WHAT A GAS!!

ok, never mind the title. all will be explained in the duration of this post.
so right now its school holidays, the first week thereof. we got out last week wednesday, and on thursday we went to get our reports at school, then we were done for three weeks!! the first few days we didnt do all that much... on saturday we went to the voortrekker monument... its a big building comemmorating the vicory the voortrekkers had over the thousands of zulus at blood river. long story, im not gonna recite history to you now. but ya, this building is hollow inside, like a big dome i guess, and its really high. you can go to almost the very top and look down. so right when i walked in, i lifted up mine eyes (almost to the heavens, it felt like it, the roof ceiling was so high up) and almost fainted... it was REALLY REALLY high... and i felt kinda... queasy. note, i was still on the ground floor, looking up, not even looking down and i felt kinda sick... so we made the trip up (we being lynette, rachel, sarah, brian, gordon, morgy and i) to the top. you could go out at one point, high up, and survey the city, and of course, look down. but us miskins... never. we were too busy gasping for breath after climbing the long flight of winding stairs, and me, claustrophobia. besides, im a sucker for heights... i just wanted to go down. so we continued up, gordon morgy and i clutching the railings for dear life, and not daring to look down (i did at a point, coz it we were ascending the side of a huge dome thing... and almost screamed.. dark and far down...). when we reached the top, panic set in for the three of us. morgy was in tears of terror, and had to leave with lynette accompanying her. gordon and i roughed it out... terrified. brian for a sick joke walked up to gordon and was like " so how you doing gordon?" and slapped him on the back... giving us both the shivers and sending gordon and me to the railing for support lest something happen... like a monster ascending the heights and pulling us down into the abyss (:D)... meanwhile, the rest of our party were leaning over the edge of the little wall separating us from nothingness, looking down casually... i could barely bring myself to peep over the edge, and when i wasnt clutching the wall... i was gripping the railing on the other side of me, in panic, almost making dents in the metal. i couldnt take a picture of the great heights, i would have dropped the camera. so it occurred to me that day, that the three miskins are TERRIFIED out of their minds of heights... i kid you not. gordon was shaking, and my knees were weak, and my palms were wet and clammy from sheer terror. after our descent i felt ok again... its a genetic thing. neither of my parents like heights either... our fear was a source of amusement to those who were not scared... and if you had seen us, you would have grinned.
enough of heights, its making me feel funny all over again. ok, so this tuesday (yesterday) was where the phrase "what a gas" originated. we (gordon, brian, three cool kids from church (the ndous) and i) went out to the township again with about 20 other kids from the afrikaans church and painted a big hall at one of the orphan care centers. we all arrived, and stretched after being squished in the car for about an hour, and checked out the college first, and then proceeded to the care center. the paint was grey... i thought that odd. i grabbed a roller, and a holder thing to put it on, and started to paint. alas for me, my roller kept coming loose off of its holder thing, so i would bang it on the wall to get it back on, and as i was doing this the second time, some paint spattered off the end and onto my nose and into my eye. i was in some pain, when gordon thought he would point out to obvious to me..."hey scally, its on your nose..." "my nose," i howled, "is the least of my worries!! its in my eye, and it hurts...!!" i got it out my eye, and wasnt blinded, thankfully...:D. gordon decided once again to be helpful and tell me how to get it off. heres what he said " i hope youre gonna shower in turpentine tonight, coz its gonna be hard to get off..." harhar. i got it off with some water, thanks gordon. seems like wherever i go, i come away with a bad face paint...:D during the painting operation gordon coined the phrase "it was/is a gas" when he said "this is the kinda stuff that makes memories. we'll all get together years from now and say 'member that time we painted that hall? that was a GAS!!'" everyone caught onto the phrase, and by the end of the day, it was the saying of the week. at first gordon and the three ndou boys did some graffiti on the walls, arguing we were gonna paint over it anyway... i got a picture of gordon in the act!! (sorry, theyre all on gordons comp :(...) we got about 2.5 walls done when we broke for lunch. then i went to the hospice with sarah and rebe and camden (rebes son of 2 yrs) and oupa and a lady from the church. i was hoping to find dad there, but he had left at about 12... so i missed him. but i did see one of the patients... and she was all shakey and couldnt really understand english. so i didnt know what to say... i said a couple things, and smiled encouragingly. then we went back to the care center, and i found the painting was all done... to my shame. the guys were all playing soccer with some of the township kids... gordon (called "golden" by almost all black ppl he meets... to his horror...;D) said they didnt pass to him much so he quit. i was walking around in my big ol' pj (now painting) shirt... and discussed world cup with abram and maryke... (afrikaans name) and sat around having a nice time. then we all gathered for a scripture reading and prayer, squished in the car, and went home. it was a gas.
so that was our gas of a day.
morgy right now is at lambano, and aids orphanage for toddlers in Jo-burg. so its really quiet at our house... and lynette says shes doing an awesome job teaching the little kids Bible stories and stuff. i miss her round the house (morgy that is) even tho we dont get along, i love her and its not the same when shes not here... come home safe morgy!! (sniffle...)
ok, so start the fad in america. its no longer "this is fun/awesome/great (etcetc)" its "this is a gas" or "that wasnt a gas..." or "have a gas!!"
bye guys... miss you all, and all that.
HAVE A GAS!!!

