Sibo's blog – Page 16 – Random stuff about this and that…

Sleepy Head

You all know how I like to read… well sometimes mum is really irritating when she interrupts me in the middle of a good story and says it’s time for bed. I beg for another half hour but she says that kids need to sleep for at least 10 or 11 hours a night to be happy and healthy. She reckons I get grumpy when I don’t have enough sleep.

Sometimes I cheat and read with a torch under my blankets. The other day Mum caught me out and I was in serious trouble – she took my book away for two whole days!

I was quite sure that Mum was fibbing about how much sleep in needed so decided to google and find out why exactly why so many hours are needed.

Firstly between the age of 7 and 12 years old, we really do need to sleep those 10 or 11 hours a night. This is not just to stop us from becoming cranky either. It’s the time when our muscles repair themselves during the night. And don’t just think arm and leg muscles – it also includes our heart muscle.

Sleep also controls the signals that tell us when we are hungry or when we are full up – which allows us to maintain a good weight.

While we are happily snoozing our brains stores up all the stuff we have learned during the day – so that we can recall it later when we need it.

If we don’t sleep properly at night, it is harder to pay attention at school during the day. We tend to make more mistakes if we are tired than if we are well rested.

If we don’t get enough sleep at night – we could always have a little nap during the day to make up the sleep time. Preferably not during school time though because we’d land up in trouble with the teacher.

Apparently – it should take us about 15 to 20 minutes to fall asleep from when our head hits the pillow.

Of course teenagers can get away with a little less sleep – like 8 to 9 hours a night. Half the time they don’t get anywhere near this amount of sleep and so they really do need to sleep in over the weekends.

Seems like the older you get the less sleep you need.

Sleep tight and sweet dreams.

Sibo

Happy Hula Hooping

Says Ginny…

A year or so ago my daughter, Emma, came to visit. She’d only been here for a day when she started whinging that she was missing her hula hoop.

I rolled my eyes and said we could go trawl the shops and find her a hoop (thinking to myself what kind of nonsense is this – being addicted to hula hooping).

She sighed, then remarked that we would not be buying a hoop – we would be making one.

So off we went to the hardware store and bought all the necessary paraphernalia to make a couple of different hoops. I looked at the roll of five metres of irrigation pipe… how many hoops can you make out of that then – two or three?

Just one – she replied.

Opened my mouth to argue but the look in her beady blue eye told me to shut the hell up as I had no idea what I was talking about.

I was flat out busy organising a conference at the time so took myself off to my office and left the business of hula hoop making to Emma.

When I emerged a few hours later I was amazed to see a circus creature dancing on our lawn.

The general misconception is that hula hooping is for kids. You see those little hoops for sale in the stores and don’t even give them a second glance. Yet there was my child (okay, she’s 25 but she’s a tiny skinny little thing) rocking this enormous hoop – taller than she was.

Doing tricks nogal!

I watched in amazement. She was so good at it. Flipping that huge hoop around and about. So graceful.

Here, she said. Have a go.

It looked so easy.

I grabbed the hoop and waggled madly. It plummeted to the earth. I tried again. And again… and again.

Hmmm… handed the hoop back to Emma – hula hooping is not for me.

Don’t be a wuz Mom, the nasty little weasel scoffed. She took the hoop and demonstrated where my feet should be and how I should stand up straight, shoulders down, tummy tucked in tight.

I had another go. Then stomped back up to my office in disgust. Next morning I noticed there were bruises on my ribs. I was horrified but according to Emma, this was perfectly normal.

It took me two weeks to get that wretched hoop to stay around my middle. And there was none of that graceful hand thing either – rigid dinosaur paws more like it.

Gradually I relaxed and let it flow. Fudgie (the dog) and Ralph (the cat) could stand under the hoop without getting clonked on the head every few seconds. (They consider this a new form of play.)

One day I hauled out a skirt that had gone from being loose and comfy to a tad on the tight side. Zipped it up and immediately noticed that the squidgy bits of body that used to hang over the sides of the skirt had considerably diminished. In fact, it looked halfway decent again.

Realised that I must have sneakily lost a centimetre or two.

