Month: July 2010

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Pancakes for dinner!

Last weekend I asked Twitter for an easy pancake recipe.  Jessica and Shirley came to my rescue.  I couldnt decide which recipe to use so a merged the two together and it was yummy!!!

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What you will need:

1 x cup flour

1 x cup milk

1/4 x cup sugar

1 x tablespoon oil

1 x egg

2 x teaspoon baking powder

pinch salt

splash vanilla

Measuring/pouring jug

Heavy frying pan

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What to do:

Mix all ingredients together so that there are no lumps or bumps.

Transfer mixture to a pouring jug.

Spray&Cook the frying pan and set to a medium to high heat.

Pour in crumpet sized or larger sized amounts of batter.

Wait until the batter starts to bubble before turning over.

Leave for a minute or two and transfer from the pan to a plate.

I leave the plate in the oven on a very low heat to keep them warm.

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Tonight we are having pancakes with Neapolitan ice cream, strawberries and blueberries.

Im also doubling this recipe cause they were so yummy last time 🙂

YUMMY!

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The easiest yummiest cake recipe ever!

I have to thank my mommy-in-law for this one!

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What you will need:

Cake

1 x box/packet vanilla cake mix (I use Moirs)

1 x instant vanilla pudding (again Moirs but any brand will do)

4 x large eggs

3/4 cup water

3/4 cup oil

1 x mixing bowl

1 x Pirex or glass dish (oblong bakes more evenly than round)

Icing

1 x cup sifted icing sugar

4 tablespoons lemon juice

1 measuring jug

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How to make the cake:

Heat the oven to 180C

Pour dry cake mix and dry pudding into the mixing bowl, add the 4 eggs, add the water and oil.

Mix until smooth and there are no lumps.

Oil/butter/Spray&Cook your glass dish.

Pour batter into dish and bake at 180C for about half an hour.

Cake should be brown and springy to the touch.

While the cake is baking, sift the icing sugar into the measuring cup and add about 4 tablespoons of lemon juice and mix.

The mixture shouldn’t be too runny.

As soon as you take the cake out the oven pour the icing over the cake and spread it around so that it covers the whole cake.

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The cake can be eaten hot with custard or ice cream or if you prefer a cool cake, I suggest you make the cake a day before and let the icing sink into the flesh of the cake, this makes it sticky and gooey all the way through.

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An alternative to vanilla and lemon is chocolate and orange.  Substitute chocolate cake mix and chocolate pudding for the vanilla and use orange juice instead of lemon (be sure to strain the orange juice so it is clear and free of any pulp).

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Belly pics…

So a few belly pics to see the progress with #theSQL…

5 weeks (yes, we had just found out…)

10 weeks…

And here is a side by side comparison between #theSQL (left) at 16 weeks and Aaron (right) at 16 weeks…

Also not how at 5 weeks with #theSQL I look pretty much as big as I did at 16 weeks with Aaron…

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I eat sushi*

*veg sushi and fried salmon skin sushi from Hokkaido in Norwood.

Today on Twitter I was having a conversation with acidicice and PinkPrincesse about the fact that I had sushi for lunch and I thought I would continue that conversation here.

It made me think of all the other pregnancy ‘rules’ that I have broken or bent.

Sushi – you are not supposed to eat raw fish as it can contain parasites and bacteria that can harm the growing baby.

With Aaron I stayed away from sushi entirely.  This time I am eating vegetarian sushi and sushi that has been cooked.  My view is that as long as the fish and other ingredients are fresh and the restaurant is clean and reputable, the chances are you wont have a problem.  Besides japanese women eat sushi right through pregnancy…

Hot baths – hot baths can cause your body temperature to rise to unsafe levels and cause brain and spinal abnormalities in the baby.

It winter, Im freezing and the thought of a luke warm bath makes me ill.  I run a hot bath and then let it cool while I relax.  I don’t run a boiling bath but its hot enough that I turn pink.  I also don’t add more hot water and I just let the bath cool gradually.

Hot dogs – they can be the source of a rare illness called listeriosis.

I cook them until they are boiling all the way through.  This should kill the bacteria that can cause illness.

Coffee/tea/fizzy drinks – In short caffeine.

Im not a big coffee drinker but I do drink tea and fizzy drinks like Coke.  I drink them in moderation but I do drink them.

Runny eggs – eggs that are not cooked properly can carry the salmonella bacteria.

