Crazy cat from Mulberry Hill

This was the craziest cat I've ever seen - he arrived at breakfast at a run, across the vast expanse of the garden. After sniffing around, he detected a plastic packet full of biltong and planned his capture of this wonderful aromatic treat. Only to be defeated by me closing the packet... what a spoil sport... He then proceeded to the fishpond and tried to work out how he could catch a fish without getting his paws wet...


Maybe if he can't see us then we won't see him catching a cuddle under the bedspread... seriously now...

It's the inside that counts...

There is nothing quite like sitting on your bed, cappuchino in one hand, rusk in the other hand and an open Bible on your lap.... reading Matthew 5. I don't know if anyone can read Matthew 5 and not be convicted. Each passage I read seemed to be telling me the same thing, in different ways... it is not what you do on the outside that counts the most, it is the what is going on inside you that counts the most.

I've been brought up in a suburb, where most people are pretty decent and lead decent moral lives (for the most part that we know of). It is therefore not incredibly difficult to lead a fairly decent moral life, as that is what I'm brought up with. However, God can see straight into my heart, and he knows what I think about the people I meet, the taxi drivers I encounter, the impatience I experience, the anger I feel... inside me is a big black vast cavern of sin that people only see glimpses of every once in a while.

The only way this can change is through God. I cannot change me in my own strength. I need God's light shining inside me and then then this will also shine out of me. Unless I spend time with God and draw closer to him nothing is going to change for the better.

I was convicted as I sat on my bed about the "forsaking of meeting with other Christians" that often happens due to my fast pace of work life. It is hard to see how the work pace will change, I have my plans, but they don't seem very good, even to me!!

I look around me at work, at the people the same level or higher than me in management, they are either unmarried or are single with kids or divorced. There are extremely few of them that are happily married with kids. So basically, in my current line of work, it would appear that people genuinely don't have a whole lot of time for anything other than work, so in order for me to meet with other Christians and guard my marriage, something has to be different for me. Maybe just having these priorities and striving to achieve them, with God's help, will be sufficient - maybe at some point something more drastic will have to happen.

This is all in God's hands. He has led me thus far, he has led me to my current work, I am where He wants me to be currently. In this I must just rest for the moment - and plan to go to the new Bible Study Group that we are joining on Wednesday.

The Part of Life often Forgotten

I type this blog post, sitting on a King size bed, looking out over the veranda, at the sun slowly setting over the mountains, with the underfloor heating generating a cozy heat… Very different from my Durban life, where underfloor heating is unheard of, the view is of the sea, rather than the mountains, and I can almost see where I work from the flat balcony. Work stress is never quite forgotten.

This weekend we travelled to Curry’s Post in the KZN midlands and stayed at Mulberry Hill B&B, as a friend, Lauren, was getting married in the vicinity. What a pleasure! We were placed in a cottage, overlooking a trout dam. There was a little Bistro on site, where you could have almost any pancake you could think of during the day, both sweet and savoury. The cottage was beautifully kept, even providing a cat for our entertainment. I’ve never seen such an active cat out on the prowl. Someone had innocently left some biltong in a packet out on the veranda and the cat hunted it down and boy did he moan when I closed the packet so he couldn’t get to it. He followed us all the way from breakfast on the sunny veranda to our cottage and proceeded to hide under the bed spread and meeau if we happened to lift the bed spread up.

The wedding was interesting. The bride looked lovely and the Pastor who married them gave such a simple, yet profound sermon and explained everything beautifully.

He explained how the bride had to include “she will obey the husband” in her vows but that for 99% of the decisions made, they should discuss them and agree together, but for the 1% where that is not possible, the wife has to obey the husband. He explained that in order to make it through the ups and downs of life, you need God. I really wish I had a copy of the sermon to really take it in again. He made it clear that a Quiet Time was necessary.

Interestingly, the Pastor used to come to our church, many many years ago. He was selected to marry the couple as he Pastors in the region that they were getting married. He apparently gets any couple that he marries to sign a document that they are happy for him to preach the gospel at their wedding. If they refuse then he declines to marry them. I hope that my friend does come to have a meaningful relationship with God.

We were eating our main course at the wedding at 6.15pm. It was pretty early, for which we were grateful, as it was cold and dark long before that. There were fireplaces in the big room and tastefully elegant bouquets of expensive red roses on each table. The guests each received a box of handmade nougat.

