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Text of the page (random words):
e physically went our different ways in life at a good point while we were still kids and picked right up where we left off primary school reunions vs high school reunions give me the former any day we ve kept in touch through various means mainly facebook stalking so we have a good idea of where we are in life and who we are some of us are related married in family some are friend family from barefoot days and some of us had parents who dated their parents before they dated our parents we ve known each other since we wore polyester gym shorts ran free and didn t give a flying before crushes and conflicts and teenage angst when we were all just kids getting together this weekend was simply jumping back into our kid days relationships where everyone was who they were and no one tried to fit them in a box some are still staunchly religious others brought their beers and smokes many are somewhere in between no one really cared though it was just lekker to be together and catch up we ve all gone different directions in life not one of us has not had a kak time at some point one lost a child one a parent one a brother two have fathers with parkinson s one has a mother so ill she can t travel one a sister who is barely keeping head above water many have parents who have split and remarried all our parents have aged dramatically from those golden days and it scares us collectively we have vegans and carnivores offspring and not our kids are older than we were when we last saw each other as a group and yet we haven t really changed not deep down scarred but alive doing adult but still kid crazy but there are things lost and sitting with this group of wonderful people made me realize that i ve lost something important something which some moaned at me about i used to be arty creative i used to write and draw and make music i had a fantastic imagination i was the chick with glasses outside the cool circle but hey we all were and it didn t stop us that creative side of me has disappeared firstly arthritis piano playing gone also no longer playing in a church and church stuff is about all i could play the last time i tried to play the piano my fingers were stiff striking keys painful and that muscle memory of tunes rusty to non existant if i were to turn up to play in a church now i wouldn t know the current songs i didn t know them the last time i went to one what i knew well is long outdated and no longer used then there s the art it takes time i don t have time you can t whip up something in 5 minutes and go tada nope i slapped some paint on a canvas a year or two ago but haven t finished it and don t like it i have other blank canvasses staring at me daily it also takes money unless you re painting with mud and sticks on the nearest road i don t have money for art there are other priorities like food and shelter and i don t have inspiration writing also takes time i used to blog prolifically now it s smatterings and those i actually fear to publish because i ve lost my michelle voice other than talking to clients bloody constantly and craving silence when i don t have to i don t say much either out loud or on paper storytelling and creative writing are gone along with my voiced opinions and beliefs creating cool stuff also disappeared i have these half formed thoughts of fantastic things i want to make thoughts that die like a drought blasted potplant before they can grow big enough to bloom it feels like my brain is full of cottonwool i used to sew i made many of my own clothes household decor heck i even embroidered now my sewing machine is hauled out for fixing stuff only and mr price homeware is my friend even the creativity of crafting beauty in a garden is gone i can only glance sadly at my overgrown jungle as i rush out to work each day and hope the few things hurridly thrown in the soil survive a weed onslaught plus neglect i looked around at my beautiful friends this weekend and felt that loss where i ve shrunk creatively and personally most are either making a career of it or incorporate it so thoroughly into their daily lives that i m completely jealous of what they are able to do there s a deep beauty in them that i m missing that radiates straight out of their souls a me ness that finds its voice in things i could never even imagine doing i keep telling myself one day when i retire i ll be creative again those tiny sparks that still try to surface now and then will grow to an unstoppable flame but i m not sure this is like riding a bicycle i fear that it s a use it or lose it situation and that i m now so far into the lose it side it s not coming back posted by michelle at 10 08 2018 12 18 00 pm monday october 08 2018 0 comments limiting factor i woke up angry this morning last night i had to attend a meeting to re negotiate an important contract as the sole lamb to slaughter representative of one side of the argument i failed i am very bad at thinking on my feet increasingly terrible at remembering vital contributing facts and unable to fight bullies i go in full of enthusiasm to do this right to act like i actually own the business which i do and end up defeated the more i think about it the more i realize why i have not shot up the business world ladder as a leading woman it s because i am the limiting factor i am not good at business fighting i m a frikkin peacemaker people pleaser and soft target for wolves i am easily hurt flustered and intimidated i look at some women who have broken through to the top and realize they fight well mostly because they re absolute bitches in the corporate world they can take out the competition with one swipe and get what they want i can t i only realize hours or days later where i went wrong and am not able to correct my path second by second in the middle of the fray i m simply not destined to be a force in the corporate world frankly the thought of the amount of interpersonal conflict required to get there says i don t even want to be i really should rather keep away from people there are more than enough ways to make a living without having to spend my days fighting for steps on invisible ladders being shouted at by nasty humans and battling one up manship it would be best if i found one of those ways as soon as possible and left this business world crap to a bulldog with teeth posted by michelle at 7 27 2018 11 06 00 am friday july 27 2018 0 comments small towns on our recent roadtrip to joburg and back we went the back roads cape town to calvinia then up to britstown where we joined the road to kimberley from there to joburg and back the same route it was a lovely quiet road with things to see on the way and no excessive trucks roadworks or other kak en drama we passed through many small towns on the route some were lovely and some were simply dodgy one of the dodgiest was britstown coming in a close second behind wolmaransstad driving in on the back road you turn left to head to kimberley and fuel is to be found on your way out at the end of town we stopped there to top up and were immediately accosted by beggards old and young they were insistant beggars made the stop very unpleasant on our way back we headed past our turnoff to the other side of town and found a much nicer cleaner and friendlier fuel place but again beggars everywhere insistent and pushy while filling the tank i got chatting to the young man wielding the nozzle about life in his little town about