The little things that count...

This morning started off like many other mornings... I was going about my usual morning routine, and while doing my make-up and hair decided to have a look at Facebook.  While scrolling, a post caught my eye... It was a post on a group I belong to called "Benoni Now and Then" which is a group entirely dedicated to the town where I live... little old Benoni, where you don't need to be famous to be able to say "do you know who I am?"...  The title of the post jumped out me: THE MEMOIRS OF JOAN AITKEN (NEE WEBSTER) - 3 July 2007

 (Da daa da daaaaa …. A hula hoop post) You’ve heard all the talk… hula hooping is a great exercise and gets your tummy in good shape (and all the other good stuff that goes with it)… You’ve tried hooping with your child’s hula hoop, and failed… miserably…  Then you went off to a department store and found a hoop in the gym section, and thought you’d give that a try too.  Maybe it worked, perhaps it didn’t.  You try and try and try… And the hoop keeps falling.  You want to give up.  I nearly did, but I persisted. Next step.  You google hula hoops and discover that hula hoops aren’t all the same.  You actually get such a thing as an ADULT HULA HOOP.  So what’s the difference?  A small kiddies hoop is made of very light plastic and is teeny tiny.  I know many kids who can’t keep a kiddies hoop up!! 

Have you been married to a drug addict? Someone who sold your and your children's belongings- yes, pretty much all of them... Someone who gets wired and beats you up because he became paranoid...and then tells you and everyone else the next day that you harmed yourself- even having an answer for the shoe bruises on your back...  Plucking up the courage to walk away only to be faced with other hard knocks. Have you then thought you would get your life back on track- moved into a little fixer-upper while he lived in his nice house in an upper class area, "living the life".

In May this year I went on a Spa getaway with my Pure Romance sisters.  It was not something I could easily afford at the time, but I worked hard at it and just made enough to pay for the weekend getaway.  Things were bad in my relationship (even though I refused to acknowledge it), and I was looking forward to a weekend away with the girls.

A “bucket list”, it is a list of all the goals you want to achieve, dreams you want to fulfill and life experiences you wish to experience before you... well.... kick the bucket. Life is short. You need to live it to the maximum.  You don't want to reach the end of your life and look back and sigh at what could've been. I'm an earth sign and like my feet firmly on the ground, but there's a few items on my "bucket list" that I just have to do...

Telephone etiquette.  Has it totally disappeared?  I pride myself on telephone etiquette at work.  It is my job.  I am a personal assistant and I answer the switchboard all day.  I always answer with a good tone, no matter what my mood.  Always “one moment please”, “going through”, or which ever comment is needed (not “ok” or “just wait” which are remarks I have often heard in our Rainbow Nation.

On 20 June 2014 , about 6 weeks after my entire apple cart had been upturned, I decided to start my 100 happy day challenge. I started it for myself, as it should be.  I decided I was not going to let somebody else dictate my future happiness and hold the upper hand in my life where he no longer belonged. I registered on the website www.100happydays.com and loaded my first picture to Facebook that evening at 8:56pm. The post read “ Day 1. Happy because I have 2 awesome children.  Today – my son who makes me laugh every day ”.  A beautiful, sensitive little boy who has a sense of humour like no other child.  Whether he means to make me laugh by cracking a joke or doing or saying something silly (like: “smelling the garlic makes my mouth run” - trying to explain that the aroma makes his mouth water), every day he’ll get a giggle from me.

I like food Let me re-phrase that – I looove food.  Roast dinners (potatoes, and butternut, veggies and gravy)...chicken-a-la-king … pasta … cheese sauce …more pasta.... sauce (I love sauce) ...and… and… and… I like good food – not fast food.  I like healthy food.  I like food (and chocolate...of course. Blush).  If there’s food – I eat it. 

A friend and I went shopping on the weekend.  We both decided we were in serious need of new underwear.  Having both previously been in long term relationships with the now very likely prospect of another man in our life, we realized how tatty we’d let our underwear become!  Funny how as we get more comfortable in a relationship, we start allowing ourselves to get more comfortable beneath our clothes.  Yes, comfort is key, but tatty is not. As women, we should take pride in what we wear.  I always find, if I feel sexy underneath my clothes, that sexiness transfers to the outside.  It doesn’t matter if anyone is going to see it or not, take pride in your under garments, even if only for yourself.  It could make the world of difference to how other people see you. 

… and happily-ever-afters.  And Romance.  And men with good old fashioned values. Don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for women’s rights and equal opportunity, but there’s something magical about a man who treats his woman like a princess.

I don’t mind winter too much.  The cold is never fun, but what I do love is the clothes– I find them to be quite stylish.  Its usually what’s worn underneath the top layer that is generally anything but sexy.  As I sit and type this, I’m wearing 3 pairs of socks – one of them being knee high thick woolen socks.  The other 2 are for warmth on my feet.  Unfortunately due to the thick socks, I find the soft material of my work pants sticks to them and start riding up – showing everyone my socks.   I try to stick to black socks with my black pants, but sometimes I forget and I wear my stripy pink or multi-colour stocks and its not a becoming look for the office.  Today I am also wearing my “big girl panties”… I’ve been wearing a figurative pair for a few weeks now, but today called for an actual pair of “Spanx”-type pants under my work pants (my butt cheeks get cold – very cold).  Nobody can see them (the Spanx), and hopefully nobody will (a...

It never ceases to amaze me how some people’s way of thinking goes a little astray… The saying “do unto others as you would have done unto you”… of course some people joke (or not) about it actually being “do unto others before they do unto you”…however some people seem to understand it to actually be “do unto others as others have done unto you”. The first works, the second two, however, do not. If somebody has wronged you… do you go out of your way to hurt somebody in the way that person hurt you… Does that sit well on your conscience? I couldn’t imagine it would. I’m a big believer in Karma… What goes around, comes around. Aren’t you just fuelling a vicious out of control fire… one that you started. You may blame the person who wronged you, but it was actually up to you to put that fire out when it burned you. But to take that fire, move it somewhere else, then add fuel, is just going to end in tragedy.

What makes somebody stay in a relationship where you know the other person isn’t in love with you… I can’t really answer because that. Is it because he said he loved you and you believed it? Did he ever mean it, or was it always a lie. And it he meant it, when did it start becoming a lie.

My life has taken quite a different turn... never did I expect anything like this was about to happen. Maybe I should've seen it coming but I didn't. My love for someone totally blinded me to his feelings, and somewhere along the way he stopped loving me. Maybe he never really loved me, I guess I'll never really know. You hear the stories, but you never think it will happen to you. The stories where the man just walks out with no warning... well it happens. I thought we had a match made in Heaven, but he felt different... or felt the same and perhaps it scared him. Well, it takes courage to stay and work on things, so if running is what you do, then I'm better off without you. Thank you for making me a stronger woman.