This week was a bit of a slow one for me. I only really ticked two things off the list. A number of things have been removed from the list, but technically I was only responsible for two of them.

On Saturday morning Marla heard a truck pull up next door. The neighbour had been doing some brickwork at his house and had hired someone to remove the rubble. Marla shouted to me and I asked nicely if they could not take the tiles and the rest of our building rubble from the kitchen renovations. So I can’t really take any of the credit for those.

So, this weeks honeydo list:

• Clear bag of papers in the spare room. (I really should do this, it will be an easy one to cross off)
• Move box of tiles. (Thanks rubble removal guys)
• Weather proof front door.
• Dump building rubble.
• Varnish back door frame.
• Donate old computer.
• Install hatch in ceiling (Got started on this one, but it turned into a bigger job than I expected, hoe to finish by next week).
• Hang curtain rail in CJ’s room.

Did you knock anything off your list this week?

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Wow what a week!

Let me give you a quick run down on how things have looked this week.

Work as usual. But then on Tuesday morning I read a post on ragamuffinsoul.com that got me thinking. Well actually it was not the post it’s self but  a number of the comments that got me thinking. That thought process promoted me to write this. I cross linked to ragamuffinsoul.com and BAHM my little-just-over-a-week-old-blog that had had a total of 279 hits at an average of averaged about 25 a day, got hit by a landslide  412 hits in 48 hours.

And because of the relative difference between hits my blog was listed on the Fastest Growing blogs list.

It got to number 26 on this list for the growing blogs on the 21st (but I can’t find that link

That was Tuesday.

Then on Wednesday John Hastings rocked the world. This really deserves it’s own post (And it will eventually), but I can’t really say much now ’cause it will spoil John’s announcement on Sunday. But…

John is the Senior pastor of the church I am a passionate member of Stelleneberg Community Church. John shared his testimony (or parts of it) to the community group leaders from SCC on Wednesday.

Right now all I can say is: John is a great man and it is an amazing thing to be able to follow a leader who is as passionate about, and devoted to his calling as John is.

You, John, and your leadership team, set an amazing example for all of us to follow.

What rocked your week?

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What is a blog?

Wikipedia says this “A blog (a contraction of the term “Web log”) is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video”

So, OK Marla’s blog is not a real blog, because it is not a website. It is a wall in our house. But it is maintained by an individual, it has regular entries, and contains graphics.

And IMHO it showcases my wife’s amazing talent.

This particular ‘blog’ has chronicled the first year of our first child’s life. Here is month 2.

Marla’s ‘Blog’ #1

Do you have a ‘blog’ at your house?

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So what has happened since the introduction of the ‘Marla diet‘?

Well I have not starved. When Marla first told me that she would be dishing my suppers and that I was only allowed to eat something if I had her permission, I thought I was going to starve.

One of her favorite sayings around dinner time is “That’s piggy!” (usually when she sees what I have put on my plate). Seriously though I really don’t think I ate way too much, perhaps a little, but I have seen how pigs eat and I am not in the porcine league.

So with Marla in control I thought I would be going to bed hungry every night. But that has not happened. and apart from eating seed bread instead of white bread for lunch, not much has changed.

Ok that is not altogether true. The readout on the scale has changed. and quite significantly. So much so that I suspected that either our scale was making things up, I had inaccurately read the 114kg last week, our scale was broken or our scale was making things up (get my drift).

We have one of those mechanical scales, you know the ones with the dial that spins around. so i does not instill excessive amounts of trust.

Marla suggested I weigh myself a number of times and take the average. That did not seem to be necessary as every time it said the same thing.

112kg (247 lb). That is down 2 kg (4.4 lb) in a single week.

Wooohooo. Hope I can keep it up.

Did you join me? Want to celebrate with me?

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I just read this post on ragamuffinsoul.com . After reading some of the comments that were made I felt compelled to comment.

