FIVETRIBE

Our estate experienced the first 'home invasion' this week. The victim was my neighbor, a single woman with a little girl. I will not go into details, suffice to say it was extremely unpleasant and terrifying for them. We are all so grateful she and her daughter escaped unharmed. After 7 years we have put locks on all our doors. And we have many, many doors. I am now like the key master...we only lock 'the big locks' at night otherwise we would be prisoners in our own home. The estate is still safe during the day as there is so much activity. I will not put bars or gates on my home. The first 3 nights after the attack I slept with all my kids in my room. I was extremely freaked out - the thought of having intruders downstairs and trying to figure out how I would reach my kids all over the upstairs area of my house just made me mental. I needed time to recover and regroup and until then the sprogs stayed where I could see them! I still didnt sleep but at least I...

Rock Academy finally have enough kids to make up a netball team! Rach has been there 6 years and this week she played her first match (after about 6 practice sessions). The game was such fun to watch - they played a very experienced local team and they were pretty hesitant and conservative in their defensive play. Many parents, okay me, were on the sidelines encouraging them to get their 'fierce' on! I gave Rach some tips to defend more aggressively and she said to me 'Mom, thats just rude!' Yeah, well, I tried. ;-) I took one of my trailee 'graduates' on one of my favourite little (but strenuous) runs in Silvermine this week. It was pure pleasure to experience her joy at the beauty on our doorstep. Nothing like spending good time with friends of many years. Karina, Kim and I go waaaay back. We have been through so much together - infertility, broken hearts, marriages, illness, childbirth, work and church stuff but the overwhelming tone ...

The weeks have flown by since my last post. I keep procrastinating because there is 'too much' to tell so  I will be filling in the bits with the aid of a few photo posts to help tell the stories. These two play exceptionally well together when left to their own devices. A favourite game remains Masterchef...with playdoh. The only sucky part is they like me to be the judge and I HAVE to choose a winner. Without fail, I agree and someone always ends up near tears cos I didnt choose them. *sigh* My Ouma is moving up to Johannesburg soon. My Oupa is very frail now and needs close-care so they are moving in with my aunt. Took the kids to visit and it was really a very special time. The pre-teen gets her own desk - hopefully these exams will see her studying in her room - as oppose to the living area....where she expects the entire family to 'sssssshhhhhh' while she studies!! Good times on the beach with my boy - killing time while Faith is at dancing...

Last year I described myself as a 'fair-weather' runner. I do not run in howling gales or torrential downpours. That changed last night.  I ran in darkness on the Constantia mountain despite The Worst weather I have seen in Cape Town in a long time. The rain and wind were off the hook but we were not alone, about 100 other runners joined for the race in the Merrell Night Series. There was much merriment, comaraderie and backslapping going on. The word 'hardcore' was bandied about regularly. I didn't do this race because I am a hardcore runner who thrives in extreme weather. Truth is it was tough, really tough. Running in mud up to your shins, rain blinding you and wind almost flattening you takes a fair amount of determination and a healthy dose of humour. I ran because I can . I ran because thousands of others would love to be out there. I ran to process my anguished thoughts for those afflicted by Boston. I ran for Martin's dad. I ran to join a co...

Wow, a week has passed since my 'near perfect' day post. Suffice to say that it all went a bit pear shaped from Wednesday. I am class rep for all 3 of my kids classes. It just happens. It didnt used to be a big job but it has become rather large of late as the school has decided that the class rep parents now make up the fundraising team. I do think that is kind of sneaky....dont you? ;-) I spent a considerable amount of time last week emailing parents, looking for venues, making phone calls and all the rest that goes along with the task at hand. One of the other moms on the team is very switched on and really is a huge help to me....the rest kinda cruise and do only what is asked of them which makes it a little like carrying dead weight around. *sigh* Anyyyyway, the fund raiser is going to be the biggest one yet and we are going to do our damndest to make it AWESOME! This last week has also brought the signifcant challenge of having my lovely man working from home. Well,...

Today was pretty much near perfect. Except for this last 10minutes where I yelled so hard at my girls that I now have a sore throat AND a headache. Somehow my kids have the propensity to get LOUDER as the evening gets LONGER. Unfortunately this is the exact opposite of how I am wired. If you value life you are to get softer and softer as the hours potter on. Suffice to say the evening ended badly. And I am not proud of myself but at least its QUIET. Back to my near perfect day, shall we? It started with a run to Kalk Bay where I met a friend. We fast hiked up Kalk Bay mountain and along, coming down onto Boyes Drive and then running back. All told I had covered a good 10kms and fitted in a wonderful 'catch up' time with Kim. I headed home, showered, hammered out some admin and then headed to another friend to plan our Friday 'playdate'. I have decided to set aside time every Friday for a couple of hours to tonk around in my studio. And now I have a frien...

