Stereotypical people and thoughts on being an only child

Very few things in life are quite as obnoxiously annoying as being stereotyped into a category that is not only insulting, but is also highly false.

The stereotype that blonds are dumb, I know a number of really intelligent blonds. The stereotype that women are bad drivers, I know a number of bad drivers from both sexes, as well as a number of sterling drivers from both sides. How about the one that all taxi drivers are bad? Nope, I know a few genuine minibus taxi drivers who are more considerate drivers than those in hatchbacks & sedans.
Stereotyping has been happening for thousands of years. Its been called numerous things, but pretty much what it does is classifies a group of people into a particular temperament, character, intelligence or class purely by their hair color, skin color, language, job or place they're from. It comes with varied names, racism, xenophobia, sexism, sarcasm, apardeid, curiosity and jokes. Some are not too terrible, while others have ghastly consequences.

I'm not here to write about the wrongs, and I'm certainly not here to right the wrongs. The truth is we're all guilty of this in one way or another (don't lie, you've told a blond/Afrikaans/american/clown joke a time or two), and not one of us mere humans has the power to stop it completely or fight the war against it. That's just a fact of life.

However, that doesn't mean that we cant stop ourselves from doing this. In recent years people have become more and more sensitive to "jokes", and I get why, really I do. But at the same time, those of us who are on the butt end of this stereotyping should "go with the flow", "Laugh it off", and just plain "get over it"!

Yeah, I hear you sniggering there and saying "what does she know? She grew up in a country with the bounds of racism shut down. She's wealthy. Lucky. Sheltered."
Well guess what guys, you're wrong, I've been on the blunt side of stereotypes, the funny, the stinging, the painful and the dangerous. But hey, I'm still alive, and I'm still smiling.

Whats that I hear? You say I'm talking bull? Truth is I do get angry and annoyed for being stereotyped! Well let me elaborate.

One stereotype that annoys the hell out of me is "All white people are racist". OK, firstly that statement is racist in itself. Secondly, my best friend is a wonderful and strong black woman, I have many close friends who are of other races. So, no I'm not nailing you because you are a different skin colour to me, I'm nailing you because you're an unkind ass that thinks you're better than other human beings!

Here's one, "Because you own horses, you must be really rich. Therefore I demand you give me a job/money/free ride because you know me and can afford it" 

No guys, first of all I am highly offended by people who want to use me, and I also do not own horses for fun! I own horses because they are my bread ticket, I work my butt off to be able to just make ends meet, I work really hard to survive. If I am particularly fond of you, I will offer you a ride. But if you don't get the offer, don't just think you're going to get a free ride because you know me. That's like asking for a free loaf of bread and coke if you happen to know the cashier at picknpay. It ain't gonna happen, in fact if you ask without me offering, I'll pretty much dump you as a friend. I also do not expect others who work at a job that I would love to get from, to give me free stuff. That's just not the way life works.

Another that gets me into attack mode (in fact this is the one that inspired this post) is when people ask if I have siblings, and when they hear I'm an only child they say "Oh, so you were spoilt?"
Gees dude, have you no tact? Or consideration? Or brain? Just because I'm an only child does not mean I was spoilt. Do you even know what spoilt means? It means ruined, useless, no longer good.
I dont believe I fit that category. I grew up working from as young as 8 years old. If I wanted something, I had to earn it, my parents were not cruel, but they expected me to give my best if I was to get their best. As long as I held up my end, they would hold up their end. Which is actually good, because it taught me to be ready for the world when I grew up!
I know a number of kids, many who are not only children who are in fact spoilt rotten! Kids who's parents allow them to have everything and anything they want, whenever they want it. Kids who act out, who are downright obnoxiously naughty, who throw sand at their parent's faces out of pure spite, who swear at strangers when they are only 6 years old. That is spoilt. Kids whose parents threaten to punish them for their bad behaviour and yet never get the punishment. That is spoilt.
Me, I work my butt off to carry my own load and to be a useful member of society. I was not spoilt as a child, even as "an only child".

The last one I'm going to touch on, is that "home-schooled kids are weird". We are not ALL weird, yes some are, but not all of us. And there are some weird kids that went to school too.

But hey, I still stereotype others too. I say that most Americans are pretty narrow minded (although I know a number of Americans who are intelligent, open minded, wonderful people), because I work with many of them and see their silly-ness. Plus, who can forget that Amazing Race episode where they were in Egypt and asked for a flight to Africa?
I claim that drivers from Pietermaritzburg are reckless. And I say that those who grew up here but have immigrated (or is it emigrated) away from Africa are sissies and idiots - if they left to escape the social and financial situation in Africa. 

