1980 Matric reunion

Wow! What a roller-coaster ride it was 3- 4 months ago when we started to get serious about the reunion!
Marius Steyn got the ball rolling. I offered my help and phoned, smsed and emailed everybody on the list. I tried to get them to add names they they know that was not on the list. It worked!

Pierre Wilke took over from Marius at about the 13th of July and since then we steadily got names, numbers and emails in to correct and add. What a job it is to get people to react to any communication medium! Phew! I do not think I will help out for the next one! The time I spent on it, the phone calls I made, the smsess I sent out and the emails consumed so much of my time! I really want to thank Gideon and the kids for being so patient and understanding. They know how much this means to me. Thank you guys!

The BIG event is on the 16th of October at Pienaarsdam, Middelburg. So far about 80 confirmed to attend the reunion. We will have Zwanette and her sister from Holland, Leighton from he USA, and the rest of course from right here! It is going to be a blast!!! Gideon offered to be the photographer for the day. He will do the shooting and printing.

I really can not wait to see friends from as far back as 1975!! It stirs something inside me, very emotional and sort of spiritual too! Yes, some of us will be fatter, have more gray hair, or no hair at all ;-), but that technology could bring us together after 30 years (and some 35 years) is just fenomenal!!!

I will post photo's here and on Facebook about the event. You will see all the lovely people I had the privilege to know, some better than others. Whoot! Whoot!!

It is sad that 2 of our friends died in the meantime (Hardus Kidson and Linda Mynhard) When I learned that, I felt so sad and small. I still see them like I saw them (and knew them) in primary school! I remember when we went to the public swimming pool at Kruger Dam and I always knew that Linda would be there as she was there very often. Nope we were not best friends, but we were friends. She had the bluest of blue eyes and black hair with a bit of freckles on her nose. Now all I have is a school group photo to remember her by.

Hardus I did not know that well. But I do remember his face and the mischief in his eyes.  Sad, very sad!

Anyway, I do think we will have an awesome time together! I can not wait!!!
Counting the sleeps - 34!

Being sick is not for sissies

Dante fell sick on Saturday May 2nd with the normal cold symptoms. I self medicated him during the night and on Sunday morning it seemed that the cold turned into a full blown flu situation. I took him to the doctors on Monday morning and the doctor gave him flu medicine. He did not think the stomach cramps and the fact that Dante complained about chest pains and dizziness was something to look into.

That proofed to be an unfortunate mistake. He was so sick the Tuesday that I had to take him back to the doctors, but I did ask for another doctor this time. He immediately saw that Dante was very sick and gave other medication to give Dante. By this time Dante already had a fever for 5 days. He also said that if it does not get better on Friday, I needed to bring him in straight away. It did not go better, it got worse!

At the doctors they took x-rays and it showed that Dante's lungs was infected. He was send straight to hospital. This was our first hospitalization experience. Dante was scared to death to go there, but it was necessary. What an experience for him. He was put onto oxygen immediately and stayed there for 5 days.

Yesterday, he was discharged and he is at home now. What a relieve! He needs to have physio today and tomorrow and maybe he can go back to school next week sometime.

He lost out on school for 2,5 weeks now and on the 18th of May exams start  for him as well!



Ouch!!!



I am just so thankful that he is ok and home.
Blessings

Till next time

Susan

Earth Hour! 27 March 2010

On 27 March we can be part of a wonderful action to give a bit back to our planet AND be part of making of history!!!!

 

Turn out your light, show support

borrowed from www.Earth Hour.com

In 2009 hundreds of millions of people around the world showed their support by turning off their lights for one hour.

Earth Hour 2010 will continue to be a global call to action to every individual, every business and every community. A call to stand up, to show leadership and be responsible for our future.

I am going to do my part for Earth Hour AND have fun doing it. I will invite lots of friends and I will have ample marshmallows, on long fireproof sticks, ready with candles - lots of it - and I will have my best ghost and scary stories ready.  ;-) I will even allow visitors to bring a flashlight for effect!

During this our we will celebrate earth and be thankful that we are a part of it. There will be lots of laughter during this hour. We can even sing songs and clap hands and dance if the need rise ;-) It all depends on how scary my scary stories are ;-)


Are you ready for this important hour?
Are you ready to start a tradition?
Are you ready to give back in a teeny tiny way?

I am!
Please do join me and Pledge your support here and turn off your lights for one hour, Earth Hour, 8.30pm, Saturday 27th March 2010.

Things that happened this week

This week was ever so strange. Have you ever had a day that turned out to be really really weird? Like the whole universe was Topsy Turvy and you were standing on your head trying to whistle the national anthem while chewing a Marie Biscuit?

