one

i received a reply to an email from a friend recently… he seemed appalled that i was spending so much time alone, doing so many things by myself. how could this be?

i can see his point of view… i am a good looking late twenty-something single woman… i should be out there somewhere enjoying cocktails on the arms of dashing gentlemen, swooning at the attentions of intellectual fun-loving… ok let me not let my imagination get too carried away. in contrast i am doing all of these… things… alone. like browsing exclusive books. or sipping on mochas at seattle coffee company whilst burying my nose in a book. and even braving the weekend’s evening crowds to order a single ticket at the cinema. yes, one, one ticket to see… these things may be appalling, but i think he might be horrified to find out how much of my time is actually spent at home! (alone)

surprising as it may sound, believe me no one is more surprised than me, i am happy single… and happy alone. ok not always… but most of the time. this post, however, is not going to see me citing the benefits of being single. perhaps another day. no, that email awoke all sorts of questions in my mind. why am i not out on the town? are jo’burgers really such losers? am i really such a loser? where did all those people i used to know go? where does one meet people, with similar interests, in a new city? am i trying hard enough to meet new people? should i be swooping in on unsuspecting potentials with a “call me” card, and whooshing off as unexpectedly? seriously?

admittedly dating in the city can be devastating on one’s social life post said relationship. not only does one lose the friend in question, and that can be difficult enough, one tends to lose all those friends and contacts made during said relationship. and i’m not talking about potential dates, i’m talking about actual friends, buddies, like minded individuals. people one gets along with, shares interests with, people one might consider getting in touch with if there were an event one would like to attend, that one may no longer contact because of the “politics” of the break up bomb. as i said, devastating.

so perhaps i am better off sitting at home, enjoying my “me” time? at least i am spending some quality time with an intelligent, fun loving, like minded, might i say dashing, individual…

can you say del.icio.us?

remember that list problem i posted about? well it turns out that the solution was right under my nose... and it's even easier and simpler than i expected!

enter del.icio.us... i had heard about del.icio.us before... had seen references to it on blogs here and there... but had never actually gone to take a closer look. until yesterday's late late night at the office. i went to check it out, thought "hmmmm... ok..." and then started realising the possibilities whilst browsing the help files. here was my solution to easily updateable lists!

this is how it works:

• as i'm browsing the web i tag sites that i want to bookmark with del.icio.us' handy bookmarklets...
• i use tags relevant to the site as well as a common tag for sites i want to group together, e.g. "links"
• using del.icio.us' link roll generator, java script code is generated that i can paste directly into my site template.
  
• i can display all my del.icio.us bookmarks OR
• only those matching a specified tag
  
• now all i do is maintain my del.icio.us bookmarks

how awesome is that?!

a deserving age...

i have no idea what this (points to the title) really means... the idea originated from a quote by coco chanel off wisdom quotes "A woman has the age she deserves"... of course i am referring to my birthday this past sunday, 11 june... and i am one year older. do i have the age i deserve? my birthday has had me pondering all sorts of things about age and life and more specifically me and my life... and my age. at first i thought of my age, twenty eight, with horror... but i have slowly come to accept it, afterall, you're as old as you feel, right? if so, i'd peg me at twenty five... although there have been changes. subtle changes, like feeling more of a woman than a girl lately. how did that happen?

i had a really awesome birthday, if you were wondering... one of the best ever... that without trying, or rather me trying to have it shuffle by quietly... because it was on a sunday i got to celebrate pretty much all weekend... ok not that i did entirely, but i could. it really started with saturday dinner at Fino with my sister. a really quaint little place - all white, even the waiter/esses dress in white, with pink accents brought in by the roses and candle holders, etc... i can recommend sitting at the bar for cocktails and calamari hot tapas. but do not, i repeat *do not* be tempted to have dinner there. we were sorely disappointed, even though the evening ended with us giggling *almost* uncontrollably whilst trying to flee the scene as fast as possible.

sunday my birthday. for some reason i couldn't sleep well. it was made really special by my sister who sang happy birthday to me (so sweet), and who made me a lovely, if rushed breakfast and gave me a stunning gift - a fine bone china tea set consisting of 2 tea cups and saucers and 2 cake plates, all with a pretty pink design and interesting ribbing, along with a silver cake lift. then it was off to pretoria, the good ol' home town, for church and lunch with the folks. yum... nothing beats my mom's cooking! seriously. i also got to speak to my "oupa" whom i have not seen nor spoken to in over 21 years. i look forward to seeing him sometime, i have a very vague recollection of him.

then it was back home - jhb - to tidy up a bit and make snacks for the pre-party cocktails... i made some pretty funky looking cocktails with vanilla vodka, grand marnier, sugar syrup, soda water and pink food colouring! they came out a glowing (i do mean glowing) dark pink colour, and were decorated with pink cocktail umbrellas with a cherry at the end and pink straws. we have named it pink plush.

