About this WordPress-powered site, tant.co.za, and about the two of us,
TANT – Terry and Tony, in South Africa.
There once was a guy and a gal, named Terry and Tony
Tony’s hair was fairly short, and Terry’s was caught up in a pony
Terry and Tony, and Terry’s teenage sons, and a dog named Gilly
All lived together in Terry’s folks’ house, in a household quite dilly
– update mid February 2017 – we moved – renting our own little place since mid November 2016 ! 🙂
Below, read about Terry and Tony, us, tant.co.za, Terry, Tony, and then more us!
Also, how do you pronounce the name of our site, TANT?
TANT does NOT rhyme with “want”; TANT rhymes with “rant”, as in rant and rave.
Ok, now you know, but you can also think of TANT as T an T (pronounced Tea an Tea), or T and T, or TnT, or Terry and Tony 🙂 T erry – AN d – T ony.
About Terry and Tony of TANT
Terry and Tony work from home and live in East London, South Africa. They offer freelance website help services and make and sell craft items and similar products.
In 2013 Terry turned 44 and Tony turned 53.
Terry had been living in her parents’ house along with her two teenage sons for about 4 months in late 2007, when Tony moved in too. Both had no job. Terry had not worked during her 10 years of marriage. They needed money. Terry wanted to continue being around for her sons during the afternoons, and during school holidays, and Tony couldn’t find a job, even after applying for over 100 jobs.
Both somewhat creative – and desperate – they decided to work from home, doing whatever they could to earn a living.
Even with Tony’s only prior experience of having taught himself to design only one html/CSS site, and Terry’s lack of computer literacy, they tackled starting to design websites for others, inbetween selling plants, herbs and seedlings from the pavement in front of the house.
Over time, Tony’s expertise in web design grew, and Terry’s knowledge of being online grew, until they were both experienced enough to start offering a wide variety of freelance website help services.
Terry and Tony’s client base grew too, resulting in many happy and satisfied clients.
When it comes to Terry and Tony designing sites and doing other freelance website work or online work, Tony is more the designer/coder and Terry is more the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) person.
Due to the expense of quick and effective marketing methods not always being possible for them, work could sometimes be a little scarce, and Terry and Tony started to think of other ways to earn a living, or at least to bring in a little extra income, too.
They still have somewhat of an interest in plants, but their other hobbies from which they can earn from also include photography, beach photography, beachcombing, writing, crafts, woodwork, sea glass crafts, homemade jewellery, cut glass bottle crafts, and making snack platters.
About Us
We don’t have a shop to sell our products from, and we don’t have an office in which to consult with our clients. We work from home in a tiny little back room we guess you could actually say is used as a home office. Our dog sleeps in this office, so besides its tiny size, this so-called office is not really suitable for consulting with our clients.
We also use a small part of a single garage at home, and a small part of a tunnel carport at home, to store the items or materials we need to make the items we make and sell.
We sell our products online or from flea markets or craft markets.
If its our freelance services people want to discuss, we consult with clients via email, on the phone, or in person if needed, at their office or home in the East London area.
We enjoy working from home and when it comes to working online, designing websites, or our other website help services, we enjoy the fact that we could do that same work from anywhere in the world as long as we had access to computers and the Internet.
The beauty of online freelance work is also that one can work for anybody in the world, from just one place, from the comfort of one’s own home.
About tant.co.za
At the time of writing the content for this page, in May 2013, we have over 30 sites of our own. This isn’t working out for us, as it’s a lot of work for just two people to keep writing and to keep adding new pages of content to the sites, in order to help keep the sites fresh in the eyes of Search Engines like Google.
We need to cut down on the amount of sites we have, and need to use one site in particular that will serve as our main site. This site, tant.co.za is that main site. We hope to soon cut our sites down to just this one. It won’t be a waste, as we can move the content from the cancelled sites to this site. Once this site is doing well for itself, we may consider looking at developing some other sites again, too.
This tant.co.za site did exist prior to May 2013, but as an html/CSS site, terryandtonyinsouthafrica.co.za with a WordPress blog, South African in South Africa, added to it. We love WordPress, and in May 2013 decided to re-do the site as only a WordPress site, and then decided to rename it tant.co.za and got a new domain, moving our content over to it.
About The Two of Us
We each have a wide variety of interests, but we share many interests too. Interests that we share include parenting, movies, photography, writing, crafts, enjoying East London and South Africa, working from home, upcycling, sea glass, sometimes toddling along in a 5km, 10km, or 15km road race or fun run, and visiting East London beaches.
About Terry – from Terry’s mouth
I’m a jeans, boots or tackies, or slip-on flat-heel shoes, and t-shirt kinda gal, and I’m crazy about my two teenage sons and my boyfriend Tony.
