Solitude Day 6 @Writersbootcmp

Day 6: Doors and Windows.....

Kathy needed to get away from it all, time to think and reflect. The sudden death of her twin sister at age 27 had left a scar so deep she wasn't sure it would ever heal. Suicide is such a selfish act she thought. No one benefits and those left behind are just filled with questions. 

Kevin had been her rock, he was the love of her life and he was hurting too. She knew he would always be there for her but could she trust him? Then there was the letter she found one night while packing up Maggie's belongings. "Dear Maggie, I can't do this anymore. I hate lying to Kathy she deserves so much more. Yours Kevin"

What were they lying about? Why did Maggie slam the door in Kevin's face the last night she was alive?

So many questions, so much not said.

She rented a private cottage down by the lake. Two nights of solitude will be good for her. She could clear her mind of these thoughts and decide what she was going to do next. Should she confront him with the letter? or say nothing. Thoughts all racing through her head at once.

She arrived with her overnight bag and two ready made meals. The door was a little tricky to unlock. Three locks and a security pin to enter. After she was a million miles from anywhere so security was very important. The bedroom window had the most gorgeous view of the lake and also attracted the early morning sun. All the windows had wooden shutters to block out the harsh sunlight. She decided to close the bedroom shutters as she wanted to sleep in and didn't want the morning sunlight to disturb her much needed rest. She had not slept well for weeks now and felt exhausted.

It had been a very long 4 hour drive and she was tired so she opened the bottle of wine she had stashed last minute into her overnight bag and sat down with a big sigh.

"Tomorrow" she said out loud to herself "I'll decide tomorrow". 

And then just as she was about to drift off into a deep and peaceful sleep, there was a knock at the door.

Dream job Day 5 @Writersbootcmp challenge

I must admit I found this topic a bit of a challenge:  Topic for day 5: Find a job ad in the paper. Write about your life if you had that job.

I mean I already have two of the best jobs on the planet, why would I look for another one? First problem I found was that the only newspaper we had in the house was used to start a fire in the Jetmaster. So I deviated a little and searched online for a job I thought sounded interesting.
Job ad: A 5 star luxury Lodge situated on a beautiful Nature Reserve is looking for a lodge host (live in).

5:30 am Wake up, shower and get ready to face the day.

6:00 am Check bookings to see who is arriving today, check on breakfast requirements of current guests.

7:00 am Check with maintenance to make sure the hot water has been fixed in chalet 24

7:30 am Breakfast served to early guest in dining room, make sure guests who requested room service get their breakfast at 8 am.

8:00 am Have breakfast

8:30 am Cleaning staff arrive, hand out agenda, laundry detail etc.

9:00 am Welcome new arrivals and ensure they have correct rooms.

9:30 am Apologise for mix up in room 13 for incorrect breakfast order, ensure customer is satisfied with your apology.

10: am Organise day trips and outings for guests in rooms 12, 16 and 22.

11:00 am Tea break (sit and marvel at the awesome surroundings) you live and work on a nature reserve for goodness sake, soak it all in. Get interrupted by a complaint form room 14, go check it out.

12:00 am Oversee lunch detail

13:00 Have your own lunch by the river and contemplate living another life or being elsewhere.

14:00 Check out for guests in room 21, organise shuttle service.

15:00 Afternoon game drive for guests on the special stay package.

16:00 Check on domestic staff, ensure all empty rooms have been cleaned and linen has been replaced.

17:00 Domestic and gardening staff leave for the day, security check.

18:00 Ensure dinner requirements are met and welcome evening bar staff.

19:00 Retire to your room (with a much needed glass of wine) and hope no one calls with another complaint. Maybe watch a little TV

Oh how lucky I am to get to mingle with foreign guests of such a high calibre and to live in such beautiful surroundings.

I just couldn't live without.....Day 4 @Writersbootcmp

Obviously my first thought to this question was...My family, my children and my soon to be husband, but then upon reflection I realised, I could live without them. I just don't want to. 

My next thought was an income or my home, but again, realistically I could be homeless and I would still be alive with most of my faculties intact. I probably wouldn't be very happy, but you know...alive.

Then there are the frivolous things like, my cell phone and laptop that allow me to connect to the world. You often hear people say "I could never live without my phone"

So I had to think even deeper, what is the one thing that is constant in my life, the thing that if you took it away from me, I would still be alive, but would most certainly go insane without?

MUSIC!!!

Yes, I love music, all of it (except for heavy metal, can't stand it) I have an eclectic taste when it comes to music. The type of music I listen to depends on my mood at the time. I mostly enjoy classical music, it soothes my soul. I can listen to someone playing the piano, violin or acoustic guitar for hours and never get bored.

I have the radio on constantly when I am driving, I hate to drive in silence. When I get home the radio or CD player is on in the background keeping me company and when I'm in a party mood there is nothing better than an awesome sing-a-long pop song to get me going. Dancing stupidly in my lounge when no one is watching. And then there is karaoke!!! but that goes best with alcohol.

And on weeknights after dinner Scott sometimes whips out his guitar and plays while I sit in awe of the sound. That's when I am most happy.

My greatest Fear @Writersbootcmp Day 3

My life used to be ruled by fear.....

When I was 24 I was promoted to being the boss and became principal of the nursery school I was teaching at. I was a terrible principal, partly because I was so young and had 3 kids and a hectic schedule, but my biggest fear was letting people down. My family was so proud of me for my achievements that I never let the cracks show and this led me to attempting suicide on the 24th of November 2000.

When my kids were little, their dad was quite harsh (not abusive in any way) but he would moan at them if they broke a glass or bowl by accident. So whenever someone broke something in the house we would hide it from him for fear of him finding out and crapping all over them about it.

