Monday, 14 January 2013

Try Harder

What do you do when you have only enough confidence to keep yourself going? And then someone who matters, doesn't give you the encouragement you're seeking so desperately?
Desperately Seeking Affirmation - this is one of my biggest issue - the need for affirmation, from specific people, I seem to ignore the affirmation I get from the rest of my world, and desperately try for the approval of a handful of people.

So much "good" is happening in my life, maybe I'm just hitting a bad spot of self-doubt? I'm beating myself up about not having done my yoga yesterday - and want to say I will do it tonight, but I almost don't have enough faith in myself? This is pretty somber but I'm typing really fast and just getting it out. I need to believe!!!!

I keep repeating the following mantras to myself:

"She believed she could, so she did"

"Don't let your fear be bigger than your faith"

"Do not be hijacked by your negative emotions, find your significance and affirmation in God"

TRY HARDER SHARON!!!!!

Saturday, 12 January 2013

Stretch....


Have yoga video.... have mat.... do I have the motivation? Determined to find out tomorrow morning!!!

Friday, 11 January 2013

For Every Like This Gets...

... I will do one sit-up :)

Obviously with January (and my new flatmate)... the pressure (motivation?) to get exercising is on! I go a pedometer (the one from my birthday list) for Christmas. I've been tracking my steps over the last few days - an average day I only manage about 4000 steps, when I go for a walk for 30 minutes it shoot up closer to 8000. No brainer, right?

Best Friend challenged me to a 5km race in April - so I have a goal of sorts. Now I need a strategy... would love to say "tadaaaaa HERE IT IS"... but I don't have a sustainable plan. I tend to be naughty when it comes to maintaining.... anyone got a magic formula? I supose the bottom line is "No Excuses", "One day at a time"

Maybe if 100 of my Cape Town based FB friends each invited me to walk with them for one day, for 100 days... I mean it....



Thursday, 10 January 2013

Zoot Suits & Candy

Brother has been pretty strict about junk food intake, so when he said “Let’s put on Suits and eat these…” while waving chocolates, I was dizzy with excitement. For the longest time, one of my (many) turns of phrase has been “Zoot Suit” – which often, but not exclusively, refers to pyjamas…. So I rushed off, with Brother following me and started changing into pjs…. Only for Brother to ask “what are you doing?”… then I realised…. He meant the series…. We’d said we’d settle down the 2nd season of Suits…

*chuckle* loving my new life



Wednesday, 2 January 2013

Broken Hearted We Walk

Around my birthday weekend in November, my Granny was struggling with a chest infection, she was weak from coughing and hoarse, so I told her we could postpone celebrating my 30th. We never did get to have a knees up…

It’s almost a blur, she couldn’t quite shake the weakness after her illness, then her leg was very swollen, next thing she was in hospital for over a week with blood clots in her leg, and they discovered why she was so terribly breathless… her left lung was barely functioning, filled with water, with an embolism and evidence of a tumour. I remember almost fainting in the afternoon heat, holding Granny’s hand as she whispered “I’m dying” – I fought so hard to keep her spirits up while I was screaming inside. I remember driving to a friend’s house, tears streaming down my cheeks, screaming as loud as I could. I tried to explain what was happening to all my concerned friends, in measured tones… my voice sounded hollow in my ears. I didn’t handle it very well, I was cross, I was teary, my stomach cramped… I was trying to balance all the aspects of my life. I wanted everything to stop. I prayed and prayed.

 Granny went back to The Home, but wasn’t walking, and was so weak. We spoke about taking her to Christmas lunch in a wheelchair, we spoke about her 2nd great-grandchild, due in 6 months, we spoke about the things we would do, and we asked her to be strong. She tried, sometimes her wicked grin cracked through, she was her cheeky self. Other times she seemed so weakened and overcome with the December heat. She spoke of twelve’s; I told her she was staring at the clock too much. I felt so ill for the whole of 12/12/2012…. I didn’t want the twelve’s to mean anything. We got through that, but still tiny pieces of my heart were breaking off, I was exhausted, I was trying to move house, I was doing renovations… I needed everything to just be ok. I prayed and prayed.

The nurses tried to get Granny to walk, her legs just collapsed underneath her, we think that was the moment her left hip just gave way. Back to the hospital, talk of spending Christmas there, kind doctors telling us they wanted to get her comfortable. I felt so young and so grown-up as a doctor explained everything to me… I wanted to stop them, say “wait, my mommy will be here now… I’m just a kid” The hip replacement surgery was scheduled for Christmas Eve – we sat on nails the whole day, waiting to hear that she had come out of surgery – in the end they postponed the surgery, her blood was still too full of blood thinners. My heart sang as I held her hand and asked Brother to read her the Christmas story from the Bible, she would be “with us” for Christmas. I needed everything to be normal. We had a big family Christmas; we prayed for her, we smiled as her great-grandson opened the gift we’d bought on Granny’s behalf. We made a fuss. Mom took her a cracker and some chocolates. Dad and I went to her later, I told her all the stories, I fed her some ice-cream, and she grinned and closed her eyes in the sheer bliss that is slightly melting vanilla ice-cream. That funny, straight smile. I kissed her forehead and said I’d see her tomorrow.

Granny held on until about 4am on the 28th of December. God spared her for Christmas and spared her the pain of surgery. I couldn’t see her suffer anymore, and she really did struggle in those last two days.
 
"You are always in my heart"

 

Do you wanna come back? It's alright if you wanna come back to me.....


I’m not going to apologise or make excuses for not blogging – it happens. I don’t even know where to start and I’ve been writing little posts in my head for the last two months. I’m at work, I didn’t take leave and I do not have anything other than filing to do – I sit on Pintrest and twirl my hair. I might as well just write down some of the things that are whizzing around my head.

The soundtrack for this report back is: Cold War Kids, Wild Light and a couple of songs from the The Wombats and The Vaccines. Maybe not the happiest mix, but yeah.
 
It might take a few posts to catch you all up... bear with me, some of these posts will be hard to write.