Victims of an Armed Robbery

Foe those that don't know (or know exactly what happened), William, my mom and I were victims of an armed robbery at home on Saturday 5 December at 11:45am.

This is how it happened:

I was visiting my mom in her flat (William was on his computer in the study), and I did left the front door open and the Trellidor unlocked in the main house. You'd think you'd be safe during broad daylight on a Saturday but that was not the case. Everything was shut and locked in my  mom’s flat because I had seen what looked like the Jehovah’s Witness people walking down the road so we wanted to pretend we weren’t home and avoid that conversation. I was sitting at her kitchenette, with a view out the kitchen window when I saw a white floppy hat go passed. Knowing we weren’t expecting anyone, I said to my mom “Someone’s here” then went to look out her lounge window for a better view. That’s when I saw the first guy with the gun (a 9mm pistol we later found out). He was standing on the paving between the flat and the house looking around. Time stood still and it actually felt like I was in a vacuum. My first instinct was to shout so I screamed “What are you doing here?! Go away” He looked right at me and then I realized we were in trouble. Not knowing what his intentions were I thought he was just there to kill us. My mom and I ran to her bedroom where the alarm keypad and panic button were and we thought we’d hide there until the armed response came. There was no key in the door lock so we stood with our backs to the door to keep it closed. I pressed every single key on the keypad and nothing happened. No sound or alarm. Nothing. I can't explain the feeling of isolation experienced knowing you have one or more armed intruders on your property and there's NO ONE to help you. We had changed security companies on the Thursday before the incident so at the time we thought the link up between the house and the control room had not been done properly. Panicking I took my three week old engagement ring off and put it in my jeans pocket. My mom started screaming for help hoping the neighbors would hear and raise the alarm.

We felt the pushing against the door (later discovered that the smallest criminal had climbed through the doggy door in the sliding door to get into the flat who then opened up for the other), but the criminals never spoke so we didn’t know if it was perhaps William or the security company trying to get in. After asking “Who’s there” and not getting an answer we knew to expect the worst. They eventually kicked the door with such force that my mom was pushed into the wall and I went flying across the room. Two armed men were in  the bedroom with us and told us to take off our jewelry, and we must give them our watches and cellphones. My mom’s Michel Herbelin watch and her Nomination bracelet were taken, two very sentimental pieces that can't really be replaced when/if the insurance company pays out. One of the criminals patted down my jeans pockets but thankfully didn’t find the ring.

They took my mom’s TV, handbag with everything in it and marched us across to the main house. Their getaway car was a white Audi A4, reverse parked, engine running and doors open. William, hearing my mom screaming earlier, ran out the study and down the passage only to be confronted with a gun to the head and was told to lie down on the passage floor. The criminal with William opened the gate using our remote which was by the front door to allow the getaway car to get in. William wasn’t moving when I saw him so didn’t know if he’d been hurt. The ringleader told us to lie down on the passage floor next to William. Once down on the floor I grabbed his hand and asked if he was OK. He said he was and that we should just do as the criminals say. Midget and Didget (who never barked once) lay on top of my mom and William. The three criminals ransacked the house, asked if William’s car had a tracker so he said yes. We later found they had prepped the car to go - the garage door was open, the key was in the ignition and the seat was pushed all the way back. They took alcohol, my personal laptop, William’s work laptop, my camera and video camera, all my jewelry, three watches of William’s, his clothes, the lounge TV, my hairdryer, the kettle, George Foreman Grill, the tablet and some other stuff. They kept telling us to look down and not at them. Towards the end, the criminals had the audacity to apologize to us, saying "We're sorry about this" or "We're sorry hey". We lay in the passage for approximately 20 minutes before they moved us to the main bedroom (the only room in the house with a key in the lock) and told us to lie down on the floor.  One locked the bedroom door from the inside (it wasn’t locking from the passage side) and escaped through the bathroom window. The other two had already gone out the front door and were waiting in the car. The car pulled off (quietly, no urgency) so we waited a minute or two then climbed out the bedroom window. Luckily we don’t have burglar bars else we would not have been able to get out. William ran through the front door and pressed the panic button (which worked) and our armed response company arrived on scene a few minutes thereafter.

