Monthaversary Three: A mishmash of thoughts.

Hmm, let’s see what has been going on for the last month. I’ve gone to the gym so much, it is definitely part of my routine. I usually start at 9:30 for a cardio class, and then stay for the next one, then spend some time weight lifting and then stretching. It does vary though, but it is at minimum an hour a day. I have hurt my knee a little bit, I think due to moving incorrectly in Zumba. I don’t feel it every time I move, just when I squat or lunge (two moves I hate anyways!). I have been giving it rest, but every once in a while, I still feel a twinge. I keep going back and forth about going to the doctor- what do you think?  

Camps Bay view from Lion's Head.

We bought new Polar hart rate monitors (mine is the FT7 and P’s is the FT80) to help us get points on our Discovery Vitality membership. The points add up to 20 percent off (or more) airfare on certain airlines, so we are very motivated. Going to the gym gets us points, using the heart rate monitor gets us points, buying healthy groceries, and having certain preventative doctor check-ups all add up to more points!

The Eye at night.

We got our things. Mostly a good thing, but I’ve already found items that got packed that should have stayed in Arizona. Luckily I can fit them in suitcases when we come back for visits. We really have only unpacked our clothing and our electronics because of potentially moving any time between now and August 15th. I still have too many clothes. It’s hard when you’re someone like me, thinking that the shirt has sentimental value/memories or has “ideas about how I can re-fashion it,” to give clothes away; it is also hard not to want pretty new things that you see in the store. Really, I’m not trying to impress anyone but my husband. So, I don’t think I’ll be buying much clothing for a while unless something vital is needed. P unpacked all of his work-related books into his work office. Anything that I need, I can pull out of a box and put back. Most of our camping stuff were not in boxes, but wrapped in heavy brown paper (which the movers took) so all of that stuff is out in the open. 

Brown packing paper. Etta is in the background.

We as still looking for a house or flat to live in. After coming home from seeing the one I wrote about here, we decided that it was not exactly right for us. Plus, the owners never called us. We just looked at a house on Sunday that was rent-to-own, so I was really excited to see it. It was kinda far, but was across from a golf course- it was so peaceful with the birds chirping and such. Parts of it definitely needed fixing-up, but it had a huge work shop space for P, or it could be converted into a granny flat. The realtor showing it basically told us that (if she were us) we should wait a while and then decide if we wanted to buy a house here. I was a bit surprised that she was trying to get us to wait. Oh well. It is good advice. But the peacefulness; so different from where we live now. There is so much traffic on our little residential street!

Reeses' tongue.

How has your month been?

We miss you all!!

P.S. -Don’t forget to check out P’s blog!

Song of the Day: You and I Both by Jason Mraz

P.P.S.- I participating in these blog hops.

Highs and Lows of the week ending on 15/5/11.

Highs and Lows of the week:

Highs:

• Went out on a Friday night without my husband! It was the first evening/night that we were apart since we got to Africa.
• I did not get lost while driving.
• I performed a dance at International Belly Dance Day with my class. My teacher gave me a thumbs up afterwards!
• Took the dogs on a forrest walk. My husband talks about the outing here.
• We are slowly using some of our things! We are trying to keep everything in boxes, if at all possible, until we move in the next few months.
• Actually being able to sleep in this weekend. Both days!

I told Reeses to act like a circus animal. She was a bit annoyed. My husband also used this picture on his blog.

Lows:

• Locked the dogs inside the car with the keys inside as well. This was just before our forrest walk. Luckily the owner with the spare key saved us!
• Knee problems due to working out too much and not taking any days to rest. 

Check out Life, Crafts and Whatever for her Highs and Lows!

Song of the week:

Just My Imagination by The Temptations.

The Temptations - Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me) (1971)

2: A day in the life; AKA Our Stuff is Here!

We learned on Friday that our things had arrived and were given either Monday or Friday as options for delivery. The hubs and I went back and forth about which day was best to have it done. While on the phone to confirm for Friday, he jokingly said “or tomorrow...” They looked up the availability and called back saying they could be here Saturday at 2:00 p.m.

9:28 a.m.- We got a call from the delivery team saying that they’d be here at 10:00 or 10:15!  We quickly dress, plan where the boxes will go, and park the car outside of the driveway.

11:00 a.m.- We try to call the number that had called us at 9:28; no answer. I start to wonder if they’ve been hijacked and that we will never see our stuff.

They're here!

11:30 a.m.- They finally arrive. We split where the boxes go to either the extra bedroom, the dining room, or the lounge. They have trouble opening the boxes and are kinda silly. 

Unloading the first container. Devil's Peak in the background.

