Every time I renovate I tell myself 'never again' ... and yet here I am on the verge on another nervous breakdown, covered in dust.
Dust. Dust. F*cking dust. It's everywhere.
I look like Frosty the snowman.... I'm whiter than Vanilla Ice I'm so covered in dust. The dogs are covered in it and so is the house. I'm camping in my bedroom (again), I still don't have a kitchen, and I'm ready to strangle just about everyone involved (including myself).
So let's see if the renovation checklist is in place.
Am I MASSIVELY over budget?
Yes ... And terrifyingly so.
Have at least three un-forseen, butt-clenchingly enormous costs made themselves known to me and my builder?
Yes. I'm having my own personal recession here, and they're the reason I'm surfing eBay for a large padded cell and straight jacket.
On the plus side due to all the butt-clenching, my bum might be getting firmer!
Am I a month behind schedule?
Yes. Due to the three huge, butt-clenching issues.
Is there dust and dirt everywhere?
Yes. Due to one of the huge issues and also to the fact my bathroom is being tiled and grouted.
Am I swinging between suicidal and manically optimistic?
Yes. Suicidal because I hate living in dust and dirt, and optimistic because my home is starting to look gorgeous (and so is my grouty bathroom) .... I can't wait for it all to be finished!!!
So there you have it. I'm definitely in renovating hell.
I'm NEVER doing this again!!!!!!!!!
I'm sorry but really? How can you POSSIBLY say something like this and not look like an idiot. He's not a child anymore, methinks the Ego has taken over his brain.
I'm quoting Gareth Cliff here... it's bitingly apt.
"I can imagine hordes of stupid Beliebers complaining how jealous they are of "that lucky, lucky Anne Frank girl who got a visit from Justin Bieber at her house..."
RIP Margaret Hilda Thatcher. Move over Sarah Palin you shameless pretender ... this was the western world's first classy, bulldog with lipstick. A courageous, strong and intelligent woman, Britain's first and only female Prime Minister. Love her, hate her ... you'll never forget her.
"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't"
Margaret Thatcher.
Notorious for her strength of personality, radical reform and free market policies ... "In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman," she shattered the glass ceiling in western politics while showing her cautious nature, packing her bags in No 10 before every election ... as a reminder never to take victory for granted.
A strong ally of America, and I was surprised to read apartheid South Africa, describing our beloved Nelson Mandela as a terrorist (hey no-one's perfect)... the grocer's daughter turned PM helped Ronald Regan accelerate the end of the cold war and was unswerving in her commitment to defend the Falkland Islands against Argentina, steadfastly deploying troops.
Sinking the Argentine Cruiser General Belegrano showed a determination to protect her troops at all costs. Called courageous in some quarters and the act of a war criminal in others, and possibly a pivotal point of the war, (one must remember it was still a time of war - it's not like Argentina was playing tiddlywinks, the British also suffered casualties) she was defending British troops the best way she knew how. Her nickname the Iron Lady was well earned.
God give me the grace to be half that strong....
..."But if there is one thing that cuts through all of this - one thing that runs through everything she did – it was her lion-hearted love for this country. She was the patriot prime minister and she fought for Britain's interests every single step of the way." David Cameron.
OK so there's more than three things in the mix up there, not least of all, that she escaped an IRA bomb placed at her hotel in Brighton a year after the Falklands War. So it's up to you to choose which three things you want to take away from the legacy of this incredible, unforgettable, albeit controversial lady.
I know I've
stayed on this subject for a couple of days, but I believe it is our moral imperative to keep children as safe as possible.
If you would like to read the interview transcript I
have found a copy ... Click here for it - and thanks to Mark Cogitate a Saffa Catholic Blogger
for this information. This way you can make up your own mind as to what is what.
I believe that Cardinal Napier will now try the "I was misquoted and this is a terrible misunderstanding" route. After the backlash he will back-track and come out with strong statements contradicting some of the things he said in the interview.
Interesting to see that when pushed about a priest who asked to be laicised (removed) the interviewer asked " When he was caught or after he did it?"
Cardinal Napier refused to answer saying that wasn't relevant.
Well I think we have our answer.
If it had been before, then the Cardinal would have been thrilled to hold this man up as a paragon of mentally ill virtue. (yes that IS a ridiculous oxymoron) Yet he didn't. My guess is, because he couldn't.
What are your thoughts on this? The Cardinal returns to SA on Friday, do we give him a warm welcome or do we show him that pedophilia is not a matter to be hidden away in the dark corners of religion. In the past they protected the perpetrators by moving them from parish to parish, and is seems from this transcript that the Cardinal is quite comfortable excusing a pedophile's behaviour as 'not criminal' if the abusers have been abused themselves.
