I think this post needs no explanation.
#fullmoon #love
The Simple Things
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Category Archives: Life
And so Life Continues
Well the new year has started with a bang. The holidays are over and kids are back at school. My youngest has started high school now and for the first time in about 23 years, I only have to go to one school each day. Never thought I would see the day!
Besides that, as you all know from my previous post, I am getting divorced. Hubby and I have reached an amicable agreement and we are working together for the good of the kids and I suppose our relationship as well. So I am really pleased we can be grown up about it all. We saw the divorce lawyer last week and he is drawing up the relevant documents.
I am currently staying in a little cottage near to home. Must admit I quite like being alone. I was terrified of being alone and am amazed at how well I have adapted. Now that we have made the decision to get divorced, I have had to start thinking a little more long term about where I am going to live, so I started looking at places to rent and quite honestly I was not particularly impressed with anything I saw.
I spent Saturday looking at the property section of the newspaper and found a lovely 3 bedroomed apartment for sale. It is brand new – just been built and I have made an offer on it. In theory I move in on the 1st of April. The biggest challenge here is I need to find the money to furnish it. I am really excited about it! In theory this is what my estate will look like (hope so anyway)
I’m travelling for the rest of the week and will hopefully have some nice pics to share on my return.
Getting Naked!
I read 2 posts this week that had a major impact on how I have been feeling lately. The first was by Beth from Writer B Is Me and her post was titled: A Stiptease for You.
She knocked it on the head for me when she said “But when I don’t write the heavy shit out, I get stuck.” And it suddenly dawned on me why I am struggling to write just recently.
You see I have not been able to actually sit and write about me for quite a few weeks now. I seem to have lost my sense of humor and hidden the real me behind a false facade.
I have been going through a few personal challenges. Some Most of which I still cannot sit and write about. Life is complicated at the best of times.
I have been going through a re-discovery period. Questioning life and it’s meaning. And a lot of self realization has happened. I feel I cannot just sit and let life happen. I need to make life happen.
What I need is to be able to sit and write about it all. Just spill my guts and tell you all about how I
feel, what I want and what I’m doing. And how it is all affecting my life. But somehow getting this naked in front of you is very difficult. I am not ready yet to tell my story.
There are only a select few I have been able to open up to. To share my story and my views, without feeling guilty or that I am being judged for feeling the way I do. Others consider it selfish! Some consider it ridiculous! Some consider it stupid! Some say I am being extremely foolish!
So it has made it very hard for me to make decisions about my life. And they certainly are life changing decisions. Am I doing the right thing? It is right for me? Is it right for my kids? Am I being selfish? Am I being foolish? What about money? What about my career? Should I not just be content with what I have? What about ………? There are so many questions…….
Someone said I need to talk it through with a Councillor. Now to be honest I have no faith in Councillors (no offence meant to any of you out there). I just don’t believe there is a box I fit into. I am bigger than any box. Not only that, I don’t want someone else to guide my thoughts. To me the decisions need to come from within and not guided by someone else.
I did actually go and see a Councillor of sorts though and we had a good chat. He made a lot of sense. I expressed my feelings and concerns and questioned my motives. Explained I was having problems with making decisions. Explained how I felt and why I felt it. He told me to stop asking questions. He told me to stop all the “what if’s”. He told me I needed to make decisions based on what my gut was telling me – what I’d known for a long time. To listen to my inner “shakra” or “Yoni”. The rest would resolve itself one way or the other.
So having talked it through with him I feel a lot better in making some decisions. I also feel more confident in the fact that I will be OK, no matter what decisions I make down the line.
The second post I read was by a new blogger called Monique from Yours Sincerely and her post was titled: You Are Perfect Just the Way you are.
The words she used that resonated for me were “Who you are behind the masks is the real “perfect”, you are unique and I must tell you that no mask lasts forever. So while we are trying to maintain that illusion of the perfect mask we are forgetting who we truly are and want to be. We are missing ourselves all while we try our best to keep up the good appearance so the others with the masks won’t judge us.“
And I realize this is so true. I cannot put on a mask anymore. I cannot play at being someone I am not. I NEED TO BE ME! And I believe that I will find happiness if I let the real me out.
And the people in my life need to accept me for who I am and not for who they want me to be. They need to love me for the person I am – UNCONDITIONALLY!
(PS – please pop over and say HI to Monique – She needs some encouragement as a new blogger. Tell her I sent you)
I can buy my own drinks
A friend sent me the following e-card this morning and it got my mind going.
As an almost middle aged woman, brought up with old school values, I have had to stand up and take notice of younger woman who have taken life by the balls and run with it. For instance – the reason I started my blog is because I attended a social networking workshop and felt rather threatened that all the younger women sitting next to me all had their own blogs – I didn’t even know what a blog was until that day. I walked out that evening knowing that I had to change my way of thinking. If I was to survive in a modern world, I needed to start doing things for myself.
