##### LOADSHEDDING #####

Okay my friends, so this is the sms I got at about exactly 5min ago:

"ESCOM transformer fault Limit electricity use TURN OFF EXCESS APPLIANCES+ELECTROEQUIP, only 40MVA

available Expert Municipal load shedding enq.."

This after I didn’t have any Electricity last night while having dinner(again, for the second night in a row)!!!

I am sure this will piss(excuse my word) you off as well !!!

So I thought to myself, I am going to kill someone at Eskom or local Municipality right? WRONG! First I wouldn’t be able actually kill a person led alone who my target would be!

So I needed to come up with a better plan!! ..there is this saying "IF YOU CAN'T BEAT THEM, JOIN THEM"... HELL NO I am not just sitting

around letting this happen time and time over again,,, I AM CHANGING THE SAYING!!!!!

I DON'T WANT TO JOIN THEM, (cause I do not want to just sit back and let load shedding continue in my home) I AM BEATING THEM!!!!!!!!!!

Now I am sure a lot op people are shaking there heads, thinking Yolandie has gone TOTALLY NUTS!! and maybe I have, but there has to

be a way to get this (shit), as I see it, out of the way!

So what did I do.... I went to google and went searching for some help hehe aw the power of the internet!!!

Here is what I found..

At first my mind went blaming the local Municipal Centre, (lets be honest I'm sure they have their faults) but what I found was deeper!

What I found made a light bulb in my head go Shining like the sun!!!!!!

The answer that I found was needless to say SHOCKING to me, and yet just a few minutes later made 110% sense!!!

LOADSHEDDING WILL STOP IF I MAKE IT STOP!!!

YES MY FRIENDS YOU READ RIGHT, AGAIN IT STARTS WITH ME! and why am I using the word "again"?, well I am sure a lot of things start with "me" as in with myself!

Let me use this example: If you know you have only R400/$40 left for the month and your still only half way through, aren't you going to stop doing a few things along the way,

Rethink a few stuff that you would want to buy, to make that amount last?? If you don’t, well lets just assume you have on extra ordinary life, which a lot of us average people, don’t have...

Anyway isn't that exactly what the same with the electricity crisis we have right now? Wouldn't it be better to find and solve the problem yourself than to raise that already high blood pressure even more in the red?? Keep your heart in a healthy condition than risk having a heart attack at 30?... and no! Don’t look so shocked as if I just sucked that out of my thumb coz I didn't

my friends, I know of a guy that actually died just a few days ago by heart attack, with that age, but that’s another story for another day.... so what is to do???????

Back to solving the Problem at hand NOW!!!

LOAD SHEDDING!!! ugh even just saying that word makes my blood boil!!

So I have been bubbling away at finding solutions right... so lets see what "we", or "myself" can do to fix it and BEAT them!!!

The first thing we each need to realise is that in the short term Eskom and the government can't help us. In fact,

the only short term solution by them is to punish everyone by load shedding or electricity rationing.

Lets beat them at there own game! Just doing one or two of these things can make a huge difference already..

1. Turn off the air conditioners (I know its hot, but if you have to choose between having lights tonight or keeping cool during the day?...hmm no brainer there isn’t it!)

2. Turn off your geyser (its true, people go on vacation or even away just for a weekend and leave there geysers running, why would you do that?? Casper gana want to bath tonight? I don’t think so...)

3. Turn off your pool pump (Some pumps just don’t need to run all day and all night, plus a lot of them just have very irritating noises anyway)

4. Turn off anything that consumes standby energy (TV's, DVD players, cell phone chargers, etc.) (again, why would you want to let the tv play if your not even watching, and as a Great Mentor of mine, Mr Jonathan Budd, would say, why watch tv when you could be experiencing those stuff you see people do on tv yourself!!!!)

5 .Switch to CFL and LED lights (and use fewer lights)

6 .Run appliances as late at night, or early in the morning as possible

7. Use your computers in energy saving modes

8. Put in some solar panels ..

…. baby steps…. ;-)

YES YES YES, you are thinking, 'why the hell should I make the sacrifice, why should I do it and other people just use as much as they like?'

Well the answer to that is simple... Do you want to still have to sit with no lights, while having dinner 8pm at night??? well not making small changes like this will result in you maybe having

no elect. for days!!! And yes days!!

Why not do your little bit and so helping others do the same, wouldn’t it make such a stir if we did get to solve this problem ourselves and not having to wait for someone else

To do it for us, to know that you did something to help!

And believe me, these small sacrifices will become habits after a while..

I like helping people, so why not help myself in the process even more, and the best part of this Beat Them idea is that while

I do my little bit, my ENORMOUS AND I DO MEAN HUGE elect bill is going to come DOWN my friends, down as in I will have more to spend on something better than a light being

on in a room I am not even in right now, more to use on what all those people on tv are using there extra money for !

Fact: The world is not going to change, WE ARE GANA HAVE TO BE THE CHANGE WE WANT TO SEE!!!!

So lets work together and Beat The Load shedding Problem sooner than later!

Right after this I’ll leave you with a few links you can go check out, if you are seriously sick of load shedding and want to learn more about how to save some electricity…

Here is to having a very ‘light’ full day and night to you all!!!