I understand that this is a condition that needs treating.
So get them treatment ...in jail.
Tomorrow we'll be back to rainbows and butterflies, celebrity bullshit and things fun and fluffy.
A joke
A couple have an excellent relationship until one day he comes home to find his girlfriend packing up her stuff.
"Why are you leaving me?" he asked
"I've heard terrible things about you, I have to leave."
"What on earth could anyone have said to make you move out?" he asked shocked to the core.
"They told me you're a pedophile"
"Well now, that's an awfully big word for a ten year old."
I'm spitting
with rage and indignance like a cat having a bath, surprise, surprise
the Catholic Church has yet another fire to put out.
I'm not widely
experienced in matters of religion, and generally I've been pretty scathing
about the Catholic Church. Too many young boys have had their lives
devastated by men with perverted sexual appetites. The robed deviants
have been protected by this church and such matters have been swept
under too many expensive rugs and tapestries.
For
this reason I refuse to believe in the sanctity of the Catholic
Church. I know however that millions worldwide do, and I do respect
that choice. It is after all our right to have freedom of choice, with
an open mind.
Contrarily,
and bizarrely given these feelings, I am excited to see the Catholic
Church's choice of Pope. At least I was until I read a statement put
out by our SA cardinal.
I'm going
to paraphrase news24 here.
Rome
- South Africa’s Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier has sparked a new
controversy for the Catholic church after describing paedophilia as a
psychological "illness, not a criminal condition"
In an interview on BBC Radio 5 live, Cardinal Napier said paedophilia as "a psychological condition, a disorder".
"If I - as a normal being - choose to break the law, knowing that I'm breaking the law, then I think I need to be punished."
The Durban cleric said he knew at least two priests, who became paedophiles after themselves being abused as children.
"Now
don't tell me that those people are criminally responsible like
somebody who chooses to do something like that. I don't think you can
really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished. He
was himself damaged."
I'm truly
horrified by such a statement, and it validates my reasons for
mistrusting the Catholic Church. In one fell swoop, this cardinal has
effectively condoned child abuse. Why the hell is he not in the
headmasters' study getting a lifetime of detention and being demoted
from prefect?
And this idiot was actually a candidate to become Pope?
This
puts a dampener on my enthusiasm of the new Pope. If he doesn't
publicly reprimand this ignorant and dangerous man, and at the very
least demote him, then I give up.
On a lighter note and where this blog started ... in the spirit of good will ...
As an animal lover I'm a big fan of St Francis of Assisi, and as saints go to my mind he's the real deal.
This man who lived so long ago, who was real, who was flawed, who found God IS someone I respect. Highly.
If you have not read about him then I urge you to do so, it's a compelling tale.
Pope Francis is a Jesuit, a member of perhaps the most powerful and experienced religious order of the Catholic Church. Jesuits
(missionaries and educators) are trained to be expert communicators,
and Pope Francis is already showing signs of humility combined with the
necessary modern day comprehension of the value of communication in the
media.
It
is said that after becoming Pope he refused the papal Mercedes-Benz
armour-plated limousine and climbed into a minibus with other 'standard
issue' cardinals. Early the next morning he then slipped out of Vatican
City in a
motorcade of unmarked vehicles with a handful of close
aides to pray in a Roman Basilica, and on the way back to the Vatican he
insisted on settling his
bill at a hotel where
he had been staying.
Sounds like an all-round good egg to me.
Now,
will the egg roll with the modern day times he finds himself in, or
Humpty Dumpty himself, smashed against the cobblestones of
contraception, abortion and other thorny issues.
Faster than anticipated it looks like his first nuclear issue has arisen. Paedophilia in the Catholic Church.
Let's
see what he does. My bet is that this all gets swept underneath
another very expensive tapestry with some lame excuse of a
'misunderstanding and that his comments were taken out of context.' Clearly the catholic church spin doctors (and politicians) believe we all have IQs the size of a small butter lettuce.
If this is the excuse they spin, then he'll be a liar as well as a champion of pedophiles.
I hope I'm wrong.
I'm spitting with rage and indignance like a cat having a bath, surprise, surprise the Catholic Church has yet another fire to put out.
I'm not widely experienced in matters of religion, and generally I'm pretty scathing about the Catholic Church. Too many young boys have had their lives devastated by men with perverted sexual appetites. The robed deviants have been protected by this church and such matters have been swept under too many expensive rugs and tapestries.
For this reason I refuse to believe in the sanctity of the Catholic Church. I know however that millions worldwide do, and I do respect that choice. It is after all our right to have freedom of choice, with an open mind.
