Our garden, as I think I’ve mentioned before, is almost as arrid as a desert! The sun beats down on it almost full time and thus even our flower bed struggles to keep plants alive within its soil. A while back M and I bought a half wine barrel for R150 (bargin!) and we sanded it, varnished it and thats pretty much where its ended.

I’ve been desperately looking out for a Dwarf Citrus tree of sorts (the dwarf variety is propegated off a full grown tree vs a sapling thats stunted as a bonsai) but there is nowhere that I can find that sells this elusive tree. Thus our barrel has sat empty, void of all soil and roots (ok my mom borrowed it for her avo tree for a bit) and I recently (read: earlier today) found an article in The Gardener magazine which spoke of “Designer Trees: Local winners for small gardens” which turned out to be a pretty cool article. It basically outlined 5 or 6 trees to consider for a small garden.

Two of which caught my eye and are available fairly easily:

Heteropyxis natalensis – Lavender Tree (pictured above)
Searsia pendulina (formerly Rhus pendulina) – Wild Pear

Both are sized 4-10m tall (obv pruned to stay at 4m) and are great with full sun, and dry conditions. So I found a place that sells em, and I was verbally quoted R1500 for a tree of 4m in height (the largest which can be handled by hand without machinery assistance) which is too big anyway, so I’m hoping the price will come down for a smaller (2m) tree.

Yay! I cant wait! I’d like any thoughts you have on which tree you prefer, and why!

And some more good news, possibly even better, Iso’s biopsy results came back. She has (had?) a benign tumour which my vet removed in its entirety vs just a small biopsy and all looks good for it not to bother her again! They suspect it was a saliva gland gone awry but they said it looked like the vet had removed it all so happy days all around!

My sister (who is my Maid of Honour), my best friend (who is my bridesmaid), my mom (who is awesome) and a good friend (who never got to dress shop for her own wedding) are all coming along to assist!

The shop we’re going to is by appointment only, and we’ve booked the package which includes a bottle of of champagne, some cheese, crackers and 5 dresses to try on, and afterwards we’re having a braai at my place to continue on the festivities. The guys are going to hang out at our place while we go off and do the dress thing.

Its the first real weddingy thing I’ve done thus far, except view some venues. Oh, speaking of venues, we’ve booked ours! We chose a lovely winery which is so picturesque and perfect! We also booked our honeymoon suite which is 4 star accomodation and includes a Honeymoon turndown service with champagne, chocolates, cheese, and biscuits as well as breakfast the next morning as well as a complimentary wine tasting and cellar tour! So much awesomeness!

I’ve had a bit of trouble with my rats recently, Iso has a growth/lump on the side of her face. So I took her to the vet, got a week’s dose of Baytril and Prednisone and went home. The meds helped a little but she’s still got the lump, so I took her in the following Saturday and then again on Monday for a biopsy.

She came home with stitches on her cheek, poor thing, and I’ll get the biopsy results hopefully by Friday. If its a tumour, at least I’ll know. Anyway, so yesterday morning I had them out on the bed and next thing I look, there’s Macro grooming out all Iso’s stitches! GRR! So now the wound is open, bar one stitch, so I took her through to the lounge to glue it shut with superglue! (the vet does this all the time) It worked and I then decided to keep them separate until the wound is healed, which I should have done in the first place, but didnt because I felt bad that they were both alone in their respective cages.

Ok so next weekend is also a first for me! My first photoshoot! I won an engagement photoshoot from Hearts in a Shutter and we’ve booked for the following weekend! As you know, I’m normally always the one behind the camera, so this is rather daunting for me. I have no idea what to wear, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out (I’d buy something new but the vet bill set me back R800 this month and still R371 to go!). We chose a nice earthy theme and picked a forest to do the shoot in, so I’m looking very forward to it, in amongst the nerves haha.

And then the following weekend after that one, we’re meeting with our wedding photographer to sign on the dotted line! She is an amazing photographer and I’m so lucky to be able to secure her for our wedding! I always knew the photography was going to be the toughest decision for me because I’m a photographer, but she made it so simple!

And that, my dear readers, are my next few weeks in a nutshell….

Happily I logged on to GelaSkins.com and browsed the many, many skin options available by so many talented artists. I eventually decided that, for my Kindle, I needed a darker colour one, as the light colours just didnt quite match with the grey background of the original Kindle cover.
And of course, I love nature and photography, so who better to go with as an Artist but National Geographic! Right, so I’d narrowed down the choice (the fiance had grown board by this point so it was just me now haha) of artist, now I just needed to pick a design.

It was a tough choice between the Baobab Silhouette and The Orion Nebula…the colours of the Baobab just pulled and tugged at me, and made me imagine sitting somewhere under the beautiful African sky reading my Kindle as dusk fell all around me (until the light became too dim to read haha). But the contrast of the bright pink colour around the keyboard bugged me. So I looked to the Orion Nebula. Immediately my mind was drawn to Pern, one of my favourite series of novels as I’ve mentioned before. Plus, if I look up into the night sky outside my house, I can see Orion and his Belt on many an oft occasion.

And the contrast by the keyboard wasnt too noticable and it didnt bug me. Done and done.

We ordered it on the 28th, and sadly had to pick “snailmail” for $3.95. I just couldnt justify spending $19.95 on P&P when the Kindle skin itself was $17.95 lol. But, I sat back to wait, and on on Jan 2 I got an email to say my order had been shipped, and on the 20th it arrived! (However, Murphy and his Law entourage decided to show his face and the Post Office was closed so I couldnt collect it til today).

