Hi there

Remember when I used to blog? No…? Yes, vague memory for me too.
There have been some obstacles lately. Kids, illness, no time, too many photos (Amazingly my computer won’t accept anymore pictures so I can’t download my camera! Outrageous! What is with that? I barely ever take photos!) I have to get a new external hard-drive.
Things I want to update on ( in magnificent photographic detail )for posterity:
The winding up scenes of our Summer…
 
Ella is 17 months old now (as of yesterday!)

Back to school..

And I will. But I had to just post something today, in order to get through the mental block of not posting things chronologically and using my blog only as a scrapbook.  I miss just writing randomly as the whim struck and talking about my thoughts rather than just the happenings in my family.
As for my thoughts…hmm…(I didn’t say they would be profound).
At this moment…life could be better.  (And no doubt, worse). Ella has been quite sick for a while. We had it coming, she really hasn’t been sick since the dreaded RSV 15 months ago. Pretty impressive track record I think. In fact we switched pediatricians right after the RSV, when she was 2 months old, and since then, until last week, not one of my 5 have seen that pediatrician for illness.  That’s more than a year. We have been extraordinarily blessed with health this year (jinxed!) so I really shouldn’t whine. That said,  my kids don’t get sick often but when they get sick, they mean it and pitiful little Ella has been fully, 100% committed to being ill. (And to making sure we all suffer along with her). Poor pumpkin. She has been a disaster. She’s also teething up a storm simultaneously, so it sucks to be Ella right now.
The very night before Ella got sick, I had finally gathered enough courage to embrace the concept of leaving my family for 2 weeks to attend my sister Thalia’s  wedding


(Thalia and her fiance Shaun)
in late September, my parents most generously furnished me with a ticket (which I stayed up all night to procure) and just like that.. whew..I was all set. Or so I thought. Not so much. A quick check the next day revealed that my 10 year passport expired like..a month ago. Of course it did. South African passports take 6 months to renew. I was to leave in just over 4 weeks. Temporary passports require many hoops. And so, as you do, I hustled and jumped through every one of them. Only to find out that they had forgotten to tell me about a few more hoops. So…start over. Pay more money, lose more time. Then to find that because of their faulty fax machine, my fingerprints were coming through “too dark”…so the logical choice is not to lighten the copy of my prints of course, or heaven forbid, enter the current century and SCAN them in, but instead to have me re-do my perfect fingerprints. And spend more time and another boatload of money re-sending them. So that they can re-fax them. I am currently awaiting the inevitable call from South Africa that they are STILL too dark (unless they fixed the fax machine).  I am speedily running out of time and so that has added an extra layer of stress and suck to current events.  It is an uncomfortable,vivid (and bitter) reminder of this experience. But I yet have hope that all will be resolved…perhaps at the bitter end.  Obviously, I still need a lot of work on developing patience because I am having tons of opportunities to do so lately.  Pray or send up a good thought won’t you?
Add to all this, the unaccustomed stress (after a long, lazy Summer)  of getting the older four ready for three different schools, various sports practices commencing, registering the soccer club and the sad, tragic fact that I AM BACK ON THE HORRIBLE HCG DIET. (In one last ditch desperate bid to not ruin the wedding pictures)Yes! Against all good sense, I went back on it! And the universe perfectly coincided it with the passport drama and the baby sickness (ever wailing, never sleeping). Since I am sleep deprived, stressed and I don’t even have food to turn to as comfort...well, it’s been making me feel a tad blue and put-upon.  However, I have to say, that  have been impressed by my level of self control by sticking with it (so far!)and I am heartened, because if I can get through the heinous HCG under these circumstances..I can very easily do anything…right?  Marathon next month? No problem!
BUT! Great news is that I have a new nephew as of yesterday, which is another reason for me to anxiously anticipate, hope and pray that the passport fiasco is sorted out timeously. I have yet to see his cute face but his name is Michael and he is the newest son of my brother Seth. So exciting! He is the little brother to the cute 2 year old Samuel, seen below, whom I have yet to squish.  Michael’s arrival and stories of Sam’s reaction to him is bringing back lots of happy memories of Gabe joining us on Benj’s 2nd birthday. I remember Benj walking into the hospital room, seeing me with the baby and stopping short to gasp in joyful awe, “OH! CUTIE BABY HERE!”.  (Sniff. I remember it like yesterday. How the heck is it possible that he is now in HIGHSCHOOL???)

(Seth and Sam)
Anyway! Hopefully now that we are easing back into a routine, and since Ella is rounding out her 11th day of being sick and surely it can’t last much longer…I will be back to regular blogging. Like the good ole days.  I am cautiously optimistic.
So! Tell me! What’s up with you?

I'm reading: Hi thereTweet this!