How do you know?

A month or so ago our home nearly burned down. I was looking after someone else’s home but called my mother every half hour or so for updates. I never thought that the fire would come down the mountain. We have had scares before, but the fire stayed on the mountain and rain would soon follow usually. This time is different. the fire came down and our home was almost burned down.

My mother wanted to know what the first thing would be that I would take when the house and yard are burning. Without a thought I said that I would take my chickens and my lovebird. She was very heartbroken about my answer because she thought I would say I would take her and my father. Upon reflection I realized that I assumed that they would be safe already.

What if that was not the case?

I got a lift home and on arrival, I realized that none of my animals were safe away from the fire. None of my chickens were caught and put in inboxes. They were still trapped in their cages; our cats were not caught. The only animals that were safe were their own. I suppose that in the heat of the moment you are so rushed and freaked out that you are not thinking, but I was still very upset, nonetheless.

In the end it is really a stupid thing to ask. I believe you will only know the answer when the shit hits the fan.

Most of my hens were broody at the time of the fire and they were still broody when they returned home. Only two eggs made it and two were born. It was the hen’s first time being a mother and she just kept lying in the nest. I decided to give the chicks to the other broody hen. The mother hen had a terrible reaction to it. I could not believe my eyes. She literally jumped up and down screaming her head off. And here I was thinking she would not be a good mother as she is not looking after her chicks. I felt so guilty after seeing her fight for them, trying to get out of her cage.

At that moment in time, I really thought that I was doing the right thing.

 In our everyday lives we make decisions and choices, but how do you know it is the right choice and decision? Will we always be able to live with our choices and decisions?

….

A very happy late new year to all! I sincerely hope that you have the most wonderful year.

I have a not so good new year. My mother’s brother died due to covid. The worst part for me was that he married a woman that had another faith and altough she said that he did not convert to her faith, she gave him a burial in regulations to her faith. We could not attend the burial due to covid and we simply could not afford to go. We would not have made it in time anyway. I really do not judge other’s religion. It just hurt.

I deal with his death in my own way. I feel that I would have felt better if he had a Christian burial.

At least life at home is more or less the same. My mother called me and my sister cold hearted bitches and me in particular a coward, because I chose to walk away during a fight with her. OUCH!

Ah well, atleast I have a thick skin, but it hurts all the same. there is no fight you can win.

On another note I did really well in my exams at university. I passed with distinctions (if that is the correct word). I hope to do the same this year. My university (distance learning) decided that there will only be 1 registration period this year. I am worried about finances, but I believe God will provide. I wonder if the university really considers their learners? How many students are there including me that do not have enough money? My first semester cost me near R6000.

I still have my chickens and lordy lordy they make me so happy. Some of my hens got broody and hatched some chicks. The one hen scratched the ground so vigorously that she kicked her one chick that he literally rolled away. All in an effort to search for food. It really is so beautiful to see how much she cares about the chicks. It heals my heart just to watch my chickens and my other animals. They love you no matter what.

Altough there is many complaints and problems in my life, I am very greatful to be alive, have a bed to sleep on, have clothes to wear and to be heathy young woman among other things. I am greatful for a platform like this where you can write about anything even just to vent. I post just once in a while, but it still helps!

Even though my year thus far aren’t too good, I still have faith that it will be a wonderful year.

Today, for hundredth gazillionth time, I really wished that I can run like a wolf and be free.

Ps. I know my grammar and language is shit. Please excuse it!

A bit of inspiration for you and me

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” Milton Berle

What a marvelous inspirational quote. The last 2-3 days I have been worrying how I am going to sell my Japanese bantam chicks. I have been posting ads on facebook. Some ads are simply removed because selling livestock is not permitted anymore, and those that goes through and gets seen are just liked. Nothing else. It’s damn depressing to say the least as I need the money that I make from them for my studies.

This afternoon, while fretting about this, I realized that I can try and sell them at auction, building that new door for me so to say. I really hope this door will open to new opportunities!

I will be holding my thumbs!

What a week

What a horrible week! I had my laptop in for repairs a bunch of times and it always seemed that he was ok, until one morning, he just refused to start after he was just repaired for that problem.

The technician said the laptop isn’t top notch anymore, but he will check again. Later that same day he called to let me know that the motherboard broke and that is too expensive to replace. In other words I might as well buy another laptop.

