what is real...?

what is real... the thrill of weekend or the tired- and numbness of Monday?
which is MORE real?

Is being happy and at peace more real than being frantic and edgy? like, can you measure it and say that yes, Saturday is 2grams more real than Monday-blues?

Is "real" dependent on my mood? my diet? my (deluxe) coffee intake? Is my happy and excited mood 30 grams more real than my diligent/ I have a duty to this world- real?

Speaking of which...
look at this, no, marvel at this place: R10 for all ( or any) coffee



i love coffee - article on:
deluxe coffee works




i love this:

Judd Francis from Deluxe Coffeeworks has been involved in the specialty coffee industry for over 16 years worldwide. He is a master roaster, barista, machine technician and trainer with contacts in the upper echelons of the international specialty coffee fraternity and known in Cape Town as a man who will make your coffee problems go away. He has also been featured in the Barista Magazine (US).

South Africa is at the very beginning of the introduction to what is known as the “Third Wave’ of coffee. The market is wide open and begging for artisan roasted coffee. Coffee is the second largest traded commodity worldwide and has not been marketed correctly in South Africa, other than a handful of chain stores which still only produce consistently average coffee.

For Enquiries Contact:

Carl Wessel
+27 82 681 5740 / carl@deluxecoffeeworks.co.za

Judd Francis Nicolay
+27 72 903 0319 / judd@deluxecoffeeworks.co.za

---

Swing bye for a coffee

25 Church Street, City Center, Cape Town

ooh. . . . when can I go ?



logging off now.
M

ee cummings = Person of the week

Happiness is finding new worlds/ new ways of living and new examples of life-style and exquisite design....
The Swedes just KNOW how

Look (and savour) www.scandichotels.se

Also
check out studio Velvet: very talented design team (located in Sweden.)



oh and if you have time (make time) mochatini


I bumped into this awesome site by Monica: called Splendid Willow
(I'm sticking to the Swedish design / aesthetic and NOPE it is not boring me yet )

this is what she writes:

"Splendid Willow is my inspirational journal. This is where I collect thoughts & ideas and report on splendid design I come across all over the world. What started as an outlet for my own design wanderings has become a truly humbling experience as I meet, learn from, and become friends with so many of the fantastic people who have visited my blog."

The best thing is that Mon and I discovered the "twilight" hype and hysteria around the same time ( 2 years after the rest of the world !)

She has this jaw-dropping pic on her blog:

I hope you enjoy! and a pic inside the cullens' house:







person of the week: e e cummings

ironically (and not entirely inappropriate) words fail me....
the poet of all poets who stirs me.

Love,

talking is sharing

Talking is sharing





Sharing is healthy









Healthy is a happy and content life

أنت جميلة إلى الأبد

boundaries

by Dr Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend

teaching me all the things which I care not to know, want not to know and pretend not to know

which I dare not implement

for fear that my tiny world might collapse and I'll spend a g e s

picking up the pieces.. . 

when I could have been having some wine & chocolate

from the book:
page 131
The law of exposure.
A boundary is a property line. It defines where you begin and end.

We have been discussing why you need such a line. One reason stands above all others: you do not exist in a vacuum. You exist in relation to God and to others.
The whole concept of boundaries has to do with the fact that we exist in relationship and hence boundaries are about love.
♥
The law of exposure says that your boundaries need to be made visible to others and communicated to them in relationship. We have many boundary problems because of relational fears. We are beset by fears of guilt, not being liked, loss of love, loss of connection, loss of approval, receiving anger, being known and so on. These are all failures in love and God's plan is that we learn how to love.

These relational problems can only be solved in relationships, for that is the context of the problems themselves and the context of spiritual existence.

Because of these fears,
we try to have secret boundaries.
We withdraw passively and quietly, instead of communicating an honest "no" to someone we love.

♥
We secretly resent instead of telling someone that we are angry about how they have hurt us. Often we will privately endure the pain of someone's irresponsibility instead of telling them how their behaviour affects us and other loved ones."


♥

x rated zen with Pooh

Simply Seductive

lovely blog !!!





"Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day."
- Winnie The Pooh


"You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes."
- Piglet
"If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear."
- Eeyore


"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you."
- Winnie The Pooh





“If there ever comes a day when we can't be together keep me in your heart, I'll stay there forever”
- Winnie The Pooh




“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?"”
- Winnie The Pooh












Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh," he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw, "I just wanted to be sure of you."

“You can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count.”
- Winnie The Pooh













“I used to believe in forever, but forever is too good to be true.”
- Winnie The Pooh

"I wonder what Piglet is doing," thought Pooh.
"I wish I were there to be doing it, too."
- Winnie the Pooh





"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit.
"No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way."