water weather how crime is down and he doesn t want any city folk moving in to spoil that and about the beggars he told me that they are doing road upgrades in the area at the moment but that once these were done they would be back to very high unemployment rates once more these guys were just the tip of the iceberg i cannot stop thinking about that conversation how does one go about fixing unemployement hopelessness and lack of viable future for the residents of a small town isolated in the middle of a crossroads to nowhere there are only so many employment opportunities to go around the garage the shop the school that s about it and yet the homes are in need of repair and painting the roads could do with fixing in the suburbs that we turned through to get back to our exit route they don t have the water problems of the cape despite being in an arid environment supply and demand is balanced by the relatively limited population they re the middle stop on a long road whether you re heading north south east west or somewhere inbetween they re the only town for the nearby farming communities they have a boutique accommodation farm a few km out of town they have all the vastness and stillness of the beautiful karoo region surely there should be some encouragement to make the most of these is it a case of no one knows where to begin no entrepreneurial spirit that ferrets out opportunities for service and income laziness easier to beg than to work or is it that you have to have money to make money and the unemployed have too little to even start so i went looking online for answers as to what was being done and found the usual a conference where institutions and charities had gathered to discuss to make bullet points to do presentations and nowhere in all their reports from 2016 could i find a single practical resolution as to what precisely they were going to do not a single indication as to one concrete step that was given to one of those institutions or charities to go out and do instead they sat around and talked about it and those communities are still living with excatly the same problems i would love to have the means the time and the experience to go gently into a place like britstown sit with and listen to its residents and hear what is right and what is wrong about their town to find and inspire people who can find and inspire other people and turn it from a dodgy begger ridden hole to the kind of place its people can be proud of not to change its inborn small town character but simply to give it hope posted by michelle at 2 20 2018 11 35 00 am tuesday february 20 2018 0 comments hereditary thought struck me this week my mother was my age when she was diagnosed with breast cancer she died ten years later age 56 stress and hormonal changes approaching menopause may well have been contributing factors i m living with both of these right now it may be time to pay better attention to my health posted by michelle at 2 15 2018 11 12 00 pm thursday february 15 2018 0 comments grind to a halt 100 years ago inventions and innovations were in full swing think of all the major steps in flying driving technology household goods and office machines etc that happened then there was simply a gigantic surge in stuff being discovered made tweaked and lightbulb moments 100 years later we seem to have ground to a halt every now and then someone comes up with a brilliant new invention or discovery but most of the new stuff today is merely reworking things that are already discovered shining them up and adapting them for a slightly different market so where have all our inventions gone why are we not making leaps and bounds given the incredible wealth of info collaboration networking and knowledge every single one of us has access to i think it s because we ve literally ground to a halt when was the last time you were so un busy that you had time to sit down in peace and quiet and finish a thought train or endless hours available to experiment create try or mistakenly blow something up nope we don t have that luxury anymore instead of all our inventions giving us more time to expand our horizons and delve into becoming richer human beings both materially and in depth of person we spend our time running around after the numbers required to keep up with the joneses or simply keep bread on the table we herd ourselves into cramped accommodation and follow the crowds hither and yon a lack of invention the daily grind has ground us to a halt there are no science labs included in your hours long commute there are no libraries and a comfy chair at the office kids are kept running from one extramural thing to another instead of being left to wonder explore and discover where they fit in to the universe for themselves adults work sleep and eat leisure time is spent in collapse or distraction not doing something profoundly meaningful or important and that leisure time is limited to mere minutes hours or a day on a weekend i wonder what would happen if we collectively claimed back our time and our lives posted by michelle at 12 12 2017 11 18 00 am tuesday december 12 2017 0 comments perspective i must be getting old i don t see the point of virtual reality when you can have real reality instead i start raising an eyebrow when the majority of the population spends all their time on their devices oblivious to the world around them i don t get the quest for the latest upgrade the brag right wars of brands or the bigger and better or smaller and better i especially don t get their price tags i look at our neighbouring professional gamer and wonder why anyone would want to spend their days sleeping do a 3am burger king every night live in a virtual hole with a computer and a bed but not much else neighbours having a party by 11 i m hoping they shut up and go to bed reckless driving nope i m becoming the speed limit sticker to who gives you the evil eye if you drive like a doos though i do ensure i get up to that speed limit at a respectable pace with due consideration for others on the road night out less noise please more quiet eclectic experiences no doef doef or dragging yourself home drunk as the birds start chirping night in preferable i m watching my health what i eat what i drink how much i sleep i m choosing natural over artificial whether food medicine or just living dumbing down my preferences to the purest and simplest forms available i m getting more and more cynical about the whoring habits of one of our friends the religious habits of many of our friends and the quest of most of the planet to integrate themselves with things that track them call them watch them and do stuff they should bloody well be doing for themselves i m valuing the handcrafted the lasting the lost art living skills more and more i m increasingly concerned about our planet our resources and how to be self sufficient i may just hit a stranger one of these days for littering or leaving the water running i m developing strong opions on things that didn t used to matter but have also learnt to keep my mouth shut and i m really looking forward to retirement posted by michelle at 11 26 2017 04 44 00 pm sunday november 26 2017 0 comments age not just a number you ve seen them the old folk moving their book closer and further trying to find that focal point where they can read and hoping it s not somewhere beyond arm s length this morning that was me not a book but an attempt to re thread my sewing machine needle and realising that it wasn t as easy today as...