Maybe I'm wrong in a big way, maybe I'm wrong only in a little way. But the fact is, I need to work on it. I need to work on not getting angry with others for stereotyping me, and I need to stop stereotyping others.

Debonairs Pizza - Review

Of the many thing I got at the Durban Blogger Meet, one thing I was given was a R20 off Debonairs Pizza voucher, yummy!

I have always been a fan of Debonairs. But it was Only valid if used booking online. I am a new convert to smart phones and to using apps and buying stuff online, so I was incredibly wary of ordering online. But again, I read and re-read the Ts&Cs, and decided I was safe to order. I looked at the online menu, and my only gripe with their online booking is that it has delightful photos of the pizza but no information on whats on the pizza. Other than that, the online ordering is fabulous and easy to work. In fact, for those of us on a budget, its a little too easy because now we can order pizza without even talking to another person. I ordered the Mexican Fiesta, it looked so pretty in the photo, and was so colourful and I was shaking hungry at the time.

Be aware, Debonairs only delivers for orders of R50 or more, and their delivery guys are armed with live weapons! I noticed the delivery guy wearing what looked like a plastic weapon, and asked him if he "wears a plastic gun because he's been threatened" and got the reply from that particular guy that not only has he been threatened at least 5 times, but he has been hijacked 3 times and attempted hijacking multiple times, and its not a toy gun or a decoy but is very real. Yes, that particular conversation made me step back.
I'm a cheapskate, and I was just down the road from the nearest Debonairs, so I ordered a R30 pizza and only had to pay R10, the poor souls behind the counter couldn't understand how I could only pay R10, I explained it to them a couple of times, and then still I don't think it sunk in. But I wont hold i against them though, its a holiday town and a long weekend, I imagine they are a little overworked right at the moment.

The smells coming from the box in my hand were delightful, and I quickly got into the car, locked the doors (don't want anyone snatching my discount pizza) and opened the box. Mexican Fiesta is delightful to the senses, its prettier than in the photos and smelled amazing! But I detected a slight hint of spice in the smell, I should have known, tsk tsk.

I was by now majorly low on blood sugar, so I grabbed a slice and took a giant bite and that's when it hit me like a flaming ball of Durban. I think I swore. That pizza is freakin hot! The tears started running and my poor stomach had such a shock after being so hungry and now having something so hot landed on it that I immediately started hiccupping! Have I mentioned I don't do so well with hot things?
Well I looked around in my car, I always have a bottle of water with me, ALWAYS. Except that day I had finished my water about an hour before hand. The rest of the slice went back into the box, I glanced in the mirror to see why my lips were still stinging and although they were not injured, they were blood red and pumped up. Would have been fabulous if I had someone to kiss right then...

Well, I went right home, loaded the rest of the pizza with a thick layer of mayo and some sliced avo, got a glass of water ready and tried again. Thankfully I was able to enjoy the rest of my pizza, and I don't regret it one bit. The only thing I wish is that I had known ahead of time that Mexican Fiesta is freakin hot. But otherwise, I would totally recommend it, as well as the mobile app to everyone who can afford to buy pizza.

So, that's a short post for now, not to diss Debonairs, I still love them. But this is rather just to give you all (including the guys at Debonairs) an opportunity to laugh.

By the way Debonairs, why don't your delivery guys wear those strapping tuxedos anymore?

Beauty and the Beast (I'm the beast)

For those of you who know me, you likely know me as a tomboy. I mean come on; I grew up on a farm. I was climbing trees while my peers were deciding which dress to wear to the matric dance, I was digging & jumping in mud puddles while my peers were learning how to apply lipstick. I’m way more comfortable in a pair of jeans than a dress, and give me bare feet any day rather than 3 inch heels.

So, when I got offered the chance to do a Sponsored post for Pretty Smart I was a bit dubious. I mean, my idea of a beauty regime is showering daily, and remembering to shave regularly. I generally keep a dark shade of varnish on my toenails, but that’s it. I’ve never, never in my life, been into a salon, let alone had treatment. I’ve been told by others occasionally that I could do with having my eyebrows threaded, but that sounds painful (although I do take the scissors to them occasionally, I don’t pluck, that’s also painful) so I’v never done that. I’ve also been told that having a manicure or pedicure is “oh so fabulous”, but that’s generally out of my price range, especially remembering that I work outdoors with animals, mud, trees, bush, and beach. So the idea of paying through my eyes to have a manicure that’ll last 2 days is not my idea of clever.

But, I have recently been more inclined to try one of the many salon treatments available. Especially with more and more special occasions coming up with my friends and family. But how am I supposed to trust any salon when I have never been to one before? How do I know they will give good treatment? Yeah, their advertising says so, but blackberry advertises that they are the best cell/smart phone company. You see what I’m saying here? You can’t believe every company’s own advertising. Plus, South Africa is one of the few countries which does not have a “regulating law” to ensure that beauticians complete a certain course or keep to certain standards.