“The hardest part is what to leave behind, ... It's time to let go!”
- Winnie the Pooh

pooh 's wisdom

"Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."
- Piglet


More inspiring reads:

daydreamlily

go see:
Concretehoney

vin rouge et chocolat et vous

Bittersweet

If life was to threaten me with disaster
If I had to choose between a limb and you


I'd choose without weighing
instinct
without blinking
because like chocolate and red wine and strawberries
I can let go of every good thing, but not you

I can tear off the angel's one wing
but
acceptance and understanding
you give (which
you are)
I cannot


hauntingly
beautiful music
aching spirit of life
douce-amère

settled - ticking the lists -

√ sent letters of care & encouragement to senior congregation-members
√ reminder to find out which hospital in Switzerland allows euthanasia
√ have a coffee with cream and focus on the small pleasures
√ say a prayer for the heart-by-pass which will be performed on Andries v d Vyver
√ tug at an angel's wing to check if she is ready for the 26th Oct- delivery of J E Cajeux
√ bless my mom and dad

--- get dressed in a hurry as I was faffing around the house and am now late for work !!!!

love, M

Alternate love-poem

the peace I hold close
my primal artery
at once calms me
and makes my heart race
conflicting
selfish
the
need
to
have
you
here

Totally tasteful Twelfth Tuesday (October)

Hi There!

Typical Tuesday. . . rush -rush to get things done.

Looking for inspiration/ ideas:
http://lanaloustyle.blogspot.com/2010/10/bohemian-life.html

Love this blog.

Lana Lou Style Rocks!

Topical Tuesday: Tube-strike (potentially) averted in London. Wage- talks.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica

Farmer got burnt and can verbalize what hell feels like.... ouch. Totally Terrible

another suspect-character ( friend of Agliotti's)

Tragic (?) Chris Couremetis, in his 30s, was shot at the Cradle Restaurant in Muldersdrift, west of Johannesburg, on Sunday.

Times-gone-by- Tuesday:

I wish I rather lived in the days where news reached you by telegraph.

Totally random Tuesday-script from Tony Parsons:

“Wholeness is not interested in saving the Earth or becoming enlightened… Everything that happens is the expression of wholeness… Seeking and suffering is wholeness…” Tony Parsons

Suffering is a thought in mind; just as “joy” or “sadness”, “happiness” or “freedom”, “bondage” or “liberation”, “good” and “bad” are also just thoughts. Fundamentally there is no difference between a thought or a feeling, they are subjective and synonymous.

Prior to a thought or feeling, a thought and feeling is simply unlabeled [energy]; an impulse of life. Prior to the thought of bondage [you] are. Prior to the thought of freedom, [you] are.

After the thought of joy or sadness, [you] are.
The degree to which [you] suffer will be determined by the focus of [your] attention to the labels and judgments you have placed on [your] self and life. If the focus of [your] attention is on a thought, feeling or circumstance of bondage you will enmesh yourself in bondage. If [your] attention is fixated, obsessed or overwhelmed by thoughts, feelings, emotions, perceptions, associations or memories of the past, you will also be in the past.

The [you] that you imagine yourself to be will struggle as long is it is identified to the psycho/emotional identity you call the “me”; the [you] that you imagine yourself to be will suffer.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

The real [you] is already free. It waits patiently in the background of your awareness; it waits unconditionally. It is the background of all that was, is, and will be. The background is both the potential of the foreground and the foreground simultaneously.

We spend most of our life being present to a false self; the self that live that appears t live in the foreground, the self that we imagine ourselves to be with all its labels, with all its judgments, with all its distinctions. Whether it be a thought, feeling, emotion, perception, association or memory; when our attention is caught up in the details of the false self, we will experience a false reality.

We will never see reality as it is; we will only see the mirage of being an “I”.
As long as our attention is focused on the foreground of the mirage that is our imagined life, we will suffer.

As long as we ignore the background of Being we will feed our mind and we will swim in the distortion of its confusion; we will be distracted by the [ignorance] of that mirage and all the thoughts, feelings, emotions, perceptions, memories and associations that make up that mind. The mirage of our imagined self has become a mask that can only hide the truth of our true nature.

To place our attention on the background of Being from which everything arises, is to [create] the space in which [transformation] can occur. We become what we are. We become what we always were.
There is no evolution in consciousness; there is only a [shift] in attention from the foreground being to the background of Being. There can be no evolution in wholeness. The only perceived evolution is in ideas; ideas that come from the mind only.

Wholeness is.

Wholeness is, and [you] are.

[You] are wholeness.

Better said, [you] are a symptom of wholeness.

You are a symptom of consciousness. Consciousness does not need to evolve because consciousness already is. Wholeness is already.

[You] are already.

The only reason consciousness appears to be evolving is because the [you] that you imagine yourself to be, appears to be standing on the “outside” looking “in”. As soon as [you] realize where you are standing you can let go of your stance, and the illusion of a mirage collapses.
Can you be present with your wholeness?

Can [you] see and allow that wholeness to express itself as anger and confusion, fear or love, joy and sadness?
Can you see wholeness as the expression of “up” and “down”, “in” and “out”, “here” or “there”?

Can [you] allow [your] attention to settle into the background of Being where eternity has always resided; where there is only wholeness, where there is no coming or going, arising or subsiding, loss or gain?

