A Warming Cup of Coffee
Time Start : 21:13
This is my first official entry in my new WordPress blog and yes, it does appear that I’m way behind. I can’t believe just how quickly time does run away with us.
I created the top “Coffee’s Corner” image myself, with the aid of Photoshop of course. I even used a photo of one of our mugs together with a Woolworth’s cookie, taken at one of our board games evenings. The rest of it is made up of randomly manipulated internet pics, unfortunately I can’t do much about the stripe down the middle of the image, it is part of this template… which I could edit myself for $4.00… But CSS and I aren’t really the best of friends anyway – hence why I ended up here instead of at Blogger.
My main focus presently, regarding my personal time, has been the migration of my blog to this spot. I still have to move the rest of my images, but have started using FaceBook as my central photo location, just makes things easier. Although FaceBook is still Websensed at the office, except between the hour of 12 noon to 13:00. Speaking of FaceBook, my sister Julie has finally succumbed to peer pressure and has joined the masses on FaceBook. 
With ADSL becoming cheaper, my folks are now considering it, won’t be long before I get them onto FaceBook too. *g*
I’m enjoying WordPress though, I have much more freedom, to insert photos where I like, to update incorrect timestamps – this was particularly useful regarding our trip to the USA and also a much wider template choice. The entire look is much cleaner, the management tools are super and overall, two thumbs up!! 
Looking back, I can’t believe that I first started blogging on the 26th August 2005, also, come the 1st November, I will have been working at Derivco for 2 years! If fact, I attended my first interview the other day, as an interviewer instead of the interviewee. I think I was more nervous than the guy we were interviewing, hehe, interesting to see things from the other side of the fishbowl though.
I was recently sent on a 2 day Communications & Assertiveness course at Deloitte’s; about 5 people went from our company, it was quite interesting. We practised listening skills, as well as recognising and utilising empathy. For example, empathy is easy to recognise as it always contains a feeling and a fact, i.e. You must be upset that the assignment did not go well.
Feeling : Upset
Fact : The Assignment.
Empathy can be positive or negative.
Another point of interest, which was mentioned and has stuck with me, is that the most important gift that you could give to someone is your attention. Also that we must learn to listen with the intention to understand, not with the intention to reply; this is aided by imagining a white board filling up with the words being spoken to you. This aids both your focus as well as your listening skills.
Assertion can be defined as standing up for my rights whilst considering the rights of others.
The R.O.A.D. to Assertiveness:
R – Respectful
O – Open
A – Appropriate and
D – Direct Ways
It was enlightening and we all arrived back at work, refreshed and with some new insight on communication. Communication issues which I would have liked covered are as follows:
Communication Challenges :
* How to Complain and Stand Up for Oneself (especially when returning store goods)
* Being too Direct
* Impulsive Replies
* Being too Honest
* How to ”sugar coat”
* To handle criticism constructively
* Defensiveness
* Tone of Voice
* Listening
* To Compliment More
* Interrupting
* Patience
I’m not sure if we covered all of this, but definitely learning how to listen with understanding will assist with me being too impulsive and harsh when it comes to replying. Thinking before acting and all that.
It was quite amusing however; one of the girls in our group wanted to be more assertive as she felt that no one listened to her. In fact, sometimes she would just stop talking mid sentence and no one would even notice. We all assured her that this was indeed not the case and that it was purely in her head. However, there was also a guy in our group who had an issue with always interrupting people. When a question was posed to the class, this same girl attempted three times to answer. Two attempts being thwarted by sudden, additional information being provided by the course leader and the third time being interrupted by the guy at our table who always interrupts people. Fortunately, she also has a good sense of humour and we all enjoyed a good laugh as she proved her point. Very much a situation joke, but it was terribly amusing.
Whilst speaking of work, my regular lift, Paul emigrated to the UK this month; his girlfriend Lydia achieved a scholarship from a well known education facility in London. I have found an alternate method of transport however, Toine, who despite arriving at work around 8:30am, only leaves at about 18:30. This suits me in some ways however, as since I have started doing gym at work on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I can now actually take a lunch break on these days and not have to worry about not meeting my 8 hour work day quota. 
We are still looking into the purchasing of a second car, but I still need some extra driving practice, fortunately, our concierge service at work was able to collect my driver’s license for me, so I didn’t have to take another trip over to Marian Hill. I think it is something we will only get around to after our wedding.
Whilst still on the topic of work however; Melissa finally gave me her CV. Which, after a wait and a battle between our manager and HR, eventually made it to the top of the pile for a position in our department. When Melissa was contacted to come in for an assessment however, she turned them down. Her present company had offered her a raise of sorts, also she was concerned regarding travel costs between Umhlanga and Toti, as well as how it would interfere with her church activities. All valid concerns, but I must be honest, I was disappointed, I only wish she would have at least given the assessment a try and seen how it went. Overall though, considering the bigger picture, the important thing is that she prays about it and that she remains in God’s Will, anything else, will take care of itself.
Normally it would be pretty close to bedtime, being a Sunday night and all, however, tomorrow, the 24th September is Heritage Day and a public holiday here in South Africa. It is now known as National Braai Day, although I think we have covered our braai quota for the month and will be skipping tomorrow. Spring started here on the 1st September and we are looking forward to the long, Summer month’s ahead.