I think that due to the early hour, the DJ panicked a bit and got 12 of the guests to play a game – never seen that at a wedding before – They had to collect certain items from guests, the last one back was out each time and their forfeit was to buy the married couple a gift on their monthly anniversary eg. the 4th person out had to buy a gift for them on their fourth month anniversary. The bridal couple had to send a bottle of wine to the person that won, on their 1 year – anniversary – interestingly different.

I really enjoyed the weekend – and the next day we proceeded onwards to the Cavern Resort in the Drakensburg – from where I am typing this blog post.

Voting Day

Wednesday 22nd April dawned, our alarm clock went off and I tumbled out of bed... (I tumbled out because I was pushed out... ) Nevertheless I jumped in the warm shower, got dressed and went off to vote before the crowds got there... Andrew was due to vote at one station and me at another... We drove past mine first, in order for me to drop Andrew off at his voting station... and there was much laughter at the amount of cars outside mine by one person, as it was jam-packed...When we arrived at Andrew's there was much laughter from the other person in the car as it was even worse... so we decided to head back home and tackle the voting queues later... We however were very happy that so many people were voting...

Later in the day my friends from school and I met up at the Beverly Hills hotel for some 5 star pampering - we started off with cappucino's on the terrace overlooking the sea and then moved inside to the lounge and had "High Tea" for lunch... It is so amazing meeting up with the girls. We are doing such different things, yet still totally bond. The best part for me is that we can be honest with one another and don't have to pretend anything. One is married with a baby, one is just married (that would be me), one bought a house with their boyfriend 6 years ago, one is seriously dating for the first time, and one is happily single (but keeping her eyes open). One is a travel agent, two are teachers, one is a physio and one an accountant. (When the others are there then we have a Chiro, another accountant and an insurance agent too).

The best is being able to hear what it is really like giving birth, not just the "all the pain was worth it" line. And being able to talk through the issues of being married in the current age and how the expectations need to be different to those that our parents had. And discussing the challenges of living with your boyfriend from the beginning vs dating and being able to have some space with your boyfriend when you have arguments (I believe the second way is more what God intended).

It was just so refreshing to be able to chill for a couple of hours and just chat "Girl Chat"...

In the evening off we went back to vote... this time we made it out the car and into the queues - taking 30 - 40 minutes to vote. I felt proud to be making my mark and I must say, after voting twice before, this time I really felt like my vote would mean something and I was glad to see a long queue, even at 7pm...

My thumb didn't fare so well, but it was a small price to pay... the next day, the indelible ink had made my ENTIRE thumb nail brown...

Where have you been?

So, I don't know if you have noticed, but there is this *tongue in cheek* slight inconvenience in the world and South Africa at the moment that is called "an economic crisis".

People reactions to this are amazing... One person said -"It won't affect South Africa" and 100 000 to 300 000 people lost jobs in SOUTH AFRICA...

At my company we are not getting increases this year in order to save costs so we can all preserve our jobs - if we don't do this, it is predicted that before the year is out, 6 000 of us will have lost our jobs - accounting for one fifth of our workforce.

So, the Group CEO flew down from Joburg to address the management in the Durban area today and explain everything to us. He gave a brilliant, simple presentation, backed up with evidence, explained the plan in the pipelines, the strategy, the problems, the solutions, the focus - everything necessary for management to understand what is going on.

I was proud to know that the person at the helm was thinking strategically, that the plan made sense, that jobs were being preserved, that the interests of the country were being taken into account. At the end, the forum was opened up to questions from the floor.

The thing that was most interesting for me at this time was how clear it was that some people just can't understand the economic crisis. To them, it is not happening. Even after being presented with hard facts. So for them, the decisions being taken are incomprehensible and totally negative. For all of our good, I hope they do start to understand or at least follow the strategy presented otherwise jobs will be lost. No matter how good the leader is at the helm, if the rest of the team don't work towards the same goal, the ship will be lost...

I thank God that at the moment I have my job, income, a place to stay and food on the table. The more I watch and read the more I don't take them for granted.

The Wii

Andrew and I have purchased a Wii with some hard earned cash and some Wedding Giftmoney... We are enjoying coming home and spending some time - us against the computer!

Wii Sports has proved to be a lot more fun than we anticipated - with the training sections helping us to improve -especially with Baseball - which seemed totally useless at first - it is still pretty annoying, but once you improve it does have some promise.

