Day 26: Favourite Foods

Well, there's a few, but I'm not sure if meals counts as foods? I'm going to assume it's okay. So, my top 10 favourite foods:

1. Fruit, especially watermelon, melon, sharon, grapes, berries, promegranates, citrus, mangoes, prickly pears, etc. I absolutely LOVE fruit.

2. Raw veggies. I don't like veggies much, not cooked. But raw - love it! Not all of it. But carrots, snap peas, avo's, cucumber, lettuce, etc.

3. Chicken curry. Warm, comfort food.

4. Lamb stew. Same, it's warm and comforting.

5. Beef & veggie soup. Cold winter night special.

6. Grilled T-bone beef steak.

7. Bacon. In any way, shape or form.

8. Crisps. Does this count as food? It's made from potatoes or corn, not true? Haha.

9. Biltong and droewors. For those not in South Africa, it's dried, cured strips of beef (or game), and dried pieces of a fattened sausage. Doesn't sound appealing, but it's really, really good, and an all time favourite of most South Africans of my culture.

10. Popcorn. Just plainly salted. Loads of salt, actually.

Day 25: Where am I...

at my happiest?

Easy answer today. At home. Surrounded by my family, or alone, but at home. A close second would be in Waenhuiskrans, in my parent's little beach house. But home is where my heart is. With my belongings around me, my way of doing things. The food I love in the fridge, the coffee I like next to me, the music I like, on the tv/radio.

Day 24 – What’s my favourite time of year and why?

Christmas. Without a second thought. Love it love it love it. Don't care about people's complaints that it's commercialised. Don't care about the hype or the fact that shops put decorations out in October already. Don't care if we spend too much money.

I just love Christmas. It has everything to me. In our country, it's summer. The height of summer, to be exact. It's hot and beautiful weather. It's long school holidays. And I have the most beautiful memories of my time with my mother as I grew up, over Christmases. We always went to Waenhuiskrans, at the coast. Beautiful memories. I wasn't sad much when my dad sold their house. Because to me, my mom's house is the one in Waenhuiskrans. That's where I find her again. I remember exactly where the Christmas tree stood. How it looked. The long walks late afternoon or after dinner. The good meals. The family times.

And most importantly. I'm a Christian, and Christmas is a time for joy. Because we celebrate the birth of our beloved Jesus. I don't care about the origins of where it started or whatever people's opinion on that is. I celebrate the 25th of December as Jesus's birthday. We party for Him. We party with Him. We give gifts to each other, because we can't give something physical to Him, and He loves us being kind and good to each other. We celebrate with family. And we celebrate for 2 days long. We eat like kings. We spoil ourselves. We spoil each other. There's a vibe in the air, everywhere you go. Shops, friends, everywhere. Most of the people in our community/circle, are Christians. We send each other happy sms's. Life is beautiful at Christmas time for us. I make sure that the kids are thoroughly spoiled, at least this one time a year. I save all year long for their gifts. Looking forward to finding each one exactly what they want. And to see their faces lit up. Just absolutely the best day.

Day 23: My most embarrassing moment

OK, I can't believe I'm even posting today's challenge. But here goes.

I've had a number of embarressing moments. But one that still makes me cringe is when I went to the neurologist a couple of years ago. I didn't want to go, I was certain nothing was wrong. But hubby was worried, so I promised him I'll go. It was about skin patches on my hips, stomach, thighs and back that doesn't have feeling anymore. All sensation is lost. I was certain it was due to my 2nd pregnancy, where baby lied from hip to hip. I could feel her pinching my nerves, and permanently damaging it. But ya, it could've just as well been a tumor in my spine, so I went to the neurologist.

Stupidly, I thought of him as a brain doctor, and totally forgot that he'll most likely check the skin out. Well, it's on my upper thighs. And it was winter. And in winter I don't like to shave.

I could've died from embarressment. It was just awful awful awful. My own stupid fault. Never again. The dr itself was obviously not fazed. Very gentlemanly like. And of course, he diagnosed me with exactly what I thought. Nerve damage from pregnancy and nothing to worry about. He did send me for an MRI due to lower back pain, but it was perfectly clear as well.

I still cringe, thinking of that.

Day 22 – My hobbies

I think this one has been covered by some of the previous challenges. I have a few hobbies I love to spend time on, but it's all things that keeps my mind busy. Not my hands. As long as my mind is occupied, and I don't have to do anything with my body, like excersizing, I'm happy. :-)

So basically, I love reading, tv, surfing the net (especially joining in on various forums or researching something) and playing computer games.