weekend of weekends...!!

scahey guys!! its been a long time since ive typed a full fledged scarlett style post... aka, 183298734 words total. but we had an awesome weekend this weekend, so im gonna fill you all in on what happened. some know, but many dont. so here i go.
ok, so we have rev brian here... and on thursday afternoon last week, we all (mom, morgy, jonno (hes a kid whos also staying with us for a bit) saray, lynette, sarah, gordon, rachel, brian and i) went to the pretoria botanical gardens. this was an awesome time, and i chilled with rachel most of the time... laughing at alot of random things, taking pictures, grimacing, and just having an awesome time. i have pics, but, ALAS, they are on gordons computer. that was a really nice time, especially since we came in our tiny little pick up, with some...seven people crammed in the back. rachel laughed so hard she drooled, sarah dished out a kleenex like it was an everyday occurence, sarah and i tried to (unsuccessfully) sing a song that lynettes friend... chris wrote... we sang really off... it was fun to try. that was nice. then, the plan was, since friday was a public holiday, brian would take us (gordon, sarah, lynette, rachel, tristan a friend from church, and i) out to hamanskraal (a rural area) and meet up with a friend of his, named oupa, who has a churhc. we would join some of his church's youth group, and go out and kinda evangalize to some people. so there were about 20 young people total, so we split into three groups... and each group would talk to six families about church and beliefs. i had a hard time understanding, coz most of it was spoken in Xhosa or Zulu, and i cant even speak Afrikaans yet!! that was a really good experience for me, since i have never been out in a township, and i just saw the way they live... and how much i really have. it was cool. then we had lunch at the early hour of 3 in the afternoon... which was a jolly affair. i sat by tristan, and she and i get along quite well. there was one point where two girls just like stuck their faces between ours for pictures... and i was demonstrating this, thus smacking my head and tristans together... causing laughs. and i took pictures of people on the sly... i love doing that. you have no clue how silly some people look in their natural facial expresseions and stuff... so friday was a good day. after lunch, we had a crazy fun game of soccer, guys on girls... eventually we all got too tired to play anymore... and thus our fun game ended. btw, lynette mocked how i run.. sighs. :D. so we all came home, tired and happy that we had such a great day. then saturday, we had another early rising day, for one of the orphan care centers had a party for all the kids. 300 parentless kids in total.
we all went, that is, morgy, jonno, lynette, rachel, sarah, gordon, tristan (again) mom and i. we got to the party to watch some small presentations put on by the various centers... and boy, those kids can sing!! after that, all the kids went outside and played games. rachel started painting faces, which soon turned into the kids just painting, and tristan got a green heart on her cheek (this comes in later). sarah played jump rope, gordon (known as "golden" by the guys...:D) played soccer... and im not sure what morgy did. after wandering around for no reason, tristan and i went inside to help set out all the food... 300 plates, suckers, fizzers, hot dogs and bags of chips. it took a while, but we got it done. there was ALOT of food. so then all the kids came to eat... and some sang. i joined in the singing after a while... and it was good to be able to sing really loud along with everyone else... its a good feeling. after lunch, i decided to let tristan paint on my face. note, i said tristan. we arrived at the face paint area, to find it run by two guys. one offered to fill in tristans heart, and i was waiting for her to get done, so she could paint me. then the other guy told me to sit, and