One week in!

So, the week is only a week and a bit old and it's back to work again. I've decided to cheer me and you all up with a picture post today - my posts have become way too wordy anyway!

The New Year started better than probably any New Year ever before that. Because fiance and I live far from my friends, our circles have yet to properly mix - if they ever will. But on New Years it just so happened that both of us had our best friends with us. So I found myself wine glass in hand, standing in the kitchen with a smile on my face, listening to the happy chatter between the three of them as I made (yet another) curry. The curry was a bit watery, but the conversation, the walk to Long Street for the minstrel carnival, two courses of dessert and the warm fuzzy feeling inside, made up for it. Isn't it nice to have the people you love around you? Yes, indeed!
Here they are:

Fiance - pulling funny face

fiance's friend listening intently to my friend's passionate explanation of ... something or other

Friend (and bridesmaid!). Probably thinking 'do I HAVE to do this smiling thing now? am explaining something important!'

me - under influence of wine and so happy I couldn't bother to hold camera still

Then came the first week of work... stormy, to say the least. We were on deadline, I was in a mood, etc, etc.
So I took a few pics of the beautiful neighbourhood I live in to cheer myself up. Isn't this gorgeous?:

 

 

 

c-street, just down the road from us. Isn't it gorgeous?

mosque

 

 

william the cat waiting to get in. Food, food, food! 

William only a whizz of tail now as Manon arrives hot on his heels. Food, food, food! Who wants to say hello to the humans when there's a nice bowl of woolies pellets waiting? (yes, that's right - they only eat woolies. They actually lost weight when we tried to feed them cheaper food - they simply refused to eat it. Now that's what I call posh taste!)

view of our street in early sunlight on the way to work. 

 

Bliss....

 So the wedding planning, you may ask... Fiance and I kind of woke up for the first time since we started planning and made a list of what still needs to be done. YIKES!!! A suit, a ring, putting stuff on the registry, getting the lighting sorted, the wedding contract AND the fact that we haven't sent out all the invites yet (despite that the RSVP date was this week!) - that's just a small part of our 'to do-list'. But this weekend we killed a few birds with one stone - looked at rings, added some stuff to the registry, tried on suit and printed more cards. So we're getting there!

Also big news: fiance and I found a place to stay in! I now officially have a month left in the Bo-Kaap house. So sad :(. But do not fear, because Filmmaker, American Journalist and I are planning a mean party for the end of the month. Details to follow! 

As for running, I have an announcement to make.
This might sound like me bailing out, but since 'learning something' is also one of my goals, I think what I'm going to say now is ok: I don't think I'm going to run a marathon.
'No!', you're all screaming, I know. 'How can she bail on one of her goals?'
It did cross my mind, but here's why I think it's ok: In the past two months (after the last disastrous half-marathon I wrote about), I've realized that my biggest challenge is not to run far - but to run consistently. In fact, in my entire life that is the challenge. Not to be nice - but to be nice consistently. Not to do good work - but to do good work consistently. So I am officially changing one of my goals. It will now read 'Exercise at least three to four times a week, always' instead of 'Run a marathon before I get married'. I think the mistake I made was to think that having a goal will automatically keep me running at regular intervals.It didn't.
I'm not sure, but I'm guessing this lesson will come in handy in other areas of my life too... 

So finally, I leave you all with a video of the amazing Kaapse Klopse (or minstrel carnival - but the Afrikaans word is so much better!). We missed them on the night of the 31st, which is when they traditionally perform, but then there was a surprise waiting in the streets a few nights later, just before midnight. Apparently it goes on like this in the Bo-Kaap until February each year! What a joyful sound...

Things to be grateful for

At the start of December I attended a Thanksgiving dinner at Beth Uriel (BU). This is a house or rather, a home, where young men who come from difficult backgrounds are offered a place to finish school and/or tersiary studies. A lot of the guys don't like to talk about family or their childhood years, but they are more than willing to chat about their plans for the future. Consequently the guy who I was assigned to - lets call him J - never really answered any questions I posed about his family life. But it didn't matter. Turns out our first lesson at BU, it was me who had to learn something.
It somehow occurred to me that it was up to him whether he wanted to tell me anything at all, and I declined offers from counselors at the house to fill me in on the details. Who was I to dig into his past? I decided to let him be who he wanted to be in front of me, to let him make the decision about whether he wants to tell me anything at all.  It turned out to be a good decision and in fact I don't think he would have had it any other way. He could easily have refused my tuition - there are a stock of other tutors to choose from, all people who show up once the church has directed them to BU.
But J and I have struck up a strange friendship. He stays in his world and I in mine (and I can't decide if this bothers me or not), but he knows if he wants to know something about Afrikaans, he can call me. And I know if I need to be grounded, to be reminded that life is actually much simpler than I tend to make it, there is Beth Uriel and J. He jokes around with me about my work stress, I ask him about his love of rugby and the family life at BU. Sometimes I chat to the other guys (when neither of us feel like studying), or bring him books I think he might like. I save all my Huisgenoot magazines for him, he offers me a cup of tea when we work late. I don't know if I made even a little bit of difference with his Afrikaans marks (though I sincerely hope I have!), but J was the one who invited me to the dinner and I felt really honoured to be remembered.

