Turkey: Souvenirs

In response to my travel posts about Turkey (Turkey Baby! and Turkey Logistics), I had a query from Verbal Sid about souvenir shopping and packing them for the return flight to South Africa. Thanks for the query Sid! I am gonna be lazy and copy and paste our email conversation. 

Stars & Stripes

I've slowly been uncovering a passion for all things DIY. Growing up, I would openly say that I was not a creative person. However, with age comes wisdom and acceptance of oneself... I now realise that creativity takes on many different forms.

One such form is my enjoyment of planning a birthday party or get together. It’s the small details that can make an event that much more special.You can read about some of my event planning forays on the blog (Monster Party and The Great Gatsby).

Tim Hutchinson

So, Tim Hutchinson. I met Tim at Bay Harbour Market. He was performing with Msaki (read more about her here).

Tim is awesome! And I fan-girled! As with Msaki, I have no regrets.

I can’t help it. When someone is talented and wonderful and all other positive adjectives you can think of, I cannot contain myself. They inspire me!

Allow Tim to inspire you by checking him out on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and SoundCloud. His album, Like A Tree, is also available on iTunes.

PS: that is not Tim on the cover. No, I didn't think that was him *looks away*

Photo Challenge

So, confession: I used to own a Blackberry. It was as recent as 31 October 2014. But my contract finally came to an end and I was able to upgrade. Yay! The reason for my new found happiness was that I could finally have an Instagram account. Delayed, I know.

I love taking photos. I love looking at photos. I love sharing photos. Because of this love (obsession?) I almost immediately took on the more conventional photo-a-day challenge as part of a 365 project. It's not a very complicated challenge, i.e. there is no theme and you literally take a pic/upload a photo each day. But for someone like me who is just starting on the 'photo-camera-enthusiast' journey it's a good way to start developing the camera-photo-taking skills.

Time to Dance!

It's that crazy time of the year when everyone crams to finish all work before the festive season closure. Can you hear the excitement in my voice?

Grumpy Cat

Song Quest

I bought the book Song Quest by Katherine Roberts at an SPCA charity book sale . It was one of their R50 sales, i.e. buy a bag for R50 and you can fill it with as many books as you’d like. Winning!

Msaki

I first discovered Msaki through my very cool friend Randomarivate. Rhandz had seen Msaki perform in Pretoria and when she got back to CT, she introduced me to Msaki’s street performance of ‘Dear Youth’ on Youtube. I was hooked.

She (Msaki not Rhandzu ;)) is an ah-may-zing singer-songwriter.

#BlogVember

I've been (half) participating in the #BlogVember challenge created by Love, Kids And Other Things and CupcakeMummy.

I say half, because I've only been completing the photo tasks for the various days... Currently, life is not affording me time to write the required posts! *sadness*

Turkey Logistics

This post covers the logistics of the trip, i.e. flights, accommodation, etc. We were a group of 10 people. Yikes!

This large number posed a challenge when looking for accommodation for a number of reasons:
1) we wanted to stay together in one place;
2) the place had to have more than one bathroom;
3) place had to be as cheap as possible while still being nice; and
4) free wifi would be welcomed with open arms (this was a necessity for some of the social media addicts in the group *wink*)

Turkey Baby!

Before April 2014, I had never travelled internationally. NEVER. As a result, major travel FOMO had set in and I was at a point that I was ready to go anywhere and do anything! During December 2013, Qatar Airlines was running a special on return flights between Cape Town and Turkey. My sister and her friends snapped up the special and I decided to join them.

Iron Sky

This song. These lyrics. This video. 

Senzeni Na?

I’ve been struggling to write this story for a while. What can one say when your government tricks you? When it pulls the wool over your eyes to protect politicians’ personal financial interests?

I respect the police. They protect us. They have a job and they do it to the best of their ability. Yes, there are times when things fall through the cracks (bribery, corruption, etc.). But on the whole, police are necessary.

However, when policemen and women are used by their government to commit violence, it leaves leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. I become disillusioned.

The Great Gatsby

Last year, the release of The Great Gatsby movie coincided with my birthday. I took this as a sign and used it as inspiration for my birthday celebration. A little party never hurt anybody… *wink*

 

I think this was the book cover
at the time...

I read the book for the first time in high       school, more than 10 years ago. The joke is that it was not even one of my set           curriculum books! I had found the book in a cupboard, thought it was interesting;  stole borrowed it, read it, and then returned it to the teacher. I absolutely LOVED it. The description of Daisy and Tom as ‘careless people’ struck a chord with me. I promised myself to NOT be a Daisy as I grew up. I thought she was the worst  person in the world! I felt frustrated by (spoiler alert) Gatsby’s death, and her and Tom’s escape from all responsibility and consequences. Life was so unfair!

Difficult to Love

Saw this poem a while ago on Verbal-Sid’s blog. I love it.

For women who are difficult to love 

by Warsan Shire

you are a horse running alone

and he tries to tame you

compares you to an impossible highway

to a burning house

says you are blinding him

that he could never leave you

forget you

want anything but you

you dizzy him, you are unbearable

every woman before or after you

is doused in your name

you fill his mouth

his teeth ache with memory of taste

his body just a long shadow seeking yours

but you are always too intense

frightening in the way you want him

unashamed and sacrificial

he tells you that no man can live up to the one who

lives in your head

and you tried to change didn't you?

closed your mouth more

tried to be softer

prettier

less volatile, less awake

but even when sleeping you could feel

him travelling away from you in his dreams

so what did you want to do love

split his head open?

you can’t make homes out of human beings

someone should have already told you that

and if he wants to leave

then let him leave

you are terrifying and strange and beautiful

Checkpoint

Last week I visited the Cinemuse Theatre in Stellenbosch to watch Checkpoint (2003). It’s a documentary highlighting the treatment of Palestinian people by the Israeli border police at checkpoints.

It is powerful and a lesson on how NOT to treat people. I say people, because it does not matter whether you are a Palestinian or an Israeli or even a supporter of either of the two camps, there are things you must never do to a fellow human being.

Just writing these words makes me emotional. I cannot stand injustices and unfairness. It grates me to my core when I see these things happening and I am powerless to correct it. I feel less like a human because how can we be of the same species?

I was dying

I saw this on @Rasheeda_s instagram account:

“First I was dying to finish high school and start college,
  And then I was dying to finish college and start working;
  And then I was dying to marry and have children; 

  And then I was dying for my children to get old enough for school so I could return to work;
  And then I was dying to retire.

  And now I am dying… and suddenly I realise I forgot to live.”

Monster Party

Following discussions within the DIY club, it was suggested that it would be good to share some of our past DIY experiences. So here goes my ‘Monster Party’ experience… (This is a really long post, but so worth it! Well, for DIY-ers anyway J)

I have a nephew who turned four last year. He was going through a Monsters University (MU)  phase and was obsessed with all things Mike and Sulley! Fortunately, this meant that I could be party planner for his birthday party. YAY! 

DIY Club 1.0

V and I (W) got together for our first DIY club meeting on Saturday, 11 October. This idea was borne out of our need to see that the other was still alive and our desire to create something! We are currently living on opposite ends of Cape Town and with work demands and life happening, we have not seen each other face-to-face for a veeeeery loooooong time.

So what is DIY club? At the moment, our thinking is a once-a-month get together to catch up and learn something new. The host will decide on the project for that particular month. This project can be anything which catches the fancy of the host. And I really mean anything. During our gtalk discussions, some of the ideas generated included cake and cupcake decorating, any new recipes, henna tattoo design, new books for review, jewellery making, etc. You get the drift -ANYTHING.