I’m not a gym person – have never set foot in one and don’t plan to either. Can’t do yoga because Fudge thinks I’m playing with her and running would surely make my heart attack me. I like walking – but not uphill. The best exercise I’ve come across to date is rebounding – or jumping on my mini-trampoline. That’s great for building leg muscle and toning your butt!

I was totally delighted. Just when I’d resigned myself to being 52 years old and taking up more space in the world than I’d ever done before – here was a magical way of doing something about it.

In my own yard and in my own time!

And let’s be honest – it’s not like I’d been doing it all day every day either – maybe 10 minutes a day in several small sessions.

Emma smirked. See – hula hooping is not just for kids. It’s a great exercise.

Gave her the evil eye – right – now show me how to make these flabby arms not-so-flabby in time for the conference.

She gulped – the conference was less than two weeks away. She demonstrated some arm crunches and stretches. Three sets of those – three times a day. Get going, Mom!

My eyes lit up – I envisaged going to the conference with nice firm, brown arms – you can’t help but get tanned whilst hooping outside. (Of course, it rained almost the whole conference and my half-toned, tanned arms never even saw the light of day.)

Emma was here for two months. In that time I shaped up – lost a couple of kilos plus a good couple of centimetres around my middle and upper body. My arms look better than they have done in years my back has those nice muscly bits. I have improved my posture no end.

Last year our dog was sick and I had to lug all 29kg’s of Fattie Fudges up the stairs to my office – I could do it – thanks to hula hooping and strengthening my core muscles.

I now hula around the grass each day. It’s a great way to relax, have fun and keep in shape at the same time.

And it’s not just for ladies either – Chris, my husband, is also busy mastering the art.

The big hoops are great for toning up and losing centimetres – but if you want to lose more weight the smaller hoops are better – because you expend more energy keeping it up. However, the kid’s hoops that you buy in the shops are good for doing tricks, but are too light for weight loss – you need a heavier larger hoop.

It’s really easy to make your own hoop too! Not expensive either.

I even managed to sneak into the South African Book Fair by promising to read Sibo in Space while hula hooping in my giant space ship.

20150731_134815 — Ginny hula hooping at the Jozi Book Fair in Aug 2015

If you want the hoop making recipe… read here.

Tricky Trash

Hearing about the Pikitup troubles started me thinking about rubbish.

We all generate lots of trash every single day.

How many people do actually recycle their stuff? I know that some places have bins that are easily accessible for people to throw their paper, plastic or glass in and all it requires is a little bit of effort. Other places provide special bags for recycling stuff and it gets specially picked up every week. That’s also relatively easy to do.

Then you get the places are not so jacked-up and it actually does require a fair amount of trouble to recycle properly.

If your area does not have good recycling habits there are other things that you can do to help out.

Most places in South Africa have people who trawl around the bins in residential areas on rubbish day. They take out all the plastic, glass and paper to be recycled. They get money for this stuff – and often this is their only source of income.

I know some people whinge and mutter because they don’t always leave the bins nice and tidy as they found them, but actually they’re doing the earth a service.

Why fill up the landfill more when we can recycle?

So… the nice thing to do is to help out and try and segregate your own rubbish.

Save all your glass bottles and jars and put them into a separate bag in the bin.

Do the same with tins, plastic, paper and cardboard. Make sure you wash out tins and plastic containers first. It must be really horrible for the people who collect this stuff to have to grovel out yukky miffy old disgusting cans with bits of mouldy dogfood or baked beans clinging to the sides.

You could also find out if any of the play schools in your area need stuff – like the inside cardboard roll in the toilet paper, cereal boxes, plastic trays, jars etc. They often use things like that for craft projects or for storage.

If you have batteries, bulbs or ink cartridges you can usually recycle those in the bins in Pick ‘n Pay. They know how to properly dispose such nasty things. Some batteries have mercury in them and you really don’t want those to end up in the landfill.

All it takes is a bit of time and organisation.

Give it a go!

Sibo

Easter Eggy Fun

Maybe you remember that last year we had a blog on how good eggs are for you. Well… now we are going to have fun playing with the egg shells.

Easter is just a few days away and whilst chocolate eggs are seriously delicious, you can easily make your own Easter eggs for decorations.

For the basics you will need: eggs, paints and a sosatie stick.

