Power Struggle

For real!

Power… as in electricity.
Not the kind that runs through our veins 😛
The kind that powers a household… lights, no camera, but fan action for the heat (no aircon).
The kind that a business needs to be able to operate.
The kind didn’t exist way back when.. but we’ve been really grateful ever since it got discovered!

WELL!!!

I’ve mentioned loadshedding before. Where they cut our power for time periods throughout the day and night. Suffice to say we have an energy crisis. BUT! In order for me to NOT get all political on you, and maintain my inner peace on this very humid Sunday morning, I shall refrain from saying more. You’ll have to Google it! Ha! (And it may be best not to discuss it with me 😛 )

ANYWAY…. we’ve reached pretty ridiculous levels of it the last few weeks.

(interesting side note : MY town, where I live, is the only one who loadsheds 3 and a half hours at a time! Everyone else has 2 and a half hour slots. Hmmmm.)

I’ve had more than my fair share of days where the schedule means that out of the 16 waking hours in my day, we only have power for SIX hours!
Bearing in mind, my water supply dwindles when there is loadshedding too.
So… in those 6 hours, I am trying to catch up with washing (clothes, dishes), shower, vacuum and clean the house, try and give attention to computer work stuff, etc.
AND, our humidity levels have been at around 94%. With very little cool wind accompanying it.
So when you are done rushing around trying to accomplish all you need to before the next time slot, and you’re starting to overheat, and finally get a chance to sit down. BAM! The fan goes off. Sigh!

BUT, HEY! AT LEAST WE STILL HAVE POWER, RIGHT? I have to work really hard to find the rainbows here 😛 😉

All of the above is my reason for being so absent.

Just when I was getting back into the swing of things, our ONLY electricity supplier said, ”NOPE!”

(Insert massive eye roll here 😛 )

Today, I have a reprieve of sorts. Our power was off last night from 11pm till 2:30am, and then again 3am till 6:30am this morning.
The good news is that it means I have a whole day electricity today – unless they changes stages again and notify us last minute of a new schedule. My power will be off this evening again from 6pm till 9:30pm.
But I have today 😉

My washing machine is working overtime, my vacuum cleaner awaits. But I had to pop in here and say HI 😉 Because I can 😉

And I thought I’d share some romance, just because. 😉

I love music. It’s hard to choose a genre. It’s even more difficult to pick a favourite song!

And yet, the one that gets me every time, is good old Frank Sinatra, and ‘The Way You Look Tonight’.

It’s been on my mind a lot the last few days and I find myself singing and humming it quite a bit.
NOOOOO! There is no romance in the air – no new interest for me. (Loadshedding DOES mean occasional candles though, and what’s more romantic than that 😉 )

But perhaps it reminds me that one day there might still be. Who knows?!?!?!

What I DO know is that it makes me feel warm, and it makes me smile.

May you all have love in your lives this festive season.
May someone glow when they think of you.
May you touch someone’s heart.

May your world be romantic, even if just for a moment, even if not with a partner 😉 ❤

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When I am frustrated…

… I WILL PERSEVERE!

I sometimes sit down and type random word documents ‘to myself’. They’re either part of a bigger picture, or just something that has struck me in the moment. I am currently extremely frustrated (it’s a very long story, ha ha!) and I happened upon this piece that I wrote about 4 years ago….

”Are you a stubborn person? I know I can be. Not all the time, but I have my moments.
Perseverance is stubbornness, with a purpose.
It’s a good kind of stubborn.

Albert Einstein was heard saying that he was not a very smart man – it was just that he ‘stayed with his problems for longer’. In other words he persevered, until he found the answer.
Did you know Walt Disney was turned down 302 times before he got financing for his dream of creating the “Happiest Place on Earth”. Today, due to his persistence, millions of people have shared ‘the joy of Disney’.

Thomas Edison said that many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

You’ve failed many times, although you may not remember. You fell down the first time you tried to walk. You almost drowned the first time you tried to swim, didn’t you? Did you hit the ball the first time you swung a bat? Heavy hitters, the ones who hit the most home runs, also strike out a lot.

