Jacaranda photowalk with Connor

Setting off

My famous feet pics :)

this is my favourite

in front of random neighbour's house

this is another favourite of mine

splashing

jacaranda tree

LOVE these forest pics

especially this black and white one

love you too, baby! notice the concentration

#thisisfour

photo by Connor

GORGEOUS!

MMMMMMM

while Connor was faffing around

returning home

this is the photo Connor wanted

aaah!

our of focus but I love the smile

this is proof that I'm sometimes a fun mother. I asked him if he wanted to run through the puddles to splash. He LOVED it.

Which is your favourite?

Everyday moments

Thank you for understanding this craziness I'm going through. All I can say is, 2014 is going to be amazing, right?

I've been doing lots of work on myself (self-coaching, if you will) - analysing all my past and current job to find threads throughout of what I like, what I hate, what makes me grow, what hampers me, etc, etc.

I won't bore you all senseless but a BIG thread has been variety - I love to have a variety of people I deal with on a daily basis - internal depts, external businesses, end customers, and others (if I added specific examples, you'd know my industry). I also love having a variety of tasks, like agreements, marketing material, some systems, product design, deal structuring, etc.

Things I hated? (surprise, surprise) - not having enough freedom to execute or the flexibility to structure my own life.

I feel like I need to do another one of those one-week social media fasts. I need a breakthrough, right now!

In the meantime, here are some random photos from my folders. Enjoy!

Messy desk - I do believe my calendar is still showing 21 October! :)

this child is so precious! She is a gift from God with her words of affirmation for me daily. She told me the other day she's blessed to have me and D as her parents! (4 going on 34!)

do you do this with your creams, or do you just toss? I can't bring myself to throw it out before I've had every little bit out of the tube!

Bedside table about a week ago. Sam, that's your journal right on the bottom :)

Louisa, a reminder for you and me both! I like the way my hair looks there!

my infinity scarf

aaah, elevating the ordinary

I'm sure I haven't worn these for at least two years - not sure why because I do really like them. Suppose I like the navy ones better?

Mondays are very hard

By my new definition of a "good day", today was a good day because I didn't cry at work.

But it was a tough one.

I can't explain how exhausting it is 1) not saying anything 2) overthinking everything before you speak in case your own words are used against you 3) having knots of anxiety for most of the day except when I walk away from my desk.

Anyway, after a very tense and tough meeting (even now thinking about it, I'm tearing up again), I went to my desk, tried to calm down and 5 minutes later, the messenger brought me a very unexpected and gorgeous package from this lovely friend.

Which very nearly made me cry for different reasons :)

Thank you so much!

As I drove home, of course the tears came and I realised that of all the days I've cried in the last 8.5 months (yes, I'm counting), about 95% of the incidents have been Mondays. What a sad state of affairs.

I'm trying not to be impatient and walk through this thing step-by-step with God but it's soooo hard.

I thought about it recently and I do believe it's been harder for me than the infertility.

That was 10% of my life but the rest of it was going well.

This is turning me into someone I don't recognise very often, especially for those 9 hours daily.

My infertility ended on Christmas Eve 2008 and I'm begging God to be merciful again because really, I can't start 2014 like this.

Also Robyn, remember how I said I have a feeling I'm going to have to endure this til the end of the year? Um, yes....

What was the longest period you've gone through a really hard time?

Lazy Sunday afternoons

This is D's camera. He did photojournalism at university and in the "old days" they used "real cameras" and learned to develop film properly in a dark room. He has some of his black and whites which are gorgeous.

Nevertheless, he mentioned something about his camera so he had to take it out to show the kids :)

please note Thursday is also asleep in K's blanket!

A different view of the same thing

Lynette posted the other day about how she had to really try to take different pics of the same holiday spot as they've been going there for years and years.

I must say, I haven't really tried to get different Ballito photos - we'll be doing year 3 in January. YAY - can't wait! There's something else I can't wait for more though ;)


I can see that my photography improves each year and that's good enough for me. Next year I plan to get even more SUPER fabulous photos :)

Anyway, I thought last week of how I literally can't just walk by my walkway.... and especially not if I have a camera with me, even if just my iphone. I tried to take slighly different photos on this particular day.

When we were heading to a session, this was what the sky looked like.

An hour and a half later, after the rains. All crisp and gorgeous.

Black and white... timeless

MandyE, this is for you and I to sit and chat.

Aaah, jacarandas

So that's a different view of my usual photos.

What do you think?
Do you try to take different photos of the same things you normally see?

(there's a life lesson in there but I'm too tired to focus on it :))

{Friendship Friday} Lunch, Laura and lemon meringue

This was the fourth time Laura and I got together this year - April, July, August and now October. I love it!

So we've had a good run.

First we had to sit the kids down and go over what we expect in terms of behaviour.



It's verrrry cute when they say "definitely no shouting or screaming... and no jumping around while we're eating".
 

my meal - chicken breasts and salad - mmm, can you see the salt and pepper?

We went to Papachinos in Midrand. I only realised later that afternoon/ evening that the lemon meringue I ordered was nothing like what was depicted, and actually wasn't good at all. It tasted more like a cheesecake and didn't have that condensed milk/ lemony goodness :)

We have a spate of birthday parties, a photo shoot and then I need to schedule a date with Kendra to see a ballet, and we want to take the kids to the Monte Bird Gardens, and then it's practically Christmas.

Madness!

What does your end-of-year look like at the moment?

What's on your plate?