Instead of cracking your breakfast egg – carefully make a little hole (using a nail or something sharp) at the top and the bottom of the egg. You might need three hands to do it without breaking the egg shell – so get somebody to help you.

Hold the egg over a bowl and blow through the hole at the top. The egg should slowly slide out the bottom hole. If it’s really hard – you may need to carefully make the hole a bit bigger at the bottom.

One you’ve blown all the egg out into the bowl, give the egg a wash and let it dry. (If you are in a hurry to get started – use a hairdryer to dry it out.)

Now the fun starts.

Carefully slide your hollow egg onto the sosatie stick (if you don’t have one of these any thin stick will do). Paint your egg with a base coat colour – something not too dark like yellow or light blue or even white.

Stick it in a pot plant to dry. Once it’s dry you can start decorating it some more. You can make stripes, zig-zags and spots. You can even use some glue and stick beads or glitter onto it.

If you want to be really fancy you can cut little strips of fabric or lace and glue those on too.

Your imagination is the limit. You can make your egg as simple or as fancy as you please.

When the egg is dry you could give it a spray with some clear varnish – if you want to. This will make the egg last longer if you plan on keeping it for some time.

A bowl of these decorated eggs looks really pretty on the table. Or you can leave them on their sticks and put them into pot plants. You can also hang them up or make a mobile.

You could even give one to your parental agent as a special Easter present.

Again – use your imagination!

Best of all – have lots of fun making them.

Have a Happy Easter.

Sibo

Cycle Safely

A couple of months ago my Grandparents kindly gave me a bicycle because I got good grades at school.

It’s my first “big” bike – if you know what I mean – a gorgeous blue one that I can ride to school on. I was so excited!

Mum made me buy a cycling helmet before I was even allowed to think about cycling on the road.

She also got Dad to teach my friend Lizzie and me the stuff to check on your bike before you set off and about the rules of the road.

First thing to check… are the tyres okay? Flat tyres are just nasty. Make sure your bike has a pump attached to it.

Does your bike have lights and are they working. (If you are planning on cycling when it is dark – you better jolly well have some lights on your bike.)

You also need to make sure that the seat of your bike and the handlebars are set to the correct height. It’s very dangerous to cycle if you can’t sit comfortably or get on and off easily.

Next – ensure that your wheels spin freely.

Lastly – always check your brakes and make sure they are in good working order.

It’s really not hard. Only takes a few seconds – but it could stop you from having a nasty accident or getting stuck.

Once Dad had finished teaching Lizzie and I how to check our bikes he then told us about the rules of the road.

Firstly you must always cycle on the left side with the traffic. Remember this is different to walking – where you should walk facing the oncoming traffic. You should always obey traffic signals, lights and road markings. They are not meant for cars only. They definitely apply to cyclists too.

At traffic lights – get off your bike and stand by the side. Do not ride across a zebra crossing either – get off and wheel your bike across.

Another very important thing to remember is always make eye contact with motorists. Make sure that they have seen you and be very careful if you are in their blind spot when you are passing by.

It’s such a fabulous feeling to whizz along the road – as long as you do it carefully.

Happy cycling!

Sibo

PS – If you want to read a copy of my latest book – Sibo Looks Right – all about road safety – visit the website to find out how. It’s free!

Ever wondered how a book gets written and published?

In the case of the Sibo Series there are different scenarios. Several of the titles in the Sibo Series were straight up published by Lets Look Publishers. Okay – that sounds confusing – all of the books have been published by Lets Look – but six of them were published without knowing that we had already sold x amount of copies up front.

A few years ago, it was guaranteed that the school system would snap up any worthwhile books that were published but since CAPS came in, things are not quite the same. A publisher can publish books (usually 3000 is the minimum print run) and they can sit in a store room and trickle out very very slowly. As you can imagine, this is not good for business.

Some of our books have been commissioned. This means that x amount of books are ordered before we even write it on a particular topic. Sibo Fights Malaria was one of those – The Centre for Sustainable Malaria Control and the Department of Health wanted a different way of telling people about what a nasty disease malaria is and how to avoid it. (Ginny knows about this first hand because she had malaria when she was a kid.) So we wrote the book in conjunction with both of them and they are using it in schools in some areas in Limpopo. The good thing about this book is that students from the Education Department at the University of Pretoria are using this book in some of their projects – so we will get feedback as to whether it has any effect or not.