Little did I know that I would yet again learn something from him, instead of him from me.

The thing that struck me most about the Thanksgiving dinner - perhaps predictably so - was the bright red Wall of Gratitude. Each and every resident of the house had to write down what they were grateful for and stick it on the kitchen wall. Once everyone - guests and residents included - were gathered for dinner (a traditional American meal with turkey and all the bells and whistles, my first ever!) we all had to say what we were grateful for.

People's reactions were mixed - some were shy, some were excited. Everyone got to say something. Some were grateful for family, some were grateful for Beth Uriel. Others were grateful to have friends, a meal. When my turn came, I thanked Beth Uriel (while all the while thinking of J) for allowing me to help and for just being my friend in return. J might not know it, but our tutoring sessions helped me as much as it did him. 

The whole experience also got me thinking about the rest of my year - not just the one with J and Beth Uriel, but also at work, in my friendships and in my personal life. I have a lot to be grateful for. A lot. So now, with this year coming to an end tomorrow night, I've decided to do another list of things to be grateful for. May it inspire you all to do the same! If you can think of just one thing that you would have stuck on the BU wall, I think you have a reason to go into the new year with a smile. Here goes!

1. I got engaged to a wonderful man.
2. I got to help someone out and make a friend in the process.
3. I have a big, wonderful, colourful family (umm... I still have to do a post about Christmas, don't I?)
4. Fiance and I found a place to stay in next year!
5. My mom and I had a good, much needed bonding session on Christmas day.
6. I have been averaging 3 sessions of exercise for the past few weeks. Yay!
7. I did have writers block and a mini-breakdown (sigh, yes! I even went to a psycologist! Will tell all at a later stage, perhaps in the Christmas post..) BUT I'm writing right now and I feel like I'm learning a hell of a lot through all my stressing-outedlness! :) 
8. My lovely friend is here from Pretoria (one of the bridesmaids).
9. I now have 8 bridesmaids. Eight! I know, I know. But just think of the party we're gonna have! :)
10. I will end off the year with (yet another) dinner party in the beautiful Bo-Kaap, with my fiance and our two best friends. Isn't that the loveliest new year's party you can imagine?

Running? Tick. Planning a wedding? Tick (esp now that I've got EIGHT right hands!). Learning something? Tick. Making friends? Definitely tick!! :) :) Happy New Year friends!! I leave you with a pic of me, J and the Gratitude Wall.

 

pulling faces, of couse! :) Thank you, J!

Big poofy dresses and love stories and things...

Sigh. Believe it or not, I am still on the subject of the dress. Laurie-the-fun-journalist once told me and Lesley (the friend who recently got married, where I cried my eyes out) that she still doesn't know if she likes her wedding dress. At first I was puzzled.

"You have this idea in your head," she said over coffee and a generous slice of cake for each of us, "but then you get to the shops and you try things on and it all changes. And before you know it, you've bought a big, poofy wedding dress, like the ones they have in the movies."

But now I know what she means. Yes, I know I told you all I've followed my gut feeling. But is a gut feeling supposed to make you feel all swooney and airy? This is what I wrote to Laurie last week:

"Laurie, I have to share this with you. Remember how you said that you still don’t know if you like your wedding dress, because the industry just confuses you and before you know it you have a princess dress instead of what you had in mind?

It happened to me. I bought a bloody ballgown!

Tell me it’s okay? I thought I was going to be an edgy, modern bride with an unusual dress. One that looked sexy instead of big and poofy. But I am officially now poofy! Big! Poofy! Big! Did I say poofy?

I am already plotting a second outfit. One that is edgy and modern and sexy....