Macy’s – R.H. Macy failed seven times before his store in New York caught on.
English novelist John Creasey got 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books.
Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times, but he also hit 714 home runs.

Don’t worry about failure.
Worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.”

Of late, I find myself waking up each morning to the sound of my alarm, and uttering with a sigh of relief : ”thank goodness I GOT TO WAKE UP this morning!”

The days are incredibly challenging, to say the least. And not just for me, but for so many who I know where the hits just keep coming, and not just ‘the small stuff’ that makes up daily life.

And so… my challenge to myself at the moment is to continue to persevere, to continue to be grateful, and to continue to search for the good, because it is definitely there, in each moment!

My hope for you is that the light at the end of the tunnel is NOT another train coming 😉 Just keep persevering, and may you be rewarded with something good! ❤

Life goals and Superhero’s

I saw this on me.me, and it made me wonder if I should reassess my life goals. Because apparently, Batman is it!

~ photo credit for the pic below : boredpanda.com ~

I also got it completely wrong! After finding a ‘boyfriend’ to kiss, I completely forgot to jump to step 3! (Must have been some kiss 😛 )

I also found another picture on boredpanda.com, and I laughed out loud :

I remember someone saying to me once, ”don’t take life too seriously, none of us are getting out alive anyway”. It was a quote they had read, and it was said with a wink and a smile.
The other day, as I was reminded of ‘silly life goals that were just plain fun’ when I saw yet another shared meme, I remembered that statement.

There is, indeed, a time for everything. And there always has to be a time to laugh! 😉

But what about serious life goals? (What? Being batman is not serious???? Good grief, Meg! 😛 😉 )

We all know it, but I’ll share it anyway. According to an article on Mindtools.com, the reason why we should set goals is this :

Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation . It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the most of your life.

Have you ever looked at someone, at their life, and thought to yourself, ”They clearly don’t have any goals in life!” Or perhaps you have chatted with them and concluded, ”they really need better goals – they’re not going to get anywhere with those”.
You know what? If you have never thought that way or reacted that way to someone in your head? Then I really take my hat off to you!
Sadly, I have ‘misjudged’ a few people in this way, over the course of my life. 😦

Recently, in my household, we have experienced the ‘Google is listening’ thing that seems to be happening. My son and I will talk about something, and suddenly we’ll start getting ads on our social media about that very thing!
I was comforting my daughter the other night through her heartbreak, and I went on to Facebook a short while later and suddenly a ‘suggested for you’ page popped up with a meme about heartbreak 😮

It seems Google can read my mind too 😮

I was sitting and thinking about this whole ‘life goals debacle’ and picked up my phone to scroll through Facebook, and the third picture I saw was this one :

I read it through a few times. It spoke to my heart in a way I can’t explain. And I shared it to my personal profile, with a caption, adding ” #lifegoals ”

If I have learned anything about myself the last few days, it’s that I have the audacity to believe, and hope, even when things are going wrong… or perhaps I finally have truly lost my mind 😛

Perhaps my life goals as listed above seem insignificant to you. Perhaps they don’t equal your interpretation of success.

But for me? I can think of no better reasons to be considered beautiful.
For me, these are my primary goals in life.
I want to come alive, while I am still alive ❤

Grumpy storms

My friend has a fridge magnet that reads : ”Sometimes I wake up grumpy, and sometimes I let him sleep!”

The first time I saw it on her fridge, I laughed…. just as her husband was entering the kitchen. And the chase was on. I think his intention was to tickle me to death, because ‘how could I agree with her‘! She came to my rescue, and I laughed my way through trying to apologise. Eventually, he agreed – he can be pretty grumpy, ha ha!

Well! The other day, I woke up stormy! And there was NO man in my bed 😛 😉

4:30am, and something disturbed my sleep. I looked at the time, groaned, and closed my eyes again – I still had half an hour to stay in bed! And then I heard it! Not even a rumbling or rolling of thunder. Cracks instead, that sounded like dynamite explosions in the sky! It was terrific, and a little horrific, all at the same time!