We’ve also written books to celebrate International Years – like Chemistry (funded by BASF, the chemical company). Astronomy and Biodiversity were funded by SAASTA, who also commissioned a book about nanotechnology. That was interesting. We knew nothing about the topic when we started and had to do a lot of research. Strangely enough – it’s one of the most popular books in the series.

Then we get books that are sponsored – or partially sponsored…

Ginny feels strongly about animals being abused and hates the way kids get pets and then only love them when they are small and cute. Once they get bigger and more demanding they tend to be ignored. Pets are for life – not just for the two minutes they are adorable and tiny. Luckily she found a like-minded person who was willing to help sponsor Sibo Saves a Stray. It was very hard to find funding for this book because most people would rather spend their money on the animals themselves, instead of educating kids (and their parents). If you would like more information about the Sibo Series please visit the website.

Our latest title – Sibo Looks Right is all about road safety. This is a topic that is very important to both Peter Sanderson (Lets Look) and Ginny. The first draft of the book was written years ago and at various stages different people showed some interest in sponsoring the book. Sadly none of these prospects paid off and the story mouldered in Ginny’s laptop for way too long. Every time there was a road, taxi or bus accident or incident Ginny would hiss and spit and say that we have to get this knowledge out to the kids (and their parents) somehow. She’d fire off another round of frantic emails to try and drum up some support for the book.

Towards the end of last year, Chris (Ginny’s lovely husband) asked her if she had considered crowdfunding to get the book on road safety published. She didn’t know much about crowdfunding and so got stuck in and did some research. She also sent out a plea on Facebook and Thandi suggested that she try Thundafund as a South African crowdfunding platform.

Ginny is not one of those nice cautious people who likes to sit and brood and stew about things for any length of time. Once she’s got an idea it needs to get out of head immediately and get going. She bounced the idea of crowdfunding off Uncle Pete from Let’s Look and got the go ahead.

Thundafund were great – they replied immediately and sent a form to complete so they could see if the project was going to be worthwhile or not. Typically they would reply within a few days with the answer. Indeed they did reply positively within the allotted time.

There followed another learning curve. Part of a Thundafund campaign includes having a short video on the project. In our case it was not something that you could just go out and film. Ginny had to get cosy with some software she had not used much before and make a little video from scratch.

After all – the whole point of crowdfunding is for potential funders to think the project is worthwhile and not just a little whim of some bankrupt person who fancies doing something with other people’s money!

Ginny showed Chris her first attempt at being a filmmaker. No no no! He screeched before he’d even seen half of it. He ranted and raved for a few minutes about what he expected to see. She considered sulking and pouting – she hates it when he pulls his “Professor” tone on her and treats her like one of his students – but she grudgingly acknowledged that he had a point.

A new and vastly improved video clip was made that passed muster on its first showing.

The campaign went live. We had to reach the tipping point in 90 days otherwise all the money that had been donated would be returned to the backers. Pete, Sharon, Chris and Ginny all promptly plugged cash into the campaign to start it off.

The tipping point was just enough to pay the layout artist and the illustrator. If we got enough money to do this we’d be able to have an e-book at least. Of course first prize was R140,000 so that we could print 3000 books and distribute them freely to kids and schools around the country.

There were various “rewards” that could be purchased. For R500 you could have your child’s name written into the story line. R300 and your logo would be displayed on the inside cover. R100 got your name mentioned. Everybody who donated would obviously receive an e-book as well.

A few days into the campaign – Mike Ward from Nash Nissan in Alberton catapulted the campaign from a “wannabe-book” to a “this-is-now-happening-book” with his very generous donation of R33600! This meant we had passed the tipping point and could sleep again.

The Department of Arts and Culture also decided it was a worthwhile project to back and donated several thousand rand to the campaign as well.

There were lots of lovely friends and acquaintances, not to mention family members who all backed our project. These donations came in from all over the world too! Ginny contacted as many of the car companies as possible – for a measly R300 they could have their logo included in the book. To no avail – they all had some sappy excuse or other. Even Peugeot – and Chris had just bought a brand new car from them.

We also tried repeatedly to get the attention of the major radio stations. This might have made a great difference as far as funding was concerned. It’s not like we were trying to make money out of the project – we wanted to be able to distribute as many books to the children as possible. Road safety is an issue.

