Matriculant...that's me!

Yesterday was quite an odd day. One of those where you're just kind of waiting for time to pass because something epic is happening later on.

My matric results were released last night at midnight. So, in true Mycroft style, we had a braai. We only ate at like 11:30 (also, not abnormal at our braai's). I had all the special people in my life around me. It was so much fun.

At this point, I realised what the time was. I started parrying a smidgen...as can be expected. A while ago, I registered to get my results via sms. That was quite a process, I won't lie. It was at that point when it became real that school was over.

I had my eye firmly on the clock, waiting for midnight to strike. I forgot to keep my phone on my person....rookie error. At 11:45 I realised this and asked Justine to get it for me. She looked at my phone and got overboard excited and shouted "Chaeli, you got your marks!"

I really would have liked to have some more warning, but I guess it's like a bandaid...just do it quickly. Except this one had a more pleasant outcome.

Here it is:
4 B's - Maths lit; LO; English & Business studies
2 C's - Life Science & History
1 D - Afrikaans (really would have preferred this to be better, but you know what, it's not the biggest deal)

So, I have enough points to do what I want to do next year and forever after that. It's weird to think that my key to everything is in a tiny A5 envelope. That one piece of paper has so much power.

Today we all had to go fetch our legit official statements of results. It was amazing being able to celebrate our successes with one another. So good.

This is James and Jess...what can I say about these incredible people? These two have indulged in super, crazy intense conversations with me where we debated the purpose of history and the need for appraisals, looking confused when teachers have analogies that are really hard to follow, getting sent out of class for being disruptive by laughing hysterically when attempting to remove a jacket from my severely stubborn body, keeping life very interesting and entertaining. They've kept me sane when our work was kind of burrying us and actually the majority of the time was spent embracing our own insanity.

It's always good to have people like this in your life. Go and find some!

:)

Happy holidays!

This is probably my most random post I've ever written, but hey, it's holiday time...

Christmas is over. Sad to think that all this hype happens and then in one day, people are over it. But, Christmas has been epic this year.  As I have told you, last year this time, we spend Christmas with the Terry family and it's always amazing.

I love the holiday season because it shows people to be kind and loving and giving. Even though you do get the odd miserable soul who is irritated that there is no parking available or there are only three tellers to check out your items, slowing down the entire process. These are things that everybody knows are going to happen in the holiday season. We need to be aware of these things and...rise above. Take deep breaths and just go with the flow. Going into it with this mindset will make it a lot more enjoyable. I, for one, enjoy the chaos of the holidays. It's entertaining that people can get so worked up about small incidents. Chill out, people, let the good times roll!
This time of the year is about being together. It doesn't matter how you celebrate or who you choose to be with, Just make sure you're having fun and trying hard to avoid the rest-of-year drama.
We had an amazing time...just chilling with great people, swimming and so much more. I'm so grateful that it's not snowing. I couldn't deal with that. Snow and wheelchairs are not friends.

I hope everybody had as good a time as we did. I hope you partied it up. I'm actually just realising that this whole post would've been impossible if the world had ended the other day. So, I'm superstoked that didn't happen. Woopwoop, world!

Here's my Chaeli Conquers Cycle Tour update:
- The buggy has been named...Beastie the Buggy.
- Beastie now has a roll bar, which means that we can start training soon. As soon as we sort out Grant's bike with gears and other things that I currently do not understand...and we've figured out how to attach Beastie to the bike.
- I have gotten over my obsessive-compulsive tendencies with regard to the colour scheme of the bike and the buggy. Well, not really, but the red to blue ratio on the buggy is more equal now, so I can deal.

Courtesy of Justine, my bestie...Merry christmas to all, and to all a good night.
;)

We have it

The buggy has arrived!

It was sent to us from Johannesburg by courier in a huge box. We got excited when Kevin emailed us a photo of the buggy starting its journey to the Mother City. Thank you to Rene and Alistair from Freight Solutions for sponsoring the courier to Cape Town!

there it is....in the back

This happened on a Friday evening. So, we had an agonising wait over the weekend and weren't sure when the buggy was going to arrive.

