Nola

My mom is from South Africa. And has a lot of little sayings that I've grown up hearing. These are sayings that other people might not understand and think are weird, but I didn't know any better hearing them my whole life. Here are as many examples as I can think of, siblings feel free to add!

1. A Monkey's Wedding- when it's sunny but raining at the same time (a "sun shower"), it's a South African thing but apparently there are a lot of other countries that use the same kind of phrase but with a different type of animal. The Monkey's Wedding supposedly comes from a Zulu saying, but they don't know why an animal or wedding have anything to do with the rain and it being sunny at the same time! Interesting eh?
2. Sometimes when we'd ask what was for dinner she'd say "fried frogs on toast!". To this day I have yet to taste a fried frog on toast!
3. We'd ask "where's dad?" or "where's John?" (or anyone) to which she'd reply "He/She went crazy, so I shot him". Of course she didn't...
4. Another question, "where did you go?" Her response "There and back to see how far it is".
5. When someone would say something in a different language or would say their name and it was a complicated name or one she didn't understand, she would quickly jab in "You do and you wipe it up!".
6. She always calls the boys (men) that she loves (her favorite students, young marrieds in the ward, cousins, my hubby, etc.) "you ugly thing you". It's a term of endearment. If you've been called that before, that means she approves. :)
7. We'd always hear random things in Afrikaans even though it wasn't her first language. Some I'd better not put in here, because now they are inappropriate phrases and most of them I'm not even sure how to spell anyway! One that you'll hear even ME say is "sis!" used as in response to someone saying something inappropriate or dirty- something along those lines. When we asked where something was we were looking for, we'd get the equivalent of the scripture "seek and ye shall find, knock and it will be opened..." in Afrikaans, or shortened down to "Soek" (pronounced: sook) which means "seek". Ryan and I say that to each other all the time now!
8. Whenever I didn't get something I wanted or just to be funny I'd say "you don't love me any more..." and she'd always come back with "I don't love you any less!".
9. Another saying "You lie like your feet stink!"
10. When I'd ask too many questions out of kid curiosity she'd say "Why do you need to know the ins and outs of a nanny-goats tail?!".
11. One of us kid's favorite songs she always sang to us (and we all sing to our kids now) is Go To Sleep My Baby. I will always love that song.
12. "is statue?" said for "is that you?"
13. I left my heart in Sam Clam's Disco.
14. She is also queen of finding songs to sing along with something you're talking about.
15. She's a voice teacher, and whenever she heard someone singing that maybe wasn't so good she'd comment that they must have a tummy ache!
16. One of my favorites "That must be jelly, cuz jam don't shake like that!"

I'm sure there are many, many more. I just can't think of all of them right now. But I love that quirkiness that my mommy has. I hope that I keep a lot of these sayings up with my kids!!!