Pippa Hudson at Cape Talk interviewed Ginny but by that stage there were only a few hours left to the campaign.

After 90 days we had a grand total of R54,550. Whilst not as much as we hoped for, it was enough to publish an e-book as well as printing 800 copies.

Ginny realised that she had not exactly done her homework prior to starting the Thundafund campaign. Whilst she’s quite good at bombing people on email and Facebook, her tweeting habits left a lot to be desired. This is an integral part of crowdfunding and we sucked at it. It’s something that she is working on to promote the book.

After much haggling and to-ing and fro-ing between, Ginny, Uncle Pete, the layout artist and illustrator – we finally have a product that we are very proud of and are excited to share it with the world.

The files went to the printers this morning and the e-book will be ready in the next few days.

Lets Look Publishers and Ginny are very grateful to all those who helped make this book happen. We hope and trust that it might save some of our precious children’s lives (and those of their parents).

PS – If there is anybody out there who missed this campaign and would like to contribute now – it’s never too late – we can print more books and get them out there – contact Ginny.

Cookies

In honour of International Woman’s Day (8^th March) – not to be confused with our South African National Women’s Day on the 9^th August – I decided to write a blog about cookies.

Yum!

My mum has this incredibly easy recipe that I thought I’d share with you. Just make sure that you get your parental agent to help you out when using the oven please.

This is what you need for the basic sugar dough recipe:

125gm margarine (that’s a quarter of a block)
1 cup sugar (white or brown)
1 egg
2 cups of flour
Pinch of salt
Teaspoon of vanilla essence.

Heat the oven to 180^oC.

Melt the margarine in the micro (or leave it out of the fridge for a while until it gets nice and soft). Add the sugar, salt and vanilla essence and mix it all up.

Crack in the egg and stir it well. Lastly, you add the flour and mix it all up together.

Using a teaspoon (or you can roll the dough into little balls in your hands if you don’t mind getting a bit sticky) drop small amounts onto a well-greased cookie tray.

Gently flatten the top of the cookies with a fork. (Sometimes it works better if you put the fork into a cup of hot water first.) You should get at least 24 cookies out of this mixture.

Pop the tray into the oven (this is the bit where you might need an adult to help you – don’t burn yourself – remember the oven is hot!)

When they are cooked and you take them out of the oven – let the cookies stand on the tray for a little while before you transfer them onto a wire rack to cool down properly. If you move them too soon they may break or crumble.

You can also do variations of this recipe – add a cup of coconut, crushed peanuts (just put a handful or two into a small bag and bash them with a rolling pin), two spoonfuls’ of peanut butter or if you want chocolate biscuits – add two tablespoons of cocoa powder to the basic recipe. If your mixture gets a bit dry you can always use 2 eggs instead of 1. If it’s too wet – add a bit more flour.

Once you get good at baking tasty cookies you could always sell them at school markets, or make extra-special ones for birthday presents to give to the people that you love.

Happy baking,

Sibo

A pinch of salt…

Heavens to Betsy! Whoever knew that there was such a thing as World Salt Awareness Week (29^th Feb – 6^th March).

Our bodies only really need a little bit of salt to survive. If we eat too much salt then we run the risk of developing high blood pressure. High blood pressure is the major cause of heart disease and strokes.

Apparently we only need 1 gram (a pinch) of salt a day to function properly. But mostly we eat around 7 – 10 grams per day.

In actual fact, we should aim to eat no more than 5 grams of salt per day. This is about a teaspoon.

I know what you’re thinking… but I never even have a quarter of that much salt on my food.

The thing is – about 75% of the salt we eat gets added to our food without us even realising it. Half the time you can’t even taste it. But it’s there! Just like sugar, salt gets sneakily added into our food. Things like ham, bacon, processed foods, breakfast cereals, bread, cheese and sauces all contain salt.

Unless you read the labels – you will never know exactly how much salt you are consuming without even knowing.

And… if you think that fancy salt is less salty – think again.

According to the experts – salt is salt – no matter what colour it is or how big the crystals are. It has the same effect as normal old table salt.

If you are used to eating lots of salt, and you need to cut down, then you might worry that your food will taste horrible and bland. Blah!

