c'est la vie

So here we stand ... 2014 is peeping cheekily around the corner, waiting for the 24 hrs of its  predecessor to run to an end.  2014 is waiting in the wings, shiny as a new penny, unblemished, filled with promise and good intentions.  In 365 days time, what will you have done with that year? Wasted it? Put it to good use? Blemished it? Used it in a blaze of glory?  Perhaps pause a moment and consider the many options open to you.  I myself have pondered the question at great length over the past two weeks or so ..... What will I leave in 2013, what will I look for in 2014, what will I start, what will I end .... And who do I want to end the year as? I know that I want to say I can't or I don't know if I am capable, way less.  I am going to both listen and hear more.   I am going to remember that I have one mouth and two ears for a reason. I am not going to be quieter, more subdued, less involved or anything else to fit into a mould I will trust ...

So Christmas is over and I have eaten pork, chicken, silverside, turducken and lamb.  I have also had cheesecake of 3 different kinds, chocolate mousse, meringues, ice-cream, assorted fruit, lebkuchen and Christmas cake.  I have not had mince pies .... I would rather eat the latest issue of Good Housekeeping than eat a mince pie.  Mince pie ... stupid name.  No mince huh?  However I did have both shortbread and Quality Street chocolates at my priest's house.  No Christmas is complete without Quality Street chocs. He was the only person I knew who had them.   They are available 365 days a year, but in some bizarre mindset most people only buy and eat them at Christmas.  I swear in Feb I am going to buy some.  Oh no I will be on diet by then .... best buy them before 10 Jan.   I have drunk a wide range of stuff including a fantastic rose essence and litchi crush cocktail with vodka last night which left me with a divine taste in my mouth...

Fun times at the moment in my life.  The slowing down of the normal "hamster on a wheel" pace of my life has left me with more time to read, more time to blog and most strangely, more time that I am simply not filling with anything, which for those that know me well, is very weird and most un-Karin like.  Yesterday when hubby came home I was sitting at the dining room table.  Just sitting.  Not doing anything.  He looked a bit panic stricken because obviously it must have looked like I was waiting for him to come home so I could impart some terrible news.  "What are you doing Laverne?", he said ...... "Nothing", I replied "Just sitting and relaxing".  When I say that sentence most people follow it up with "Are you sick?".  No.  Processing.  Re-aligning.  Re-setting.  Re-finding.  Re-routing.  Call it what you like.  Just sitting.   I took my darling 6ft 2" son who is all of 14 years old, to Sportsmans Ware...

My hubby loves me.  A lot.  But there are some non-negotiables in our marriage ..... He will only do malls for movies, meals and necessities (buying me or the kids a gift, getting sports equipment for kids etc) ... no wandering, window shopping, trawling the mall, or as he so eloquently puts it "frikken faffing around".  Another non-negotiable is me eating anything at all in bed.  He wants no chewing sounds around him when he sleeps.  Bizarre. But that is not relevant here.   Thank heavens I did not take him to the mall with me and the kids yesterday.  Given the option I would probably have rather lazed in the pool as well.  When we got to the entrance of Game and could not even get into the shop door properly, plus there were no trolleys available, we did a quick reverse.   All this simply because for the first time this year we did not put up our tree on 1 December.  Yes it may be early but it is beautiful and we have our Nativity ...

So I am slowly slowly cutting back on coffee.  Slowly slowly being the 2 focus words of that sentence.  I have decided to give up coffee for Lent.  Because that will be beyond huge for me.  However if I go from my current coffee tally to zero on Ash Wednesday, I will be in jail by the day after Ash Wednesday because I will in all likelihood have throttled more than one person.  So the way to do it is to lessen my intake leading up to that day so that I literally am going from 2 to 3 cups a day to zero.  If 2 to 3 cups is what I am trying to whittle down to ..... then do the maths about my coffee intake.  Coffee is my friend.  It holds my hand when I am sad, it celebrates with me when I am happy, it sits quietly with me when I want silence, it makes me smile when I am feeling joyful.  It is constant.  It does not mind sharing my attention with my family, or my best friend, or my book or my IPad.  It knows that it is important to my...

This has not been one of my best December months for a whole lot of reasons.  It has felt as if I walk continuously with a cloud pouring down rain right above my head, only my head, 24/7, like in a cartoon strip. And each time I think it will stop, someone else stands on the ladder next to me and starts it off again. Between the renewing of my contract with my employer, an annual event which is stressful for me, the birthday of my recently passed away great-grandmother (which hurt like hell), my coming to terms with a great deal of changes in my life this year, my daughter finishing school and standing on the brink of her 19th birthday and new study direction and a past month which seems to me was surprisingly filled with people, mostly kindly, suggesting  how to "better myself", or in one case even the brashness of someone unknowing saying that I was not at all suitable for one of the roles I perform as a person, in my personal life ...... a comment that hurt as if someone...

Sometimes serious things can turn out to give us reason to laugh .... Or maybe we are not laughing ..... Maybe we are simply hysterical. Someone told me a tale about a submarine today.  It had direct bearing on me.  No the person did not say I look like a submarine or anything else inappropriate .... They simply used it in trying to get me vividly picturing their point.  It was a good and valid point.  The submarine comment just made me chuckle.  And it was said out of caring.  Given a choice between submarine and delightful ... I would wanna be described as the former.  Se-ri-ous. It is a bit like me using the word foghorn when my dear girl bursts in anywhere.  It is a very vivid description.  Her teachers at school always said they know where she is all day long.  I am continuously saying sssssh... And she rolls her eyes and says "ag mom".  And I do realize that it is quite apt for me too.  I decided I like it.  And ...

My daughter has finished Matric.  She laid out her clothes with great excitement and packed her bag.  She then said "we can take 35kg hey mom?"  ... My heart nearly stopped ....We breathed a huge sigh of relief when she stood on the scale clutching aforementioned bag and it was 20kg for the bag.  On the dot.  The cutoff weight for luggage on an airline.  She then rustled up her hand luggage .... With her bottle of wine for their first night ...... You have to think ahead if you gonna land after the stores close.  We were always good planners in this family. I have promised not to contact her all the time.  I have been impressive .... Even she says so.   I have called her once since Sunday .... The 2nd time was because she asked me to.   Because her camera got stolen. Out of a bag around her body. In a crowded nightclub.  Karma is a bitch and she will find you thief.  I wait for her to whatsapp in the morning and in the evenin...