So as soon as I got home, I whipped it open and ooh’d and ahh’d at the pretty colours (and the most beautiful Gizmo who I made custom for my cellphone from my own photo of course!). Of course I had to take before (, during) and after photos of the skin before applying it to my Kindle, so I present to you the transformation of my Amazon Kindle 3 to my Amazon “Orion Nebula” Kindle 3:

Before, front

GelaSkin!

Skinned!

Close up

Back

I didnt upload a photo of it, but the texture of the gelaskin is a crosshatch pattern which makes it seem more sturdy and stretch resistant while applying, and you can reapply it a few times before it loses its stickiness and becomes unusable.

All in all, I’m very happy with my Kindle’s new makeover, and for anyone wondering if its worth it to spend the dough, I highly recommend GelaSkins

Hmm. Anyway.

I’m thinking of baking more cookies this weekend. Chocolate cookies, mmm. But I cant decide how I’m going to decorate them. Any thoughts and ideas would be appreciated, nudge nudge. I was thinking Angry Birds, but I need to find a wider array of tips to use to do any details.

Had to delete a bit of this post as I typed this up yesterday (or was it the day before that?) but never got around to finishing it. So where to continue? Fiance bought MW3 and played it all of the night before last, and he seems to like it which is great. I was doing a website for my dad’s friend and its finally finished, along with photos I was editing for the wedding I shot in Oct, so I finally have free time in the evenings again to relax. Its wearing me out working all day and then still having to focus and work in the evenings as well as make dinner etc.

Got home this evening and what did I see? A gardened garden!! Turns out, my mother came in during the day with her gardener and cleaned out our garden so its looking lovely now!!! A little sparce, but nothing really grows in my garden anyway, but its all weed free and trimmed!! And my tomato plant that sprouted itself has been propped up with a twig (taken from the cuttings of the overgrown hedge haha) and there are SO many tomatoes growing!!

(pics taken with my cellphone)

So many full bags!

My tomato plant in the front

So awesome! Of course we’ll reimburse her for the gardener, and I’ll buy her something really nice or give her a voucher to buy herself something of her choice. It was such a lovely surprise to come home to after a long day at work. <3

I really have learnt so much from my mother during my years, and really, without the amazing and strong woman she is, I wouldnt be half the woman I am today. I’m so blessed to have her in my life to guide and love me, no matter what.

First up: I got myself a Kindle 3!! Yes, latest generation, wifi and free 3G! Wow do I love this little gadget! It arrived last week in its innovative Amazon Frustration Free Packaging, packed neatly inside the box made from recycled materials. Grinning like a loon, I pulled the slider to turn it on and watched as the trademark Kindle Tree of Life greeted me on startup. The text on the screen almost looked fake, but the E-Ink display is awesome! I would recommend this device to any reader!

It’s pretty easy to navigate, basically if you know how to use a computer, you’ll know how to use a Kindle. I wasnt too impressed with viewing FB via the Kindle, but lets be honest, thats not what its there to do. I quickly loaded a txt file I had found years ago of (the softcover book I was currently reading) The White Dragon, by Anne McCaffrey. It viewed really nicely on the device and even Text-to-Speech worked really well (ctrl+sym shortcut)!

Battery life is around a month without wireless on, so I do turn it off when its not needed. I did download a sample of a book, which gives you the first chapter for free. I’m actually reluctant to read it now that I downloaded it incase its halfway decent and then I will have to buy it! Lol!

But I do have a few books I’ve collected in pdf format over the years, so now every day at work in my tea breaks and lunch break, I sit with my Kindle and read. It’s bliss and I cant wait until I go away on holiday and am able to sit in the sun and read…after all, that is a benefit of a Kindle

The Kindle 3!

This innovation truly is frustration free!

My first look at my new Kindle

A close up shot

Second up, my boss bought a R.A.T 7 gaming mouse a while back from Taiwan, and he used it for a bit and wasnt too fond of it (he likes his hyperscroll), so he gave it to my fiancé, who also tried it but didnt really like it (he prefers his Razer DeathAdder) so now its been handed to me and I love it! I do like my Razer Lachesis, but the R.A.T is a very comfortable mouse for people with smaller hands (if you have giant hands, give this one a miss, even with the modding options available)

And thirdly, the fiancé and I went to MTN the other day and upgraded our contracts, so now we’re both using the HTC Desire Z…I felt with the amount I type in FB and on mxit, I needed something with an actual keyboard, so this was pretty much the only choice (the only other viable choice was the Nokia E7, though it wasnt Android). And hell yea its been great!

Warning: However! I wouldnt recommend this phone (or possible anything similar) to anyone without a wireless internet connection at home/work which they can connect to. This little device guzzles bandwidth (so much so I’ve turned my Mobile Access off so it wont download anything and use up all my money!

A random pic (not my own) of an HTC Desire Z

The battery has been taxed a little, already so early on in its life haha, as I’ve been downloading apps from the Android Market and live wallpapers like its going out of fashion. I’ve fallen in love with Angry Birds, watsapp (GREAT chat program!), and even Bakery Story (silly baking game similar to Cafe World or Restuarant City in FB), and many, many live wallpapers (possibly my favourite feature of an Android phone haha!).

Just today I was wondering the name of a song which that I had in my head, and I knew it was a song played in my cousin’s wedding video on his FB page, so I tested out an app called SoundHound and within seconds it had identified the song (I’m Yours, by Jason Mraz). The fiancé and I even tested it against a not-so-well-known artist Kate Voegele (from One Tree Hill) and after a few seconds it identified her, no problem! So a big thumbs up to SoundHound!

Oh, my sister also upgraded to the same phone, on the same day, so we’re all in New Gadget Heaven haha!

PS: Poll updated! Go vote!

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