A Night Time Run in Bulwer Park

Long time no write guys. Blah-blah-blah here I go again rehashing the same story about how sorry I am A-G-A-I-N. I am sorry, I want to change, blah-blah, you know the story. I get so caught up with trying to make everything perfect that I forget what this blog is actually about... me. My blog, my writing, my thoughts and my life.

I'm going to start right off the bat with yesterday evening. 

I am a huge fan of running, however I am also a huge fan of reading on my tablet whilst sipping some hot English Breakfast. These are hugely contrasting activities, so in order to get my butt up and running (harhar not on purpose) the conditions either have to be 100% right or my mind has to be 100% focussed on running. Super great runs usually occur when both of these things are happening at the same time - RARE.

Last night:

1. My friend/running partner was at a fancy cocktail party and I was alone

2. I got home at 7pm and it was dark

3. I had sushi waiting for me in the fridge

4. It was hot

5. I had a book to read

6. I had the latest episode of Girls to watch

7. I felt sad

BUT

I got home, I pulled on my kit, I nabbed my landlords (Hi Nadia! Hi Paul!) handsome and excitable puppy dog (Hi Colin!), I cranked up the Billy Talent on my ipod and I headed on up to Bulwer Park. In. The. Dark. 

It was pretty darn dark by then guys and to be honest when I first headed out, my heart was thumping so loudly that I couldn't hear the words to "Fallen Leaves". But as I got going I became so amazingly comfortable. I was just a girl walking up the street for a run in my local park. Don't get me wrong, I am always very cautious when walking in the street, no matter what time of the day, I am always alert "just in case", but I wasn't totally terrified to the point that I wanted to throw in the towel and head on home.

By the time I got up to the park, it was so beautifully lit up by all the streetlights and park lights I felt totally re inspired to run my heart out. Colin and I ran about 4 k's and then did a nice walk around on the grass with some calming Tchaikovsky. It was total bliss.  

So here is to another good run!

xxx

The First Delicious Summer Drink!

Summer in Durban gets super duper hot, the kind of hot where by 10am you are glowing and your dress is stuck to your legs and all you want to do and jump in a pool or lie on a tiled floor with the aircon blasting. I am not generally a hot weather kinda gal, to be honest...I usually battle with the heat and count down the days till the beginning of Autumn!

Yet, this year, I am excited to embrace summer in all it's sticky, sweaty glory! I envision myself tanning on my mom's roof with my sister and going to slightly secluded beaches with W, so that no one can laugh at my cold water shrieking and post-swim shiver! I want to do a home drive-in, a sticky wings barbeque and a night lying on the lawn looking at the stars. Let's not forget dancing in the summer rains and spending sweltering hot afternoons planting flowers in the garden followed by a water fight.

Although, this whole embracing summer thing is pretty new to me, there is one thing i have always loved about the heat of summer and that is a Delicious Iced Mocha! When I worked at the Art's Cafe' in the KZNSA Gallery, I would rush around on my feet all day in summer - serving our loyal holiday patrons delicious ice cold beverages, filled with crushed ice in frosty glasses and at the end of a ridiculously busy day, I would order an Iced Mocha and it was the most delicious and thirst quenching summer drink! So! Here it is! My simple and easy Iced Mocha recipe:

1 shot of espresso (I use an Ethiopian bean from Colombo Coffee)
5 teaspoons of hot chocolate powder (Nomu Skinny Hot Chocolate is a winner)
1/4 teaspoon of sugar
1 cup of chilled milk
A handful of ice blocks

Firstly, mix your espresso with your hot chocolate until there are no lumps in the mixture, no one wants try clumps of dry powder in their iced coffee! Next, put your ice blocks in a glass, or if you are like me and you want a more authentic and vintagey look you can use a consol glass jar! Once your ice blocks are in, pour your espresso/chocolate mixture over the ice blocks, which will immediately begin to cool it down. The final step is to pour your chilled milk over the ice, espresso, chocolate mixture! If you pour slowly you get a really awesome ombre look to your Iced Mocha! I tend to put my milk in the freezer so that it gets a bit slushy and slightly frozen!
Serve with coloured straws and enjoy! If you want, you can add a swirl of piped cream and a few sprinkle for a little more "fancy".

I really enjoyed mine this afternoon, all frosty and yummy and full of chill. Nothing says summer quite like the condensation of a freezing drink dripping off your glass onto your knees on the front steps of your porch. As luck (and summer) would have it, the heavens opened and there was a gorgeous summer rain shortly after I had cooled off!

