Eggceptionally Blessed

In our lives we have not had many new things to enjoy. Plenty of second hand, hand me down and found on rubbish dump stuff, but nothing new. Only once have we had a brand new car. And then someone suggested we spend the weekend at Ndumu Game Reserve on the Mozambique border. The roads were so bone shatteringly awful that our car self destructed. I cried. Truly, I cried. There was my lovely automobile, pristine and good one minute and a wreck the next. The exhaust shook itself loose and lay crumpled on the dusty road, useless, the radio shivered until the wires were bare and it never worked again.The engine was no better than the more fragile bits and my poor husband had to repair what he could. He was not impressed and neither was I. No music for us ... unless we supplied it ourselves. Two weeks old. Two weeks of nice new car and then gone. Was the trip to Ndumu worth it? Well no, I not only had a car to mourn but a car load of little children that got totally bored with peering into the distance to see if a rhino would appear. Okay enough about the car.

Fast forward to yesterday and we collected our new queen sized bed from the shop. We have never, ever, ever, had a new bed. Not once in our lives. Again lots of hand me downs and second and third hand stuff and a few years of sponge foam that I would not class as a mattress .... no, not even close. Oh and a second hand waterbed that sprang a leak. We decided that if we did not do it now then we would be leaving things too late. So out with the cash (aka plastic card) and after a half hour of lying on different beds in a shop, we made our choice. It was like Christmas in our house. We waited for the delivery .... and waited. The lady phoned to explain that they were waiting for the truck to arrive from the factory. Then the bed arrived but not the legs. Then the legs were sent to Wellington instead of here, and finally they arrived in town, but the shop had no one to deliver the bed. Three weeks late, but they were here and we were beside ourselves with joy. Barry and Morne popped around with the trailer and woop dee doo we had our first night on a real new bed ever. Exciting times. Did you know that mattresses are now sent vacuumed packed in a roll of plastic inside a box? Well we didn't. We cut the plastic carefully with the tool they enclosed. And we did it slowly, but still the mattress sprang out of its containment with such force that the cutting tool was ripped from my hand and flung somewhere. We still have not found it. So was the excitement and wait worth it? No, it's a bed. You get into it and sleep. But at least we can now say we know what it's like to snooze on our very own brand new bed. Yahoo. And thanks to a kind daughter who supplied us with all the bedding. We not only had a new mattress but new everything. We felt quite spoilt and special. Yup, it doesn't take much to please us these days.

We have often been blessed with kind people around us during our times of need. I remember when Barry was studying for his degree we had so little money that we could either pay our mortgage or the land taxes but not both. After four years of study (and yes, I did try to find work to pay the bills but no one wanted to hire me, so I catered funerals where I could and picked up odd jobs like illustrating a book and being an art director on a video, but it just wasn't enough) we were one year behind with our land taxes and two years behind with our mortgage. To write a letter home to my parents once a month was a struggle to find the money for the stamp. Yes, it might only have been a dollar, but it was a dollar that could have paid for two loaves of bread to feed us. And then I was told that my mother was in hospital and I needed to fly to South Africa to be at her bedside. I stood in the garden and the cry that came from me sounded like a thousand wounded souls. Okay, I am exaggerating, but it sounded awful even from my point of view. I had no idea if we were going to be evicted and now I had to deal with wanting to fly to the other side of the world. We went to the bank and they kindly agreed to extend our loan period for the house. The council were not so understanding and after a few threatening words agreed to a payment plan. We had no car to sell because we had no car. We did have one at the beginning of the time Barry studied but that had died. Another kind friend gave us an old bomb of a car, which died a few months later. Yet another friend gave us a wreck of a car that barely limped along the road, but it got us from A to B. And then it too died. Who said that life was easy? Kind people have been at the cross-roads of my life. If I look back through time, I can see how these people came into my scope at just the right time. At the time my Mom was in hospital, Barry had graduated and found work. But not the high paying job we had hoped for that would clear our debt. No, he was hired to drive a van full of criminals to and from court two or three times a week. Oh well, it was something and once again a kind person helped him find a better job. She went out of her way to accompany him to interviews and stand as character witness where it was needed. Thank goodness for kind people and good deeds. Did some kind soul offer to pay my airfare to South Africa? No, and the bank were not prepared to give us a loan. Heck they had just seen our budget and knew that it was not a great idea to loan us more money. So I had to stay put and tough it out. My mother died three weeks later and I think that is the worst part about immigrating across the world. The disconnect from family events. No invites to weddings or 21sts. No quick visits to share a few laughs. Ah, who am I fooling it was just devastating. But chin up and carry on regardless. What is that old saying? "Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone." What got me through was good friends that invited me to lunch or popped around for a visit.