When I finally decided to ask my ex for a divorce (after 22 yrs together) I was wrought with fear, scared that I was making a huge mistake. Afraid of the future and not knowing where it would take me. I had been married to this man since I was 16 yrs old and didn't know how to be an adult on my own. Fear of the unknown and fear of disappointing my family who were dead set against the divorce led me to procrastinate about it for another year before I finally took the plunge.

I met Scott while I was still married, but in my heart and in my mind my marriage was over long before I ever met him. I didn't start a proper relationship with him for fear of my kids thinking he was the reason I left their dad, he was not. I was afraid of what other people might think of me and I was afraid of the future. I had no idea if leaving the life I had known since I was 16 was the right thing to do or not. I was afraid of making a mistake. Again afraid of failing at life.

I did it anyway, I overcame that fear and today I

can honestly say that I have no clue what the future holds, I have no idea if I am going to be a success at anything I do, but dammit I gotta try right?

What's my biggest fear? FEAR itself.

My 5 Favourite words @Writersbootcmp #blog

Day 2 of the @Writersbootcmp challenge and the topic is: My 5 favourite words...... so here goes.

1  Serendipitous- Occurring or discovered by chance in a happy or beneficial way.
                             Just love the meaning of this one!

2  Scrumptious - splendid, delectable, pleasing or delicious.
                           The best way to describe anything that gives you a mouthgasm.

3  Onbeskryfbaar- Afrikaans for indescribable.
                             Some times Afrikaans words just sound more meaningful than their English counterparts.                                Imagine if the love of your life said: My liefde vir jou is onbeskryfbaar!!!! oooh lala. My                                    love for you is indescribable. Also I like the fact that it's spelled exactly the way you say                                it.

4  Prestidigitation - Performance or skill in performing magic or conjuring tricks.

                             I love this word mainly because it's such a difficult word to pronounce correctly and little                                children generally struggle to say it. Also you can play that game; Say prestidigitation 10 times                               in a row really fast without getting your tongue in a twist. (bet you can't).

5  Bonjour - Hello, a greeting in French.

 I have always loved the sound of the French language. I purchased a 'Learn to speak French fluently' CD and a French dictionary about 10 years ago. Can I speak French? erm....no, but it's still on my bucket list.

Even if you know me well, you won't know this

The past couple of months we moved house, started planning our wedding, had a few ups and downs

a photo I took last year on my blackberry

financially and through it all I have neglected my blog. I am not a prolific writer at the best of times so my blog has never been a priority. So I decided to try this challenge in order to get me in the mood to blog again.

Even if you know me well, you won't know this: * I suck my thumb. I do it when I am comfortable and relaxed. I can't fall asleep without it and I have not been able to stop. If I have a cold and my nose is blocked I am highly irritated because if I have to breathe through my mouth and that means I can't suck my thumb and if I can't suck my thumb, I can't sleep. My family tried all sorts of things to me when I was little to get me to stop, needless to say, none of them worked. 

* I like symmetry in my decor, like if we have lamps in the bedroom next to the bed, they must be identical. I do not like things to be out of place in the house and will get very annoyed when things are not put back in their proper living space. I realise I have 3 step kids, 3 grown up children and 2 grandchildren, so when they are all visiting, the house is always a mess. I love having my children over and enjoy their company, but feel very stressed after they have gone, because now I have to put everything back in its place. On the upside though, I find cleaning helps to calm me (as long as I am left alone to do so) and I feel a great sense of achievement when the house is neat.

* I have very strong feelings about toilet paper in odd numbers!!! (now I can see your raised eyebrow and hear you mumbling under your cough "batshitcrazy") I have no idea why, but I cannot buy toilet rolls in denominations that are uneven. You buy 2, 4 or 24 but never 3, 9 or any uneven number EVER!!!! My fiance thinks this is quite funny and will often throw 3 toilet rolls into the shopping trolley just to get a reaction out of me. Shame he doesn't get out much and has to get his entertainment somewhere.

* Lastly I hate not knowing something. Like if you start a sentence and then halfway through say "Ag never mind it's not important" This is a pet peeve of mine. Now not only will I forever wonder what it was you were going to say, but my mind will obsess over it and think of all the gazillion possibilities of what it could be.

I dislike Sci-fi movies and heavy metal music. I love classical music, Akon, autobiographies and thrillers.

Oh and I love trees!

And here endeth confession hour.

The evolution of the favourite button

When I first joined twitter I used the favourite button for several things, saving a link to read later as I had no time now, a compliment I wanted to treasure, or a mention from a celeb to keep just in case no one believed me. It was only reserved for tweets that were of importance or profound in some way.

Yes like most people I followed celebs back in the day in the hopes that they might actually converse with me, I know. I was wrong, I know better now.

Lately I have noticed that people have been favouriting the most arbitrary things, things that were not particularly important and I wondered why?

So I mentioned this on twitter the other day and a few people responded with their reasons for using the favourite button.

People are using the favourite button as a type of acknowledgement akin to the like button on Facebook.

When you say something and I like it, but really have nothing to add to it....favourite.

When there has been good banter, but the conversation has now come to an end ... favourite.

When you rant and rave about something and I agree, but don't necessarily want to get involved in a rant fest....favourite- I acknowledge your point and maybe agree.

Or my personal favourite....When you passive aggressively subtweet someone and they favourite your tweet!
uh oh...they saw! and maybe they are oblivious to the fact that it was aimed at them and actually like your statement or maybe, just maybe they are saying: Uitgevang (Afrikaans for caught out). I see what you did there.

This is of course just the opinions of myself and others, if you have a different reason for favouriting a tweet, do share.