Being silly! Can you see that the guy with the hat on only has half a pinkie on his left hand?

12:30 p.m.- They are done and gone. It was so much better that the delivery was today- there would have been tons of traffic and no parking if we had done it during the week! We started sorting out the electronics first- the television, desktop computer, etc.; and then decided we needed some hardware to make it all work.

1:30 p.m.- We go to Canal Walk and buy something different than what we thought we needed, but it was much cheaper. We had lunch at KFC again- no “zinger”mishaps this time. Phew!

4:30 p.m.- We come back home and P spends time getting frustrated by wires, but was ultimately successful! He is always so good at setting things up. 

6:30 p.m.- Dinner at Primi Piatti; I have a California pizza and he has a curry/red sauce fusion pasta.

7:30 p.m. – We go to see the movie Unknown. P left it saying “Who knew Liam Neeson could be such a bad ass?!”

And Today:

We sorted out all the books he’d packed for his office at work and we drove them over.

I practiced my belly dance routine. Did I mention I’m in a performance on the 14^th?

Then we spent several hours opening boxes of clothes and trying to organize them in the BICs (built in cupboards). P was done much sooner than I was because I kept trying on clothes. I’m such a girl sometimes! 

The boxes in the spare bedroom. Mostly clothes, crafty stuff, and camping gear.

We ate leftovers from Primi and then had a braai- grilled steak and corn! Yummy.

We watched the end of West Wing Season Two; I ironed while watching (all our clothes are wrinkly!).

We also watched the movie The Switch. We both liked it.

Then we called some of the mothers in our lives to wish them:

Happy Mother’s Day!

Song of the days: Here Comes the Sun by George Harrison. 
The video comes from a charity event and Ringo Starr, Elton John, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton and a few others play with him.

Chapman's Peak Drive and Hout Bay.

On our way home from our trip to The Cape of Good Hope, we drove through Kommetjie and drove on Chapman’s Peak drive. People kept telling us that we needed to drive it, but never told us why. It is pretty amazing. It is a narrow winding road very close to the ocean, on the side of a mountain. In some parts, they carved out a kind of ‘half-cave’ for the cars to drive in. I would never have driven on this road as a teenager and young adult- not, I'm more brave, and wold be able to handle it (but my husband was driving this day).

The road is so narrow- I can't believe this cyclist feels safe!

The 'half cave'. (Is there a real name for this?)

Then just before we got to Hout Bay, we got to see the best sunset that we have experienced here.  It was magnificent with the ocean and the mountains.

Sunset yellow.

Hout Bay at sunset. Lovely.

My sweetheart!

How are you doing today? Have you gotten your body moving?

I’ve gone to the gym for eight days straight. I feel great! We got now Polar Heart Rate monitors, and because I’m a nerd, I find it pretty neat to be able to track my progress with so much data!

Song of the day: Sunset by Jamestown Story. I just discovered this song today, and I like it! It's not really a video, but you can listen to the song.

The Cape Point and The Cape of Good Hope.

I decided to finally post our pictures from our trip to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope, which we visted exactly a month ago. It is a very beautiful place. It took us about an hour to get there from Rondebosch because there is road construction in Kalk Bay and the only road to get there is Main Road. It is a very scenic drive by the ocean on the left and mountain on the right. We drove through Simons Town and Fish Hoek for the first time and thought they were CLT’s (Cute Little Towns)- too bad they’re far from Cape Town. 

The Cape of Good Hope is part of Table Mountain National Park and costs R80 (a little over $10) each. The Visitor’s Center here and one place in Cape Town are the only places to buy the Wild Card national parks pass. We decided not to buy right then to save a little money and buy when we are more ready to do some safaris! 

Their brochure states that there are “at least 250 species of birds here…Large animals are a rare site…but there are small animals such as lizards, snakes, tortoises and insects. There are some herds of Zebra, Eland, and a variety of other antelope. Small mammals also include Rock Hyrax (‘dassie’), Striped Mouse, Water Mongoose, and Cape Clawless Otter. The area offers excellent vantage points for whale viewing. The Southern Right Whale is the species most likely to be seen in False Bay between June and November. Other species like Humpback Whale and Bryde’s Whale, seals and dolphins may also be seen…The Chacma Baboon Papio ursinus troops on the Cape Peninsula are the only protected population of this species in Africa.” 

Baboon warnings: 
“Please be aware that babons are dangersous and attracted by food. Baboons that have been conditioned to receive food from humans may have to be destroyed.