What a great weekend. It started on Friday with breakfast with a longtime friend that I met when Rach was very little. As our kids grew up and went to separate schools our lives drifted apart. I was so thankful to be back in touch with her - her newly found passion for running was the calling card! We chatted ad nauseum about injuries, books, races and running blogs. I was able to share some of the little things I have learnt over the last 18months and it was just so good to see her totally enthused. Hopefully we will stay in contact as she joins my Thursday morn trail group for newbies. The kids went to a stunning clay workshop after breakfast. I am lucky enough to know a wonderful art teacher (who is also in my trail run group!) who is passionate about clay. The kids had a fabulous time and came home with some fun pieces. Their Term 1 projects will be fired soon and they each made a teapot based on the Alice in Wonderland theme - so I will soon have a triptych of novel pots t...

For a short while now I have been running another blog on the side. I felt the need to do this as I didn't want to bore people with all the 'run speak' that goes on in my world. I wanted a place to post photos, results and debrief about each experience - be it a training run, a race or just cool running gear/accessories!! While driving yesterday I had the alarming realisation that I was separating who I am from my personal blog. The very blog I started to chronicle our lives - the self same one that I print so that one day my kids (and I) can look back and understand who we were as a family and as individuals. How can I leave this huge gap? And why am I concerned about what other people find 'interesting reading' - this blog isn't even public anymore! Duh. I re-integrated all my posts from my other blog into this one and shut down CapeRunnerGirl for good. Running is part of me. I will be posting about it here, probably more often than not.

Am back home after a really amazing break with the family. While I didn't meet my own workout expectations I did learn the value of rest.... I managed about 3 runs, one in the forest of beautiful Natures Valley and 2 in and around the rural village of Mcgregor. Once home I realised that I had a day to unpack and get my head around the start of the Merrell Night Series! I had registered for this series so long ago that I had forgotten all about it until the facebook notification arrived. The rest clearly did me good as I set a new PB for a trail run - it was 8K through the beautiful vineyard territory of Groot Constantia. Apart from my very dodgy headlight all was perfect - absolutely exhilaharating and the best way to spend a Tuesday evening in my opinion! I am looking forward to next weeks race especially as I will have a much stronger lamp....and  maybe  another PB to celebrate! ;-)

We had a great family breakaway. We spent 6 nights just outside Plettenberg Bay - we did not do much (unlike our last Garden Route holiday!) and chose to live slowly and quietly. I can summarise our time at MoonShine in these words: jacuzzi time (not me, but the boys loved it and occasionally the girls) Amazing Race - watched hours of it Survivor S20 - Heroes vs Villians (we all LOVED it!) reading - particuarly The Elephant Whisperer and The Last Rhino Woolworths clothes shopping with the kids (suddenly got chilly) learning to weave at Old Nicks naps monopoly (starting well, ending badly) Old Maid (always bad and eventually banned!) endless Taylor Swift, One Direction and lots more pop music farmstall coffees and visit to the cows/calves discovering and falling in LOVE with Natures Valley lagoon and trail running in the forest visits with my bro/sil and nieces From there we eagerly headed across to Mcgregor to visit my folks. It has been a long time since our last...

I spent much of last week trying to find a gap to run. I am not one for excuses but seriously, I could not eek out an hour to run anywhere. I must say in the early days it was much easier to find time as a run for me was 20 minutes and I was done!!  Now I prefer not lace up unless I can run for at least an hour - ideally 90 minutes. I do think I may need to mellow to the idea that at times 'less is more'  and as  SafariRunner  mentions - possibly doing 2 x 30mins runs on difficult days where chunks of time are hard to come by. That being said I laced up at 6pm on Saturday night and the minute the man walked in (he had been at work) I bid him adieu and headed out - chasing the daylight hours. I ran down to the beach and took in the sights, smells and sounds. I absolutely love where we live. On my return home I decided to forgo the Garmin and STOP and take a photo. I have decided that once a week I will run 'free'. NO garmin. NO endomondo. NO music. Will be a chall...