Recently one of these friends said that I had been a great influence on her life and that she loved me like a sister. Shucks girl, you were my rock when the world was shaking. Love you like a sister? Nah, I love you like a twin sister. More than that even. You were all life savers. I was on the Titanic and you were a life raft. Okay, I am getting a bit teary eyed, but you get the gist. I have some amazing people in my life. Thank you.

Tonight we are supposed to go to an auction. It's a cashless one where you use Good Deed Dollars to bid on what you want. Everything is donated by others in the community and no one earns a cent .. but its a great evening entertainment. Last year Barry put up his services as a lawnmower pusher .. and made some fresh bread, both of which were snaffled up quickly. I gave a family tree to the auction and it was hotly fought over. But this year Barry is past the mowing offer. In fact our nephew has been mowing our lawn this past week because of our inability to do it ourselves. Anyhow, to earn Good Deed Dollars you had to go out and do 'things' during the week. Sadly our 'earnings' have been dismal. What can we offer this year? Well I have already had three people ask about the family tree posters, so that is something I can do. Barry did offer to make some fresh bread again this year, but he is now in bed feeling crook and too tired to move and the time is far spent to make bread. Maybe I should make a cake or pie on his behalf? I saw this amazing recipe for a deep fried doughnut with caramel and chocolate .... but no, get thee behind me Satan. I will not make bad things in my house ...even if they do taste divine. What is that saying? Taste from Heaven, prices from Hell. Recently our daughter, Angela needed to go to lectures at uni and there was no one to look after Madame Three. Loaded down with games and colouring-in stuff and paper etc, Angela bravely took Madame Three with her. 3 hours of lectures and Madame was a little angel. She had been promised two ...not one, but two ... Kinder Surprise eggs if she behaved. So when I arrived to do some babysitting (along with Chad, our son, and Barry) the first thing Madame Three informed me of was the fact that she had earned her Kinder Surprise. But that if she wanted to claim her second egg she needed to behave for us while her Mom was writing her exams. The exams went well and Madame earned her second egg with no problem at all.

As a child we would visit our Uncle Ron at his work at Talana Glass works near Dundee in South Africa. Piles of sand, limestone, soda ash, crushed glass or cullet were mixed and heated to form liquid glass and then poured into moulds to form bottles. This weekend I was listening to a speaker talk about a dream she had in which she was feeling claustrophobic inside a gazebo who's windows had been filled with stone. She realised that the stone could be changed to clear glass with faith. It reminded me of Uncle Ronnie and looking into that furnace of white hot heat that was needed to melt those components into clear glass .. and I wondered how much more heat would be needed to melt a rock into a crystal? Uncle Ronnie was a practical man who always had his eye out for the bargain in life .... and I don't know how much faith he had in anything except his own ability to wrangle a deal. Do I have enough faith to change the rocks in my life to diamonds? Or am I like Madame Three and wanting a reward at the end of my good conduct? A workmate of Barry once asked why we pay tithing and did it guarantee a rocking chair in Heaven at the end of the day? No, that is not my understanding of the concept of Heaven. I don't expect to be sitting on a cloud playing a harp for all eternity. Rather I expect to be working hard at helping to nurture and mould worlds without end. But it is cool to think that at that stage of my development that I will be able to change a stone into a diamond or a crystal. But will I want to change stones into stuff? What value will a diamond or a crystal have above that of a stone? Maybe nothing at all. And what are the rocks in my life? Are they there to make me stronger? A young man I know told me that wanting to move mountains didn't make sense but that pushing against them would make us strong. Smart boy Jershon.

Wishing you all a great and safe Easter weekend. We will be enjoying our new bed and all our second hand and hand me down other stuff. We might cash in another one of the discount vouchers that our friends gave us. Last weekend we went to visit the Kiwi House and a nice lunch at a restaurant that we don't usually frequent. I told you, I have kind souls in my life. Thank you Jenny and Bryan. They know just what we need even when we don't think we need anything at all.

Eat chocolate and hot cross buns and drive carefully.