Anyways, I decided I’ll go check out this website www.prettysmart.co.za. I did, and I was pleasantly surprised.

You see it’s a site that allows YOU to rate and review the salons you’ve been to, or see other people’s ratings before you book!  Although the website is still quite new, as more women start to review their beauty salons, it will become easy to find a really good salon in your area by looking for the top-rated salons on PrettySmart. 

This is great news for those of us wanting to research whether certain treatments really deliver on their promises and which salons are the best.   (And those of us who have suffered through a less-than-special massage at a tatty salon because we got caught by a half-price massage deal online… definitely check this website before getting caught again!) At the end of the day we all want value for money and a good service. (According to their press release. And if I was one to go with the flow, I would be interested in this)

So I might just decide to follow up on this, and choose a massage that has good ratings, and send my mom as a guinea pig to test it out. Currently there are no nearby (to where I live) salons with ratings, good or bad, so I’ll wait a while.

I know that there will be loads of ratings put up really soon, because  PrettySmart gives a R500 spa voucher to one reviewer each week. So, head over and post a review, it can be a good review (we all know small businesses need good publicity), or a bad review (those who are less than stellar need to be told they need to “up their game”), but either way, if you have been for a beauty treatment then please go review it. It only takes about 5 minutes of your time, and you can win a R500 spa voucher for your efforts. As most of the clientele for this kind of service is are women, and most of those working in this field are women, we owe it to our sisters to share thisinformation.

Anyways, that’s all for now folks.

Disclaimer, this is a sponsored post

Vegetarian? I dont think so!

Lately I have been enjoying reading a few novels of the Calamity Jayne series by Kathleen Bacus. I don’t know about you, but for me, going into a fictional world I always fancy myself as the heroine (that’s hero-ine like the woman hero, not heroin like the drug). I like to imagine I am in her place, and doing what she is doing.

It’s a lot more fun when I can actually personally relate to the heroine. When she is described as looking similar to me (although that is pretty rare as I'm really not drop-dead-gorgeous or even partially model material. I'm very average in looks, down to the skew teeth), or when she has similar character traits as me (more common – I’m fairly independent, stubborn, headstrong, etc).

So it’s easy to get wrapped up in the storyline of this particular lass who's a cowgirl (me), loves food (me), loves eating meat and all things sweet (me), has to work 3 jobs to just survive (me), lives with her parents bus has a form of independance (me), feels overweight but cant seem to bring herself to stop eating those delicious calories (me), loves her pets (in this case I prefer cats to her preference of dogs). So yeah, she's pretty easy to relate to.

Except that she's in America, blond & tends to attract good natured & nice looking men, which I’m none of those.

Anyways, I'm actually not doing this post as a review for books or otherwise, shocking as that may be. Yup, you got so used to me being a reviewer and now I surprised you. I'm just that good. Wink-wink.

What actually got me thinking along the lines of Calamity Jayne and a blog post like this is that I recently attended a seminar of sorts where there were a number of "causes" that attended and gave speeches about why their cause was so important. I respect them for it, as I know it’s not exactly easy to stand up in front of a group of strangers and give a presentation about yourself.

I happened to arrive at this particular event  a little later and walked in while there was a skinny little man with a goatee standing in front of a slide show and explaining that we shouldn’t be eating meat because we're eating cute little piggies (think of the move Babe) and calves. He went on to explain ad-nauseum why eating meat is bad for the environment. So in all he gave us at least a 30 minutes speech (it felt that long, he was so boring) which was pretty much an attempt to socially and emotionally blackmail the audience into not eating meat. He said at least go with the #NoMeatMonday movement, then we’re not giving up meat totally, just lowering consumption, that if everybody stopped eating meat for just 1 day a week the environmental benefit would be equivalent to (I think he said) 50,000 cars being removed from our roads.

I tell you what, I was sorely tempted to get up and walk out. I even considered "boo-ing" him and starting to throw rotten tomatoes at him. I didn’t do either and was rewarded for my patience (see, I'm learning patience) soon after he left. The little vegan is lucky I didn’t do vixen and throw him to the lions with the statement "don’t eat him, he's vegan".

But it got me to thinking, I like meat. Or as my Hungarian grandfather always says "vharrres my meit?" when its dinner time (you may have to say that with an accent to understand it). I mean seriously, what’s a good pizza or even a good stir-fry without a generous helping of bacon! And who is the mentally unstable person who stoops so low as to not have lasagna with mince? Not this cowgirl I tell you!

I know some people who physically cannot have meat, my cousin is a case example, and she is quite literally allergic to meat. But for the rest of us, only the whackadoodles don’t eat flesh!