This is what I said:

I am a white South African. I grew up in Johannesburg in the 80′s. For me the kind of segregation Los is talking about is not history. It is something I experienced. Forget front or back of busses, try different busses. I remember the police dragging away our housekeeper’s husband, because someone tipped them of that there was a black person in a white neighbourhood after dark. I remember visiting a friend in hospital who, because of the colour of his skin, received a lower standard of care because he could not go to the same hospitals I could have gone to.

Sermon over. God bless!

Do you feel me?

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I was sitting at the computer, Marla was crafting, CJ was in her room playing tea-party with her teddies.

Or so we thought…

Do you have a cheese monster? Some other kind of monster?

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Just as ‘synapticlight‘ feared for himself, last weeks post came back to bite me in the bum.

It seems Marla took it as a personal challenge.

If you don’t know what the honeydo list is, check this out.

Before I post this weeks list, I promised some clarifications in this weeks edition.

There are no real hard and fast rules about how long things can stay on the list, although I do find that if things stay on the list for too long I start to get ‘subtile’ reminders (I fully expect the bag of papers on this weeks list to land on my desk if it is still on the list this time next week).

Some jobs are rather large and require a fair amount of planning and preparation, sometimes the weekend’s activities dot allow for much progress (I spent 3 hours standing around in a shop on Saturday morning waiting for the bed (point two of this weeks list) to be packed up), so a fair amount of leeway is often allowed.

OK, so with no further ado, this weeks list

• Fix the part of the floor that is lifting.
• Construct bed.
• Clear bag of papers in spare room.
• ‘unstick’ passage door.
• move box of tiles.
• weather proof gap under front door.
• Dump building rubble. (this should have been on the list months ago)
• Varnish back door frame.
• Donate old computer.
• ‘unstick’ garden door.
• Install hatch in ceiling. (I need someone small or supple enough to negotiate my ceiling cavity – any takers?)
• Clear pile of papers on my desk.

What does your list look like?

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Chrystina is soon going to have a little sister.

We have heard how traumatic the arrival of the second child can be on the first born, so we decided to ‘graduate’ her from the baby room to her own room.

With the new room she gets a new bed. Now she already has a bed, so his one had to have something a little special. The bed part is identical to the one she has now so in the future we can make bunk beds out of them.

I spent the afternoon putting the bed together.

Starting out - The spare room

The kit (and the 'handlanger')

Laying out the pieces

And a little help

Then a rest (yes that is bubble wrap)

Pieces complete now to stack them

stacked, ladder and slats

Add the 'tent', mattress and duvet

She loves it

The pictures don’t come lose to communicating just how excited she was about this whole thing.

So what do you think?

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“I just don’t get what the big deal is about blogging!” Ok that is not a direct quote but it is kinda how Marla feels about blogging.

But I think she is a closet blogger. This is the wall in the passage just outside the living room.

Marla's Blog

Marla as spent the last 10 months putting this together.

One page per month for the first year of CJ’s life.

So here is the first one.

Enjoy!

Chrystina's first month (starting 29 May 2006)

Marla is pretty talented, isn’t she?

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The other day when reading Stuff Christians Like, I found the dramatized exchange between Moses and Aaron quite amusing.

While relaying this amusing story to a colleague at the office, I began to see the incident with the golden calf in a whole new light.

Here is some background. The Israelites had been in slavery for 400 years. Most of them had probably given up on God doing anything to rescue them. Then, practically out of the blue, God arrives on the scene and, through a series of dramatic events, frees the nation from slavery and walks them (through the Red Sea) to freedom.

Now a short while later God calls Moses away for a chat. When Moses gets back he finds the whole nation is worshiping an idol. This being one of the things God had specifically asked them not to do, Moses got quite mad.

The question that popped into my mind as I was retelling the story was “What, after all the blatant evidence of God’s presence, the 10 plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of fire and smoke, food and water in the middle of the desert, what after all these things caused these people to go after a man made god?”

The bible says: “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain…” Exodus 32:1a

Simply put: They got tired of waiting!

But wait, before we point fingers at these guys, we need to ask ourselves, I need to ask myself, how often do I get tired of waiting?

How often to we put something into God’s hands one moment and then a short while later get tired of waiting?

Is it just me or does that track with you?

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