I am really looking forward to posting my next summer drink recipe!I have a feeling it is going to be a real hit.

Jordy xxx

Monday Blues

Hello hello Monday,


So nice to see you, did you have a mighty fine weekend? I bet you did! The closer the end of the weekend gets the closer you get to being you! How swell! Well I hope you keep on keepin’ on and hopefully we’ll be better friends next week! xxx Jordy

Eugh. Alright guys, I just want to start off by saying; I do not fall into the category of people who despise Mondays and every Monday is a nightmare and is bound to be hell on earth. I am really not one of those people, I generally believe that a day is what you make of it and no matter the name of the day or where about it falls within the week, you can make it a spectacular and magnificent event in your life that you celebrate with a glass of champagne covered in cuddly cats and crochet blankets with a sparkler in your non-champagne holding hand, grinning from ear to ear. That’s obviously how I would celebrate, but you may be different.

Every day is a wonderful gift and if you try real hard, no matter what event unfurls, you can make it a #winning event that contributes to your days overall success! We all love a sweet success right? Right! So armed with this determined and positive attitude you can tackle each day like it’s your birthday and come out the other side smiling. I am starting to sound like a TV ad selling some sort of miracle product.

But

Some days I get a bit tired of trying so hard to look on the bright side and make happy ”yeeha” lists and be grateful for what I have and do all the things that all those happy-positive-life books tell you to do. I don’t want to make a real life paper&glue vision board or pin loads of inspirational images on my pinterest today and I sure as Nelly don’t want to “talk about my feelings”. I am pretty sure even my mate Depak Chopra has these days.

The most important thing about having a blue day, is that it isn’t every single day. We can’t be living our lives in the blue section of the pantone book. That shit ‘aint right y’all.

A blue day can start a number of ways; it could be a statement that hurts you more than you let on, it could be a cold and condescending response to something brave and polite that took a lot of guts to admit. Heck, it could be burnt toast, standing on your kittens tail, a headache, a text or getting shouted at good and proper. In order to have less of these blue days, we have to figure out how all this blue got so blue, cause that shit can get navy dark real fast yo.

Here is a little symbolic story for you:

The day before W and I were leaving to go on a trip to Cape Town, I had to do an emergencyrushrush load of washing and tumble-dry in order to pack my bags and be ready to leave on time. Obviously not taking the clothes with me was not an option. Now, (eek for having to tell people this) I didn’t really know how to use W’s washing machine. (Okay fine, 1.5 years later and I still don’t really know what’s going on with that thing.) It has all sorts of buttons and dials and clicking circles and fabric softener drawers and lots of writing. My machine at home was a big metal box with a dial that you twist and pull and off the old girl goes, washin’ your washing.

So, like an expert washing machine operator, not wanting to interrupt W furiously working in his office, I set off stuffing all my washing in the front loader, chucking washing powder and delicious spring fresh fabric softener in the drawers, twisting dials and pressing things, feeling like Harry Potter in the prefects bathroom when he was trying to figure out how to open the golden egg? Anyone? No? (nerd alert) I settle on “eco-wash”. Guys, I have no idea what eco-wash is, it just sounded really green and cool and like I would be saving the planet. Clueless.

Anyway, off I go, doing something else and packing things and playing with cats and making tea blah blah blah. The washing machine makes this loud beeping sound and off I go to try and figure out how to make this sophisticated machine turn into a tumble drier. When I looked into the machine... every.single.thing was blue. My expensive white bra, my linen shorts, my new vests, my green hoodie, my coral hoodie, everything was either blue or had a gross blue tinge to it.

Before you start thinking that I am nuts to put white with other colours, I had done it COUNTLESS times with my tin can machine at home, those exact items, those exact washed-one-hundred-times jeans! This had never happened to me before. I was so bummed and I didn’t end up taking any of that stuff anyway. To this day, I have no idea what turned everything blue and it happened again after that. I know right?

The thing is, we often don’t uncover what it is that we put in the white laundry that turned everything blue, we just leave it and hope that it will wash out or never happen again. We chuck the clothes out or learn to just wear those duck egg linen shorts, instead of looking at how we can fix it or how we can stop these same things happening over and over again.