To be honest I had never heard of salmonella until I met a group of Americans while on a kibbutz in Israel.  They refused to eat runny eggs, and when I asked if they ever ate runny eggs they said no, even at home the ate them hard.  Now I buy my eggs from Woolies, I make sure the expiry date is still good and we eat them within a week.  Im pretty confident that they are clean, healthy eggs.  So far I’ve eaten two runny eggs.  Then again, I’ve eaten two eggs in the last 4 months…

What rules have you broken?  Are there rules you absolutely will NOT break?

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I’m blaming it on pregnancy brain!

As you may or may not know, I play a game on Facebook called FrontierVille.

Part of the game is to complete challenges that require you ‘working’ on neighbor/friends pages.

My current challenge is to tend various types of crops on friends pages.

Wendi and I Skype each other what we need from each others pages, this morning Wendi Skyped me and asked what crops she should plant for me.

I replied that I would look and she must give me a minute.

I had recently gone to my page and written down on a piece of paper what I needed for the challenge and how many of each type of plant.

When Wends Skyped me I took a look and wrote back to her what I needed.

It took me a minute to realise that I hadn’t Skyped her at all, I had instead written it down on my piece of paper…

Im blaming this momentary lapse in sanity on pregnancy brain!

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When standing up works…

A few days ago I posted this.

After I posted that I went onto hellopeter.com and made a complaint.  I kid you not, I had not even lifted my finger off the enter key after posting that and my phone rang!  It was one Gabriel Moonsamy who had read my hellopeter.com complaint, he listened to what I had to say, apologised for the treatment I had received and assured me that he would look into the matter and come back to me.

Yesterday I received an email with a letter attached from one of the managing partners at Lancet.

He expressed his concern at the fact the lady who called me didn’t follow their patient identification procedures and that I was given false information and the wrong account.  He assured me that she had been counseled and that the staff were to be retrained in patient identification procedures and patient confidentiality.

He then went on to give me the correct amount of money that I owed Lancet due to non-payment from my medical aid (self payment gap) and said, and I quote, “as a gesture of good will and apology I will instruct our accounts department to reduce this by 50%…”

Im stoked!  Not only at the reduced amount that I now owe them but at the fact that I stood up for myself and that they listened.  They could have fobbed me off, they could have sent a meaningless letter of apology and left it at that.  They didnt.

I just hope that they really follow through with their assurance that they will retrain their staff.  I hope that by standing up and opening my mouth I have truly made a difference and others wont be put in the same situation that I was.

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FUMING!

I am in my Self Payment Gap on my medical aid.  I am pregnant.  This is not a good combination.

It means that a few of my Dr appointments, blood tests and medicine bills have not been paid.  I am paying them off as and when I can.

On Monday while standing in the OBGYN’s office I received a phone call from Lancet Laboratories.  It went something like this:

LL: Is this Mrs Jacobson?

Me: Yes.

LL: This is Lancet Labs calling about your account.

Me: I know I owe you money, I will pay at the end of the month.

LL: Oh no Mrs Jacobson, Im calling to tell you that two amounts have been payed by medical aid.

She details the amounts…

Me: Oh my, you have just made my day.  Can you please email me the statement so that I can have it for my records.  My email address is XYZ.

LL: No problem, have a good day.

I received the email about half an hour later and waited to read it at home.

I opened the mail and the PDF and was rather taken aback that they had sent me Mrs Prinsloo’s statement, not mine.  I was shocked further that the statement wasnt just debits and credits, it also details what tests Mrs prinsloo had had performed.

The next morning I tried to call Lancet. The phone went to a pre-recorded message along the lines of ‘please hold for the next available operator’ and then the line went dead.  I tried a few times, same result.  So I decided to respond to the email I received.  It bounced back telling me the email address didnt exist…

So I found another email address, this one for the call centre.  The following is the email I sent on Tuesday morning:

Good day,

I received a phone call yesterday telling me that 2 of my accounts have been paid by medical aid.  I asked for the statement to be sent to me for my records.  Attached is the statement that was sent to me.

The statement is not mine.  I am sure that Mrs Prinsloo would not be happy that you sent me her account by mistake!

Please clarify if my account is still outstanding and if there are any outstanding amounts please forward me the relevant statements.

Thank you.

Gina Jacobson

Wednesday I did not receive a reply but I did get one this morning:

Thank you for your e-mail.

Please supply me with a lancet account ref number that starts with a X , Y or F

Kind regards

Lancet e-mail consultant

Lizette Samson

No telephone number to contact her on, no acknowledgment of the fact they sent me someone else’s confidential statement.

