GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME!!

Festive Season is a time to chill. I believe that if you want to really chill, work during this time. Yes, a couple of days just before Xmas it becomes hectic, besides that it's chilling all the way!! I'm taking my lunch time to blog, hopefully my interest in blogging is going to be revived.

I've just celebrated my 54th birthday, yhooo! It was the best, from the breakfast with colleagues to lunch out with my family. The highlight was the appreciation on the faces of my fellow Christians when I handed over a gift to the Church- thanking Almighty God for all the Blessings He has bestowed on me. I am so blessed in so many ways and with many things, but there's few I need to mention: I'm greatful that God blessed me with an aunt who raised me as her own child. Things I do for her now cannot measure to what she has done for me when I was growing up. God blessed me with a job that led me to the love of my life, my humble, sweet husband. God has His own plans for us, I never thought I will spend 30 yrs of my life in SAPS! If careers grew in trees, I will choose SAPS again. I've grown in all aspects of my life with experiences gathered in this career.
God has blessed me with a husband who has patience, who is humble, loving and who loves his God and has taught me that "I can do all things through Christ the Lord", forcing matters won't take you anywhere. I'm grateful to God for the children he has entrusted to me. I pray everyday that I stay on God's path so that I become a good example to them. If they choose to go astray, at least I can go to sleep a happy woman knowing that I did not contribute negatively to their lives. I'm greatful of ALL the people that are in my life. They have contributed in making me this happy human being, I hope I'm also bringing happiness in theirs too. I REFUSE to have negative people and circumstances ruin my happiness. I thank God for being able to just IGNORE negativity especially when dealing with people that have a mission of making other miserable because they themselves have miserable lives.
Ok, this blog is not about negativity it is about me being greatful to God for all the blessings He bestowed on me. The only way I can repay Him is to be kind to others, spread love wherever I am and share the blessings with those not fortunate like I am.

I hope you've enjoyed this blog, till we meet again❤️.

OFFICIAL ADDITION TO OUR FAMILY!

We have an addition to our family, my granddaughter Sibahle-Lee Mngconkola!!!!. I'm so proud of my growing family especially when I saw Sibahle's birth certificate.

My son and his baby-mama are not married, I just hope registering the baby in our surname will not create some expectation in terms of marriage. I hope they will let things happen the way they should, not because they are pressurised by having a baby together.

You know a bonus in all this? Sibahle-Lee's maternal family are my NEIGHBOURS, as in next door!! So I have a privilege of seeing my princess at anytime I want! I can't wait for when she is big, she will just tell her other grandma that "I'm going home to Nana (me)". 

I love Dena (Baby mama), I just hope she will stay focused on the baby irrespective of her relationship with Siba (my son). My son on the other hand,  ee..eee.. I just hope to God that he takes his job as a father seriously. I hope how well we raised him would rub on him and he also do an excellent job raising her daughter.

My fear........ their unstable relationship affecting healthy growth of my granddaughter. I promise and swear on my children, I will not allow that!!!!

Welcome to the clan mamMpandla, Khipha, Gobozi ........

Mhhh, we still have to do all the razzmatazz of tradition, at home in Addo!!!

Till next time. (I'm struggling with technology to load Sibahle's pics)

I'm a proud grandma!

I cannot believe it has been 2yrs since I last posted a blog. Thanks to my 2 week old granddaughter, I'm motivated to blog again. Actually its all about me wanting to brag about my beautiful princess.

You will not believe how disappointed I was when my 25yr old son and his girlfriend came to inform me and my husband that they are pregnant! Remember in our culture it is the representatives from the girl's family who must come to our family to claim damages.

I probably said things I now regret having said, "you are on your own" this is nobody else's problem but yours alone" "you are old enough to make a baby, then you alone must deal with it". Wow! I guess I panicked because both of them have no permanent jobs, they are doing internships at their work places. Moreover, to me my son is still a baby, how on earth can he have a baby!! Enough about that, that is history.

I noticed that I'm no longer angry with my son when he told me his girlfriend is in hospital to give birth. I was so anxious and at the same time excited. She was admitted on a Wednesday, I visited her on a Saturday afternoon and she indicated that she is overdue. Early morning on Sunday the 13th of April, she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. I looks like the princess was waiting for me the queen of this family to visit her before she graced us with her presence on this earth.

Eversince that Sunday when I first saw her, it was love at first sight. I cannot describe how I feel about her! She is an Angel, my Princess, my everything! Remember I was not blessed with a girl, we have a total of five boys in this family. Now we are two girls, I'm no longer an only female, yeepy!! 

Watch this space, I'll be posting her photos.

I'm tempted to throw her a 1 month birthday party! Crazy nhe!

So long!!