Can [you] see that the seen and the unseen are One and the same?

Love, Maria

♪ ♪

mauvais l'acceptation Monday Mood

These pictures were taken in the Frankfurt Zoo in September.

The holiday feels like a distant dream...

some things I've read about "dreams"....

I give myself permission to dream

I give myself permission to rest

I give myself permission to say "yes" to what I want

I give myself permission to design my own life

I give myself permission to create

I give myself permission to make mistakes

Monday, 11th October 2010.

I have been with Chris for 6 years and 10 months.

He is flyfishing in the Underberg and I am considering it as a possible future-holiday destination.

Holiday. . . a concept so sweet and distant on this Monday....

we've had some bad news in the office: my colleague has resigned.

This merger has made people look really hard at what they want and hedge their bets ( I guess) in terms of what they think might happen to their careers/ income.

Metropolitan and Momentum and money and mystery and Maria and magic and mood and mosquito and more rain... all the M's... I miss Marcelle's company, my mom, malva-pudding and milkshake ...

I have to get back to work.

seriously, M

10 10 10 Blanche = person of the week

It was a 10 out of 10 - weekend.

As I drove to town this morning (meeting up with Maggie so that we may catch a glimpse of Blanche along route- gunrun 2010) the radio presenter said that it was the 10th of the tenth month in 2010 and that at 10 past 10 (am) the cut-off for the gunrun would be announced.


Now just to provide some context:
I've been away from Wednesday to Friday on a Metropolitan Retail- planning session (venue: Lanzerac, Stellenbosch) which actually deserves a post all on its own and I (happily) endured a couple of late nights.


We finished early on Friday and I headed home to help wrap some presents (we had a birthday party to attend on Friday-night)




Lovely time at John & Lizelle's. I love their three boys and there was a little-Emma which I was ready to abduct, but her mother was too attentive and took her home at 22h. boo-hoo.



We had to get up early on Saturday-morning, because Chris had a flight to KZN Durban to catch.
He is taking part in the Flyfishing National championships at Underberg. (Good luck husband!)

I dropped him at 8am and headed into town to attend a 30th birthday- breakfast party.
Jeanne Thea Calitz is someone whom you'd love to celebrate.
We (University-friends, two sisters, husband, darling parents-in-law, Dad- Louis, close friends from whichever sphere of life Jeanne attracted) had that privilege.





You'd understand if you met Jeanne.
The sparkle, the emotional-honesty, the grace, the wickedly funny twinkle....
She is an eternally-feminine darling of a friend.




She has been a healing balm, a burst of champagne, an anchor and a colourful kite all through the years. We met at a first-year-camp (January 1999) as we both landed/chose Heemstede- ladies residence at Stellenbosch as our university-base.

We were room-mates during our third year. 2001: She was preparing/finishing up on her degree in Value and policy-studies and perfected her craft: journalism thereafter.

Anyway as "The little Prince" says: why do grown ups think in numbers: born in 1980 and has been working for 7 years, when indeed that tells you absolutely NOTHING about the person.
It does not tell you if they like butterflies and how their laughter sounds. (ps. This is a rough- recollection of what I read and it is not intended to be an exact quote, apologies to the author)




















Thanks Jeanne for a lovely morning at
Nerina street.
Stylish and Sweet and Special.
Thanks also to Anel and Vansie for their assistance.




The sun was beating down in this Southern-most city of the African continent and I was feeling the accumulated effect of 4 nights' little sleep and indulgent food.

slept.


slept.

Went to Inge's house to say good-luck for the 10km- race and to catch up.
I did my first and second 10km-road races with this blonde- angel and she had evolved, trained, magic-forest-accelerated and achieved to a point where I was envious and falling off the bus.

We have the Pinelands' 10km- race to look forward to on the 27th of (R)october.

Sushi & wine & conversation as scrumptious as the soy-drenched-bites (Thanks Inge!)




So: I think I've provided you with ample context.
Aaah yes (I got carried away and forgot where I started this post)

So: I got up early yet again and drove to town, where (mercifully) Maggie picked me up and briefed me on how our middle sister was doing during her first half-marathon.

Sounded like she was doing remarkably well.

Maggie had seen her (along the 21km-route) twice and reported that progress was indeed (what appeared to be) fantastic and above expectation.

As it turned out: we were both still way off. . . as Blanche did AMAZINGLY well....
she finished her first 21 kilometer road race in 134minutes.

Maggie and I was over the moon, surprised, happy and just massively proud of her.
Mus♪c in her ears ♪ ( she had selected an appropriate play list on her mp3-player the day before) cruised through it.

When Maggie and I caught a glimpse of her coming through the finish-line she did not even look tired... far from the "hospitalise me"- faces we saw while scanning for our sibling in the crowd.



Blanche : you most definitely get person- of -the -week.
Your calm confidence and happy attitude and gentle-way inspire us all. You are an independent woman and well- deservedly person-of-the-week.
mmwha !!

Love, Maria