and she said yes. woo hoo! She's lovely and today I showed her all the ins and outs of working for the wayward family and their hounds, and I think she'll be just fine. She was a little scared of our laundry machine and her mop water looked pretty rank after cleaning the tiles but nothing traumatic. And she likes dogs and is quite busy talking to them while she works, so I'm chuffed. Whew. That was one thing still left weighing on my mind = sorted.

Mary gave me a chicken to say good bye on saturday and gave me a huge cuddle and picked me up and swung me around a little bit. The Mr. dropped her home that night and apparently there was an emotional moment there too. :( But she's still intending to clean our office for us once a week so at least we'll still see her a bit. I would miss her sooooooooo much otherwise, and would have to make some excuse up like going out to buy more chickens off of her every week or something (she'd run out within a couple months I think), if she wouldn't. What with my aims of trying to eat more local and free range these days, that wouldn't actually be such a bad deal. Just not on the way to anywhere...

I will wait til all of the above house-things have been accomplished before taking "after-" photos, but hopefully tomorrow I will have a chance to at least post "before".

Labels: house, mary, The Mr.

Well yesterday was a success.
The Mr. and I got up the hill just before the sun went down, so our exercise was in the bag (which I'm worried about this week, being that it's so hectic and full of anomalies due to the impending move, we may not get ample time for fitness & may consume one too many easy-over-healthy meals), I wrote Podgey, I called Frank (we're getting new carpet in the new master bedroom - yay), and This American Life was entertaining as ever.

Today, I have to:
* go to gym at lunch
* write on The Other blog at some stage (which I promised the Mr. I would do)
* call the carpet guy
* chase up the carpet guy

and I dont really know what else.

I'm in such a good mood these days, things are happening, life is looking good, and there's no reason 2009 really can't be the year of good luck and love and all things positive. I'm not even going to end that sentence with "let's see how long that lasts" or anything cynical like that, I'm just going to ride this wave as far as it takes me and be thankful the whole way.

I was up with the birds as I had to be in G-village to meet Frank at (hack) 7:30 AM! agh! and that's a 30 minute drive through the bush from our present house, so yeah, I was out the door at 7. bleh! But once there, I was just so happy to be there (at the new house) even though the existing tenants still have a bunch of crap in it. My initial thoughts are: the master b.r. was a lot smaller than I'd pictured (which isn't a big deal b/c it's still HUGE), and the guest rooms were smaller. But again not a big deal. I still wish the kitchen had a double sink instead of just one (ghetto!) but otherwise I'm still as excited as before. OH and the stoep outside DOES have a proper roof over it so we CAN put our extra couch out there and not worry about the rain getting on it. More living space, woo hoo!

I couldn't take photos b/c Existing Tenants were still there and being all grumpy that Frank and I were walking around in their space, but that'll all come in a few days. Friday I can get over there and have a look, to be exact. Maybe photos then. Oh, I did note that there are 2 really beautiful cathedral windows in stained glass above the fireplace in the living room. Frank said he rescued them from an old church that was torn down. How cool. Existing Tenants had them covered up with ugly orange curtains the first time we checked the place out. bizarre.

Labels: house, the bet

Holy crack!
It's alive! Hope and possibility and luck and justice is alive!!

Just when all was about to crumble, it happened. It was probably the worst time in years to find a rental house but at the last minute the Mr. strolled out our office door and across the parking lot, and on a whim asked our IT guy if he knew of any places, and it turns out his dad has one coming open at the end of Feb., which is when our landlords want us out. So how lucky was that!?!? PARTICULARLY because when I called said "dad" and asked about it, and he said "sorry, someone looked at it yesterday and wants to take it",
and then I got off the phone and nearly hung myself in despair,
and Frank calls back, and says "oh wait I just talked to my office assistant and she said they haven't actually signed anything yet..."
...well, I just went apeshit and promised him we'd be there RIGHT NOW and with checkbook in hand, and he said OK, come and have a look!!!

It's not in our suburb or our 2nd choice, unfortunately, but it's in a similar situation (10 mins outside of town) on the west side, as opposed to the south, where we are now.

Anyway the people in it are moving out on the 26th of Feb., a crew is cleaning it on the 27th, and we move in on the 28th. What I'm hoping will impress my friends the most, is that it has a home phone in it too so people can CALL ME!!!, and we can also take over the old people's Internet connection!!! CONNECTED, BABY!!!

We are actually really excited about it because even though we loved our suburb here, we didn't ever make any really great friends here or anything, with the exception of our immediate neighbours. Rich old snobs throughout, basically. The new place is on a farm with about 10-15 houses on it, and we already know 3 of the houses' residents. There's Bernard of course, and our IT guy Peter & his wife (the one whose office is also just across the parking lot from us) and will literally be our next door neighbour, and his father, Frank, who owns all the properties, who lives in a giant house on the opposite side of the neighbourhood.

I can't wait to show it off, (finally! no more ghetto livin') and am so excited that SheofDC will be the first visitor in March. Except that the place will probably still be a wreck b/c she's coming 5 days after we move. But that's inspiration to get my ass in gear!!

It's set right into the side of the hill, so it's very much still bush-living (all the houses are very spaced out and you can't see your neighbours, monkeys and birds everywhere) and we have 180 degree view over the valley below, a little swimming pool, and a balcony out of the master bedroom, which is actually an entire loft, looking over the sunken living room w/ beautiful fireplace. It's 3 b.r., 2 bath, with a good dog-proof fence, and 24 hour security guard patrolling the farm. But the best part is that it has a fantastic outdoor living area with built-in braai, etc. I'm really happy with it, even if it's a much smaller plot and probably smaller square footage than where we are now (small guest rooms, only 1 living room - but the outdoor patio/balcony etc really makes up for that, right?) And the best thing is that it has a gorgeous high, high thatched roof and slate tiles throughout. Unfortunately no photos til the 28th of Feb, since the people are still in it.

Probably the best thing about it is that the landlord is ON SITE and it's a nice established small residential farm where if you have any problems you just call Frank's office (down at the bottom of the hill) and he has maintenance guys, gardeners, maids, etc., on staff so anytime there's a problem or the house needs attention you get it immediately. Now that's a far cry from these jerks we're renting from right now.

Anyway, all I can say is "whew!"
Now just to rustle up some overseas visitors to come and see it.... :D

What's really freaky is that we always said "ooh I'd never want to live in Gabane(village)". Why? because it seemed SO FAR OUT. But then we moved to this place. It's like only 9 minutes closer. I timed it. So I don't know what my problem is. Probably just because we moved here from inner city living back in Ireland. And now, here we are.... moving to G-village.

Also freaky: Frank's set up is such that he's looking for long-termers. He already has a house. His son already has a house. There will be no more unexpected evictions. That means we could conceivably be here for the duration of our time in BW. So, in effect, it is like we've come full circle. Why? Because G-village is where we got our start here.... back in the beginnings at Bernard's house! Wow.

Labels: house