Lucky for me he had a second hand laptop that he could sell me, but expensive. Luckily I could borrow some money from my dad. Just more debt. Anyway, I am getting the laptop tomorrow. I really, really hope that the laptop is still good as he says it is as I need to write my online unisa examination on it next week. I can tell you-my nerves are finished so to say.

And then our car…. One of the kids in my aftercare calls our car a struggle car if you translate it directly from Afrikaans. Our car is very old and likes to break now and then,but recently it breaks every damn chance it gets. Today,I found the cause for the car’s instability when it moves. I just could not handle it anymore today and went to the mechanic. It turns out the thing that’s broken can cause a life threatening crash. I have been driving the car like this for weeks. I can only thank God that we are still safe and nothing happened this far.

This brings me to another point. Yesterday morning I saw a message on someone’s whatsapp status. It comes down to the following: don’t think about all the things you have not received, but think and be great full for all the things you have been blessed with thus far.

Creeps, this message really made me feel ashamed. I have been complaining about my prayers being unanswered for a really long time now. I failed to look around me for all the blessings that I have. We are lucky that we have the money to pay for the big repair the car now needs, I could buy a second hand laptop. God saw we would be in need now, and he provided.

Let’s count our blessings even though all goes wrong in our lives.

Health issues

They say your body is a temple. Well, in my case it is a squatter camp. I am extremely overweight. People think that fat people just sit the whole day and stuff their mouths with everything they can get their hands on. And like it to be so big. It sure isn’t true.

As a child I loved sports. Especially tennis. The more active I got the more pain I had in my back. Even doing nothing seemed to hurt my back. Sometimes the skin on my back hurt so much that I could not handle having a t-shirt on or being touched. Needless to say I cried quite a lot.

My back is also hunched over. Long story short I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with Scheuermann’s disease and scoliosis. It runs in my family. My mother and father have it. It’s really very painful. It grows out at a certain age, but leaves damage as it goes.

I had to stop doing sport and anything that is too heavy on my back and it made me very deprest for a long time. So without the excersise I started to out on weight. Not a lot, but in my adult years I just grew and grew in the wrong direction.

Must say though, that I did and do not eat all the healthy things that I should eat, but was content with my body until I went to test my eyes for new glasses and the doctor could not focus my eyes and sent me for blood tests to look at my blood sugar levels.

The test results wasn’t what I was hoping for. I now have to drink sugar pills. I see that these meds can also help me to lose weight if I start to eat right and do some excersise. The sugar meds makes me run to the bathroom a lot especially when I ate. Soon I really came to hate my body and at times myself, because sometimes I do not have self controll. I am not binge eating or anything, but sometimes I eat trash food when I have a bad day, and when I am bored I also tend to eat more than I should. I hate it. I really hate it.

This weekend I decided to make a change. Or try to anyway. I want to begin small. Eat a bit less, a bit healthier and set my mind to it. Even if I lose just 1kg a month it would be awesome!

I want to have less back pain, do not want to be sweating a river when I am doing small things and I do not want to worry about what chair will take my weight when I walk into a room. This list is very long.

Tommorow the challenge start.

Communication problems

I found a picture with the following words on “the biggest communication problem is that we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply”. How very true!

Often when I try to talk to someone about a touchy subject it feels as if I am talking against a wall. Especially when it is in a argument. I guess this happens a lot in normal everyday conversations as well.

This feeling makes me want to scream to be honest. It feels as if what I say do not matter. Let’s take my father for example. I stopped smoking because of my health, I could not breathe anymore at night and kept getting sick. All my father can think about is his desire to smoke. I asked him to smoke outside and he tells me he isn’t a dog and that I will not chase him out of his house. He will choose his sigarettes over his family. It is sad but true. What I am saying is that no matter how many times I try to talk to him he is stonewalling me, not truly listening to what I am saying.

We are all guilty of this in one way or the other. I do not even listen to myself and sometimes other people. I have decided to try and listen to understand. To be honest, sometimes I simply don’t know what to say or how to respond even though I understand.

Maybe if we all work on listening to understand there would be less conflict in our lives and more understanding and peace. In my opinion it’s really, really hard but we can all make an effort to do and be better.

A best friend

I do not trust anybody. It is really hard for me. I struggle to be social and prefer my own company. A lone wolf so to speak. In my viewpoint people hurt. So I am slow to make friends. And when I choose you as a friend I am really committed. I will always be there for the person no matter what.