My favourite game is Mario Kart so far where I've managed to unlock some of the Cups and new Courses...

We are in the middle of Year End at work at the moment so it is providing some welcome distraction when I come home from work.

At the moment I'm typing this block, half watching Andrew playing baseball and hearing all his sound effects as he enjoys his game...

One or two of our friends have Wii's so we are looking forward to swapping games with them when we get bored of ours.

Year End is going fairly well at the moment - some careful prep from our side and the side of the Auditors is hopefully going to pay off some dividends with limited overtime. I'm almost excited, but am trying not to be, cos it takes with one thing to turn everything into a nightmare. Yesterday I was plotting my exit from the office at 4.10pm (I'm supposed to finish work at 4pm - govt Dept :) :) but that doesn't exactly always happen. At 4.11pm, one of my colleagues came out of a meeting with the Auditors and suddenly we had a whole lot of info to gather for them - I left work at about 5pm and then today at 6.20pm - amazing the impact of 1min...

Anyway... off to join Andrew in his endeavours to beat the Wii at the Tennis Game...

The Meeting of the Month...

Today I went to a meeting that will stick in my mind for the next while. The meeting was supposed to be to train the Business Process Owners at the company I work for. I am the Finance Business Process Owner - a Business Process Owner is basically the person that is responsible for the day-to-day running of the process (manual and IT related) and also the projects that are running that affect our particular process.

Business Process Owners are therefore the management of the company (below the exco level) and therefore generally people who are used to pretty much getting their own way, making their own decisions, using their own initiative, running things and changing things...

Now - put all these people in the same room, give them one goal, presented by someone on the same level as them and what outcome do you get??

Seriously, give it some thought... these people are used to giving instructions...

What you get is heated discussion, disagreement and any number of solutions to the "problem"... anything, but acceptance of the solution. My favourite part is the people who arrived late had the most to say and caused the most damage... It doesn't sound bad when you read this post, but I am not going to bore you with the details.

What I learnt from this is :

The meetings I used to think were bad, are not bad compared to this...

I will never call a meeting of the BPO's...

I will never call a meeting of the BPO's unless the CFO is there to back me up...

If I have to chair a meeting of the BPO's I will have strict rules that ONE person talks at a time and they do not talk while being interrupted... I'd use the "conch" idea...

Man, the meeting was so bad that I, as the youngest person there, had to suggest a "comfort break" so that people would have time to cool down... Then suggest a way that everyone can have their say in a non-highly-assertive manner... what a meeting... what a meeting...

I now wonder how much longer I will last in my current position? The stress levels are not sustainable... Anyway, that is a thought for another day, I'm there to give as much as I can, and learn as much as I can, in the best way possible and somehow in the midst of that be a shining light for God... And boy do I have much to learn on that last point!!

Photos of Ashtonvale

A scrapbook of photos... You have to click on "play" to see them... Not advised for "dial-up" lines...

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Holiday Time!

Andrew and I spent our first Valentine's weekend away at a Farm in the Natal Midlands. We had both been very stressed and busy at work so we were looking forward to being away from everything. We weren't even worried whether it rained or not - if it rained we were going to hook our computers up and play DOTa... it was all planned.

We left work at lunchtime on the Friday and enjoyed our drive. As we got a bit closer to our destination it became apparent that the one patch of storm clouds that there was, was probably hovering over our destination...

Never fear though... We trundled down the bumpy sand road from the entrance of the farm to the "reception". The person there asked if we would like tea in our room and also organised for someone to help us with our luggage...

We got into our room and that was where the fun started... the toilet was pink and white, the floor was dirty, there were cobwebs over the pillow of one of the beds, thin wooden boards over what should have been glass panes in the door, a bath that was too small for even me to fit into... and then horror of horrors... the discovery that there was not a single plug point in the ENTIRE room.

This wasn't too bad for me - having brought other stuff to keep me occupied other than computer games, but for the IT one, it was the straw that broke the camels back- as we watched the rain falling outside through the non-boarded up window. After some persuading Andrew was convinced to stay for the night.

In the morning the sun came out, we played some tennis, swam, played more tennis and enjoyed not cooking or washing dishes. In the evening there was a cute Valentine's dinner with balloons, red decor and heart shaped chocolates.