We are also now in the middle of our 'Socks 'n' Pops' Campaign at Steenberg Village Pick 'n' Pay and on Monday when I was selling RedSocks and Peace Pops I was sent this picture from Chaeli Cottage...

Grant and I opened the buggy box the next day. It was EPIC! After putting the buggy together and figuring out where all the cushions are meant to be - this in itself was a smidgen of a mission...there are a lot of cushions - we immediately organised my body into the buggy and this was the result:

This was much more exciting because now we can actually start doing stuff with the buggy and adapting it so that it is more comfortable for me. We need to change the height of the bar at the back because my head is currently higher than the bar which kind of defeats the purpose of its presence on the buggy. We also need to add another couple of cushions because my legs are a bit long for the seat now. More cushions... but at least we will know exactly where these ones are meant to go ;)

On Thursday, Grant and Gary had organised to sort out the plan for the metal work on the buggy, so I had to be there to sit in it for them to measure the height and stuff (tiring work that, sitting in the buggy. haha). It was actually pretty hysterical because I was in the buggy, with a helmet on, as well as the purple glasses that Grant has. I felt very random being the only person there wearing these things. Then Grant put his helmet on too and I felt a little less random because we were random together :)

Gary was taking photos the whole time. Thanks, Gary!

Here's one of the two of us. Notice the semi-helmet-hair...

This will surely be MUCH worse when we actually do some cycling! haha

We have to wait a while before that happens because, firstly, we haven't exactly mastered how to attach the buggy to the bicycle (crucial aspect!) and we need to have the bar on the buggy sorted out (also crucial, but less...) which can only happen when the factory re-opens.

In the meantime, we are working on bracelets - like the rhino bracelets - to raise awareness around our cycle, but more importantly, the work of The Chaeli Campaign and the abilities of differently-abled people. They are gonna be pretty fricken awesome, so if you want one, let us know, every way possible.

There are a lot of things on the go and we are so ampd that these things are happening. We look forward to sharing more of them with you.

:)

Getting going...

We left for Johannesburg on Friday morning because I was invited to speak to the Department of Basic Education about inclusive education and my experiences in an inclusive environment. Hilton Langenhoven, Dyan Buis and Tebogo Mokgalagadi were there too to add their experiences to the pshyche of the ministers. Some young people from various special needs schools were there to listen to our life stories. It was really cool to meet all those people and share stories.

After an awesome meeting with these people, we had tickets to see Lady Gaga! Traffic to get there was expectedly horrific with very few people knowing what was going on. There was a man walking to the stadium and he was walking faster than we were driving in the car! The show was unbelievable and there are actually no words to adequately describe that experience.

                       WHAT AN AWESOME REDSOCKFRIDAY!!!!!

Today was quite chilled. I was doing some research around finding a buggy for the Argus and came across Team Garwood. I had read about them before this and thought that they have an amazing story. With deciding to do the Argus their story has gained a lot more intrigue for us.

I saw one of the buggies they had used previously and it looked perfect for Grant and my mission. I emailed them to find out some info on where they had got the buggy and stuff like that. I was prepared to wait a while for a response. This was not the case...

I got a reply within hours and it was Kevin (dad of Team Garwood) saying that they are super keen to help out - this is not exactly the words he used but you catch my drift. Kevin also said that we should come and visit them whenever we can and being in Joburg for Disability Day Celebrations we figured now would be a good time to go and see them.

We went to visit them and we had a fat chat, before they showed us the buggy. The Garwood's are amazing people who have enough gees for the whole nation! I'm so privileged to have had the opportunity to meet them.

I got to sit in the buggy and it was amazingly comfortable. I was slightly more impressed by the fact that I fitted into the buggy. It has a very simple design but it's very snazzy. The Garwood's told us that we can buy the buggy from them.

Now, we will be looking for sponsors to go towards the buggy. For anybody who gives us an amazing sponsorship towards the buggy, we will put your name or company logo somewhere on the buggy and we will be forever appreciative to you for helping us reach our goals and inspire many people to follow their dreams and not let anybody place limitations on your abilities.

We are SO excited about this and are even more excited to get the buggy down to Cape Town and start the epic training!

Here, the journey and the fun begins.

:)