For the last 3 years I had a friend. She’s twenty years older than me. We met through her mother and became friends quick. We did everything together and so on. we were really close. She fell on hard times and I did everything I could to support her. She sold her vehicle and soon became reliant on me to take her everywhere. I came to arranging my life around her, so that I could be there and help her where I can.

As it happened she met someone. I were really glad for her. The sad thing about this new development was that she put me and my family aside. I/ we were just not good anymore, he did everything for her. She stopped talking to me. If we communicated it just wasn’t the same and the messages became farther and farther apart as our friendship.

So, I felt used, betrayed and hurt beyond measure. I rarely make friends,and here she comes and just destroy everything. As I sit and write, all my wounds are scratched open again.

She became real chatty the last few weeks. I wondered why and found out that the boyfriend left her, because he felt she just used him. Does this mean that I am good enough again???

Anyway, the person I really want to tell you about is my sister. I realized something that I should have realized a long time ago. My sister is my best friend. She will never drop me. Never betray my trust, will always be there for me no matter what happens. My sister is my safety net. The one that I can always talk to without being judged. Do you know she says I love you every 5minutes? I asked her why and she told me that she’s afraid that we might die and she did not say she love me. There is nothing that she would not do for me and the same from my side. She is always ready with a plan when I messed up or just do not know what to do. Most of the time I feel that I do not deserve her love. In my previous post I mentioned that I am a really difficult person to live with. I get irritated quickly. I can be quite impatient and Intolerant just to name a few. And she is still at my side. She accepts me just as I am. I feel I don’t deserve her love. How can someone love and believe so much in me?

I love her so much. She is my anchor. I only wish that I realized this sooner. I would do anything for her .

This is what a true friend is.

The Future

I am scared for my future. I do not know how to express that sentence properly, but there it is.

I am currently studying teaching and still have a long way to go before I am finished. It is very expensive. I gather money by house sitting for people who goes away on vacation or just for the weekend. With covid my income has almost halved.

It worries me that the fees goes up every year. How will I gather enough with my expenses included? Besides the money problems I worry if I will be able to get a job. Will I be good enough for teaching? Will I be able to do it properly? I struggle with dealing and talking to strangers and large groups of people. Just thinking about it makes me want to run away. I am sure I will be able to do it, but really, it scares the shit out of me.

I worry about doing my practicals. I am scared teachers will judge me and say I am not fit and would not be able to be a good teacher. I am sure it is just my insecurities that’s talking.

Lastly I am going to be oooolllldddd when I am finished. Probably in my thirties. I am worried that people will hire first the young and then the old.

I am going to apply for a bursary and hope for the best. I really hope that God will look out for me. And clear my path for me.

Sorry for my poor grammar. Ps. One if my subjects will be grammar so maybe it will improve!😂😂

Emotions and daydreaming.

I feel very emotional today. I long to be on my own. Without people around me. To have a place that is just my own. I want an income big enough to support myself, to be able to get a vehicle that doesn’t break every other day. I long for mornings that I wake up with no worries, sorrows and pain. I long to have a life that is not full of fighting between family members in the household and intolerance for each other. I want to be free. Free in every sense of the word.

It is nice to daydream about all these things I long for, but it is crushing me when I realize that no matter how much I long for all these things, these things will not happen.

I have been house sitting for the last month. I have to tell you; it is damn hard to adjust again. There is always a fight going on somewhere, there’s always tobacco pipe smoke in the air that aggravates my asthma and sinus problems, because of an inconsiderate father. A father who is a wonderful dad and person most if the time.

I struggle to sleep because it is too quiet. And when I am sleeping, I dream of snakes biting me. It is fitting to say that my emotions are everywhere. Sadly I really am a difficult person to live with. I can be pretty intolerant, impatient and irritable to name just a few things. Sometimes I wonder how to change. They say if you want change around you, it needs to start with yourself. Sadly, though I am not very successful at all.

Hmm this really is a depressing post, but it really seems to make me feel better writing about it today. A sort of outlet.
In the end I want God to answer my prayers. I feel as if he just disappeared and my faith with him. No matter how much you pray it really just seems that he isn’t listening. When I look around me everyone looks happy and content. They see their prayers answered. It is not fair. Ha-ha I sound just like a child!!
I have been without my depression meds for a month now. I have been thinking that maybe I am just not happy. Maybe it isn’t depression at all. The meds stopped working anyway if you ask me.
All will be ok in the end.

Ps. I am sorry for my bad grammar and punctuation.