he would do me. ok, cool i thought. so i sat down, and without asking what i would like done, the "artist" set to his task. he was like totally absorbed in his work, and started with blue. once his blue thing was done, he said to tristan "it looks nice eh?" and tristan, doubtfully said "...ya... it looks like a blue tree!!" at which the painter roared with laugher, gave me five, and continued painting. the then drew an "X" shape under the blue tree, and tristan later said, "at first it looked like a spade, then a blue tree, then he drew the X, and i didnt know what it was..." so i sat still, and let him paint. till of course, his face was like a centimenter away from me, then i jumped in surprise... its unnerving to have a guy like eyeballing you from the uncomfortable distance of a centimeter away... but he laughed, so i sighed in relief, kinda. but my uncomfort was growing, this guy was still painting my face, and it was getting to be a long time. i watched tristans face, and she was like wincing as he continued painting. after the blue tree and X, he continued to paint a red stripe on my nose to my forehead, red yellow and green dots all over my face, and red and blue around my mouth. i didnt know the extent of the damage done, but i knew it wasnt good, by the looks i was getting. he finally finished and i jumped up, wanting to examine my visage, and remove all damage done. so i ran to the bathroom with tristan, and rachel saw me, and took a picture. many people grinned. so i dashed into the bathrooms, looked at myself, and almost fainted. after the initial shock, i laughed. i looked soooooo funny!! like ronald macdonald, with hald a clown mouth, an x marsk the spot desing on one cheek, a red stripe on my nose, and randomly placed dots. i thus began scrubbing my face, removing most of the dots, the red stripe (after the paint was gone, i had a faint red tinge to my nose... great) but i couldnt bring myself to remove all the guys work, so i left the blue tree and x. thus, i discovered, i had just been the piece of canvas for one guys artistic impulses, and thus came away heavily painted on, and causing laughs. i wanted to get the guy back, but we left afore i could. it was funny now i think of it... gooood times. so that was about my whole weekend... i hope it was relatively amusing, what i wrote.
luv ya'll!!

The Miskin family: a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

hello. as i said, a picture is worth a thousand words. so instead of typing a thousand words, i'll put up a few pictures. this may take more than one post... if it does, well good for you. i dont know how many people come to my blog... but am often discouraged at the lack of comments... ah well. i'll keep posting if you want me to. i'll have to somehow get the pis of lynette and other good pics from gordons computer... so that i can share them with all you people.


nice newspaper title...
"The Sun" is a bad paper...
you can prob tell






while we were still at the rental place...















sorry there are like no pictures of me on my own blog... ever. but i dont have time to post on of me. so we're having a good time with lynette and rachel and sarah and rev. devries... its a good time with them. theyre all so great, im gonna miss them when they leave. life is busy busy... i hadnt been on the internet all week this week.. and got 19 emails... promptly running out of will power, i decided to write to you people another day. so dont worry, your emails will come soon enough, o friends of mine in GR!!! note to john sikma!!! gordon wants you to email him. and um... i'll post soon... i said that last time, but I MEAN IT!! and i will update on life, and post the pics from the botanical gardens today, and fellowship on the miskin couch... where gordon, sarah, rachel, morgy and i all squished on one couch... and had a good time!! miss you all, dont have the stamina to write more... SO SORRY ABOUT MY LACK OF OOOMPH!!!
miss ya!