But here’s my problem: what if I just don’t want to take the big white one off? What if I am mesmerized again when I come close to it and I just can’t get it off me on the night? I don’t know how it happens, but whenever I have it on I get this wistful, happy, silly smile on my face. That’s instead of the sexy, shy, cool one I had planned.

I will simply have to get my bridesmaids to drag me kicking and screaming from the hall, remove it by force and make me put on my sexy second outfit. That’s all." 

This is what Laurie wrote back: 

"Do not be afraid.
When the bridal fairies sew up these dresses in the Magical Kingdom of Weddings, far, far away, they sprinkle magic dust on them that, when inhaled, completely intoxicates the young maiden trying on the gown.... do not be afraid. You will be a princess bride. There is something magical about a wedding dress. I firmly believe they choose you, and not the other way around. The dress that wants to be yours will be yours - no matter what. It will hypnotize you and make you fall in love with it. And once you fall in love with it, you will love it forever.


If you insist on your edgy outfit - which I think is a SMASHING idea - then make a pact with your bridesmaids that AFTER the first dance (because you want to be a fairy bride and wear the dress that made you fall in love with it) you can change into Modern Edgy Bride.

Embrace it, because you just can't fight it...."

Sigh. I think I will trust Laurie on this one... not so sure even about the second outfit now. So here is a nice Taylor Swift video to get us all into the swooney, lovey-dovey mood....

Progress

Progress indeed!

Making friends: We have a new housemate (again!)! What a lovely busy house we have. I'll call her the American Journalist. She moved in yesterday and she works as a freelancer for probably the best newspaper in the country. Her focus at the moment is environmental journalism. Very, very inspiring!

Running a marathon: As I said in the last post, I've decided to not allow myself to run a race again before I've run at least three to four times a week for four weeks in a row. So I'm halfway through the second week after the last race, and I've run three times and gone swimming once. Not bad, I think, though I probably could have done more. I'm planning another running session in lunchtime today and a last one tomorrow morning - before I whisk off to Pretoria for the second weekend in a row. 

Planning a wedding: Invitations almost all sent out! I may also have found the perfect shoes for the bridesmaids, at a very good price. So excited. Still don't have a DJ, though, because the one we wanted is already booked. Bleh. Don't know WHAT we're going to do. Dancing is the best part of the party! 

Learning something: So this is probably not exactly what I had in mind when I imagined learning stuff, but I've realized that stres really affects me badly. As I've said, things are better at work since I've got a better idea of what I have to do for the next three issues of our magazine, but the past month - when we went on double deadline - really is showing. I stopped running (as was demonstrated in the bad race two weeks ago), I picked up weight (stres causes an uncontrollable craving for doughnuts, it seems. And it doesn't help that my Muslim colleagues know all the anties who make the best doughnuts in town and keeps bringing us boxes of those evil sugary luxuries almost every week). My skin also breaks out, I can't stop scratching when I'm this stressed and I don't sleep. BUT exercise makes all the difference, so I am even more committed to my running regime after this month. Let's hope the workload doesn't get out of hand before Christmas. I do have a wedding coming up, after all!

Learning something no2: My mom's best friend just published her first book, and reading it on the plane back to Cape Town from Pretoria last weekend brought up some interesting emotions. I have written something about it but I'm still contemplating if I should publish... watch this space.

Happy week

The loveliness of getting married seems to creep up on me slowly, but surely. It's like waves, actually. Every now and then it whacks you dizzy. And this week is dizzily-happy week!

Why?
1. I saw one of my lovely bridesmaids over the weekend and we had a lovely, big, girly chat on a beautiful winefarm.
2. I saw another one last night (cousin Zaria! She is still as mad as a hatter.)
3. Another one is coming to visit for New Years (New Years in Cape Town, whooohoo!!)
4. In a week and a half's time, another, different one is getting married.
5. I have a gazillion bridesmaids!!!! 
6. Tomorrow is Friday.
7. Work is better (I've been a bit negative lately)
8. I went for a run this morning (AND I've been healthy all day. Not a piece of cake or muffin in sight!)
9. We just booked our tickets to go see mom over Christmas (my mom).
10. I have a beautiful new photograph of husband-to-be on my desk at work. He looks dangerously handsome in it. Dangerously, I say. And I'm marrying him!

Also, lovely filmmaker of Butterfly Films screened a new film this week, and has a new website up. Stunning! Film is about a rehabilitation program running in our prisons now and I think it is a very, very worthy cause. Check out filmmaker's new website and film here.



