So I Guess I’m Telling People now

I’m pregnant.

Would you look at that?

I still have a blog.  Amazing.

I doubt anyone out there is actually still looking to see if I might post anything.  Don’t worry, chances of me becoming a regular blogger again is virtually zero.

I’ve just never been that into documenting my life in any way.  I get bored too quickly.

That probably makes me a bad mommy too, since I don’t catalogue my daughter’s milestones either.  Meh, sorry, at least my husband takes a LOT of pictures.

Anyway, this blog will stay here.  It has it’s uses, and maybe something will change, and I’ll regain my will to blog again.

Don’t hold your breath though 😉

The Reunion

Okay, so it went a lot better than I expected.

You may remember that I mentioned my reunion a few weeks ago.

Last week Saturday was the big day.  We ended up being an hour late (we’re always late), but luckily it was pretty informal so it didn’t matter.

The first thought that went through my head was: “I’m not the only one who got fat….YAY!”.  Apparently my own body issues was my only stumbling block to having a good time.  That, and how quickly I could get….lubricated.  Hubby and I cracked open our wine and let the good times commence.

It was so good to see how everybody had grown up.  There were your odd pockets of people that still wouldn’t mingle with anyone else, but for the most part everyone chatted to everyone else with none of high school prejudice we had 10 years ago.  We laughed and reminisced and talked the night away.  We had a few quiet moments remembering all of our friends that had passed away since we matriculated (11 in total, I was told).  All in all we had a blast.

In fact, so much of a blast was had that we’ve decided to have a reunion after party.  Only about half of our year was able to make it to the reunion because of the long weekend so we’re doing it again….in summer.  They’ve even specifically requested that everyone bring their kids along instead of leaving them with sitters.

I can’t wait!

 

The end of an era

I’m in the process of coming to terms with the fact that my mom is moving away.

My parents have travelled throughout South Africa quite a bit over the past few years, and they fell in love with the Eastern Cape.  Three years ago my mom started making noises about buying a house in Port Elizabeth or close by to use as a holiday house and maybe to retire in one day.  Then suddenly in December, they bought a plot and started building a house in Jeffreys Bay.

That’s when things started changing.

My mom started getting very unhappy in her job.  She held a fairly high position in the company she’d worked for for 10 years.  She made very good money and mostly enjoyed what she did for a living and the recognition she’d received over the years, but it wasn’t quite the same.  She complained daily about the childish politics and the ridiculous workload that her boss kept increasing (the hazards of being very, very good at what you do).  She and my stepdad went down to J-Bay as often as they could to check on the progress of the house, and she was miserable every time they got back.  She’d had enough of the rat race that had been her life up to this point.  She wanted to start her own business.

In August, she got an opportunity to attend a seminar about women in business.  She told me that the two days of the seminar where real eye openers (and this from a woman who wasn’t all that keen to go a few days prior).  She had a one-on-one session with the presenter and told her about her plans to maybe open her own business at the coast in a few years’ time, being very non-committal about it all.  The presenter then turned around and told my mom that the only thing holding her back is herself, and that she’d have her business up and running in three years or less.

Not even two weeks later, things at her office started going awry.  She’d been called in to attend a disciplinary hearing for a mistake that her department had made, which she would have to defend as the department head.  She’d been placed on suspension until the hearing could take place.  She phoned me the Monday morning to tell me that her hearing was on the Friday and that she might lose her job.  My heart skipped a few beats before the tears started streaming down my face.  My mom had been through so much in her life and had worked so hard to get where she was, just to have it all taken away from her again.

She never made the hearing.  She resigned on the Thursday, choosing to take the severance package instead of being fired.  She’d decided that she was going to follow her dream and start a business, and that everything that had happened over the past year were just signs telling her that it was time to go do what she wanted to do.

So this is it.  My mom is leaving for J-Bay tomorrow.  Leaving to go to her new home.

I wish her every happiness in the world and I’m so excited for her, but I can’t shake this feeling of sadness that I’ve been carrying with me since hearing that she’s moving away.  I’ve never been so far away from my mom for any length of time.  I’ve always been able to get in my car and get to her house in an hour or less.   Whenever we’d go visit my in-laws, we’d make a stop-over at my mom’s house on the way home.

My family and I spent the day at my mom’s house on Saturday, having a bit of a farewell party.  This past weekend was their last weekend here and all my brothers and sisters were there to say goodbye and to wish them luck on this new era in their lives.

We stayed there as long as we could, leaving at 10pm that night.  I took one long last walk though all the rooms in the house.  I spent some of my happiest years there.  I’d loved and lost there.  I’d said goodbye to beloved pets and welcomed new ones into my life.  This was the house where my husband and I had told my mom that we were getting married.  It was the home my mom had created for me after a very hard time in both our lives….but it was time to say goodbye.

I’ve shed many a tear over the past few weeks, knowing how fortunate I am that my mom is only moving away.  Knowing that I can still call and email her every day.  Knowing that I’ll see her again in December when we go down to spend a week or two with them.  Knowing all of this, my heart is still breaking at the thought of my mom being so far away.

Good luck Mom.  I know how excited you are and how hard you’ll work to make a success of this new venture.

I’ll miss you.

xoxo

On absence

There is a reason why there is such a huge drought between my posts.

I don’t like writing about day to day happenings.

I find no interest in writing about possessions that give me joy or the latest scandal at my office.  Frankly, when I do try writing about them, just to keep up a steady run of posting, my posts become as boring and mundane as the things I write about.

I prefer to write about things that make my heart ache, whether in a good or a bad way. I prefer putting emotion and passion into my posts.  That’s not to say that I don’t believe that other bloggers have feelings about what they write. I just don’t function in the same way.

The funny thing is, when I can feel how much passion and emotion I put into any particular post, I don’t care as much about what others think of my writing.  It’s the only time I do it for me and only me.

My point really is that I probably won’t ever write very often, but when I do….its going to be with every ounce of passion that I have in me.