Contrarily, and bizarrely given these feelings, I am excited to see the Catholic Church's choice of Pope. At least I was until I read a statement put out by our SA cardinal.
I still do have hope that past wrongs can be addressed, and a new wave of enlightenment may enter the Catholic Church, but with dangerous idiots like this in positions of power saying publicly that it's just fine and dandy to abuse children, it's not looking promising.
It's our own SA cardinal that I'm referring to. He has just made a most appalling, ignorant, and dangerous statement on child abuse. I'm going to paraphrase news24 here.
Rome - South Africa’s Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier has sparked a new controversy for the Catholic church after describing paedophilia as a psychological "illness, not a criminal condition"
In an interview on BBC Radio 5 live, Cardinal Napier said paedophilia as "a psychological condition, a disorder".
"If I - as a normal being - choose to break the law, knowing that I'm breaking the law, then I think I need to be punished."
The Durban cleric said he knew at least two priests, who became paedophiles after themselves being abused as children.
"Now don't tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who chooses to do something like that. I don't think you can really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished. He was himself damaged."
I'm truly horrified by such a statement, and it validates my reasons for mistrusting the Catholic Church. In one fell swoop, this cardinal has effectively condoned child abuse. Why the hell is he not in the headmasters' study getting a lifetime of detention and being demoted from prefect?
This puts a dampener on my enthusiasm of the new Pope. If he doesn't publicly reprimand this ignorant and dangerous man, and at the very least demote him, then I give up.
On a lighter note and where this blog started ... in the spirit of good will ...
As an animal lover I'm a big fan of St Francis of Assisi, and as saints go to my mind he's the real deal.
This man who lived so long ago, who was real, who was flawed, who found God IS someone I respect. Highly.
If you have not read about him then I urge you to do so, it's a compelling tale.
Pope Francis is a Jesuit, a member of perhaps the most powerful and experienced religious order of the Catholic Church. Jesuits (missionaries and educators) are trained to be expert communicators, and Pope Francis is already showing signs of humility combined with the necessary modern day comprehension of the value of communication in the media.
It is said that after becoming Pope he refused the papal Mercedes-Benz armour-plated limousine and climbed into a minibus with other 'standard issue' cardinals. Early the next morning he then slipped out of Vatican City in a
motorcade of unmarked vehicles with a handful of close
aides to pray in a Roman Basilica, and on the way back to the Vatican he insisted on settling his
bill at a hotel where
he had been staying.
Sounds like an all-round good egg to me.
Now, will the egg roll with the modern day times he finds himself in, or Humpty Dumpty himself, smashed against the cobblestones of contraception, abortion and other thorny issues.
Faster than anticipated it looks like his first nuclear issue has arisen. Paedophilia in the Catholic Church.
Let's
see what he does. My bet is that this all gets swept underneath
another very expensive tapestry with some lame excuse of a
'misunderstanding and that his comments were taken out of context.'
Clearly the catholic church spin doctors (and politicians) believe we
all have IQs the size of a small butter lettuce.
If this is the excuse they spin, then he'll be a liar as well as a champion of pedophiles.
I hope I'm wrong.
I have an odd family. Wonderful but odd. Sadly most of them are in far flung locations so I feel somewhat orphan-like most of the time. However every blue moon that changes and this weekend was one such occasion. My step-father P hasn't seen Joburg for years, so he also hasn't seen my pooches and his first comment coming through the door (after hugs etc) was..
"When did you get a Blue Heeler?"
I was like "a blue what??"
I'd thought he'd lost his marbles.
"A Blue Heeler ... that spotty dog you have."
Well Get Out Of Town!! I have a Blue Heeler and didn't even know it. I just thought Bella the Bongle was a spotty pavement special.
I googled the breed ...highly intelligent, strong, stubborn to the extreme and loyal ... that definitely sounds like her ....
In fact if you triple super stubborn, then cube it, and you have a dog, more cat than dog. Yup she's definitely that.
With more attitude than Mel Gibson after a bottle of Jack, she's highly vocal, makes her opinions known (just like Mel minus anti-Semitic rants) ... so basically more chatty in a charming, slightly obstreperous way!
You want me to do WHAT?
Sit.
Oh, OK.
Thank you.
Don't mention it.
Her build makes more sense now as well I've never seen a dog quite shaped like her (most of the time she looks like she's swallowed a pillow), but the Blue Heeler is bred to withstand the odd kick from cattle when herding, and has a slightly rounder shape than normal, hence her nickname Bella The Barrel.
She now has a new one ... Bella the Blue Heeler Hunting Dog.
aka Bella Bongle the miracle dog!
