Category: Miesblog

By golly another year has flown by so quickly that it seems I’m still trying to get the same gifts that I was last year. Every year I think I’ll have plenty of time to get into the ‘Christmas spirit’ and buy the most carefully  picked, personal and appropriate gifts for family and friends, and every year, I forget what I had thought of getting them, and of course find that my budget allows no such expense anyway.

This year we seem blessed with a beautiful yet modern-day-traffic-paralytic snow white landscape. One that Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and only those in the ‘olden days’ seemed to have had, and so inspired their cosy holiday Christmas tunes.

As traditions go, I seem to have a ‘thing’ with my Christmas tree. It’s a fake one, about 12 years old and even though I still treat it lovingly, I think it’s fed up with me and my decor. We seem to get along so poorly that for the third year in a row now, I’ve had to decorate it and redecorate it at least twice before we even reach Christmas Eve. Trouble is, it’s not very stable, adding to that, that I insist on putting it into a ‘proper’ decorative basket, for it to look its part, so it stands unstable and topsy-turvy and of course always ends up taking a dive !!! 

I have cried bitter tears over this, for I have felt it to be a personal failure and lack of girl power. Still, I refuse to let this tree spoil my holiday season by tumbling down every single time on me. It’s as if it wants to tell me, that it’s useless to keep the decorations up, that if I don’t properly position it and support it, no matter how gorgeous I make it look, it won’t stand. Basic rules I suppose, which apply to anything and everything in life. So why do I keep on stubbornly stuffing this tree in the same basket for going on 12 years now ?! And why did it stay standing all those first years ?!

I guess we need to lay a good foundation to build upon, and I just simply haven’t done that yet. I keep wanting to use parts of the ‘old stuff’ (read: basket/broken foundation) to rebuild, and I think that every year at Christmas time, the poor tree is trying to make a point.  And so, for yet another year, the tree has been done up twice already, and still, it leans towards ‘a fall’, something that seems unavoidable still.

I guess my Christmas wish for this year is that we all find that which we need in order to stay standing, to overcome, to prevail, to succeed and most of all to truly and triumphantly stand tall and sturdy, in order to carry our life and all its ornaments with pride and glory. May this next year bring us the tools to do just that, and in the meantime, please pray with me, that this year’s tree remains poised for just that little bit longer…

Fools rush in and all is fair in love and war, right?!  I have decided enough is enough. Enough countless years alone, enough horrid dates leading nowhere, enough agony over my utterly low self esteem, when it comes to men and relationships and how I should look, according to ‘God knows who’, to be honest. Enough overthinking every single little dilemma a million times. It’s time to,.. not just take but grab the bull by its horns and live. Just LIVE.

For someone, like me, who literally thinks herself sick, this will be a great task, one that I am not sure I will succeed at, but I have never been more determined in my life. It is time to let go and enjoy, to smell the scent of summer rain, and feel the cold of winter pain in every limb. No restrictions just plain learning to accept that maybe, just maybe, someone might actually mean it when they say they want to be with me, this time. Haven’t I been wishing just that for years now ?!


So I’m quitting the moaning, and groaning and making another attempt at actually not giving a damn shit  about what the rest of the world thinks or what I may think is the right or wrong thing to do. Leaving intact of course the ground rules of life and basic blueprint of it. Dizzy with excitement and carrying new expectations, I slowly awaken to the warmth of a soul reaching out to me, believing in me, more than I have believed in myself for a long time. I am absolutely sure that this new and daring approach will throw me ahead. It feels like I’ve finally exfoliated and scrubbed off all the ‘old stuff’. I take off my cloak of sadness and remorse, and bare my soft and vulnerable skin again to a new dawn.

Maybe we should all do this from time to time. I read in Paolo Coelho’s blog *, that when we turn the light on in our souls we will instantly encounter cobwebs, signifying the things we like the least about ourselves. So once in a while it’s good to clean and clear the soul of all it’s rubble and trouble. We’re only human, yes, but it’s exactly what makes us capable of change. So no use sitting around doing nothing about it.

It’s funny how we can think we want something and framework it into our life, only to find that some things just won’t fit in as we had hoped or wished. Some things come in different shapes and sizes but that doesn’t make them any less important or fitting. It’s the art of framing this into our life that makes us true artists. Daring to ‘draw’ outside the lines of patterns that never seemed possible, and pouring in the right colours, or elements will complete our work of art to make it something we can be proud of. Our own frame of mind is then formed, always leaving room for improvement and adjustments.

So, I’m carefully pencilling in fresh new lines, and painting rainbows in my sky. I suggest you do the same for as we paint our life on everyday canvas, we’ll find that hope is born out of faith and love just follows. As love does.

* Paolo Coelho’s blog  http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2010/12/11/cobwebs/

Time to discuss the wealthy life of our youth !! Living in this luxurious small piece of the country, it’s only logical that even our children’s lives are affected by our acquired richdom. From baby Ugg’s to Dolce Gabbana play outfits for garden parties. Why buy cheap if you can buy brands, and what better way to show how much money you actually have than by spending it on useful/less outfits for ever careful and grateful kids. Always keeping in mind that we’re actually helping others, for the invested outfits will be donated as ‘nearly-new’ or  ‘worn-only-once’ to the poor, because when you have so much to choose from, nothing gets worn (out) !! I’m sure the children of third world countries have much use for these juicy, well marketed  brands, if only to alphabetize themselves !

I contemplated slowly introducing you to the world of children’s parties, but there is just no way of keeping it subtle. They range from full blown outings to Disney Land in Paris with a handful of  brats darlings; to a cosy home ‘happening’ with their favorite artist on stage. Children adapt so easily don’t they, it’s so cute to hear them say that they’ve seen it all a thousand times before. How rich and valuable their lives have been so far, who else can boast about this at their age and how lucky they are.

We fulfill their every need, hoping that for a little while they will be satistfied, but each time it turns out a new rage finds it’s way into the schools and shops. Of course all the other parents have caved in and  supplied their kids with the new goodies, so we cannot be left behind. The toy shops we no longer dare to enter for fear of knowing  that we will not reach the exit without a handful of expensive items that will be old news tomorrow. Our children pleading to us that this time will be the last time they beg us for anything. Of course we believe them, and to stop their pain, we provide them with just that little bit more.

To make sure they not only receive material love, we accommodate them with plenty of sports and extra curricular activities, preferably driven by a nanny or carpool-mom-team. Never forgetting that we need to take our own ‘zen’ time-out, for qualitative family time, later…

There is one thing that remains, unfeigned, and that is our love for them, for no matter how spoiled our children become, they are a product of ourselves and we will always love them. I can’t help but wonder though, whether we are producing loveable human beings, or abominable ‘aliens’, who may never again settle into what life on this earth should be about to begin with. I guess in 20 years I will be able to provide us all with a more accurate answer, although something tells me, we may not want to know this outcome.

For now let’s party on and keep the indulgence level as high as possible, we wouldn’t want the next door neighbour to think we care less about our kids than they do about theirs, would we ?! 😉