the party. one day i am going to say that david gray played at my party. in reality i went to the party and it was a seated affair at the coca-cola sundome. yes, you guessed it, the david gray concert. i have never been to a seated concert before... it was interesting, and david gray is definitely the right type of band to be seated for. watershed opened up for them, an enjoyable starter. i'm not going to say much more beyond that it was an awesome concert, the stage effects were beautiful, and the concert made the perfect ending to one of the best birthdays i have had.

vive le twenty eight!

here are some age-related quotes i rather like:

I'm not interested in age. People who tell me their age are silly. You're as old as you feel. - Elizabeth Arden

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm. - Henry David Thoreau

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. - Abraham Lincoln

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. - H. L. Mencken

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post script
- i went for a mtb cycle at logwood on saturday with one of my cycling buddies. although i enjoyed it, i have almost completely forgotten how to handle technical riding / obstacles. i have bruises now. thank you very much.
- i did my first official volunteering stint at botshabelo... i thoroughly enjoyed it, can't wait for saturday's visit again. although it left me tired, combined with the exhaustion from the cycling of course...

coincidences abound...

so i am going ahead with my application to volunteer at the botshabelo babies' home... i've sent in my application, and basically got the go ahead, except for having to submit some documentation... including a police clearance! i am really excited about this... i'm really looking forward to spending time with the little ones...

anyways... i was googling for the nearest police station (with the move i have no clue where anything is!) when i came upon a blog mostly about south africa and it's current events... rather interesting. then i surf over to david's cv... and low and behold he also grew up in pretoria, went to tuks and studied a bsc in computer science... not only that, but he's involved in putting up online dictionaries, the first (i think) of which was a northern sotho dictionary... which i studied up to matric level... scary. well to me it is anyway... i mean it's not everyday i come across someone who has so much in common with me. ok i'm starting to feel silly. i'll go to pottery now.

listing lists lazily

Here's the thing, right? I'm lazy... in a good way! I want to be able to list lists and update lists in my blog template, without actually going in and editing the html everytime I want to do that... anyone got any suggestions to anything *free* that i could use? even if i have to log into a site to update the list, and have it automatically update on my site... hopefully someone out there has a solution...

examples of lists i want to be able to list and update:
- links
- movies (what i'm watching / have watched)
- music (what i'm listening to)
- books (what i'm reading)
- wish list
- the possibilities are endless...

out and about

this week certainly has been a busy one... life in general seems to be pretty busy... busy but where does all the time go, what does one have to show for it? i'm finally settled into a routine of sorts with my life... days go by, i go to work, i come home... i don't feel unsettled, upside down anymore... life is pretty normal. not that i don't wish for a little more excitement sometimes, but generally, everything is a-ok.

one thing i am pretty proud of is my starting the abs diet again (baby steps), and orbitrekking every morning when i wake up! i am enjoying the healthy meals, and strangely enough don't really miss all the eating out and junk food... sometimes it is tempting to go get take-out for dinner, simply for time saving reasons! i tend to get home pretty late, never leaving before 18:00 to avoid traffic - yes, i live closer to work, but traffic is a part of life in the city of gold! - but also because i get to work late... man it is a mission to get up in the mornings! i don't know whether it's the cold weather or just my age catching up with me! ;) heheheh...

talking about ageing... i attended a wine tasting on tuesday evening! yes, yes, a bit of a lame pun, but if i'm going to be comparing myself to anything it may as well be a good red wine... :) anyways... i had quite an enjoyable time. the wine tasting was held at the pretoria botanical gardens' venue hall, with live performance by Brandon Stafford (singing) and Kevin Feather (keyboard)... and a handful of estates to sample from. but alas, i wasn't really in the mood to get sloshed on good wine, not after a hard day's work and the prospects of driving home alone from pta to jhb (g)looming over me, so i sampled a few wines, and then headed off to enjoy the pleasant company, music, live entertainment from little kiddies running around cute as buttons, and a great port from Beaumont. i really enjoyed Beaumont's wines... and the guy (the name eludes me at present) presenting the wines was really great as well... he certainly knew his stuff!

we were also planning to go to the hillsong concert after the wine tasting, however were disappointed to find out it was sold out! ok ok... so we should've known... but we never really paid much attention to that kind of thing before... call it an element in the new spiritual journey... or something like that!

"yay!" the techie in me shouts out... i finally downloaded and installed feedreader! it's great to be reading feeds again... there's just something about it, abstracted away from the clutter of the web page... not that i don't like web sites... web sites are great, especially when beautifully designed...

what do i have to show for my time? besides blog posts and the everyday debris of living? well now... a product of my own hands... lovingly created... a beautiful little vase! :)



it was made by joining 2 pinch pots together, beating it into shape with the back of a wooden spoon, and then cutting it open again and adding the rim... rather funky eh? check out flickr for many more pics, and to oggle the funky glaze... very different from what i had originally intended, but spunky nonetheless.