All bounced out

So we sleep under a Blessed sky tonight, and hope our luck holds for another 354 days.

Raise your glasses to 2010.

Three years before I started a blog I started a blog. Hunny created it and told me to post some stuff on it. I didn’t grasp the concept very well at the time, but I wrote some stuff and posted it. And then I promptly forgot about it.
I have no idea where it is now. It’s out there somewhere still, I’m sure, but I don’t even recall the name, and I didn’t put my name to it, so chances are good I won’t ever find it again.

This blog can’t suffer that fate, if only because I own its domain, and that domain is my name. So unless I forget me name, it’s safe. It’s not safe from neglect though, I’ve proved that time and again.

I’d like to find that old blog of mine though. It was a great snapshot of my life at the time. In a crushing job, planning a wedding on shortish notice, and suffering greatly under the stress that came from the crappy job.

My how times change! Now I’m married, have a gorgeous boy child, and really battle to get freak-out stressed about work. Pity that, because that level of stress is a great diet plan for me. Sure I get annoyed; angry sometimes. And when faced with something new and daunting I still get some knots in my stomach. But that’s nothing like the wreck I used to be when things weren’t working and I had to go and sit in the toilets for a while lest I cry in front of my co-workers.

Two things have contributed to this. First off, I have a much better bunch of colleagues. These guys do actually work as a team, not against one another. But mostly it’s Aidan. I finally have the ‘this is not the end of the world’ perspective I have always been searching for in my work-life.
Because seriously, the world will not end if our software is down for a little while. Hell, I don’t even work on the kind of stuff that could kill a couple of people if it’s not operational (think medical software), never mind the stuff that launches nuclear weapons and kills whole nations.

Now when 2PM comes around, I go home. Sure I’ll pitch in and stay a little longer if it will actually achieve results, but now I have a boy to go and collect, and love, and be fascinated by, and be frustrated by, and laugh at, and laugh with, and teach, and learn from. And that is just so much bigger than any job I have ever done.

A cat-keeping, knitting, librarian spinster
A trendy account
A motorbike riding widow
A vet
A physiotherapist
Dead.

The librarian thing was taken in part from some movie I saw as a kid and part from the fact that I loved and still love libraries and books. I figured as a librarian I’d have access to all the books I could ever want, and what more would I need other than some cute kitties that play with balls of wool. I hate knitting though.

As a teenager I had a horse-riding instructor who was also an accountant. She was in her early twenties, and the accountant thing seemed to support her horse-riding perfectly. She was also trendy and drove my favorite car. Then she gave up the accountant drill to go full time into riding, training and instructing, and her finances never recovered. We parted company rather unpleasantly: I was a melodramatic teenager and she eventually gave up on my moodiness. Still, for the longest while I wanted to be just like her – in her accountant days. In essence I am: I have a mundane but lucrative day job that supports my horse-riding hobby, and I wonder sometimes if I should can the day-job and do some fulltime horsing, but I’ve seen how that can play out …

Not sure why or when the black widow thing came about, but I liked to picture myself in my late thirties – the widow aspect added an air of tragedy – with a killer bod, a black motorbike and lots of leather clothing … This one could still happen, but I really hope it doesn’t!!

Whenever I said I wanted to be a vet people would always assume I meant an equine vet. To the contrary, I’ve seen how a horse – hurt or not – can throw a grown male veterinarian around a stable, so I wanted to be a small animal vet with my own practice. Veterinary sciences (in fact all medical sciences, but especially veterinary) are difficult to get into to study here in SA, so I compromised and thought I’d become a physiotherapist instead.

My final matric results weren’t great though, so I was going to do a booster course before applying for physiotherapy, when a career guidance counselor sent me to an industrial psychologist who said I also had an aptitude for computers. That was news to me: all I’d done with a PC to that point was play solitaire. But I saw the gap to earning a good enough salary with flexible enough hours to support my horsing, so I took it and here I am today a programmer…

As for the dead thing: at a very young an impressionable age I heard a woman describing hell, as she had been there (don’t laugh! Like I said, I was young an impressionable) and she said that there was nobody in hell under the age of 21. “Great!” I thought, “I’ve found a sure-fire way into heaven!” I just need to make sure I die before I turn 21. That was a dilemma in itself, because I firmly believed that life only got good after age 21, but I was willing to make the sacrifice. Of course I know this is all hogwash now. If my addiction to the crime and investigation channel has proved anything to me it’s that evil shows itself at all ages, races and gender…

Here ends the brief insight into my warped mind.

Warning: rather odd and potentially offensive post follows …

All this blogging is diluting my thought pool. Turns out I don’t have nearly as much to say as I thought I would. Today’s post was inspired by Wikipedia’s Random Article feature, a couple of clicks and I hit this article…

Here are two people who went to extra-ordinary lengths to avoid their own death. Or at least leave their bodies in a reasonable state of repair so that if/when technology catches up, they could be resurrected. Apart from the total eeeeew factor of keeping your dead frozen wife in your basement for nearly 20 years, this puzzles me on so many levels.

I’m reading a novel at the moment (easy reading detective thriller type thing, popcorn for the brain) and this morning I came across this interesting conversation in the book:

Baddy One says: “Have you ever heard of the expression there are no atheists in foxholes?”
Baddy Two says: “Yes”
Baddy One says: “Well it’s a lie, you know. In fact, just the opposite is true. When you are in a foxhole, when you are face-to-face with death – that is when you know for sure that there is no God. It’s why we fight to survive, to draw one more breath. It’s why you call out to any and every entity – because you know in your heart of hearts, you know that death is the endgame. No hereafter. No paradise. No God. Just nothingness”

It’s a compelling but flawed argument. I’ll tackle it from two angles.