Day 21: What do I do...

...when I'm home alone?

Surf the net, play computer games, watch tv, listen to music - while I drink a cuppacino and eat something. :-)

Day 20 – My biggest accomplishment

Well, firstly the corny answer, again, would be my children. Each one individually. Being able to carry them to term, especially the first two when no one thought they'd make it. Raising them to be the wonderful little human beings they are today. And advocating for my daughter when she needed me to.

So, if I'm not corny, what would my biggest accomplishment be?

I think I'd say my 2 degrees, and getting them cum laude. I didn't do well in my first term in univarcity. I was lonely, scared, lost-in-the-city. The world was suddenly such a very, very different place, and not one I liked very much. But, then I started to get the hang of it. I made friends, I started to "belong" to a similar like-minded group, I got to know the work-pace, the lecturers and life in a hostel. I started to find the work very interesting and loved learning. Still hated exams, LOL. So in the end, I was able to drag my marks up and finished my degree with marks I could be proud of. I wasn't ready to stop learning yet, so I got some bursaries, a temporary job and paid my own way through my honors degree, also finishing it with a good final mark. I still think of my uni days with fondness and longing. I met my husband there, which turned out to be the best thing ever from my 4 years there. :-)

Day 19 – Five blogs I read

Well, this is a bit of an embarressing thing to admit, being a blog-writer myself, but I don't frequent other blogs all that regularly. I do have a looooooong list of blogs, and I do go to most of them every so often, but I don't visit x number of blogs x number of times a week. What I usually do, is when I have a "cause", like recently with the pulmonary hypertension, I would google until I feel like I know all there is to know. This includes personal stories, which invariably leads me to blogs. Then I'll read that blog almost from front to back. Most of the time, I'd go back at some point, but I won't be a regular visitor. So it leaves me with a very very long list of blogs that I can name here. But since I don't frequently read them, it would make it difficult which ones to choose.

When I was in the midst of getting Boeboe diagnosed with the tethered cord, I found comfort in a number of blogs about spina bifida and tethered cord. There were 4 especially that stuck with me, which I check up on fairly regularly. So I decided to only list those 4. They are:

http://samtheconqueror.blogspot.com/ 
http://joumaseblerrieblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.aworthyjourney.com/
http://www.masonsbjournal.blogspot.com/

I don't know if it was good writing skills, adorable children that stole my heart, or something else that struck a cord with me. Unfortunately, the 2nd one's writer has decided to slow down updating her blog (sniff sniff). Still worth a look at, especially if you're in South Africa (the first 2 are both South African ladies).

Day 17: My guilty pleasure

I'm going to admit that though I kinda knew what "guilty pleasure" meant, I had to google it to make sure I understood the term correctly. So, accordingly to wiki, this is the definition:

A guilty pleasure is something one enjoys and considers pleasurable despite feeling guilt for enjoying it. The "guilt" involved is sometimes simply fear of others discovering one's lowbrow or otherwise embarrassing tastes, such as campy styles of entertainment. Fashion, video games, music, films, and junk food can be examples of guilty pleasures.

I don't have a shopping addiction I hide from my husband. I don't look at porn or sleezy websites. I don't hide chocolates beneath my pillow or something. So I do apologise for being such a goody 2-shoes today, but there's not really any guilty pleasures I can admit to. I have lots of things I enjoy, obviously, but none of them make me hide it, or feel guilty about it. I'm really a very open book. And I don't feel guilty about my (lack of) style, fashion, likes/dislikes, etc. At this age, I'm quite happy with who I am, and don't feel I owe anyone anything, that would make me feel guilty, iykwim? So I guess the closest thing I have to a guilty pleasure, is that I spent too much time online. Sometimes, it would be good for me, for the house, for my husband and for my children, if I would spend a little less time on my laptop. ;-)

Day 16: Ten things that makes me awesome

Ouch! This was a difficult challenge for yesterday. I started doing it, but just couldn't post. Look, I love doing the challenge. But it would completely go against the grain of who I am, to post something with that title. I just couldn't do it. I don't believe I'm awesome. I don't like the word "awesome" in respects of describing a person, least of all me. So ya, I'll backdate this post to keep to the date-integrity, but I can't list 10 things. Maybe if I was in a lighthearted mood, I would've been able to, but my heart is a bit heavy for that.