So this is what I sent back this morning:

Lizette,

I do not have an account reference number.  I was called on Monday and told my accounts had been paid. I requested a copy of the statement so I had it for my records.  I received Mrs Prinsloos’ statement…

I am deeply concerned that if I received Mrs Prinsloos’ statement, which details what tests she had done, then who may have received my statements with my confidential test details on it!  It also concerns me that you have not addressed this issue in your response to me.

My full name is Gina-Natalie Jacobson, please try and trace my account using these details.  Or call me on “123 456 7890” (the number I was originally called on on Monday!) and speak to me about this issue.

Gina Jacobson

Right now I have absolutely no faith that this matter will be sorted out.  I have no faith that they will do anything about the gross negligence that has taken place.  What if I or Mrs Prinsloo had been for an HIV test or a test for cancer or… it really doesnt matter, they are all confidential!  What if someone I know receives my statement instead of theirs?

Needless to say, I will no longer be using Lancet Labs for any of my blood tests, and I will be requesting that my doctors do not use them on my behalf.

I am now waiting for some kind of response from callcentre@lancet…

Will keep you updated!

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Zingo!!!!!

A few weeks ago my mom bought Aaron a new game… Zingo.

The tag line is Bingo with a zing!

Basically you get cards with various pictures and words on them and a dispenser with little plastic tiles that match the pictures on the boards.

The game is for 4 years and older…

4 years!

And you know what? My son gets it! Maybe not the finer points like being the first to grab a matching tile but he know that as you dispense the tiles you have to match them to your board and that you must fill up the board before you shout Zingo and that of you fill your board first you win…

I am so proud of my little boy. He is 2 years and 8 months old and he gets it! He even taught out nanny how to play.

Smart kid!

P.s. I will post a pic and a link tomorrow, I’m posting from my phone and have no clue how to do either of those things from here 🙂

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For those that have lost….

This post has been bouncing around in my head for quite a while.  I am a member of two due date boards on BabyFit and many of the women that started out there with me have left due to the loss of their precious babies.  My heart aches and my soul cries for them and all the women who have ever lost  or ever will lose a child, be it an early miscarriage, a still birth or the death of an infant or toddler or even a grown child.

What I write here I write with love and kindness and a genuine need to bring comfort to those that need it.  I hope that I do and that I do not offend or upset anyone with what I have to say.

In order to go forward I must start a little bit backwards.   Also I must say here that I am in no way a learned scholar, I am not writing this down as the ‘law’, this is my interpretation of what I have been taught over the years.

In the Jewish faith the soul or the Neshoma must reach 7 levels of ‘enlightenment’, in order to do this we must use our earthly bodies, our lives to do mitzvot or good deeds, from being observant of religious laws, to praying, to being kind to others, to sacrificing things we love in order to help others we love.  Each small (and large) good deed we do helps to elevate our souls.  When we pass on, all the good deeds, the mitzvot, the kind actions that we have done during our lives helps to elevate our souls to the next level.   As Jews we believe that if our soul still has a way to travel then our soul will wait and choose its parents and when that soul is reborn we must strive to be better, to do more, to help others more, to do more good deeds in order to elevate our souls even further.

And it is not just our own souls we elevate, by praying for others, while doing unselfish good deeds for others, by just loving others we help to elevate their souls too!

I know quite a few people, personally, that have lost children, early and late miscarriages as well as still births.  When I questioned why these women lost their children, why they were given these miracles only to have them taken away so cruelly, I was told the following…

The Neshoma, the soul, has chosen its parents carefully, for the love that they will have for that child, for the prayers that will be said for the child, for the unquestioning faith they will have in that child.  I was told that the reason that these children are taken away is that the love, kindness and faith that is given to them is all that that soul needs to elevate them to the final level.  They have done so much in their previous lives, so much good, so many good deeds, been so full of faith and love and purpose that all their soul needed was the love and prayers of its parents and family in order for it to rise to its final purpose.

This comforted me, it still hurts when a child is taken away from us, it still burns and grief is still raw and powerful.  But there is a comfort in knowing that perhaps there is a purpose for what has happened.  That it is not just a random occurrence with no reason behind it.

Im not a particularly religious person, I dont keep Kosher or go to shul/synagogue very often, I have difficulty in accepting some of the laws my religion puts forward, but in this I find comfort and meaning.

I hope that these words are of some help and comfort to others.  And if they are not just know that I feel for each and every one of the women out there who have experienced this devastating loss, my heart breaks for each and everyone.