But this does not have to be the case… you can use herbs – both fresh and dried, black pepper, lemon and chilli to enhance your food and make it tastier. Apparently, after about three weeks, your taste buds start getting more sensitive again and you will be able to taste the smaller amounts of salt.

Ahhhh… I hear you say – but I’m healthy and don’t have high blood pressure so I don’t need to worry.

Hmmmm… sorry for you but you do!

Many people who end up with high blood pressure start out with normal blood pressure and work their way up to high blood pressure by eating too much salt (amongst other things).

So! Start today – eat less salt. (And that goes for us kids too.)

Sibo

PS… Salt is comprised of sodium and chloride. Most labels give both sodium and salt. If only sodium is given, multiply the number by 2.5 to get the figure for salt.

Antics

The other day our house was besieged by ants. Long columns of them marched around our kitchen. At first we thought somebody had left something sweet by the sink and that’s what they were attracted to, but then we realised that they were going for the water.

Mum wanted to spray them all with Doom. I thought that was a bit harsh and convinced her to leave them alone for a while to see if they disappeared as fast as they had arrived. Lucky for them, they did.

This got me wondering about ants. I googled to find out some more.

Turns out there are three kinds of ants in a colony: The queen, the female workers and males. The queen and the males have wings. The workers don’t have wings. (The workers are the ants that we usually see scurrying around the place.) The queen is the only ant that can lay eggs. The male ant’s job is to mate with future queen ants and they do not live very long afterwards. Once the queen grows to adulthood, she spends the rest of her life laying eggs!

Ant colonies also have soldier ants that protect the queen, defend the colony, gather or kill food, and attack enemy colonies in search for food and nesting space. If they defeat another ant colony, they take away eggs of the defeated ant colony. When the eggs hatch, the new ants become the “slave” ants for the colony. Some jobs of the colony include taking care of the eggs and babies, gathering food for the colony and building the anthills or mounds.

Did you know…

There are more than 12,000 species of ants that can be found all over the world?
An ant can lift 20 times its own body weight.
Ants do not have ears. They “hear” by feeling vibrations in the ground through their feet.
Ants also don’t have lungs. Oxygen enters through tiny holes all over the body and carbon dioxide leaves through those same holes.
When ants fight – they usually fight to the death.
Some queen ants can live for many years and have millions of babies. Queen ants shed their wings when they start a new nest.
When searching for food, ants leave a pheromone trail so that they know where they have been.

Sjoe! Ants are actually quite amazing.

Let’s not step on ants.

Have a great week.

Sibo

Saving

How many people save? And for once I am not talking about saving water or electricity – I’m talking about saving money – although of course when you save electricity – you also save money too!

Somehow we never seem to have enough money to do all the things that we want to do.

So I did some sleuthing on the internet and found some ways that a person can save money.

Write a list before you go shopping and stick to it.
If you really want to buy something – wait a few days – like 30! Half the time you will decide you don’t actually need it after all.
Invite friends over instead of going out. Get your friends to bring plates of food too.
Make your own presents instead of buying them.
Clean out your cupboards. Don’t just toss the stuff you don’t want – have a garage sale or sell big items on-line.
Drink more water – not only is this better for you than drinking cool drinks, but you can refill your bottle from the tap and keep it in the fridge.
Stop smoking. Put the money that you would have spent on cigarettes in a jar for a month and then buy yourself a present – you’ll be shattered at just how much it is.
Swop books, games and DVD’s with your friends instead of buying new ones.
Don’t carry your credit card around with you – leave it at home for emergencies. That way you won’t be tempted to buy something that you cannot afford.
Pack your own sandwiches instead of grabbing something from the shop at lunch time.
Eat a good breakfast – this will mean that you don’t spend money on unhealthy snacks during the day.
Keep an “ideas notebook” in your pocket or bag – jot down any good ideas that you get and then you won’t forget them.
Check out free events in the newspaper.
Grow your own veggies – or at least some of them.
Carpool – not only is this great for the environment – it’s a real money saver too.
Join the library. It’s free and there are plenty of books to read that you can borrow instead of buying. Plus they often have interesting events as well.
Don’t speed. You’ll save petrol and won’t run the risk of getting speeding fines!

Let’s start saving.

Sibo