Ok, yeah I get I probably sound pretty crude or even rather crass by speaking like that. I even felt a bit unkind thinking it, at first. So I decided to be a sport and not discount the movement before trying it at least once – to be fair you know. The guy did have a point; I mean he showed us adorable pictures of baby animals. Plus he said there's some products on the market now that are totally vegan friendly (in case you don’t know, it’s the vegetarian version of vegetarianism, AKA vegetarian snobs) but taste like real meat.

So I decided, to heck with it, I'll try it at least once. I'm willing to try almost anything at least once, except suicide and tripe, and bungee jumping and, ok maybe not prepared to try everything at least once.

I went out and bought some absolutely delish looking pies that were "mutton curry style" and "pepper steak style" pies. What can I say, they tasted fantastic. If I hadn’t known that I bought them, and seen on the package that they were Soya products, my taste buds would never have known the difference.

However, as you may know, I live a very active life. My work requires me to be fit, strong and full of energy, I am required to be attentive and notice everything. For me, that normally means an egg breakfast, a large meat & potatoes/rice lunch, and a light supper.

I made the mistake of eating a soya pie on a Saturday for lunch, just before a particularly strenuous afternoon of work. I was in a rush and the pies were in the freezer and quick to cook, so it seemed logical.

We (mom) cooked them, I ate and enjoyed them and headed out to work. Normally a decent pork sausages or beef meat balls lunch will last me at least 4 hours of energy. Sadly these pies only lasted me 1.5 hours, by which time I was feeling feint, shaking and my stomach was gurgling from hunger, unfortunately when I'm hungry my temper is short and my concentration is lowered.   So for me, testing out a soya/vegan pie cost me a hunger headache and nearly cost my clients a fall because I wasn’t paying attention like I ought to and watching that their horses didn’t do anything.

That’s it, my tongue may be fooled by your soya that tastes like mutton or steak, but my body won’t ever be fooled. So goes my one and only attempt to go vegetarian. My decision is made, I am omnivorous.

As for the cute baby animals, I just won’t think about them. As for the environmental stakes, the way I see it is: I don’t smoke or drink. I have a septic tank & all our grey water goes to the ground. I'm a re-cycling princess (my queen status is reserved as Queen of Cheapskate), and all our bi-degradable waste goes into the compost heap, in fact a lot of it even becomes animal food. So I figure the good things I do for the environment outweigh the bad that my eating meat every day does.

In the words of Calamity Jayne, "this cowgirl needs to eat her bacon"

As for the peeps who feel their bodies can handle no meat, good for you. Enjoy the products out there that taste like meat but are not meat. I have no beef with you as lamb [long] as you don’t try and chicken [change] me.

DEAR VEGETARIANS
Even plants think you're wrong.

A life that's not so ordainary is much more fun

Yup, I thought to myself as I read the text, that’s just another thing to prove that I’m totally not a normal person.

Why do I say that? Well I’m a 23yr old woman who is self employed, and by my own reckoning, pretty successful in what I do. From the outside I probably seem pretty regular.

However I also still think of myself as a kid, and I really don’t mind being a kid.

Yes, I was a flake out at schooling, but I like to tell myself that it wasn’t my fault, that I’m just not cut out for the typical “learning” system of the age we live in. After all I did get a seriously debilitating sickness (called a syndrome because the doctors know it’s there but can’t explain it or give a cure for) in grade 9 that ground all hope of finishing a regular education or grade 12 out of existence. Not that I minded. I was home-schooled from day 1, so I never took school seriously, and I still don’t get why kids (and their parents) take it so seriously now. When I got better 3 or 4 years later, I just didn’t see the reason to try finish it, plus I started my own business and starting getting an income, which I knew a bunch of young people my age who did finish school and could not get jobs. So what’s the point in doing high algebra and Shakespeare when I’m never going to be interested in a career that requires I know those?

If I were normal, would you be my friend? If I were normal, would you be reading this? But then again, what really is normal, is there such a thing when we live in a world full of unique people?

So yeah, I've said it in previous blog posts, but I'll say it again: Enjoy yourself. Be young. Act like a kid sometimes. Have fun. But always remember, in the end everything you do will one day come back to haunt you, so live in a way that you will not have regrets.

In 30 years time there's going to be
a bunch of wrinkly old ladies
sporting dodgy tattoos.

A week in my life

A little while ago I was telling you how so many of my friends and family seem to have this weirdly mistaken view of my life. They seem to think I live a sheltered and cushy life with no work but everything given to me on a silver platter.

Well guess what, everything is not always as it seems!
Yes, I do live with my parents and they work flipping hard, but so do I. I sometimes jokingly tell friends the "Dad does all the hard labour around the farm, I deal with the clients and mom looks after us." Truth is, that is actually how it is.