The aftermath consisted of giving our statements to the police, cancelling bank cards and cellphone accounts with the service providers and contacting a locksmith to open our bedroom door as the thieves had taken the key with them. William's iPhone was thrown out the car window a few blocks away (iPhones are very easily tracked and the thieves must have known this) but unfortunately nothing else.

We are so thankful to everybody that stopped by after hearing the news, family, friends, our local CPF patrollers, neighbours and so many more. Your offers of a bed for the night, to cook us dinner, draw cash, etc really resonated within our hearts and we are so grateful to have such fantastic people like you in our lives.

We are going for counselling and heal a bit more each day. People ask if it feels like we're reliving the experience when we tell the story but I personally don't. It's more draining than anything because I get so invested in telling it, so I typed out a version of the events and emailed it to some people when I was just too exhausted to tell it again. 

Thanks for all the calls, emails, WhatsApps and Facebook messages that we have received since the incident - we appreciate them all.

Stay safe everyone, those thieves did their Christmas shopping in our house and crime only seems to be getting worse in the lead up to Christmas Day.

Simone

My Weight Loss Journey

I started writing this post in 2014, hoping I'd reach my goal weight then publish it, but life happened. Being unhappy at work triggered comfort eating. Fast food, chocolates and biscuits became my coping mechanism. I put on a decent five kilograms of the twelve I initially lost (I weighed 72 kilos at my heaviest in 2011) and that horrified me. I'm now in a positive frame of mind to lose that weight again through the Momentum Wellness Challenge. It's a twelve week (starting tomorrow) program of structured eating and includes two exercise challenges. My entry weight is 63 kilograms and to mark the occasion I have taken two photographs as a means of measuring progress.

 

Here is the original post:

It's no secret that I have battled with my weight for many, many years.

I was a chubby primary school kid (who hated exercise so I was always bunking sports day), and was on Weigh-Less by the time I was 10 years old. Name the diet I have been on it. I even tried chewing each mouthful 25 times before swallowing! Then someone said I'm eating the components of my meal in the wrong order. I should ideally eat vegetables first, then starch and leave protein till last. No word of lie.

Weigh Less was particularly challenging as it involved weighing EVERYTHING I put into my mouth and wasn't very child friendly. You can imagine the hard time my mom had preparing my school lunches each day. Somehow fruit and veggies weren't very appealing when my peers had tuck money or sandwiches. Anyway, we pushed on and I attended every Thursday meeting to be weighed. My mom was a real trooper throughout. She was happy when I lost and supportive when I gained. This trend continued until I reached high school.

At 13, I gave Weigh Less up and tried out Sarah Ferguson's Weight Watchers. This eating plan was so much easier to manage. Each foodstuff is given a point rating, and the facilitator allocates each person a certain number of daily points . How one reaches that target each day is up to them, and the best part was very little needed to be weighed! Unlike Weigh Less, Weight Watchers encourages those little treats and places emphasis on the "everything in moderation" statement. This plan worked wonders for me. I followed it for years and lost a good deal of weight. 

Nearing the end of my high school career, I'd picked up a few kilos and because I wanted to lose the weight quickly (and in time for my Matric Farewell), I tried the Atkins' diet (or high protein diet). It also produced good results, but the high amount of protein gave me headaches, and permitted no carbohydrates or starches so I REALLY missed my cereal. The diet worked and I managed to slim down in time, and even kept the weight off for a few years. I was never rake thin as my African curves would never allow for such a figure, but I was less chunkier.

In October 2012, after seeing the photograph below, I decided that enough was enough and I wanted to lose the weight once and for all. I started a calisthenics class at Simply You four times per week, and although I didn't follow a diet per se, I watched what I ate and slowly the kilos started coming off. 

Have a look at my timeline below.

October 2012 - 67kgs

This photograph was taken at Shannon & Colin's wedding. Seeing my face so round was a real shock to the system and I knew something had to be done.

June 2013 - 64kgs

On holiday in Athens earlier this year. Once we returned, I started walking. At least five times per week, over distances ranging from 2 - 5kms. This cardio really kick-started my weight loss, and you can imagine my elation at finally finding something that has worked for me. I also adjusted my eating and the following was my mantra:

• Drink at least 6 glasses of water per day;
• Cut out carbohydrates at dinner time;
• Eat at least 5 servings of fruit and veggies per day; and
• To avoid tissue drowning (which also makes a person put on weight), limit liquids (other than water) to 7 x 240mls.