Well, that was sort of like my week went. Weird, strange and unusual. Monday was my painting day. I had to finish the artwork for Gideon's album launch. I could see and hear he was not happy with my interpretation of it. So it had to be redone. I wasted a few tubes of paint, but what the heck! I changed it to his specifications and he was happy.
Tuesday - anniversary = 25 years together. Wow, that is a life time! Out of this 25 years we lived nearly for 10 years out side of South Africa. Gideon surprised me in the middle of the night with gifts and midnight snacks! The day of our anniversary was not something I would write poems about. Next time I prefer to be swept away in a hot-air balloon or Jet to a tropical island where I can idle in the sun and not worry about anything or anybody.

Like I mentioned before, I finished the artwork Gideon wanted and must say it was a very easy image to do, but hard to do it. I had something totally different in mind than he did. But eventually I got it done like he wanted it. The only thing left is to put on the real stings on the painted guitar.
Here is a picture of it nearly done:

If you could touch it, you would see that it has different textures on the guitar.

• The glittery thingies at the bottom are real silvery glass beads
• Real silver textured stars were used at the circle
  
• Textured paste was used for effect on the background
• Gold paint was used on the background on the raised areas
• Copper wire was used at the circle for a raised textured feeling
• The outlining of the Guitar was done with rope that was painted and with silver pinstripes on both sides
• The fret was raised a bit with gel and then painted white
• On the inside of the circle I used calligraphy to write the albums name and the band's name
• The naked silhouette of the woman was done to be as near as possible to the guitar's colour.
  

We have a long weekend, but it is actually cramped with other obligations. Pity. Have not seen Gideon last week much. He was very busy going out early to work and coming home late. He even started the long weekend working later than 8 0'clock!

David arrived from university early on Friday as a surprise to Gideon and Dante. We decided to do a pizza night. It was NOT a good move. We normally do Debonair's but they did not answer the phone!!!! I then was summoned to go buy pizza at our local Mall - I think Pizza Perfect it was. Their pizza's are NOT worth going back for seconds. Pizza's should not be soggy and falling apart if you pick a slice up.

Saturday we overslept a bit, but then quickly got into gear as we had to go and find a photo shop that does slide development (for David's project at uni) Tough luck! We searched high and low, but nothing! At long last we got info that it could be done in Pretoria, but we would not be in time to get there before closing time. David has to go and do that on his own now on Tuesday.

We had a brunch at Green Stone Mall and came home to see Gideon rush off again to Liedjieboer for a Potjiekos thing. I decided that it would be better to join him a bit later as I needed a breather and David had to study. Dante was just doing Dante stuff ;-)

The Potjiekos thing actually was not too bad. We had a great meal and some live music. Carle van Deventer has a huge voice!!! Wow!

Today (Sunday) we had a bit of a rest - of some sorts. I did washing, sorting things out, updating Facebook and Redbubble and trying to sort out my Blogs. Tomorrow will be different. We are going to friends for a barbecue and as I see it, we will be there for a long time.

My week was not going as I planned, neither did my weekend so far. I am going to stick to my planning for this week - come hell or high water!

• On Tuesday I am going to see a dietitian - I need to get myself and Dante in an organized and controlled ritual concerning eating habits.
• Then I will hit the malls to go and look for a jean for Dante as his is falling apart - maybe I can spoil myself too with a nice designer jean ;-) hmmmmm
• Artwork to be started and finished will be sorted
• Cleaning and sorting the house will also need to happen somewhere as Gideon's Dad and Ouma Dirkie is planning to visit us by Friday.

On Wednesday I will carry on doing my artwork ~ nothing else

On Thursday I will still be doing my artwork ~ no interruptions allowed (maybe Facebook now and then and also Redbubble here and there)
Hmmmmmmmm I forgot, Oupa will arrive on Thursday! Oh well!


On Friday my itinerary is still open for suggestions.....

• maybe coffee at Mugg & Bean
• maybe taking the day off and doing nothing
• maybe going to the movies
• maybe......

Now to think and plan too far ahead is also not good.
One needs to be able to be impulsive and mysterious too

I will let you know what I did on those moments ............


Blessings
Have a stunning week!

Promoting myself!!!

Susan van Zyl

These are some of the images on my profile on Redbubble

Promotion Time!

♫.•°°African Art At heART°°•.♫

These are images in a slide show from the group that I host on Redbubble.
Enjoy

Some of my old artworks Page 1

I did this one without any reference material and love the way the flowers turned out

This was my very first attempt at a still life. I lived in Holland at the time and tried to join a art class where I can be taught, but only could get into a more leveled up class where no teaching per se happened.
This was done in Holland. It was sort of a Chinese theme going for about 2 months in the above mentioned class.
Chinese vase and pot in the same theme as mentioned above.
An abstract with pastels. Soft pastels. It turned out quite well.
In as book or on the internet I found this exercise in Water colours, that I tried
A water colour I did from a photograph. This was difficult!
I wanted to do some season paintings. This was Autumn