I hopped out of bed to get my coffee made, just in case our power went. While waiting for the kettle to boil, I looked out of the window and found myself in awe of the sky! I rushed to my room and grabbed my phone on my way out back – I simply HAD to get a picture!
Sunrise was only at 5:20am. But at 4:45am, this is what the sky looked like! (No edit done on this picture!)

The explosions in the sky got closer and closer, and woke the rest of the household at around 5:30am. My daughter came rushing out of her room, in a flurry of ‘oh my word‘ exclamations. And stopped dead in my doorway. I looked up from my reading and smiled, ”Quite a storm, huh?”
She was baffled! ”How are you and Lily so calm? Sheesh!”

My little dog was curled up, and still fast asleep. As if she didn’t know the storm was even happening around her! I was sipping my coffee, and reading, genuinely not afraid in any way. My daughter shook her head, and then disappeared off to the kitchen to make her toast.

I put down my book, because ‘my day now needed to begin’, and as I readied myself to face it in a way that would make me acceptable to be seen in public 😛 I found myself feeling very thoughtful when considering her words.

We all know that life itself holds plenty of ‘storms’.

The physical storm that we were experiencing in that early morning? I had absolutely no control over it, and I knew I had to wait it out and ‘see what happened’. Summer is coming here, and I know we are in for plenty of really big ones. The knowledge that they are coming, and that they will go (eventually, ha ha!) and that I just need to wait because I can’t do anything about them – something about knowing all that means that even when it sounds so destructive, I have a calm and a peace inside me. I know that sometimes there will be damage done that will need to be dealt with, but that I have to wait till it’s over, and then tackle those things.

It reminded me of this :

And I smiled. I have more work to do 😛

How wonderful if I could apply my reaction to physical storms, to all the other storms I have to face, that are not in my control?

If I look back on my life, the proof is in the pudding – a decadent chocolate one 😛 😉
This too shall pass!
(And hopefully not like a kidney stone 😛 )

I just need to shift my focus more towards the peace and calm 😉

Hoping for peace and calm for all of you, in whatever storms you may be facing right now ❤

a time to laugh…

I shall repeat what I always say… ”We’re all different”… and one of the aspects of that is this : what I think is funny may not even make you smile!
My children regularly come to me crying with laughter about something, and I just can’t feel it 😛 I’ll smile, shake my head, and say, ”nope”.

We all need regular smiling and chuckling time. It really is good for the soul.
I love the laughter that bubbles from deep inside me, and actually ends up giving me a stomach ache.
And you’d be the one shaking your head when you saw me, because you probably wouldn’t find it that funny.
(But you’d end up laughing till you cry… AT ME 😛 /with me 😉 )

This morning, I really needed to smile.

So off I went to my ‘Facebook funnies’ folder on my phone. I decided to share just a few (gosh, who knew I had so many!) with you…

HOPEFULLY there is at least one in here that will make you smile… or even chuckle, as an added bonus 😉

I hope you all have something this weekend that brings you happiness, and a reason to smile and laugh! ❤

Is love invisible?

This is not a romantic post! And in case you’re concerned about me, I am not depressed about being single either! 😛 Sure, it would be nice to have a hand to hold, and a shoulder to lean on… but that’s a whole other post entirely! Ha ha!

I am also not going to focus on the horror that is happening in the world right now! (Who needs Halloween? 😦 )
My mind boggles and my heart actually hurts every time I happen to see something ‘newsy’. Because, truth be told, I am trying really hard to avoid ‘the multitude of hurts out there’. Not because I am trying to hide from it, or deny its existence. Simply because, at this point, it is causing me major distress and far too many tears. Coupled with the frustration of having zero control over any of it, and not being physically ‘in that place’ in order to help in some way. Well… I just need to try and avoid it at the moment.

There have been events this last week that have made me stop.
Sit down, head in my hands, muttering out loud,
”Where is the love? How did we get here? Is it just temporarily invisible or is it gone?”

