FIVETRIBE

I dont usually talk religion/spirituality on my blog. Mainly because I prefer to keep a low profile but also because when I do, people tend to hear everything that I am *not* saying. So it gets messy and I get irritated. But today I am going to share with you – in someone elses – extremely articulate words exactly how I feel. I was so stoked to be given this quote by a friend who knows me exceptionally well, who shares a similar spiritual journey. She knew well how deeply this would resonate. “I have found, that in order to break out of the stagnant and redundant traditional religious paradigms we have inherited and to overcome the many blind spots in our belief system, requires the courage to say “I don’t know how to hold these ‘truths’ intension,” and the humility to resist the Evangelical lust for certainty , the willingness to embrace the mystery and being willing to accept and live with some paradoxes.”    Andre Oosthuizen So there you have it. I dont have al...

What a crazy month it has been in terms of hair.  First off, you should know I am not precious about my hair. It grows like weeds so I mess with it without much concern. This was early September, I was hating my hair so decided to cut a fringe, texturise and layer the sides. I began hating the short fringe and looong hair. Thought it made my face look even longer. Decided I wanted to cut it around shoulder level. Took this picture to my hairdresser. My hairdresser, bless her, talked me out of it. In fact, refused to cut it so short and instead did this. Short, choppy layers on top  and long bits. Not really suitable for Mam Long Narrow Face! I went back the next day to ask her to cut more off the length because it felt unbalanced to me. She cut maybe an inch and sent me packing! I went straight from her salon to another one down the road that many of my mates use. I booked a 2pm appointment and cut my hair AGAIN that very same day.  I am very happy with the result. ...

Things I have achieved this week: Booked to see an ENT for Hooli’s tonsilectomy, hope to do it when we home from UK Cancelled swimming from end of October. We have a pool and summer is here, yay! Chucked out mountains of my and my kids clothes – all winter stuff that wont be worn next year. Taken the dog to the vet – innoculations etc before she is kennelled for our trip. Set a new personal best time for a 5km run. Started reading 2 new books. Life of Pi and Surprised by Hope. Cut my hair. No less than 3 times in the last 5 days. Seriously. Coloured my hair. Only once though. Taught Lulu how to make me a perfect cup of tea. Taken my kids on a picnic. Played Rounders in the garden. Gone for family walks in the evenings with dog. Braai-ed and gardened. Mentally making lists for the UK trip next week. Pondered and cried and laughed and reflected And its only Wednesday people! Just think what I could to by Friday?

This past weekend we celebrated Heritage Day in South Africa. It was a spectacular weekend and we spent most of it outdoors, that is, except for when we were supporting our Bokke. The kids have really become engrossed in the spirit of the World Cup! We lit the fire, threw on some meat and played ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’ much to the delight of the kids. I dont actually *play* with my kids like this very often. Sure, I am around but I tend to let them entertain themselves or each other. It is a rare treat for them to have me actually join in their games! (I also played rounders yesterday – that was awesome fun!) I would like to be more animated and begin to try enter their world a bit more. Tough for some of us adults to just remember how to have childlike fun hey? We also really needed our pool solar blanket to get a good scrubbing so set the kids to *work*. At first there was much grumbling as to why they had to clean it…until they realised the entertaiment opportuni...

Remember this post?   Back  when simplicity was my goal and I was making small subtle changes to change our lives? I decided to check in and see how I am faring with my ‘Steps to Change’. I have come to realise that living a simple life is very complicated. And it takes serious commitment. It is so easy to become sucked back into everything that you despise yet seem to gravitate towards daily. The most notable fall down area is television.  I have blocked the kid drivel, again. NIp it in the bud as it is now school holidays! The other is facebook. I love and I hate facebook. The most recent discovery I have made is that it steals my blogfodder. Instead of blogging an event/moment/thought I “status” it in a few lines.  This is not right. So many moments have been lost to fb no-mans land. Not any more. I am also not reading to my kids. I think because the girls love to read so much I just leave them to it. I should be reading to Hooli but he is resist...

The mojo. Where does it go? Sometimes blogging seems so ridiculous. And then I glance over at my shelf and see all my blog books from the last 4yrs and I remember why I do this. For them, the little people who live with me. Somehow it seems I had so much more to say when my kids were very young. They used to do funny things, drive me crazy, keep me up at night,  be utterly cute and someone was always milestoning. Nowadays they are pretty normal functioning mini people. They still say crazy things occasionally, which I do blog, they still do interesting things and all that but somehow it *feels* different. I think, back then, I used blogging as a form of release. To ease my mind, my nerves and to preserve my sanity. (and brain functioning) Today I dont need it as much as I did then. I hope I am able to sustain writing, for them, my kids because I know they will miss it if I stop.

My man and I have been wanting to run together for ages. But our schedules are impossible, he cant run during the week and on weekends one of us generally has to stay with the kids. I bought him a Garmin for his birthday! Walking the uphill This morning he decided to work from home. I took this opportunity to coax him into a little trail run and how awesome it was. Granted, time was off the essence so we only had 40mins to spend together but it was wonderful to finally make a start on something we both value. We have asked our char to come in at 8am on Saturday for 2 hours so we can try run every Saturday morning together. I must confess the route I chose today was wildly ambitious. I was clearly severely misinformed as it was a very steep uphill for the first 2km….while I can run forever on flat/downhills my uphill endurance is revolting. I am pretty sure my man (who has built-in fitness) found it highly amusing that his so-called fit wife was puffing and panting like a ...