Wayne got into contact with an old friend of his, Paul Dahl on FaceBook, he has not seen the guy in 9 years and found out that he is now married and living in Jo’Burg. Whilst I attended the “Ministry of the Believer” conference, Wayne attended a Haemophilia conference in JHB and visited Paul whilst he was there. Since then, Paul came down to Durbs and visited us, in honour of his visit, Wayne figured it was about time that we had a braai. At the time we did not own a braai, hence the “at the time”, Wayne remedied this however by a prompt visit to Makro. After gazing at the various models, Wayne arrived home with a Gourmet Braai Deluxe Charcoal Trolley Grill. Needless to say, we will definitely be braaiing a whole lot more in the future!
The boys painstakingly assembled the braai, only to find that the handle of the thing was snapped in half in the box. The Makro return counter was not incredibly helpful, they did not argue, but sent us back to the braai area where we were expected to wait for “someone” to assist us. We explained that we did not want to swap out the entire braai as it was already assembled; however, we wanted to exchange the broken handle with the one on the Demo Model on the floor. We were sent over to the security counter where our broken handle was tagged with a piece of blue tape by the security guard and we then made our way to the braai area.
Naturally… No one came to assist us. After standing about for a while, Paul went off to the hardware section and located a screw driver, Wayne and Paul then proceeded to swap out the handle themselves. They did a pretty good job of it too, considering that some lady came about shortly after, lifted the lid up and down via the handle and uttered a pleasurable sound. We left the store no questions asked, we also purchased a set of braai tongs and a braai fork whilst there.
We had a great weekend with Paul, Wayne had just put together a new PC for him which he had ordered. Thus, the weekend was spent test driving it and introducing Paul to the much loved game, Unreal Tournament. Wayne also enjoyed the opportunity to drive Paul’s metallic blue Audi RS4, which even sitting in the back seat of a car that costs that much, makes you hold your breath a little… More so even, when your fiancé is driving it, lol.
In other news, the international EMI (Encounter Missions International) ACTS Institute (Apostolic Center for Training & Sending) is now doing courses online. Since our church already took pat in the “Ministry of the Believer” course in person, we have now been invited to guinea pig it for free on the ACTS website. Although it is self study, we are still required to have completed certain aspects of the course within a specific timeframe.
Our church, Deo Gloria, is now officially associated with ACTS and our pastor, Deborah, as well as her partner, Marietjie will soon be taking part in leading some of the courses. Another area of growth for us when it comes to the internet is that Sermon Podcasts are now available on our church website.
As for the family side of things, all the tots are getting pretty big. Tommy and Sam’s little one, Damian, has recently had his 1st Birthday, as for Julie & Tom’s little one, Jonathan is now a proud 12 weeks old! Karen & Justin’s daughters, Kimberly (born shortly after Damian) and Rebekah are also getting big, as is Clinton and Sarah’s daughter Pamela. Definitely got quire the baby crowd going on, looks like Wayne and I are the last ones. 
Speaking of Jonathan, Julie and Tom are due to bring him out for his first visit here this October. In fact, they are due to arrive on the 1st October, once again, time passes quicker than you think! It already seems like an age since Wayne and I were sitting in their lounge playing Killer Bunnies and trekking about to Tesco’s.
As Julie arrives, so does our new tenant. Branden is taking leave on Friday 28th September and will be starting to move across his first few items. The bulk of his stuff will be coming along on the 29th September with the movers. We look forward to having him!
Aside from concerning ourselves with tenants, the wedding, which up until now has taken a back seat, is coming to the fore front again. I recently updated our wedding website with everything which has been done and a fair few things which still need to be seen to and decided upon.
We went to visit Jacqui Rey yesterday at Food Matters in Ballito. Wayne and I each sampled a piece of the delicious chocolate mousse cake we are due to have on our wedding day. When we got home, I did drop Jacqui an email explaining that although the mousse was delicious, is it at all possible to have it lighter still. Whilst a darker mousse is complimented by red wine or has its bitterness hidden when served with ice cream, we would like for it to taste just as lovely and creamy, even if it is served plain.
Presently it has a mild bitterness as an aftertaste, but it otherwise perfect. We also arranged for the two Gare Ceramic Bears which I’m painting for the top of the cake, to sit upon rose petals, so that they don’t get all covered in mousse. We also need to supply Jacqui with 25 roses for the decoration of the cake,
Tomorrow we are going fudge tasting at the American Fudge Factory at the SunCoast Casino, we are wanting to have fudge as our table gifts for guests. Branden is going to come along for the ride as well, will be good to have an extra opinion. Hopefully all goes well.
One spot of bad news regarding the wedding is regarding Vaughn’s (Wayne’s best man) girlfriend Bronwyn. Wayne and I have both been friends with Vaughn and Bronwyn as a couple, Wayne has known Vaughn since high school and I met them as a couple when Wayne and I first started dating in 2001. However, Bronwyn was saying that since she missed weddings of some of her other friends, she does not think it would be right to attend our wedding, since she did not attend theirs. Personally I feel somewhat hurt by that and think it is a bit swak, I mean really, at this rate, she’ll never attend another wedding for as long as she lives. Perhaps that being her master plan.
Anyways, from sadness onto gladness… On the 28th September 2007, Wayne and I will be celebrating having shared 6 wonderful years together. Since Soul Survivor is taking place on Friday the 28th September (DHS @ 19:00), we’re going to attend that and head out for dinner at Joop’s Place on Saturday 29th September. In many ways, it seems quite symbolic that we will be getting married during our 7th year together. Love u babes.
Oh well, public holiday tomorrow or not, it is definitely time for bed. Also, I got fudge tasting to look forward to. *g*
Time End : 00:48
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