Before you ask, when we say we live on the farm and are working out on the farm, no we do not farm anything but horses. We breed em, we train em, we feed em, we fix em, and we ride em. And yes that does take up a ton of our time. My dad, like I said before, he does most of the hard physical labour, works between 4 and 8 hours a day caring for the horses, fixing fences, finding them, ensuring they are all healthy, feeding them and so on. Sometimes he only gets in from working around 8 or even 9pm.

Mom, well she used to do a ton of the work with the horses, but she is getting on in years (no she's not old, but no middle aged woman should be doing such hard physical labour) and so Dad and I have taken on a lot of that work. Fortunately for us, mom does a ton of house work and cooking and looking after us. No the house is not always the neatest and cleanest, but I'll literally murder anyone who blames my mom for that! She still works a lot with the clients, she still has pet projects that she would like to do, and me and dad are seriously high maintenance to look after, we're like the messiest people you will ever meet. So actually the house is a mess because of us. And if I'm being so honest I'll tell you straight that anyone who actually likes to clean house is either a German, or has a mental issue.

Then there's me, I work with the clients. I do 95% of the admin and advertising, as well as being guide for most of the groups. Thankfully we have a few lovely ladies who are responsible and good enough riders that can help out with some of the guiding. Oh yeah, and I am busy trying very hard to also start up my own business, so that also requires quite a bit of my time and efforts.
So that's just work life, but come on, life never revolves solely around work. At least not for me and my family.

You want to know how busy my life is and why I cant actually spend Saturdays and Sundays chilling with friends? Well I don't have such a thing as a "typical day" in my life. Day to day things change pretty radically. 

But, week to week my schedule is somewhat, well, schedualed. Out of holiday season it generally goes something like this:

Tuesday
I will normally try to be up and in Isipingo on a Tuesday by 9am to do bible studies and evangelizing. Remember, I did tell you I am one of Jehovah's Witnessses... By 12 I'll stop for a break and a bite to eat. Then I'll get back into bible studies until at least 3pm. Possibly I'll go pick up a few essentials from he shops and head home.
Then once I'm home it's supper & admin, I normally spend an hour or two on admin. I'll cchill out, watch some tv or read a book and head to bed. I have cronic insomnia, so I may stay awake even till 2 or 3am.

Wednesday
Wednesday is fairly a repeat of Tuesday. With the exception that in the evening I do some bible reading and studying instead of admin.

Thursday

Repeat of Tuesday and Wednesday

Friday
Now we start to get complicated. Friday is the start of the weekend in Durban (its a holiday town, and most of the city gets off of work by midday on a Friday) and thus our clients are starting to get edgy and want attention. So Friday morning if I'm awake early enough, I'll head out to Isipingo and do a couple of hours of what us JWs call table witnessing/street work (this generally includes standing on a pedestrian busy section of side walk with a table full of bible based literature and magazines). By midday I'd be home to work. I' be finding and fetching horses, feeding and brushing them. Tacking up (the process of putting saddles and bridles on) and welcoming clients. Once the horses are ready and the clients are signed in, then its getting them all onto their assigned horses and getting the ride going, by this time its often 2 or 3pm. So off the ride goes, I'm guiding, instructing riders how to ride, showing the way, preventing falls to the best of my ability (I'm really lazy, you see I would prefer to prevent falls because when people fall, then I have to jump off and check on them and get them back onto their horses. Much easier to just not let them fall.), and being the paparazzi with taking photos. We ride to the beach, and along the beach. Sometimes we'll stop and have a bite to eat and take the horses swimming, other times we'll do a photoshoot at the beach, still other times we'll just head straight home. Once we get back to the farm, its getting riders off, untacking horses and downloading the photos.
By the time the clients leave its normally about 7pm, in summer its sometimes as late as 9pm!
But the work ain't quite done yet. There's still admin to be done. So for the next two or three hours I'll be sitting behind a computer sending emails. The one part of my job that I hate is telling clients that they are over our weight limit and thus cannot ride. It sucks to tell someone they're too fat to go horse riding, even if I do it in a diplomatic way.
By 10 or 11pm I'm shattered and heading to bed with crossed eyes. Unfortunately I probably still wont sleep till at least 2am.

Saturday
Its been a long week but it ain't over yet. Saturday I have to be up and bright eyed and bushy tailed for our meeting which starts at 9am. Its at a local Kingdom Hall and we have bible based discussions and focus on what we learnt in certain portions of the bible. We also learn how to preach the bible to others. Unfortunately I'm half asleep through most of this and battling to just keep my eyes open. We finish about 11am and then its straight home to work.
We get home and jump to action, having lunch and getting horses ready. My Saturday afternoon is much like my Friday afternoon, working with horses and clients, doing a ride, coming home and doing admin. Again we normally finish off with clients between 7 & 9pm and I do do admin until about 10. If I'm lucky, there's something worthwhile watching on tv. Then its back to bed.

