I can't believe how long it's been since my last entry, I feel terribly bad about the hiatus. Truth is something kinda slapped me through the face and shook me for a while but I trudged through it and eventually found my rainbow. I want to say the dust is settling but I don't know if it ever will, and maybe that's ok? And also, I think the dust isn't dust but might actually be glitter, so that's a positive sign :)
I really missed this place. Occasionally I had the time to browse and read (and I read a lot of the threads, everywhere!) but I didn't have the time to write comments and replies. Hopefully this year I'll get to be more active again. I have basically been working non-stop this entire time. Here is a snippet of some recent work:
When I'm not working, I'm working on house stuff. Yes I'm a home owner now, it's still surreal to say, every time. I'm super proud of us. And because we didn't buy a brand new house there's little kinks here and there that always needs to be tended to, and as every home owner will understand, the process of transforming a house into your home can be neverending.
After Shampoo settled in nicely, we added a Chow-Retriever rescue puppy to the family. Of all the dogs I grew up with as a child, my favourite was a Chow-mix named Do-Do. I miss him all the time. It was the worst goodbye I have experienced. This puppy was dubbed Squid at the shelter, which we liked, so we kept it. He was incredibly naughty and simply wanted to play all the time, which was pretty difficult for someone who works from home. A couple months later we went back to the shelter and a cute little Africanis-breed girl puppy jumped happily against our legs, and into our hearts. We named her Summer and introduced her to her new brothers. Squid and Summer get along so well, she's very impressionable and copies everything he does, they play all the time and most times he lets her win. She has really helped calm him down through cathartic play, and I noticed how he almost instantaneously matured, becoming both a brother and a father to her.
Shampoo's superman sleep position.
Doing some kitty yoga.
SG SETS
In January I did Zip2000 (thanks @pyke!), a 2km length zip slide at a speed of up 160km/h (100mph) averaging 120km/h, depending on your tandem weight combination (we think we went around 140km/h), that is supposed to be the world's original fastest and longest zip slide. I don't have my own photos so random ones will have to do.
I have always been drawn to push myself with any and all thrill type rides, I'm just that person who wants to ride every single ride at the amusement park, and will do so fighting whilst through all the nausea and fear. Oh, this was when we rode The Tower of Terror at Gold Reef City (which currently holds the record for the highest g-force on a roller coaster at 6.3G).:
I've done practically every single Zipline ride I've ever come across since I was a child, I think it started when I was 13 at school (except they were called Fufi/foofi slides for kids back then). I really wanted to go skydiving a couple years back but it fell through and unfortunately I've had too much time to ruminate over it now and I have since chickened out and decided that ziplining is a perfectly fine pursuit of adrenaline. Well, that and extended flight tandem paragliding in the Cape (the tandem part is very important for me when it comes to jumping out of a plane).
This past weekend I went ziplining at Waterberg Ziplines which was nice and fun. It was also the first time I had to apply breaks to my own slide momentum with a leather glove so that was interesting. It was terrifying in the beginning as I wasn't getting it right and kept landing really fast but out of the ten ziplines we did, I grasped it half way through, after which it was a lot more fun (I swopped gloves with someone because mine was getting quite heated when I applied pressure, which scared me -- things that can potentially hurt my eyes and hands freak me out because they are my tools in making a living) . The view of the gorge beneath was spectacular. I couldn't keep my eyes off the view beneath and all around (I think that's why I had issues breaking in the beginning, I was too distracted). If I go back I'm sure I could convince them to let me use my camera on-slide. I would love to go back. I have another zipline experience next month at another place though. Damn, I'm going to run out of nearby places soon.