So the happy list above should give you an idea of my progress, but do not be fooled: the run this weekend went horrific. Besides that I started slow and negative, I also went for a katabox class the Monday before with energetic Michael, the instructor, making us do all kinds of kicks and fancy tricks that had my hamstrings screaming bad words at me. I finished the race, but my time was that of a negative hamstring-carrying girl: 2 hours 43 mins (even slower than the previous one, which I called a 'training run'. Yea right). If it wasn't for a new friend that I made on the way, who knows what that time would have been...
But am going to stop the wordiness now and leave you with some pics.

so you can tell how positive I was if I was counting kilometres.....

like I said. Incredibly positive. See that puddle? that was me, not the water

more positive....

It was only when I started focusing on the view that it got a bit better. Shortly after, Vanessa entered the picture...



well done Vanessa! She got her pink number - this was her 10th Winelands marathon!



Eat Pray Love

I saw the movie this week and I think it's a good theme for the past week. For a good life, actually - not just one year of finding yourself. Elizabeth Gilbert and Oprah has this belief in common, something I believe too. Oprah says: "If you want to accomplish the goals of your life, you have to begin with the spirit."

I am so with them on that.

As I said last week, I was struggling with the premarriage course, but decided to reserve judgement until the end. I was right - it turned out better than I thought. Here is the lowdown....

This is what I wrote after the first installment of the course: (putting it in red so you can feel the fury)

Eeeeeeeek. It was damn difficult to spend an entire weekend focusing on our relationship! It left me feeling like our relationship has been put under a huge magnifying glass and taken apart by strict-looking, purist scientists. Some of the discussions went like this: in some homes, people have different cloths for the floor and the dishes, whereas in other homes, people just clean up a mess on the floor with the closest dishcloth. Which one do you usually use and what do you expect your partner to do? Then filling in exercises about the rules (like aforementioned one) that your parents had in their home.
Pause, please.
Rules? RULES??? People have rules in their marriages? AAAAHHHHH!!!!!!

As you can see, I wasn't very positive. I also don't respond very well to structure (as I now know), so the rigid hours - starting at 9am sharp, having only 10 minute coffee breaks and about 3 seconds of lunch - did not go down well. But then a few things occurred to me. A few surprising, important things.

1.) We made two lovely friends on the course. It's another couple who loves blogging, computer games and wedding planning.  (please tick off 'making friends' for this week).
2.) Besides the dishcloth issue, we revealed some serious stuff about ourselves to each other. Necessary stuff, but in a safe environment. (When the dishcloth thing came up, we just gave each other a confused sideways glance: 'nearest cloth okay?' - 'totally')
3.)  The fact that the couples who were presenting doesn't have divorced parents, doesn't make them perfect or naive, it just means they have less trouble believing.
4.) Some of them actually have divorced parents.
5.) Every single couple in that room will be there to pray for us when we someday need it, and I'm sure we will, because most couples do.
6.) God and praying suddenly starts making a lot of sense when you realize that in fact no matter what we promise or do, we can't guarantee anything. We can only trust God.

I gathered some useful info from some of my married colleagues as well:
Maret: "We didn't do a course, we went to the dominee. He said that we must remember there are different things that make a woman and a man feel loved: Men want to know that you trust him with your life, that you respect his opinion. Women want to feel safe and loved. Remember that and you should be fine."

Saafia: "When I went to the molenaar before I got married for my 'coaching', I was very negative. I thought he was going to give me the whole obedient wife spin that muslim women have to know. But it was lovely. He said 'Saafia, don't worry. Just remember if you want to paint the house blue, you can't just paint it blue. You must discuss it with your husband first. And that's true for most of the rest, too.'"

So last night we cooked pasta for our new friends from the course (also made quick emergency trip to get pizza after fiance had an unfortunate run-in with the pasta), ate chocolate, drank wine, and thanked God that we have this wonderful life where we can eat, pray and love all in our very own home.

Amen!

PS: A picture of Oprah for you. Not that I think you don't know what she looks like. But guess what? This picture was taken at the cakemaker's. Oprah's had a cake made at our cakemaker!! AAAHHH! I share a cakemaker with OPRAH!!!! It is very, very cool. Very!!!!!! I must remember to ask Jackie (that's the wife of Charly from Charly's Bakery) the story behind it. Apologies to everyone who thinks this is very superficial. I am sorry, and I promise I did not know this when I chose the cakemaker (and would not choose a cakemaker on this basis), but I am v, v big fan and I .... AAAHHHHH!!!!! .... can't believe it.

  

Fearless - a sneak preview to the next post...

(Isn't she stunning? I love her story)