In the end it was just what the doctor ordered - very relaxing and chilled (we hooked our computers up in the cute little bar that had no alcohol or drinks in it?!). We left the next morning, having had a relaxing stay, but having agreed that we weren't going to be re-visiting anytime soon...

 
 
 
 

Here I am...

Hmm... I find myself typing a blog again... Usually I only feel like blogging when I'm a little sad, bored, annoyed, listless - basically the slightly negative emotions... Well, I'm determined that my blog won't be negative tonight, as I have much to be grateful for...

On Sunday I experimented with some cooking - one of my January and February Resolutions - We had a Crispy Chicken dish which turned out pretty yummy - the best part is having a husband who graciously does the washing of the dishes after each meal. We also had a yummy fruit bake that turned out well - and the best part of that was having leftover dessert for Monday night and Tuesday night. It is finished now, so don't even try wangle an invitation!

I missed Cell Group last week, but we are starting to read the book "Don't Waste Your Life" by John Piper. We had homework to read Chapter 1 of the book before the next study and answer a couple of questions. I hope this will be the kick that we need as individuals and a group to get going in the right direction.

I generally drive half an hour each work day to take/fetch Andrew from work and I've discovered the power of MP3 players. I've downloaded two sermons of John Pipers. The one didn't really sink in for me, but the other one is literally the first sermon I've heard preached that I'd choose to listen to more than once. (4 Jan 2009 "If My Words Abide in You")

What stuck out for me was the part when he raised his voice and said something like, "Satan is so much stronger than you and he hates you, he hates your family, he hates your marriage - what are YOU doing to protect yourself from him?" Shew, you have to hear it to really get it I suppose... but it was a wake up call that I should be memorising Scripture. You have to have something in your head to "meditate on it day and night". How am I arming myself?

In Chapter 1 of "Don't Waste Your Life" what stuck out for me was that instead of seeing what is permissible for a Christian we should be finding what is essential and the main focus and living the important part instead of living the minimal life of "what is permissible".

I think my work has brought out and further highlighted a part of my personality that does not allow me to do "pointless" things for too long. So I'll do activities that seem to have a point, but in the grand scheme of things are in fact still pointless - but I'll be busy and "accomplishing" things.

Let me give an example - I've started collecting craft ideas and putting them in a file - but unless I actually make some of the things - indeed, even one thing! - then I've embarked in a pointless activity. I've been busy to no good end. And where does this activity fit in in the grand scheme of God's mission for me??

Too many questions and too few answers!

Anyway - one of the verses I'm trying to learn off by heart is in Joshua. (Learning Scripture was also highlighted in another book I was given for my birthday, interestingly enought - maybe I'm slow to get the point??!)

Joshua 1:8-9 "Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."

May this be true for you too...

So you want to be a CA?

...but what do you know about being a CA?

Well... they earn lots of money, they are generally considered to be professional, people listen to them (um...cos the CA is usually the boss so they have to!),their opinion is generally sought after, they have influence and they sort out stuff...

So...let me share with you another day in the life of this CA...

I started the day at 5am with my alarm going off telling me to go to gym. I was pretty gracious about this matter and went off for my exercise (I've decided to go on Tues, Thurs and once on the weekend).

After some breakfast and a shower I proceeded to work to start knocking off my "To Do" list that was 20 points long...

During the course of the day I:- (CA's like putting things in point form)
1. I explained to the Tax Manager how to do a Finance month end (we have to learn each other's jobs)
2. logged a call to the Photocopier people as ours was jamming.
3. checked someone's leave record to ensure all was as it should be
4. dealt with the internal auditor being upset with the management accountant and vice versa
5. checked some journals that we had to send to the terminals
6. created a journal
7. posted a journal
8. played the "communicator" and linked people up so they could get the info they required
9. sent out a communication to all the terminals
10. approved a change for the IT system
11. requested a change for the IT system
12. corrected data on the IT system
13. got someone in trouble that wasn't doing their job properly
14. reminded people of work that was outstanding
15. dealt with a difficult person who was irrate and not showing respect to staff in our Finance section
16. and then proceeded to escalate where the difficult person had messed up to someone who also cared (don't mess with a CA, they have influence and have no patience with rude people)
17. authorised foreign payments and local payments
18. answered the phone
19. listened to people's problems that visited my desk
20. got my leave form signed for a half day off on the 13th Feb so we can go away for Valentine's weekend :) :) :)
21. answered the assistant's telephone (he is also a CA, so you can imagine the calls)
22. supervised the staff
23. updated my "to do" list that is now 30 items long and re-scheduled "due by" dates for all the tasks I didn't do today...
24. etc etc etc...

okay, okay, I realise you are bored now... but I didn't force you to read this...