We see it everyday – impatience and rudeness with cashiers; irritation directed at the mommy who has an unhappy baby while standing in a queue; purposely not allowing someone into the traffic in front of you; avoiding helping others that you really could, because you’re ‘too busy’, or it would inconvenience you.

I think it was Oswald J. Smith who said :
”The heart of the human problem, is the problem of the human heart.”
(I’ve seen it adapted to : the heart of the problem is a problem of the heart.)

For me, it all comes down to love.

The Beatles were right! 😉 LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED!

For me, personally, love covers it all! Love is kindness, it is tenderness, it is patience, it is helpfulness, it is compassion…. and so much more!

I’ve been told way more times than I can count :

”You’re being unrealistic. You’re just a doormat. You deserve to get hurt. You’re idealistic. You’re so sunny, you make me sick.”

And those were from people who supposedly liked me 😛

But, everyone, I see the truth behind those words, and there are times that I need to concede that in a particular situation, they’re probably closer to being right than I am. Sigh.

There are times. But it’s not every time.
And the unfortunate thing is that being this way is what works for me. It’s what keeps me alive, in a way.

Here’s what I know : I can’t change the world. I can’t impact all of it.
In fact, considering how many people there are in this world, I probably won’t be able to positively impact even 1% in my entire lifetime!

BUT when it comes to this? THAT is not going to stop me!

I am still, and always will be, a firm believer in the ‘pay it forward’ effect – even before it was a ‘thing’, it was my belief.
Perhaps it is something unrealistic that I need to hold on to, to keep me going? Who knows! In this instance, I actually don’t really want to know or care about the WHY, I just want to keep doing and being.

My theory is that if I can positively impact one person, they may be encouraged to impact another, and that other may be encouraged to impact someone far removed from me etc.etc.etc.
(Please don’t try and change my mind – this is a worthy theory 😛 😉 )

A silly example : What if that mom in the queue with the crying baby is on the edge, wanting to give up? Perhaps her partner just left her, and she has no family or friends to help her. She’s in that queue, trying to work out in her head if she is going to have enough money to cover the needs her and her baby have in their basket. Her baby is miserable, because, well… teething… except she has been unable to give the poor little one anything because she has run out, and the bread and milk in her basket are unfortunately a higher priority right now.
Perhaps she looks the way she does not because she is on drugs, but because she’s been up most of the night, ran out of coffee a few days ago already, and didn’t have the heart to leave her baby screaming while she took a quick shower. Perhaps she is just exhausted. Broken.
AND THEN, a stranger in the queue in front of her (YOU!) turns around, not to stare with irritation at her crying baby, not to judge her appearance or add to her discomfort, but to smile at them both! To talk softly to baby and try and distract him or her. To tell Mom, ”oh dear, looks like you’re having quite a day!” To start a brief dialogue, that also distracts that Mom.
And perhaps, as she straps baby in, perhaps she feels a slight shift in her hopelessness, because she has remembered that there is still a small measure of kindness (love) in this world. And it inspires her to reach out, instead of give up. And maybe later down the line, she helps someone else!

(Yes, this is what I do. I look around me, not to pass judgement, but instead to try and understand. And help, if I can. I do the story thing often! It distracts me from standing in the queue 😛 )

Of course, it isn’t always as I have outlined above. Sad realities are sometimes harsher.

We do need to be discerning; we do need to protect our hearts and minds in some cases.

But I choose to NOT live as if love is invisible, or gone. Even if I do it alone.

I want to be more kind. Judge less. I want to be graceful – showing mercy and compassion to others. I want to smile at strangers, talk with those other people don’t seem to ‘see’, allow someone to go before me, even if they don’t seem to deserve it.

Please leave me in my fairytale 😛 It makes me smile 😉

Because all I need is love 😉 ❤

These five words…

But, what if I don’t?

For more than a month now, these words have been floating around in my head, altogether as a sentence, and I have NO idea why!