Now let’s not get confused by what I am talking about. I have always done things myself and I have become a jack of all trades in being able to do things. I am a hero in being able to do things myself and my life motto is “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”
But this is not what I’m talking about. What I am talking about is doing things FOR yourself. Forgetting what hubby thinks or you boss thinks or what you kids or friends think. You need to look after yourself first, do the things you want to do and then look after everyone else. I have come the learn that if you are happy, everyone around you is happy.
If there was ever a time for a woman to make a difference in the world, that time is now.
I thought I would come up with a list of things to encourage women to start doing things for themselves.
What rule book?
Throw out the rule book. Make your own set of rules. Rules were made to be broken anyway. Don’t listen to how others say thing should be done. Figure it out for yourself. Yes, get advise along the way but in the end do things your way. And trust your gut!
Do things that make you happy
Ask yourself what things count in your life or make a difference to your life. Ask yourself who you are doing things for. Make sure you do things that make you happy.
Surround yourself with positive people
You know that friend who is always moaning about her husband an her kids and how stressed she is at work – yeah HER. Unfriend her. You do not need to surround yourself by negativity. Create a supportive environment. As much as us ladies think we can do things alone, we cannot. We need a support structure and make sure that structure is one filled with positivity and encourages you to be you and a happy you. A good gut check is: “Do I feel more happier and more energized or less after being with my friends?”
Have a goal
Think about what you want out of life and go for it. It is difficult striving for something if you don’t know what that is. It doesn’t mean you have to decide now the exact path or what the end game should be. But acknowledge that you need to have some direction. And if that direction is not working for you – change it. Nothing in life is cast in stone.
Don’t forget to smell the roses
Yes it is good to go after that goal. Start your own business. Make money. But don’t forget that you need to enjoy life along the way. It is pointless doing it all and having it all if you have forgotten to smell the roses along the way.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA1S0tcJrms]
Life is Short
I am a sucker
It is Saturday and another week is over. It has been a hectic week. It started off with Hubby going to Bahrain for a project we are doing there. He left on Tuesday morning and when he left I had my week all planned out – peace an quiet and loads of time to do nothing!
I went to Women’s networking diner / evening on Tuesday night. About 60 of us meet once a month at a restaurant. There is normally a guest speaker and a charity supported on the evening as well. With Hubby gone, I was not looking at the time all evening so was much more relaxed.
I woke up early on Wednesday morning (4.30am in fact). I couldn’t go back to sleep so I got out of bed and went into the office – I planned to do a couple of hours work. Kids are on holiday so there is no school run either. (Isn’t it funny how you spend your life wishing you could sleep in and when the occasion presents itself you can’t). My PC had downloaded some updates over night and wanted to do a reboot. So while this was happening I looked around for something to do and suddenly felt the urge to clean out our storeroom. 2 Hours later I had finished and was really impressed with myself – it was like I had achieved a personal milestone. I then went and had a long relaxing bath.
A friend called on Monday evening asking for some help on a tender document for AFCON 2013 that had to be submitted by Friday afternoon. Me, being a nice person, kindly agreed (sucker!). I had already requested all the relevant details but of course I had still received nothing by Wednesday morning. All I really had to do was compile all the information ready for submission – easy peazy. I re-read the tender documents and took down the relevant notes and sent off some more emails nagging people for the information. I didn’t realize what a big job this would be. Firstly there were 2 tenders and not 1 and they wanted 1 original and 5 copies of each and there were 2 parts to each tender. So this amounted to 24 files of information that had to be compiled and copied and punched and sorted etc etc. But as I didn’t have any of the information yet from the team, I couldn’t proceed.
I met some associates at noon on Wednesday at a HP demo centre. They were considering buying a Latex Printer and wanted my opinion. So I spent an hour drooling over this machine. Watched it print and have decided I really want one – no idea what I would do with it but I want one!
Then back to the office to see if anyone had bothered to send me any information for the tender documents. Needless to say, my inbox was empty. So I sent off some more emails begging.
I had my weekly meeting with my IT staff on Thursday morning. Then it was back to concentrating on the tender. I was now getting annoyed as people were not sending me the information I needed. Finally some stuff started coming through on Thursday afternoon. At this point it was crunch time. In order to get the 24 files out by Friday, I would have to work late. I eventually seconded Son no 3 and 4 to help and we worked until midnight on Thursday copying and filing the information we had. There was still a lot missing but nothing more could be done. I was promised the balance of the information by 8am on Friday.
I collected Hubby from the airport at 11am on Friday and rushed back to the office to finish the tender documents. The rest of the information came in dribs and drabs until 2pm on Friday. At this point I was in crisis panic mode. I eventually got everything boxed up and someone collected the boxes to deliver. She delivered the boxes 10 minutes before the deadline. Whew!
My body was now in agony – I have Un-diagnosed Soft Tissue Rheumatoid Arthritis in my hips. I take a pill for it every second day and it is usually not a problem unless I push myself physically. I could barely walk I was in so much pain. So Friday evening was spent uttering the words OW every time I moved.
Feeling much better today and plan on spending the weekend doing nothing!