The cot? has been sanded. Now all that remains is to actually paint it. Yay!

• Albert moved to Johannesburg (which – yay! –means I’ll probably never see him again)
• My father had a heart attack (which sucked, obviously)
• I did not vote in the national elections.
• My feet turned into this
  

• I broke down in tears because there was no milk for my coffee (and now I’m sorry for everyone whose PMS I ever laughed at, because this? Is so much worse.
• I got made up to look like an Indian (possibly an Indian. Not really sure what it’s meant to be. I think I looked pretty, though.)

• I talked Marcel into letting my cousin make-up him. She didn’t turn him into a pirate, which I think is unfair.

• My dad got into a fight with a blesbok (which is a kind of antelope with really sharp horns and a nasty temper). It nearly disembowelled him, and he tore his shoulder to hell. This was after the heart attack, mind you. It was Monday, in fact.
• I found out I’m having a boy, contrary to expectations.
• I started writing again
• I installed Windows 7, which not only takes the Cake of Awesome, but eats some of it and smooshes the rest into your face so you look like a clownhead.
• I installed Windows Live Writer. Can you see I’m having fun with it?

34 weeks, in case anyone was wondering, is 8.5 months. That’s eight and a half… if I give birth in 3 weeks, my baby will not be premature.

Is that not a terrifying thought? Firstly – in three weeks, it’ll be my birthday. No sane woman wants a baby for her birthday, because excruciating agony is not the way to spend your birthday.

And secondly – hands up anyone who thinks I’m ready to be a mom? In three weeks? Thought not. Of course, three weeks, three months or three years…I probably still won’t be ready to be a mom. You’re never ready to be a mom.

Thirdly and most practically – There is, as yet, no cot for my baby. Or rather there is one, but it’s not finished yet. Let us all join in a chorus and say *weeble!*

Why have I spent most of the day working on my sister’s school project? I never even did my own school projects!

Please check out This Blog. It’s a serial children’s story, and I wand EVERYONE’S opinion!

Just go have a look. Promise you won’t be disappointed!

1. Your ass will expand to gargantuan proportions
2. You will walk like Godzilla – and nobody ever bothers to mention that this walk is not due to just being TOO FAT TO MOVE PROPERLY, but because of actual PAIN!
3. You will cry for no apparent reason.
4. You will want to scream at people (and if you think you can get away with it, you will.)
5. Your brain will shrink to the size of an acorn.
6. So will your bladder.
7. Everything else, up to and including your feet, will grow. And grow, and grow, and grow…
8. You will cry the first time you feel the baby kick.
9. You will hate the father of your baby every time you struggle out of bed in the middle of the night for yet another pee break (in my case, I hate him already, so I should probably say hate him more.)
10. It is the single most worthwhile biological function you will EVER PERFORM. (and men can’t do it, neener neener neener)

Technically, people do sort of imply nr.10, but they rarely actually come out and say it. And I think that it’s important that people take note of the fact that pregnancy is the most important thing a human being can ever do. And men can’t. Hahahahahahahahaha! 

Apparently. Colour me stunned. He did say it might still turn out to be a girl, though, so I might still be right. If it’s a boy…God help me, he might turn out like Albert!

Boy was I wrong.

Anyway, off to buy some blue stuff!

Finally, I am able to write again. It’s amazing, the freedom I suddenly have to express myself. DOWN WITH WRITER’S BLOCK!

And here is a picture of my baby, as she was last week Monday.

Maybe she looks like a tiny little gorilla now, but just you wait!

So, anyone got suggestions for names?

For a girl i like Mae, Claire, Grace and Kathryn. And Seven, but I’m not seriously considering that last one.

For a boy…Lucius? Luc? Jean-Luc? Alexander? HELP! I have literally no names for boys!

Is that cool or WHAT?

I’m so excited I can hardly breathe. I’m 17 weeks, and convinced it’s gonna be a girl. All hail my little one!

There’s a debate going on at the moment, regarding prisoner’s rights in South Africa. A lot of you may not know that a very large percentage of our prison population is HIV positive, mainly because they picked up the ’slow puncture’ in prison.
Large numbers of prisoners are dying in prison, and many have now made the case that these prisoners should be allowed to go home and die with their families.
Which is all well and good, and a clear case of tempering Justice with Mercy, as is right and proper.

But is it really? We are so very concerned about Mercy, that it seems to me that Justice has fallen by the wayside.
Where was Mercy when these men raped children? Where was Mercy when they brutally murdered people in their homes, or shot them in cold blood because they were ‘inconvenient’?
The answer? Mercy was nowhere to be found.

My Wise Sister-in-Law said (wisely, of course) that you can’t pay with more than your life. Which is very true. Many of these men would not be dying now if they hadn’t gone to jail, so in a sense they are paying with their lives.
But here’s the thing: 99% of them do not care. It’s a well known fact that if you go to jail, unless you’re very fast or you have some serious connections, you will be raped. Repeatedly and violently. And there’s a very good chance you will get AIDS from it.
Everyone knows this. But they still do it. They still think they can do whatever they please, to whomever they like, and there will be no consequences.
I’m not saying that male rape in prison is a good thing, don’t get me wrong.
It’s a horrible thing, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
But it is a consequence.
And when the government is so concerned with tempering Justice with Mercy that Justice has gone out the window, we need those consequences.

Think about this: in Saudi Arabia, consequences for crime are clear, immediate and more often than not severe. Allright, some of the things they consider crimes are not in the Western mind, crimes at all, but the point is that there are consequences. If you murder, you die. It’s a simple equation, and it works.
Because they are less concerned with the rights of the criminals than the rights of the citizens.
In the West, it’s often the other way ’round.

If our Mercy was more tempered with Justice, the world might be a different place.