So basically, I left work an hour later than our finishing time, exhausted, made supper and now am blogging.

Tomorrow it should be the same sort of thing (ie. the day's tasks are all going to be unique) but no gym. After work, we'll proceed to my parents to say goodbye to them before they go away to visit my brother and sis-in-law and then go to friends for dinner, Thursday there are more activities after work, Friday a prayer-meeting after work, Saturday a lunch time braai about an hours drive away, Sunday is early morning church... and then Monday comes and it is month end at work...

Phew... so you want to be a CA? - Well if you can figure out how to juggle a stressful day at work, exercise, a new marriage, devotional time, sleep, time with two families, time with friends, church and church activities, grocery shopping and all the normal household tasks then please let me know. My life as a CA is certainly not unique, You either keep up, or bail out... The point of being a CA is that you have demonstrated that you can think, and problem solve - therefore you spend the day problem solving - which is exhausting...

In spite of this all, I do in fact love my job. I just wish the "to do" list was 5 long instead of 30 and I had double the energy. I'm learning a stack of stuff everyday and learning to be assertive and deal with difficult people.

So far this year...

I don't exactly do the whole New Year's resolutions, but I try and set goals for myself each month. Last year, halfway through the year I got pretty distracted - getting engaged and married tends to do that! - so I didn't set any goals for most of the year.

January goals this year are :-
1. To cook/bake two new recipes
2. To go to gym 6 times
3. Finish the book I was given for my birthday
4. Set up a Bible reading plan
5. Make cards and buy gifts for family and friends in January
6. Do the same for February

So...
1. I made a tuna bake - it came out well, but we didn't like the taste...
I made a savoury pie - it came out well, but (co-incidently?)Andrew spent the rest of the afternoon in the loo...
I made cookies - man, they were great (maybe Andrew ate too made and that is why he spend the rest of the afternoon in the loo?!)

2. So far, I've been to gym 5 times
3. I've started the book, but I don't think I'll finish it by the end of the month
4. I've made a bit of a weak attempt at doing a Bible Reading Plan, but I've listened to a John Piper sermon in the car when fetching Andrew from work, and I've read some articles on Christian marriage
5. I've made cards and have gifts for the January people
6. I've started on the Feb people...

And what I've come to realise about me is that I have to have something that I consider "productive" to do for the vast majority of they day. Scrapbooking is productive, as you are creating something, playing computer games is a tiny bit productive when playing with your husband, as you are bonding!!!!

Anyway, I think the whole thing of needing to be productive has come from serving articles and needing to account for every 15 minutes of my working life and then going into a very busy, stressful job, where I need to be productive to get through everything...Interesting how circumstances and life can change you...

A day in life of Debbie at work

Yesterday I was off work, sick with a stomach bug. I thought it would have been fairly quiet at work, but instead I was greeted with 41 e-mails on my return, about 35 of which were actionable e-mails. Whilst trying to wade through these e-mails, the 41 e-mails of the current day were also arriving... shew... by the end of the day I was exhausted trying to keep up with everyone's demands. None of these were what I would term "my work". Oh, they were my work in the sense that I had to deal with them as they are my responsibility or the responsibility of my co-workers who are on leave, but they were not the tasks I had planned for the day or the things that I wanted to do that would actually add some value.

The tasks were, amongst others :- creating cash accounts on the system, changing general ledger configuration, assisting someone with preventing segregation of duties issues, unblocking accounts, following up on payments, authorising payments, confirming vendor details, arranging training details, assisting in putting together an advert to advertise a vacant position, giving internal audit their information so they could audit, changing customer details, visiting HR, filling in audit requests for the auditors of our customers, giving trade references, reading information supplied by HR...

And that is what I call "ADMIN".

So, now you know... a CA does not just play around with numbers all day!! If only we did!!!

The tasks that I would have prefered to have done today would be to test some new reports in our Quality Assurance Environment, complete one or two of my Standard Operating Procedures that I was drafting and meet with staff to begin implementing them.

But tomorrow is another day...