So basically, learn from your blue days, grow out of having the same things dye your days. You will always have challenging situations and crappy things to deal with, people will not always be nice to you, perhaps that apology was cast aside and not valued, maybe that hurtful comment was said without thought and maybe it hasn’t been thought of since. There is ombre, dip-dye and tie-dye guys, not every blue day has to be totally blue, it may just be the tips, a few shades or a smattering here and there.

Jordy
xxx

10 Minute Beans

Some days I really get the extreme laze and I don't feel like cooking AT ALL, but naturally those days fall upon the days where I feel like eating something super yummy, which in my books usually means quite a long process including but not limited to: flipping through recipe books, browsing websites, making my shopping list, buying ingredients and finally preparing the food.

Besides the fact that I am practically eating myself from the inside out by the time I have something delish to eat, it takes a lot of effort and when I am super duper lazy I need something that requires practically no effort. The perfect lazy-day meal is of course *blows trumpet* (hahaha...actually not intentional) Beans on Toast! Yummy!



Yay! I hope you enjoy this super simple recipe! Also, if you don't like beans, you can give this a bash with chickpeas or lentils. I have also used this same basic recipe with freash broad beans, which you boil and de-skin-ify before following the rest of the recipe.

Jordyn

xxx

 



Marls in Motion

I have been sitting around today, wondering what to do and wondering how to re motivate mysef to blog. It is't easy to just whip something out of nowhere and have it be interesting for others to read. i think I probably put too much pressure on myself when it comes to these sorts of things. To me, there is nothing more annoying than enjoying a blg and then having the author post less than once a week. My favourite bloggers post at least once a week and even then I crave more, more, more!

It isn't like I have a boring life or anything. I am a 22 year old qualified chef, working as a clothing designer for m moms company, Guru Girl. I live in a 120 year old house in beautiful Glenwood with my wonderful 30 year old W, who is a brilliant hard-working politcian. That doesn't even begin to cut it... I have so much to write about but i can't seem to narrow down on ONE simple THING! So I decided to start with 3 creatures that I am surrounded by daily. Easy peasy right?

We have 3 adorable rescue dogs:

Lexi, a small, brown, funny, shy, little creature, who only greets you once she is very sure that you are not dangerous, which is harldy ever. George. a big white hulking lab cross pitbull cross something else and cross another thing, who has such kind and gentle eyes and sits so nicely and lifts his paw up when he wants something. And then there is Marls. Oh, Marls.  

this is our dog Marley,

he is a lab cross something,

cross something else.

This is Marley's ball.

dripping in dirt and slobber

just the way he likes it.

when Marley wants his ball,

he will bark until he gets it.

what Marley wants,

Marley gets.

this is marley mid-catch

haha

Marley has caught his ball,

and now we will continue this exercise

until, forever.

Lexi

(shying away from the camera)

George

(being handsome as usual)

Well, that was surprisingly easy! I suppose that is what blogging is about, writing about something that you love and something that is important to you! I am hoping to keep writing regularly and become one of those blogs that at least 1 person races to read.

Jordy

xxx

Bad Blogger #2

At some point I will get the proper hang of this and I will stop sucking.

I actually misplaced my password in my brain and took a real long time to remember it.

It was "pickles". I don't eat pickles, I don't like pickles, I don't have pickles in my refrigerator. I have no cooking clue why my password was "pickles". Any way, I'm not making any solid committment to any future post at this moment, but with any hope it will be this weekend. I find that the less pressure the quicker the words come.

Happy Friday!

Jordy xxx

Oh dear, I have been a horrid blogger again, it is so difficult to kick my laze to the curb and buckle down when I get home and write write write!!

In the past two (or so) weeks so much has happened:

♥ All the telecanvassing, tee-shirt-printing and badge-making paid off and Haniff and Warwick both won!! Everyone who was involved is still floating on a cloud of absolute bliss!!

♥ W & I became fb official! Well done Warwick =P

♥ We went on a 5 day 4x4 adventure in Maddy, with the Land Cruiser Club** and learnt all sorts of amazing facts about Voortrekkers and Newcastle!

♥ Jasper Minicat joined the menagerie

♥ W bought a new Land Cruiser

♥ I ate oats for the first time in years and totally loved it

Okay, so that last point was more of a smalltiny event of personal growth than a bigmassive happening, but still, vitally important! Especially seeing as oats are so good for you! I’m going to post the recipe for my amazing oaty creation sometime soon. Well, I just wanted to check in and catch up.

Jordy
xxx