Friday, September 20, 2019

Giveaway Winners!

Reposting from Se7en.org.za today. To read the original post, click this link
 Thank you so much to se7en for hosting this! If you didn't win, never mind, you can purchase a copy from me or download an e-book from Amazon. Alex on the Edge is also available to download for free from this link. If you read it, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon or Goodreads. Clink the Books tab above for details. 
From Se7en:
A couple of weeks ago we posted a Giveaway, and today I am posting the winners…
Two books gifted to two lucky followers, from my friend Kate Le Roux, who has written these fabulous books… easy weekend reading, set in sunny South Africa. Absolutely fantastic, easy reading. Alex on the Edge, the story of Alex, who is a bit of a go getter and Jill a serious and earnest gal, who is not interested in a relationship just yet. I am midway through reading Teacher, Teacher and I am really enjoying it. It is the story of day to day life of two teachers, Jack a biology teacher and Amy an English teacher, who work at a school in Cape Town. On weekends they volunteer at a school in Mitchel’s Plain on the Cape Flats, only to discover that you can’t easily separate your life into neat little categories.

And the Winners Are…

Mrs FF, you have won a copy of Alex on the Edge.
Sue, you have won a copy of Teacher, Teacher.
Congratulations to our winners!!!
And for all of you that are looking for a great weekend read… the books are readily available on Amazon… the images below are Amazon affiliate links.
 
Huge thank you to our author, Kate Le Roux, for gifting us with books to read and giveaway… all the best to her and looking forward to many more great reads in the future!!!

Friday, September 13, 2019

Rollercoaster



Writing for today's Five Minute Friday Linkup
where bloggers free write for five minutes based on a prompt.

Today's prompt is  start




When you start off on a rollercoaster ride, you know it's not going to be a gentle trundle down the tracks. You know you are going to feel scared, maybe just physically, even if you know it's safer than driving in the traffic down the highway. You know at the beginning that it will be hectic but there's nothing you can do about it. You want to do it, you bought the ticket and it's happening. But anticipating the craziness doesn't help you not to want to throw up when your stomach gets left behind at the top of the track. 

I haven't felt well lately - nothing serious, just a cold that took a while to get over. And in my experience, there's nothing like feeling weak to get those contemplations going. If anyone ever asks me what the hardest part of parenting, or homeschooling is, I will have to say this: that when you aren't WELL, when all you want to do is crawl into bed and obey your body's screaming plea for REST you just have to keep going. I knew that when I started these journeys, when I chose to have more than a couple of kids and to homeschool them. I knew it would be a bumpy ride and that I would not always be strong for it. I don't regret anything. I don't think I was naive. But parenting is pretty relentless, and when I think back I know that I had no idea at the start what it would really be like to be at this point on the ride. 

My precious children - filling my life so full that sometimes I forget there was ever a void I hoped to fill with mothering. I am so glad I began this journey with them and I am grateful that now when I am weak they help me, even as they still need me so much. This rollercoaster ride has been a journey worth starting, and even though my stomach has been left behind somewhere I'm still happy for it not to be over quite yet!

Friday, September 6, 2019

Testimony




Writing for today's Five Minute Friday Linkup
where bloggers free write for five minutes based on a prompt.

Today's prompt is Testimony


I seem to be feeling poetical again today ...


The church is full of sound
The singing is rich and heart-felt
I stand beside friends who raise their hands
My sixteen-year-old self-consciousness
keeps mine firmly by my side

Life has been kind of rough lately
I am busy and tired
School is hard and I am sixteen, after all
My heart is confused and lonely
I have so much but I am often discontent
I long for things I do not have

As I sing, the words begin to die in my mouth
My tongue will not form them any more
I am doubting
It swells in me like a dark wave
Is any of this real?
Do I really belong here?
God feels far away
I wonder for the first time if I am really a good girl
If he really loves me
And that thought is terrifying
I feel adrift suddenly
Out of the blue
something heavy and black is pressing down on me

I am nauseous
Afraid of what it means
Too confused even to pray
The service ends and I begin to walk out
A friend greets me
Asks me what is wrong
I confess - I don't know
I just ...
Words will not form
But he knows
Something tells him to say what I need to hear

Go home
Decide
Yes, Lord or No, Lord
Just that

I hold the words in my mind as I am driven home
I run to my bedroom and close the door
I open my journal and hold the pen above the paper
my cheeks damp with the gravity of this moment
There is doubt but there is also the grace of certainty
That there is no other way
But Yes, Lord

And in the years since then
He has kept me
There are still doubts but not about this:
That when the church is full of sound
I belong in his house
With his people
Singing his songs



Monday, September 2, 2019

For Inge

Sharing some poetry today.

Yesterday marked eighteen years since one of the students I taught was killed in a terrible, tragic incident that was part violent encounter, part accident. She was only seventeen, in the wrong place at the wrong time, a completely innocent victim of someone else's problem. There was a picture published in the paper the day after her death that showed her slumped in the car where she was shot, glass all around her, a thin line of blood visible beside her mouth - such bad taste and insensitivity on the part of the paper, an image that I wish I had never seen and will never forget. She was pregnant at the time too, with a little boy who was unexpected and inconvenient, I am sure, but would have been so loved and welcomed into her large family. Every now and then I see one of her four sisters around - she doesn't know me but whenever I see her the resemblance takes my breath away and takes me right back to the shock and grief of what happened eighteen years ago.

I wrote this poem shortly after she died. For a long time afterwards her name was in my book of marks/grades with all the numbers in a row beside it (before the days of recording everything digitally!), and seeing it there was always so jarring. She was there, in my class, writing essays and doing grammar tests, and then she was not. It was not okay then and it is still not okay now, eighteen years later, that she is not here on earth with those who loved her. I drew on the experience of her death and especially her funeral when I wrote Teacher, Teacher, and so was reminded of this poem.


For Inge


Fragile was your pretty hair
Your impish, laughing eyes
Fragile as a whispered tune
Fading as it dies

Fragile is the shattered glass
The angle of your head
I fear to see beside your mouth
That fragile line of red

It only took a second
A second - it was done
For a hand to squeeze a trigger
For the shot to leave the gun

So fragile were the doll-like hands
The tiny baby heart
Your life was taken much too soon
His never got to start

How strange to see the row of marks
Just numbers by your name
How strange that life for those you loved
Will never be the same.