One: a fear of dying may not be the only reason someone would fight back in a dear death situation. I can give two other theories off the top of my head:

1. For family and loved ones – I don’t believe any mother would go meekly to her death if she felt a responsibility to raising and caring for her children. Likewise, I wouldn’t meekly accept a death that would separate me from my Hunny and the life we have that still feels so far from over

2. Pride and determination – Dying is the last thing we do on earth, no-one wants that final act to be one of surrender. The opponent may vary: cancer, car accident or murder, but human nature would have us wanting to beat that opponent, so we’d fight to do so.

Of course, I could be talking hogwash here, I have never died or even come close, but I think I am just about as qualified as any one else on this topic, I don’t know many people who have died and lived to tell the tale …

Two: As a Christian, I believe there is life after death. To that account, what happens here on this earth should not bother me too much, because I believe that this life is not all that there is. If I die young it should simply make my eternity longer, as odd as that sounds. So if I were in a foxhole I should fight to get out because life is sacred – I have been entrusted with this life and I will try to keep it – but if I fail I will go with the peace of someone who knows where she is going after this … I hope. Again I theorize without experience.

Raymond and Monique Martinot must have believed that there is “No hereafter. No paradise. No God. Just nothingness”. I cannot imagine how much they must have feared their death to have made the plans that they did. Thinking about that renews my gratitude to God for making himself known to me and for saving me from a life of fear.

in•spi•ra•tion
–noun
1. an inspiring or animating action or influence.
2. something inspired, as an idea.
3. a thing or person that inspires.
4. the act of inspiring; quality or state of being inspired.

Rather illusive thing that… Time to have a go at creating my own.

For me 2007 rolled right into 2008 with little change. It’s it funny how we expect new year to start off fresh and invigorated, even if we did nothing to ensure that it would. Getting a fresh canvas doesn’t help if you are still painting the same old stuff on it.

Work didn’t slow down much for me over December and we jammed a whole lot of entertaining & socializing in over that time, so I probably started my year with an energy deficit. If I get more nights sleep like the last one (Beautiful. Solid, deep and comfortable dreamless sleep. Ah, so lovely) I’ll make it up soon enough. I’m not going to rely on that to kick-start this year though, it’s time to make some changes! Never having been a big one for new year’s resolutions, this will be an adventure for me *just keep telling yourself that love!*

First on my list: I need to become a morning person. I’m better than I used to be, but I still waste too much time lazing in bed on weekends, or feeling hard done by because I didn’t get to sleep late. My inspiration to pull off this challenge: my Hunny. He’s a true morning person, can’t sleep in later than 7AM on a weekend even. It’s because of his enthusiasm for the day (and his list of things to do) that I do often haul myself out of bed early on weekends, but I have to stop resenting it once it’s done…

Next up: Those little slivers of fat I’ve been accumulating over the past 5 years? Those have to go. I was always the skinny side of normal growing up, but last year I think I crossed that line. My inspiration for this one: This past Tuesday I saw myself in harsh light of a clothing store change room – complete with that ass-shot that you don’t easily get at home, thanks to the surround mirrors. I haven’t been clothes shopping in a while and I was both surprised and horrified.

The third item, and this relates to number two: I will eat healthier. That means actually eating breakfast, keeping to a healthier lunch (try to keep away from the pizza and crisps), and learning moderation at dinner. If I’m eating something tasty my urge to finish all of it is always stronger than my ‘I’m full’ reflex. Inspiration for this one will once again be that eye-opening changing room experience, coupled with a long standing desire to be kinder to my body.

Item four relates to this blog: Get back into a regular posting habit, if I ever had one! To kick start this I am committing to the 30-in-30 challenge. Starting right now I’m attempting to post 30 entries in 30 days. I’m shocking with routine, so this is going to be rather difficult for me. Regardless of that I’m setting myself a couple of extra parameters:

1. No posts about the 30-in-30 challenge and how difficult it is
2. Posts must be longer than 100 words
3. At least one post a week must include pictures

The inspiration for this one: my Amatomu blog stats (and the occasional comment) prove that I do have readers. Fresh pangs of guilt brought on by June’s comment this morning have prompted me to provide them with new material.

I’ll post a summary (not less than 100 words) of my progress weekly, wish me luck

I spent most of this past Saturday at an introduction and training session for a Direct Marketing Business venture. You know the type: Join our scheme and buy our product at a reduced rate and sell it to your friends for a profit and then get your friends to join our scheme and sell our products and you make a profit on what they sell etc …

You wouldn’t usually find me at a gathering like this, I’m quite a reserved person who likes to make calculated decisions and these folk are all rah rah rah song and dance and yippee and jump in head first, but it does seem like a reasonable venture, and I was invited by someone close to me so I went.

I’m undecided still as to weather to join the venture, but what did make itself pretty clear to me on Saturday was that I don’t love or want to pursue money. The closing presenter – a guy earning more than a million rand a year (70 + K per month) – made the statement that this will only really work for you if you have a burning desire to change your financial future. If he’d pitched his argument at having more free time I’d probably be sold on the idea, but I’m not easily baited by money. In fact, subconsciously, I’m quite determined not to make money the primary deciding factor in any of my major decisions, though I’ll admit that good fortune allows me to be that way. Of course if I spot this nice red shirt here for 300 bucks and that one there for 200 bucks, I’ll take the cheaper option, but I’d like to think that I won’t change jobs just for cash.

So while I think this particular venture – despite it’s misgiving of being very similar to a pyramid scheme – could work, does work, and could actually work for me, I’m concerned that it might change me into one of those people: the people that live their lives in pursuit of more cash and the next sale.

So my pondering is thus: can one join a venture filled with people whose motivation is money, and not give in to the environmental peer pressure, yet still make a success of it? Hmmm, I don’t know …