KIDS TODAY

Well I have to be honest when I received this email from my friend Denise of 'Bless This Mess' I really laughed because it is so true. Do you remember being told by your parents how tough life had been and they did have it tough. Mine came through 2nd World War and The Depression and life was just so different for them. I remember I was 16 before they had a refrigerator. Who do you know who doesn't have one of those today.

We went to the phone box to make a call - we had no home phone let alone a mobile phone. I walked to school so I could save the penny that I got for bus fare to buy a treat. It wasn't a long walk just about a mile and a half and that walked of the podge I would have got from the sweets.

Well anyway read this little story from the over 30's

THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!

'If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears With their tedious diatribes about how hard things were.

When they were growing up; what with walking Twenty-five miles to school every morning Uphill. BOTH ways.

Yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay A bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it And how easy they've got it! But now that...I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, We had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalogue!! There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter, with a pen! .Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and mess it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal; that's it!And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your Bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!!

You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Play station video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids'. Your guy was a little square!You actually had to use your Imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens; it was just one screen! Forever!!!!!!!!

And you could never win.

The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only m-net and there was no on screen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing!

You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the Channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning.

Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-b…..ds!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove. Imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

That's exactly what I'm talking about!

You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled.

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,The over 30 Crowd'

Yes kids have a lot of strain in some ways today but I honestly believe there were bad people around then as well. Life was slower and families looked out for each other much more than we do today. Life was sweeter because I had no mortgage no debt . The state of the economy was not something I had to worry about. I remember JFK being killed and then Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.

What my grand kids learn in history I lived through a lot of it. I lived through the 80's in SA and the 90's and when I visited the Apartheid Museum at Gold Reef City with them I was amazed at what I had forgotten and what they had never known as the eldest was born in 1975.

We didn't have take aways every night or eat out ever night we were lucky we had home cooked meals and I remember I loved toast with dripping not realising we were hard up and ate it cause there was no bacon and eggs.

I wonder what the next generation will have that this one doesn't or perhaps they won't have cars that guzzle non existent fossil fuels and load shedding will mean having electricity occasionally. Will there be food or will they have moved continents for a better life - just as we did way back when I was under 30!!!!!!!!

BATS

I love this little cartoon that came through via email. Had to share it

CALLING THE SHEEP

Well I get so many great things via email and when I received these pictures I just had to share them. I don't know where they are or who took the photos but aren't these fabulous.

When I first looked didn't even pick up the phone as a head.

Someone is very creative and makes some weird associations. Like would you think of telephones and sheep?

Thanks George for sending me these great pics.

SUNNY WARM SOUTH AFRICA

I received some pictures via email so don't know who posted them but I just have to share them with you as I was so amazed. Ceres is a place in the Cape where we grow loads of fruit and veg. In fact we have a fruit juice brand here called Ceres. Cold - or cold

A LOVELY TALE

I don't know about you but i get so many emails with inspirational stories and the like. This one really touched because we can all make a difference if we just reach out a small hand. It is like a small ripple in a pond and it grows and grows until we can achieve great things. Read on and remember it only takes you to make a difference.

MY boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared.Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds.He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries.

Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either.

If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it.

I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress, loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job.

The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No luck.The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince who ever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job.Still no luck.

The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in t hat had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel.An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning.She paid 65 cents an hour, and I could start that night.

I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pyjamas on and the kids would already be asleepThis seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal.

That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the Big Wheel.

When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money-- fully half of what I averaged every night.

As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my meagre wage.

The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home. One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires!There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires.

Had angels taken up residence in Indiana ? I wondered.

I made a deal with the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.

I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough.

Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning.

Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.

On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. There were the truckers, Les, Frank , and Jim , and a state trooper named Joe . A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up..

When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning, to my amazement, my old battered Chevy was filled full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes.

I quickly opened the driver's side door, crawled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat.Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes.

There was candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.

As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning.

Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop....

THE POWER OF PRAYER. I believe that God only gives three answers to prayer:

1. "Yes!"

2. "Not yet."

3. "I have something better in mind."

God still sits on the throne, the devil is a liar. You may be going through a tough time right now but God is getting ready to bless you in a way that you cannot imagine.

My instructions were to pick four people that I wanted God to bless,and I picked you.

Please pass this to at least four people you want to be blessed and a copy back to me.This prayer is powerful, and prayer is one of the best gifts we receive. There is no cost but a lot of rewards Let's continue to pray for one another.

Here is the prayer:....

Father, I ask You to bless my friends, relatives and email buddies reading this right now. Show them a new revelation of Your love and power.

Amen.

FAREWELL AND SEE YOU AGAIN

Well last night we took Dottie to the airport for her flight on board the Virgin Atlantic flight to London. It was so sad to see her go as we had enjoyed having her with us so much.


Yesterday was quite restful as we new she would have loads of packing and then we had to be at the airport two hours before the scheduled flight time of 20h40. I hope she got a good seat with someone friendly beside her.





Oh bye bye Dottie see you soon and remember the recipe for those Cosmo's and treat Jaqi and Chrissy to one. I am sure they would enjoy them.

Hugs Jessie

HELLO AGAIN FROM ALL OF US

Well I am back blogging away to keep you up to date on Dottie and her adventures in SA.

Her and DD have gone for a coffee at the local Mall and so I have 10 minutes on my own. Oh what a luxury.

Last night we had a great girl’s night in. It was cold and foggy outside but we girls made it warm and cosy inside with some heavenly cocktails, Nigella type food and a great movie.

We started of with some Cosmopolitans which are divine. Made from Vanilla Vodka, triple sec, cranberry juice and a dash of lime juice they are like cold drink and very more-ish. After a couple each of these we got down to some great food which I have to say I copied from Nigella.

Fatoush made with toasted pita and crisp lettuce. I also love to add some fresh rocket as I think it just adds to it. With mini meatballs and raita it was really yummy.

Dessert was easy as Woolworth make the best small custard tarts based on the Pasteis de Nata (Portuguese custard tarts) they really are rich and creamy. We had ours with a nice glass of Hannepoot wine which is sweet and a bit like a Sauternes so good for dessert.

A great meal which left all of us all a bit full and ready to chill with a good movie. So we settled down to watch ‘The Bucket List’ and oh it was so good. A real teary movie with two great actors. If you haven’t seen it we suggest you do so. A sad movie is one which of course we girls always enjoy.

Even though we were full we ended up having popcorn – home made and tumble chocolates.

After the movie we just sat and chatted for hours and ended up going to bed with hot chocolate with some whipped cream and mini marshmallows. Oh boy was it a feast or was it not.