I’m down to earth and honest, and enjoy other people who are also down to earth and honest. Plastic people freak me out. Don’t pretend. If you can’t be genuinely nice to everyone, then stay away from the people you’re not genuine with.
I like detail, and I like to be detailed in my work. I like details too. Tell me a story and I need or want to hear everything – not just the summary, even if I have to keep stopping you from talking to answer my questions along the way.
Born and raised in East London, and unlikely to ever leave East London or South Africa, I matriculated from Hudson Park High School in 1986.
Tried the marriage thing for 10 years, but split in 2007. No regrets as have my amazing sons. I’m just under 6-foot tall, and my teenage sons are over 6 foot tall. Being a responsible parent is important to me, although some may call me over-protective. I don’t care what people call me; my kids are great and do well at school and sport.
Photography has interested me since about the age of 12, as has writing. I did a 4 year part-time correspondence course with The Writing School a good few years back, and have won some local photography competitions.
I have taken a considerable interest in on-page Search Engine Optimization, and love how doing a good job of it can help our clients, and ourselves, earn more money, due to good SEO bringing more traffic to a site. Don’t kid yourself – SEO always starts (or should start) with a list of keywords or keyphrases!
I’m interested in free ways to make money, free ways to advertise, and making passive income. I like to teach others these methods too, through writing articles that others can learn from. Struggling people can earn a living or at least an extra income if they only read, learn, and work hard enough. Can’t afford university? There’s so much free helpful information on the Internet that there is no excuse for those who have Internet and no job. Maybe some consider the word “lazy” an excuse, but “lazy” is certainly not an excuse – being lazy is a choice.
Things can also be made (and sold) from using free materials – like by upcycling or recycling things people throw away, or by using found objects like sticks and stones, and sea glass. If you have even a small garden, or some large containers you could place indoors in a sunny breezy spot near a window, you can also grow things and sell them. Collect pips and dropped seeds; they’re free.
I have a background of doing well in athletics, cross country and road running, and although terribly unfit now, still feel that running, long jump, and being competitive is in my blood. The 2012 East London Surfers Challenge was my 15th one.
I like cats and small dogs. Can’t have cats at my folks’ house due to my mom’s allergy towards cats, and Gilly our Jack Russell wouldn’t like it, and we can’t afford to move elsewhere, right now… (May 2013)
Can’t stand the faulty and unsafe car; need a new car.
About Tony – from Tony’s mouth
Tony Flanigan. That’s me.
Day-dreamer and layabout extraordinaire…
On those occasions that I decide I need to actually do something before I’m mistaken for an inanimate object, I first try to let the feeling pass. If this does not happen, I may decide to do one of several things.
I really enjoy website design, and in particular working with WordPress. Currently the world’s leading base on which websites are built, WordPress offers an amazing base platform on which to develop, and build websites.
We’ve recently developed an interest in glass. Sea glass – those bits of glass found along the beach, that have been churned and tumbled into fragments of opaque mystery. Well formed sea glass is usually at least 25 to 30 years old, which means we are now picking up remnants of bottles that were “lost at sea” in the 1980’s! Glass bottle upcycling has also made its way into our lives. I was given a bottle cutter, and after a lot of trial and error, am now able to produce cut bottle items for re-selling.
We don’t drill our sea-glass, and all the work done on our cut bottle products is done by hand (I am considering a belt sander to speed up the initial first grind).
I have been interested in, and involved in sailing – yachts, dinghies, and radio control, for almost as long as I can remember. When I was a lot younger I used to do a lot of running. Running fell by the wayside, and got left behind for many years, and I kinda sorta started running again when I moved to East London, due, in no small part to Terry’s influence, her long-time athletic background, and persistent participation in running.
Other than these few things, I do enjoy taking the odd photo every now and then. I enjoy reading – mostly non-fiction, but don’t get as much opportunity to read as I would really like.
I am not really a socializer or party animal, although I believe I may have been involved in the odd bit of drama here and there at various discos and clubs. I prefer small social groups, and would rather enjoy, and get to know a few people well, than to have a load of “friends” I barely know. I do know a lot of people, but that is unavoidable when you reach my age.
Special people in my life are Terry, the Wombles (her two sons), and last, but not least, my Muffa – my daughter, Samantha.
Oh! I also have part shares in Gilly! Gilly is a Jack Russell dog thing 🙂
About Us, again
We work hard at all we do, often late into the night and on weekends too, are passionate about working for ourselves, love living in East London and South Africa, and have a dream that we’ll be really successful one day. Struggling is exhausting; determination and hard work pays off.
© Copyright Teresa Schultz and Tony Flanigan