Sunday
Sundays I'm supposed to wake up early and go out to do some preaching work, but normally I sleep in. After a week like I'v had I battle to get up in the morning. But by 11:30 I need to be at our Kingdom Hall again for our weekly Bible discourse and Watchtower Study. But Sundays are the stressful day, because as we finish the closing prayer, we have to rush out the door for work.
We only finish at 1pm, and clients are due at the farm at 3pm. That means getting changed, making& eating lunch, and preparing up to 12 horses ready within 2 hours. Its pretty stressful ok.
Again, the afternoon is much like a Friday & Saturday afternoon, and only finishing working around 9 or 10pm.
I'll crawl into bed shattered from the week by about midnight.

Monday
While millions around the world wake up and moan that its Monday yet again, my favourite day of the week is Monday. Because Mondays are my day! I sleep till at least 11am on a Monday. I rest, and relax. Catch up on my blogging and other social networking. But in the afternoon I do the final Admin for the week, cover everything I had ignored earlier in the week. If I'm really lucky, we even get to go spend some time at a nature reserve or doing GeoCaching. Then its home and we do some Bible Reading as a family.

And that ladies and gentlemen is my week in a nutshell. 

If its peak holiday season however, then Tuesday- Sunday my afternoons are pretty much all the same, doing horse riding.

Now, next time someone calls me lazy for sleeping in, or says that my life is easy, I wont be held responsible for clouting you over the head (remember I work with horses, so I have the strength to do that...). But by and large, I try mighty hard to be peaceable.

Imperfection, exhaustion and stress does make me rather "blowy-uppy", but I do try to be a good girl.
And half of the stuff I do I don't get paid for, but I volunteer. All the time I spend preaching and teaching people the bible, that's volunteering. When I go work on construction sites, that's out of my own pocket, volunteering. So its not exactly like I'm doing all of this to reach being a millionaire or get into the Forbes 500 list.

Well, its been a rough couple of months with the flu, and my schedule has been topsy turvy. But I'm trying to get back into the regular swing of things. I spent most of today (Wednesday) in bed, typing out this blog and downloading apps onto my new phone (Samsung galaxy star). But now I gotta go get back to real life.
Later peeps.

Review - Yummy Treats

Review – Yummy Treats

Ok, so by now you know the drill. This is a review on some of the Yummy treats I have recently been able to taste. 

There are a lot of relatively unknown companies and small businesses out there that are purposely keeping their business small (I know this mentality, we do that too with Horse Beach Rides) so as to keep the great service and products as high quality as their loyal customers have come to know and appreciate. Many bankers, economists and heck even friends will tell them this is a bad idea; they will say you should make your business huge, join groupon, and advertise in all the glossy magazines.

But me, I say “stick it” to those people, although it is not always easy to find these small businesses, it’s worth the searching when you do find them, and advertising via social media, word of mouth, and great customer reviews is much better than big TV or radio ads.

So, here’s my ‘kudos’ to some of those small businesses (some who have gotten somewhat larger) that I have recently had the pleasure of meeting or experiencing their great services and products:

Tasha’s Fantastic Fudge

Sorry not the best photo,
I was more interested in eating the
 treat than in photographing it.
Find them on Facebook or on Twitter

As an absolute sweet tooth, when I received this yummy little package, it took every ounce of my will power to not gobble it all up personally. You see, I’m a kind heart (at least I try mighty hard to be a kind heart) and decided to share it with my folks. With a cup of strong coffee in the one hand and an ever decreasing sized piece of yummy fudge in the other I zoned out to my version of “heaven”. I also hear they do wedding favors and home deliveries. Hmm, one day when I get married can I just skip the wedding cake and have fudge dipped in chocolate instead?

Photo courtesy of Tasha's Fudge

Chocolate Memories

Chocolate Memories is made in the Drakensburg Mountains. I am not a fan of international chocolate, why should I be when SA has (hands down) got the BEST CHOCOLATE IN THE WORLD? OK, I’ll admit, Dark Swiss chocolate comes pretty close. But when we get family or friends visiting from overseas, it’s a favorite of theirs to bring chocolate from the country they reside in as gifts for us. American chocolate is just waxy. New Zealand chocolate’s only saving grace is that they put little chopped up dried bits of kiwi fruit into it, but otherwise it’s pretty bland. British Choc, ugh, let’s not even go there! And if you go into the shops here in South Africa, the imported chocolate that you can buy, well let’s just say it’s not worth it if they paid you to eat it.