There have been hours where I have sat down, and carefully considered them. Attempted to figure out exactly what it is they apply to. And I’ve got nothing! No answer! No great wisdom imparted on me!

I’ve pushed them out of my head, and not thought about them! Because sometimes when we don’t think about something, the answers come to us, right?
In this case? Wrong! Ha!

And even when I am not thinking about them, they pop up at the most random times – just a thought that has no bearing on whatever situation I find myself in.

”But, what if I don’t?”

I’ve even googled them! And I am still clueless as to their ‘why’ in my brain!
It did, however, provide me with an opportunity to laugh – giving answers (sometimes when I have left out the ‘but’) along the lines of pregnancy choices (good grief, no!); romantic song lyrics (again : good grief, no! 😛 ); the inability to control someone’s loyalty (huh?) etc.
One search even suggested, ”what if I don’t pay my taxes?” Well, I do. So it’s not that one either! Ha ha!

I still have NO idea why those words are repeating themselves in my head a million times. I do know that there are a lot of little things I could probably apply them to… but at the same time, something in me says, ”Nope, that’s not it! Try again!”

In my search for meaning for these silly five words, I found some inspiration for us all for this Monday 😉

Here’s to starting, wherever you are! ❤

An old Western, of sorts!

They say that the ‘art of writing is in the rewriting’. If this were 100% correct, then the blog post I will be publishing should be a masterpiece worthy of an award. Ha ha!
I have worked on this post (written, deleted, rewritten) for almost four weeks now! Goodness gracious me! 😮

I’ve now reached the point of no return – I need to publish something, and so here it is. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. (She tips her hat, loops her thumbs in her leather belt, and puts one cowgirl boot forward. 😉 )

It’s been just over three months since my last blog post. That’s just sad! I didn’t realise it had been that long. And yet… at the same time… so much has happened in that ‘short space of time’ that it feels longer.

Long story short? (When have I ever managed to use less words when telling a story, ha ha?!? I’ll do my best here though…)

I’ve been extremely ill. And many will mutter ‘over exaggeration’, and that’s okay because even now when I think of it, it seems unreal that that is what I was reduced to! There were entire days where even getting to the bathroom seemed impossible, let alone trying to get my brain to focus!
I went from Severe Bronchospasm, to Bronchial Pneumonia, then Pneumonia, and throw in some Pleurisy too. Along the way (at the beginning, with sufficient time in between) I had two Covid tests, but both were negative.
Blood tests about 4 weeks ago (because I just wasn’t recovering) showed that I had indeed had Covid, and the conclusion was that I now have Long Covid. Up until the point of the tests, the fatigue (coupled with the chronic fatigue that I already suffer from) was debilitating, to say the least. Thankfully, treatment has been adjusted, and I can make it through a good few hours before I feel like my whole being will shut down.
The ‘Porridge Brain/ Brain Fog’ is something else… especially for someone like me! If you love to read, like I do, you will understand my pain when I say : I could not even read half a page in my book! 😮
And apparently I have developed asthma!

The GOOD news is that I am definitely recovering! So, my beautiful blogging world, you’ve not heard the last of me yet! 😉

I already know that what I am about to type now is going to hurt me somewhere deep inside, and the tears will fall uncontrollably as I type, and I will have to stop to try and settle myself, so that I can see the keyboard and screen, and get through this.
I feel my chest tightening already, and I am struggling to swallow the lump rising in my throat. I am actually feeling physical pain, as if my heart is breaking all over again 😦

Five weeks and one day ago, at 2:10pm, my beautiful big companion and very best friend (my boy, Toffee Dog, who I blogged about here, and have mentioned countless times along the way) collapsed. I had to rush him to the vet, somehow knowing that ‘this was it’. I still don’t know how I drove us there safely, and made it home safely. Because I sobbed, both ways. You’d need to read the blog post, and perhaps try to understand (draw on your sympathetic and understanding part of your mind), in order to appreciate the drastic impact this had on me.
Honestly, it was the hardest goodbye of my life thus far.
(He had a brain tumour.)
And true to being a psychologists nightmare (which I often declare that I am, ha! 😛 ) I still struggle to say the above out loud, and my composure still shatters, five weeks and one day later, when I think about him too much!
So… now that you have confirmed your suspicions that I am a special kind of crazy (I am smiling with my tears) let’s move on, shall we?