•  DO keep a safe distance from baboons.
• DO move away slowly if a baboon approaches you.
• DO NOT display food when baboons are visible.
• DO NOT open windows or doors of your car when baboons are present.
• DO NOT feed baboons. You will be fined.”

Scenic views on the way there were lovely.

Boulders Bay.

Baboon herders following the Baboons. The baboons were climbing into people' yards and holding up traffic.

Building by the visitor's center. So quaint!

  

This is dried Baleen!

The path to the Cape Point lighthouse. Baboons roam freely.

We drove straight to the light house area first, after stopping at the visitor's center. You can ride the Flying Dutchman Funicular (kind of like a rail road car going up the side of the hill), but we walked up to the light house. Even when the funicular ends, you still have a bit of a walk up a bunch of rock stairs to get to the light house, which is the highest point in the area. You can’t walk in it, but only around it. Then we walked down and around to the farthest point we could get to, Cape Point, and it is lower than the light house. We saw dassies and lizards.

Reminds me of cliff dwellings in the southwest. The photograph almost looks "tilt shift."

P looking happy. The light house is way in the background.

Me at the farthest point of Cape Point.

I love how the waves curve around the Cape Point.

Directions from the light house.

Baby baboon with a Chile Rojo.

Baboons grooming.

Rock Hyrax, aka, Dassie- look at it's feet!

Dassie in its natural habitat.

P with baboons.

Baby baboon.

A proud Agama lizard.

Agama lizard with yellow grafitti.

Leaving the lighthouse area, we were pretty worried when we were walking back to our car because we had a mini pizza (it was really yummy) to go with us and there were baboons around. The car guards and park staff warned us to be careful. Thankfully we made it to the car without incident. We did see a baboon sitting on top of someone’s car though.

We then went to some different scenic routes to the Atlantic ocean and saw the Cape of Good Hope and Diaz Cross. Diaz (or Dias, depending on who spells it) Cross is painted black on one side so that it makes a better silhouette for ships to see when in False Bay. There is a Da Gama Cross (we didn’t visit it) that is used, along with Diaz Cross, as known points in order to triangulate ships’ positions so that they didn’t crash on hidden rocks in False Bay. There are some ship wrecks, but we didn't look for them. Next time!

Dias or Diaz Cross.

Dias Cross- do you see how painting it black really helps?

Along the way we saw ostrich, zebras, a tortoise, and some other big animals (not sure what they were- any one know?). It was way cool, or as they say here, “lekker.”

Tortoise- we almost ran him over!

Zebra.

Zebra.

Is this an Eland?

It was a good day. In the next post I'll show you what our drive home looked like.




P.S. Check out P's blog to see what's going on with him!

Song of the days: Strawberry Fields Forever as sung by Ben Harper.

I Spy: Shoes and Jewelry.

Well, in my post here, I mentioned that I have three pairs of shoes right now. So I decided to give them all some credit…and without further ado:
My tennis shoes.

These are actually my first pair of Nikes. I'm usually a New Balance kind of girl.

My flip flops, both made by Reef. Please ignore the sock imprint on my feet! Also, please give me props for the toenail art- I did it myself! With a toothpick! Apparently it is very rare to find a professional that can do it here in Cape Town.

My casual flip flips.

My "dressy" flip flops. Not so fancy now that they got wet :(

Moving across the world with jewelry leaves a bit of a quandary. Do you bring it all? Do you leave it all in storage? I did a bit of both, bringing some stuff I cared about and some, not so much. I’ve taken a few pictures of the pieces that I love and have with me here. 

Handmade saguaro with silver/turquoise. Something to remind me of home.

I love Bulova watches. I even wore one at my wedding!

A necklace made out of a spoon. Bought at the 4th Avenue Street Fair.

Something my father gave me. It has peridot. I wish I had brought something my mother gave me.

 

   

   This next one is a Christmas piece that my hubby bought for me from Olive Bungalow. I picked it out for myself- have you ever done this? I'm just so particular...

   

   There is a "bad husband story" that needs to be told. He bought it, fully wrapped, just before we went out to dinner and he was so excited to see it that he opened it, MY PRESENT, in front of me at the restaurant.  Then he made me wait until Christmas to get it. Has this ever happened to you? I didn't think so. I'm pretty sure that I will be telling this for years to come....

It is so unique because it is one piece of stone, doesn't it look like a painting?!

The back of the pendant.

Thanks for looking! 

What would you bring with you to Africa?

Visit littlemissmomma’s I SPY to see what her favorite shoes and jewelry are!

P.S.: Hubby’s blog can be found here.

Song of the day: Dedicated to the hubby because he is such a good sport!

Loving you is Easy by Sarah McLachlan: