The Journey Inward

It’s been quite a week here. This has been one of the busiest weeks at work, with an early morning meeting with our Head of Schools, a late afternoon meeting with our principal, a meeting to prepare for International Day tomorrow, an upper elementary meeting, a faculty social and just the usual amount of prep work. Hectic, but to add to it, it’s been a week of dealing with house issues.

First, I must say that I love my house. It’s way more house than I need, but I’m looking forward to having friends and family here. The school rents it for me, which is another added benefit to this job. I have three bedrooms, one of which is an office/home gym that I can put an air mattress in. I have a large and beautiful outside space, though it needs love.

Back to the issues…I bought a tv, tv stand, desk and chair at Makro on Sunday and it was to be delivered this week. They couldn’t schedule it in store, but said someone would call me. Someone did. On Tuesday from my security gate at 11:20 am. They were at my house. I was at work. I asked if we could schedule something and the amiable driver told me Thursday during my lunch would work. I got permission to pop home at lunchtime. Wednesday at 11:00 I got a call from the security gate saying I had delivery people there again. I talked to the driver and said we made plans for Thursday at 12. They left again. I came home at lunch today and nothing. I called the company and they gave me the driver’s number. He knew nothing about a scheduled delivery and was very cranky. He said they’d be there in 30 minutes. They finally arrived and were quite annoyed at me. They left everything in my garage, so it will be a day’s workout to cart everything to the appropriate room piece by piece and then build!

Since arriving two weeks ago, no one has checked in on me to see if everything in the house is okay. I reached out to HR about my broken garage door opener (that leaves my door partly open, except at night when I weigh it down with bricks) and to tell them I had compiled a list of pre-existing conditions in the house (a lengthy google doc with accompanying pictures), but I didn’t get much back. I then let them know that my stove/oven was getting worse by the day and was taking longer and longer to fry an egg (20 minutes for very runny eggs) and I had yet to successfully boil a pot of water. Then there was the matter of the washing machine having no water supply.

After meeting with the HR woman on campus the other day, who was very sweet and apologetic, she gave me the contact for the listing agent/owner by day’s end. When I spoke to that woman, she claimed to be surprised about the stove/oven, but said she would get an electrician out. Once again, I had to work around my school schedule. In the midst of this, the internet people reached out and wanted a day and time to lay my fibre. HR said our tech guy can sit at my house to supervise. And then I had to ask for maintenance to come out and fix my washer, which they installed.

Jay has also been looking at cars for me since my rental is almost up. I am going to test drive on Saturday. More added to the list! I still need to get car insurance and my dmv equivalent paperwork. I’m also dealing with some insurance and billing issues back home. SO, a few stressors, to be sure!

But, my clothes are getting ironed! They’ve never had such care and treatment! Everything except socks and bras and towels (which are crunchy from drying in the sun) is on hangers and the rest folded neatly on my bed. Pauline even irons my pajamas and workout clothes! When I came home today, she and I talked about our children, which was sweet. She also told me about how hard it was during COVID. It was nice to have that time with her.

Anyway, minor problems that will soon be in the rearview mirror. Onward…

Yesterday we celebrated Hispanic Heritage and every grade performed in the lapa. The Pre-K went first and were so sweet. They stood there like deer in headlights, not singing or dancing, and one little boy and girl held hands for dear life! When 1st grade performed, they did an adorable dance, with the exception of a little blonde boy who was crawling around on the floor behind. When another little blonde boy went to fetch him, he instead got pulled into the antics and now there were two of them jumping like little frogs behind the focused, earnest dancers.

This artwork above is in our hub, and I wish it was in my house! I adore it!

A colleague at work brought a 7 week old dachshund to school yesterday! I loved him so much! I sat with her at the social the whole time and she showed me videos and pictures of the 9 puppies her girl had! My favorite video was of the mom sound asleep while all 9 babies nursed! I took a screenshot of the end of the video where she’s woken up. It made me miss my boys!

Today was Sports Day and two students and I were wearing our Springboks Rugby team shirts!

When I have time, I’ve been reading the Andre Agassi autobiography that my oldest gave me. It’s so nice to be reading again!

Tonight was a walk at the gym (a thunderstorm kept me from my neighborhood walk and I didn’t get my lunchtime walk in) and a Les Mills Body Pump workout in my home office/gym (until my wifi died) and prep for tomorrow…INTERNATIONAL DAY at the Johannesburg campus! Stay tuned…