Good grades vs Salary

My son is studying full time at UWC (3rd yr), now he got a part-time job, working from 5pm -9pm from Monday to Friday. I know I should be happy because this means he's going to learn to be responsible and be disciplined with his time.

I am sick worried because he comes home tired then he has to do his school work, I'm talking assignements for 5 subjects. To be honest he's not one of those A students, he works really hard to get C's and sometimes B's. My worry is that with this added workload, his school work might suffer.

I don't want to let him continue then later when I see June results, if they're bad, I must tell him to stop working and concentrate on his books, no, by that time it might be too late, he will be sooo used to the money he will give me 1000 excuses why he must work.

At the moment I'm lobbying my hubby to support me on this, we must convince him to forget about the job. My husband's idea is that we must trust that when he can not cope he will indicate and quite on his own. My worry is that, what if he does not quite.

Eish, I wish I had squashed this job thing during the time of its conception.

Or, Am I worried for nothing?

Please share!!

From scholar to student.

When my last born son finished high school I was sooo happy for many reasons. 1st, no more having my house as aftercare for his friends, no more schoolbags lining in my garage waiting to be fetched after... God knows where they go after school before they are fetched by their parents, mainly, no more invasion of my house (I suspected this happened because we leave 6.30am and return 5.30pm), I'm one of those parents who always think the worst.

These are some of the reasons I was happy high school days were over! I was hoping that it's going to be plain sailing, all my sons are now big men, no more worries.

Knowing from experience how some youngsters behave during the day at campus (loitering, staying at cafeteria and not attending or bunking classes etc), mind you I'm a student too!, now I have a bigger worry. At High school if a child is late for 10min the school sends an sms to notify you, if he has a tendency of not doing homework, you receive correspondence from school to notify you. Now no feedback from school, NOTHING, all I do is to hope that my son continues to have the good discipline he had at high school. Hoping does not make it easy for me as I'm always thinking the worst, now I act like a policewoman, checking his backpack (I don't know for what).

The security of knowing that I have eyes and ears(teachers) over him whilst I'm not there is now gone. At tertiary he just HAS to have self discipline, SELF DISCIPLINE is just all I can preach when we have our small and casual talks, I also don't want him to feel that I don't trust him cause I do, its just that these things do happen and they happen when least expected.

Everyday I leave in the morning I pray God to watch over all my kids and make them conscious and understand how hard we are working so that they can be good citizens.

I wish I could hear what other parents feel about this change.

Happy parenting!!
  

UMGIDI

So much happened during my son's homecoming ceremony (umgidi). The highlight was when the elders told me to do a ritual which symbolises that me and my husband we will never again have a son going to the bush (ukulahla isitshixo). We were warned that if we do the ritual, it means we are sure not to have any more children (as if we're thinking of that, at 50, can I have a bun in the oven? No ways!!!).

I had to have a napkin (new of course, I no longer have my son's) and a bottle of gin. I had to lead in a traditional song (mhh, my sister in law helped me here), she sang a very nice song " u-Ayabulela ligqibelo lam!" -'Ayabulela is my last born'. We went out of the house into the street.

Outside, all women who had gone threw the same process (having children gone to the bush) took part in the ritual, others were standing singing and clapping for us. Those identified women threw the bottle of gin amongst themselves, like passing ball in a netball match. They had to make sure the bottle does not fall and break, otherwise gone is the drink for those who want to drink 'old buck gin'.

After the 1st song I laid the gin on the napkin while other women continued to sing. After a while I opened the gin and poured it on the napkin and lit it with a matches. All the time we were singing and dancing, while I held the napkin burning.The remains of the napkin had to be taken to the kraal (enkundleni) for burning it finished. I was told the remains should not be lying around (to avoid my son being bewitched!!!).

The remaining 'Old Buck gin' was shared amongst women who had done this ceremony for their sons too. Shame, some of my friends had to just cheer on while the spotlight was on women with boys that are already men! It was an experience that we all enjoyed.

I need to post photos but I don't know how!!

Why I have conversationa?

I am one of those people who does not shy away from starting a conversation. Luckyly I have not yet encountered a person who shuts me up. Maybe its because my conversations are interesting and worth listening to.

My career dictates that I talk all the time. Even if I did not take the Corporate Communicatione line for a job, I would still be expected to talk non-stop. The big question is, why do I have conversations. I have been writing about being talkative but the question is about conversations.

There is a difference between talking and engaging in a conversation. A conversation has a meaning, there is another person involved (though you can have conversations with yourself). I have conversationas because I like to engage people, talk about different issues. I believe from any converastion you can learn something.

Many times I have learnt one or two things from conversations I have with my sons. There are also conversations that one needs to avoid or ignore, such as people that start conversations just for the sake of wanting to cause chaos or harvock.

I am also good at ignoring irritating conversations, but when I converse, it is with a purpose.