I’ll leave you with some good 😉

In the three+ months that I have been M.I.A from WordPress, despite physical and emotional pain, each and every day has given me an ‘in your face’ moment of gratitude. Something good has happened (albeit something small most days) in a way that I have been unable to overlook! An email; a message on my phone; assistance in some way (a meal delivered, my kids helping with the housework) – all things that brought a smile and a whispered ‘thank you’ to my lips.
All things that equate to acts of love.
Love that fanned the flame of hope, so that even if it wanted to, it could not die.

May hope spring eternal for all of you, every day, in some way!
Please don’t forget that the world needs someone like YOU, and you are loved! ❤

Thank you for reading. ❤ Here’s to me writing to you all again soon 😉

Where’s the photograph?

Photo credit : Pinterest

I am probably the worst when it comes to taking photographs! And I don’t just mean selfies. I mean in general. It’s pretty much an ‘every time’ thing : I see something, and a few minutes after that particular thing/moment has passed, something in my brain says, ”You should have taken a photo!”

It was my daughter’s birthday last week, and on the Saturday that has just passed, she had a small get together with nine friends (at another friends house) – a ‘party’ on a budget, and so I worked hard! Ha ha!
(I can confirm that my lungs still work well – I managed to blow up 17 balloons without incident! 😛 😉 )

Knowing how dreadful I am with picture taking, I asked my daughter to take photo’s of ‘the party’ for me! And then I got busy decorating, and setting the table.

The following morning, I was very excited when she came to me, cellphone in hand, to show me all the pictures she had taken.
But alas, there was not a single one of all my hard work! 😮
I did not let my disappointment show, and smiled and laughed as she enthusiastically shared all the pictures of her friends. When she was finished, I casually commented, ”Why no pictures of the food and decor; all the stuff I did?”

She smiled, and replied,

”Because, Mom, isn’t it better to see the amount of happiness and fun what you did produced? You know I appreciate everything you did – look how much everyone else appreciated it too!”

That made me want to cry!

Because I really had tried, on a very limited budget, and had been so worried that it would be a flop – so many had already had rather elaborate parties that I could never have ‘matched’… but maybe I did 😉
Because… despite everything that was lacking… the evidence was in every photograph of how much fun these teenagers had actually had! (Even though all my balloons, and prettily folded serviettes, and homemade foods etc. were nowhere in sight!)

It was yet another great reminder of ‘the little things that count and make big things happen’… like all those smiling faces and laughter as a result of a bunch of ‘little efforts’ in various ways!

Photo credit : shotkit.com

I sincerely doubt that I will ever really improve when it comes to ‘taking photographs’…
Maybe I am more the ‘maker’ of the photographs 😛

Here’s wishing you all plenty of happiness and love, and heartwarming tears 😛 , for the moments you create that bring joy into the lives of others 😉
(Even if you forget to take a picture 😉 )

Friday Feeling

I woke up this morning full of feeling.

One of those mornings where, as I am scrolling through Facebook, I find myself nodding my head and muttering, ‘I can relate’….. to pretty much everything….. the good, and the bad (unfortunately).

An acquaintance posted the Serenity Prayer :

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.

A few times every day, I find myself muttering, ”accept the things you cannot change”!
And, I kid you not, at least ten times a day, I whisper, ”Wisdom… please… wisdom!” (especially when it comes to having to use my words 😛 )

As I was about to scroll past, I noticed that someone had posted a picture in the comments, as a response. It made me giggle, and so I decided to share it with all of you too, and hopefully help you smile as you go into the weekend!
(I won’t tell you which part is the most relatable for me 😛 )

Hope you all have a super weekend ❤