I love chocolate, sweets, ice cream, Wakaberry and biscuits and I never cut those items out whilst losing the weight. The key is everything in moderation. So instead of having a whole slab of chocolate in a sitting I only had 4 blocks. Two or three biscuits instead of half the packet. These small changes made a BIG difference.

August 2013 - 62kgs

At my 27th birthday party, wearing a pair of leather pants. This was a bucket list item for me.

October 2013 - 60kgs

At Angie and Roger's wedding. Almost there!

Technically I am at my ideal or goal weight, but I'd like to lose one or two extra kilograms just so that I have some room to move.

What I've lost:

• A shoe size. From a size 5 to a 4.
• 12 kilograms in total
• A bra size
• 83 centimeters across my arms, bust, waist, hips, bottom and thighs

Losing this weight has been a lifestyle change for me, and the best gift I could ever have given to myself (yes I am turning into one of those very annoying healthy people that no-one likes). I am more confident in myself, and for the first time in ages I actually look forward to clothes shopping. I can now wear figure hugging outfits and shorts, instead of the shapeless mid-calf dresses. However, anyone that was ever chunky and has lost a fair amount of weight will tell you, we are terrified of going back to the way we were and will do anything to keep the weight off. It's true that maintaining a healthy weight is sometimes more difficult than actually losing the weight, but I have found what works for me and as long as I stick to it my weight should stay stable. As soon as I stop moving, I put it back on. So now I know - don't ever stop exercising!

A special word of thanks must go out to everybody that has supported me during this journey. My mom, my gran, friends and other family. Even the ladies at Simply You who were never shy with their compliments which motivated me when my weight seemed to remain the same. I thank you all, because without you all I would have probably given up.

Bridging the Gap: December 2014 to June 2015

This will be my first post of 2015 and the first week of June has almost passed.

This is not the blog pace originally hoped for, but to say I hit the ground running this year is an understatement. 

Here are some of the highlights:

1. Changed jobs

January was the worst month for me work wise. Realising how unhappy I was at my workplace, and worse yet taking the bad vibes home with me, I decided a change needed to be made. My mom and William lived with a miserable individual that took no joy in anything. Evidently the 'I'm OK, everything is OK' facade I was fronting was ineffective. One weekend in February, I made the decision to resign. No, I did not have another job lined up. All I wanted was to get out of there. As I had not been employed at the company for a year or more, my notice period was only two weeks (which felt longer than the entire 11 months I had actually worked there). I had given it my best shot. I was unhappy from about three months into the job but thought maybe I was slow to adjust and needed to give it more time. It was tough leaving my work family, although most of them left around the same time as I did or shortly thereafter. We had bonded under difficult circumstances, brought closer together by the unhappiness most of us were experiencing. We were each other's coping mechanism. 

I'm now in the Insurance industry and absolutely loving it. The culture of the company is so much better than the previous company, and staff actually feel valued. I look forward to going to work each day, as opposed to dreading the inevitable drama.

2. Studies

I registered for my Postgraduate Diploma in Accounting Sciences through UNISA. This qualification is level one of the Honours degree and if I am successful, level two will take place next year and thereafter Board exams. All in a prospective Chartered Accountant's journey. Initially there was a fair amount of hesitation as to whether or not I would register. It had been a tough (and long) journey so far and I doubted my staying power to see through yet another difficult academic year. In the end my curiosity as to whether or not I could do it git the better of me and I registered. Two semester tests have been written so far, and two more are around the corner. Exams take place in October, and although I feel ore confident now than at the beginning of the year there is still much work to be done.

3. There have been so many happy occasions!

• Mellisa and Kriben got married in an intimate and stunning ceremony at the Oyster Box Hotel in Durban on 1 May 2015. Congratulations friends - wishing you many happy years together.

• Janine (my sister) and Craig got engaged in February and are planning their Spring 2015 wedding. I'm one of the bridesmaids and look forward to sharing in the special day later this year.

• Angie & Roger welcomed their son, Diego, into the world on 2 June 2015. Happy and healthy, Diego arrived on Ange's expected due date. Congratulations to the new parents - sure your little one is going to bring so much joy to your lives.

I definitely aim to post most regularly from now on, but until then have a fantastic weekend further.