I’m not being patriotic here, I couldn’t care two hoots and a tin if I was called African or European, I don’t even know what’s going on in parliament, and I point blank refuse to begin to read or listen to any national anthem. I’ll never vote, and I’ll never join the army. But, I think the thing about African Food stuffs is that we have the sweet African sunshine, and although SA is super westernized by general African standards, we are a lot less commercialized and hormone induced with our food products than say, USA or UK. So yeah, I’m a South African chocolate lover, especially dark chocolate.

Anyways, back to this product. I got a 40% Dark chocolate. I opened the prettily designed box, carefully unwrapped the gold foil and was very impressed by the dark choc with an imprint of the Drakensburg Mountains and decently sized blocks. The taste was a very strong and rich chocolate. Although unlike the bigger brands who deal dark chocolate, this was not a sharp bitter taste, but more a dark yet creamy taste. I think they make this chocolate out of more cream than milk, because it is that rich. Fortunately for me, it was too rich for my family so I got to have this all on my own, and yes, half the slab is still sitting on my bedside table with a tiny piece broken off and melted in my mouth each evening. Now don’t even think about coming to steal that off my bedside, I will kill you if you do ;-). But you can buy it directly from the makers at 

www.chocolatememories.co.za

Royal Dansk

What can I say, if south Africans know how to make chocolate, the Danes know how to bake! I should know, grandma’s a genuine Dane, she immigrated to SA in the 50s (I think), and grew up in Danmark (the real danish peeps spell it with an 'A' not an 'E'), she even went to a finishing school where she learnt all the traditional recipes. Fortunately for me, grandma’s a strong old lady and still has all her wits about her, she still bakes a killer sand cake despite being in her mid 80s.

Find the AWESOME people behind these delectable
treats on Facebook and Twitter

Needless to say, I’m pretty fond of Danish foods, so I had pretty high expectations for the Royal Dansk Cookies box I was about to open. I really wasn’t disappointed either. With cookies wrapped in pretty little muffin papers, the box was full of promise.  Bulging with choc-chips (if it’s in a baked item, I don’t mind chocolate that is not made in SA), these little cookies melt in your mouth and give you a taste sensation to die for. Have them with a cup of mom’s (she learnt from grandma) strong Danish style coffee and this was a perfect mellow out at the end of a long hard day of work. I could go on forever describing and detailing the things I love about this particular brand, however I wont do that today. :-)

Cooee

I don’t have many fizzy drinks or sodas. I personally prefer water, coffee or mom’s homemade lemonade. However, if I’m going to be suckered into drinking soda, it WILL be Ginger Beer. For many years only Stoney made a decent Ginger Beer. But, not so long ago I discovered Cooee, which is half the price of Stoney and is just as good. So, yippee. Then I got given a gift of 4 cans of Cooee, in various flavors. How cool is it that they now do cans? The flavors I was given were Apple, Ginger Beer, Pineapple and Iron Brew. So obviously I’m a fan of the Ginger Beer. The Apple I decided to try out, and it almost tastes like appletizer. I really dislike Iron Brew, so I’m going to be palming that off to someone else (any takers?), and lastly, I tried the pineapple. The pineapple tastes just like Pinenut. Not my favorite, but it’s not bad either, for those who like Pinenut, this is a MUST. So all in all, yup, cooee is going to have my business, they give good quality (although I’m fussy about the flavors) cool drinks at nearly half the price of the bigger brands. A little piece of interest about the Cooee brand that I recently learnt, they've been around for over 50 years (see what I said about keeping it small?) and apparently the name originates from native Australia!

So to prevent myself from boring you to death with lots of writing and long winded-ness, I wont be doing any more today. However, I still have a bunch of yummy edibles to review and share my thoughts on with you. Some of them include these brands:

REVIEW - Pamper Goodies

Hi all.

You are probably getting downright sick of me posting about the Durban Blogger Meet. Sorry. I will try to put normal stuff in between the blogger meet and reviews. Please don’t forget to pop over to my pet project "Escaping Paradise", a fictional story I'm attempting to write.

So I am not normally a person who goes out and buys stuff for myself. I occasionally will buy a treat or something special for my parents or friends, but not for myself. It’s not that I don’t like being spoilt, it just so happens that I don’t have a man in my life who spoils me (actually I just don’t have a man in my life other than dad), and I don’t normally have the time, energy or money to go get those special little things that make one feel pampered and spoilt.

Thus, when I got a chance to go to the Durban Bloggers Meet Up last Saturday (05 April 2014), I was already keen, but when they mentioned there would be goodie bags with cool stuff to test out and review, I was over the moon.  In the gift bag we got lots of cool stuff. From chocolates and cookies to hairspray and make-up; vouchers for various cool stuff to books, from cappuccino cups to handmade bags. So much stuff in fact that it is downright hard to fathom. Thankfully the organizers put together a list of all the amazing and generous sponsors, so I can share them with you.

I’ve decided to split the posts up, some of the products I will dedicate an entire blog post to, or at least half a post to reviewing them. But most of the products I will split into categories (beauty, food, non-perishables, vouchers, etc) and do a blog post with multiple reviews for that category.

Today’s post is going to be very uncharacteristic of me, as the heading of my site says, I am a Tomboy.

It is all about the beauty products! So, here goes:

Oh So Heavenly

I have known the “Oh So Heavenly” brand for a while. I always do enjoy their products. I believe that these two products are fairly new, I got to sample a Moroccan Argan Oil Body Wash and a Lily Lovely Body Cream.

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The Body wash is very nice. I have skin that breaks out very often, so I normally use hygiene soap, like dettol. However it’s nice to treat myself with a nice smelling body wash every now and then. It does leave you feeling clean, smelling nice, and surprisingly moisturized. I’d give it a rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 stars.

The Body Cream, well that is a particularly special thing! You see a few years back a cousin of mine whom I am very fond of, and happens to be a professional globe trotter (lucky her) had visited Fiji, and brought me a gift. The gift being body butter made in Fiji, it was frangipani scented and felt like velvet, the best stuff I’ve ever used. Sadly I finished it a while ago. The reason I’m telling you this is because when I opened the Oh So Heavenly Lily Lovely Body Cream jar, the scent that hit me was exactly the same as my cousin’s Fijian Body Butter! I felt it, and immediately recognized that velvet goodness! So, I am head over heels in love with this stuff and when I finish it, at least I know I can get more now. YAY. I would rate it 10 stars out of 5, but maybe that’s just because I’m biased.

John Frieda 

Being brought up by conservative parents (it’s not a bad thing mind you) on a farm, and pretty much being a tomboy, I have never really been big into make-up and hair products. So honestly, no one ever taught me how to use them and I have to read the instructions on the labels and wing it. Being a grown woman and discovering my feminine side with these sorts of products has been interesting, to say the least. So I had never heard of John Frieda products (yes, I can hear you gasping with horror from here) before I got this bottle of Volume Refresher Hair Spray.

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I have tried the occasional attempt at using hairspray before. I can’t say I am very fond of it, usually it makes my hair stiff, and yet still doesn’t hold my serious curls into place. Also, as you know I still live with my parents (hey, its cheaper and comes with a ton of benefits, but I’ll save those for another time), my mom has serious sinus issues when it comes to anything strong smelling, and often hair spray has a distinct “take your breath away smell” which I love, but gives my mom an instant sinus headache. Needless to say, hairspray and I are not the best of friends.

However, I decided to give this product a bash. First thing I noticed (and mom didn’t) is it is odorless. Second thing I noted is that this is not a “hold your hair in place” type of hairspray that makes hair stiff and uncomfortable. It literally does what the label says, it enhances the volume. So if you haven’t had time to wash your hair, or have long hair like me and wash it only every third or fourth day, this takes away the oily look and gives your hair a “newly washed” kind of bounce. So yeah, I like it. I don’t yet know when I’m going to actually use it, but I like it.

Now is there a hair stylist out who wants to teach me how to really tame my mane for free?

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Clarins

I got a nice toiletry bag with 4 Clarins products inside it. I cant tell you very much about them, they are all Anti-Aging products. I certainly don’t feel a need for them, (I mean really, I’m still under 25 years old) and mom immediately noticed them and asked for them. So, score for mom. But she hasn’t started using it, so I’ll have to get back to you on that.

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Thierry Mugler

Yet again another product I have never heard of. I got a little “scent kit” I guess you could call it, with an Alien Body lotion and Perfume. Again, I’m not much a person for strong scents, but this has actually got quite a nice smell to it. I have used the perfume a couple of times, and intend on using the body lotion in the dryer winter months when I need moisturizing.

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Rondavel

I had to dig to the bottom of my gift bag really fast and find out what that awesome smell permeating the bag, and in fact my entire room, was coming from. It turned out to be the Rondavel Lemongrass natural handmade soap. I haven’t yet opened the product because honestly, I am just enjoying the smell, it has prime position in my room just for that lovely lemongrass scent. I also like the packaging, it looks like a page torn out of a novel, which is really cute, and if it is in fact out of a novel, it’s a nice recycling idea.

So for now that’s all the reviews I’m going to do on Beauty Products. I still have a list to review of this category, from suppliers that include Ponds, REN, Ice Box, RubyBox, Optiphi, and a few others. Chat soon J