The Purple Journal

• FINALLY!!!!!! Today is my last day until 3 January. I leave tonight for Durban and Will be swimming in the Indian Ocean tommorrow as early as I can get there! Some sites to visit to see where I am: http://www.durban.gov.za/eThekwini http://durban.kzn.org.za/durban/

Things on my to do list while I am there:

• Visit Scottsburg beach
• Ansteys beach (this is a 5 minute drive from my Granny's house where I will be staaying)
• A day at Ushakaland www.ushakamarineworld.co.za (water slides and rides as well as an aquarium and dolphinarium)
• Visit to mini town
• A day at the flea market
• The Pavillion shopping centre
• Visit MANY family memebers
• Go to the docks to see the boats, also Wilsons Wharf
• A trip out on a boat for the children
• Umgeni river bird park (I lived 10 minutes away from this all my life and NEVER visisted there!)

HAve a wonderful festive season and all the best for the new year.

1 more day....Tomorrow night I leave for Durban!!! YAYYYYYY

This quote really struck a nerve with me today. I feel like this job is my past, but I cant see the road in front of me that I am meant to travel. And that scares me. It scares me that for the fisrt time, I dont know what I want to do with my life. My ambition seems to have left me. The drive to achieve is gone. I want to do things hat make me happy, not things that feel I have to do. I am sitting at my desk and studying and wondering ...Why?

Why am I studying? What purpose is that going to serve? I am in the wrong place to be attempting to do get this degree and I am feeling the starin of trying to balance it all. After all, it IS Christmas - I should be focuissing on my childen and family and things I want to do, but I have the Black Exam Cloud hanging ominously over my head. No matter what happens with these exams, I will not be studying next year. This is all too much for me.

I was watching Oprah (the repeat at 11.00pm - I never watch it because I get home too late) while having some Milo before bed last night. They had The Williams sisters and Jada Pincket on...I only got the tail end of the show, so I dont know what it was all about, but Oprah said That sometimes failure is God's way of saying "try something else". I feel like I am a failure at studying this year. Maybe I should try something else.

http://www.happynews.com its about time!!! Thought for Monday - Have a wonderful day.

Its finally Friday. This has been a long week!

• I am waking up earlier in the mornings to start work at 7.00. That has been good because its meant that I leave at 4.00 and get home by 5 missing the rush hour traffic. But. From today I will still be starting at 7.00, but ending at 5.00 and getting home at about 6.30. Normal time. So, I wake up earlier and leave earlier, but have less time at home and more tme at work. This is because the person I travel with (and me) did not come to work yesterday - so she has to make up the hours she missed! Bummer for me though!
• Also, GOT MY BONUS LETTER! It seems about the same as last year, but we will wait to see exactly how much we get out after the TAX has come off...but at least I have an idea of what I will probably get. Let the PLANNING begin!
• I got an email today saying that the book Living out Loud that I have been wanting for ages by Keri Smith has 15% off... I think its a sign that I must buy it???
• I finished my Mother in Law's album last night ( I spent my entire day off working on it)! WooHoo! I love the way it came out - very simple scrapbooking - I will take pics and post soon. I just have my mothers and granny's books to do - hopefully these will be done by the end of the weekend.
• We have a birthday party, Christmas supper and breakfast to go to this weekend. I need to try to stick to some kind of eating plan this festive season or I am going to be crying in January back at square one...it is HARD though!

Have a good weekend

ps for those keeping track (like ME... 7 days until MY DURBAN HOLIDAY!!!)

My sisters birthday today. She is 24 years old I wish her everything of the best and more today and always. My mother is here! YAY!! She arrived at 3.00 this morning and will be here until the 15 Dec when we all leave for our holiday in DURBAN!!! 9 days to go! I can't wait! I also made part of my mothers christams present last night a tag book to go into the back of the album of her childrena dn grandchildren I am making for her. I have one more to do for Jerome's mother and one for my granny.

I love reading blogs. the 2 I visit first on my list everyday are

1. Ali Edwards she is a wonderfully simple scrapbooker - stunning ideas and so creative...love her. She is doing a Christmas art journal and posts the pages everyday--I am loving it. and
2. Keri Smith - author of Living out Loud and illustrator. She has such wonderfully creative ideas and is an independant thinker. Have a look at these two for inspiration.

Have a wonderfully creative and inspired Day!

I played around with the November freebie on twopeas. I love this quote by Maya Angelou. Thought it appropriate for Monday blues! 10 more days until I leave for my holiday in Durban! I cant wait! Also, my mother arrives tomorrow...YAY!! Happy Monday

with our Human resources department? Where is my bonus letter...the letter the all important letter telling me HOW MUCH I HAVE TO SPEND!!! I mean really! DEont they know I need to plan? D they think that money is just going to spend itself? I need to know what I am woerking with here! Its the 2 of december - fro crying in a bucket! I have less than 2 weeks to plan how to spend my money! But how can I plan if I dont know HOW MUCH its IS???? Get off your lazy bums and DO IT! I have a hliday to plan! SheeSH!! I have to plan. To make lists. To plan outitngs. To arrange places to go and people to visit. The planning os half the fun. YOU ARE RUINING MY FUN! I take that very seriously. give me my bonus letter. please. now.

Today, I think of the millions living with HIV and AIDS. My friends that have been affected. The lives that have been senselessly lost. Gugu Dlamini. Killed for being HIV positive. So brutal. Such a horrible death. The government so slow to respond in the beginning. Such ineffective programs. Why so reluctant and unwiling to give people the drugs they need to stay alive? Garlic? GARLIC??????? Please. Get a grip. Ludicrous! It is so embarrasing that our National Minister of Health would spout SUCH RUBBISH! Dont you read? Havent you seen the results of ARV's? THEY WORK! Our response to the epidemic in South Africa has been pathetically slow to say the least. The numbers of those infected are shocking. But the lives, the people...we tend to fucus on the numbers and %'s of the "population". So dehumanising. That "population" is comprised of people mothers and fathers, people with faces and lives...not just numbers. Why can we not geth this right? Why so slow. ARV's. Why is tht so hard for the government to understand and DO!? I think of the field I left (HIV AIDS Education and Training). There are many people and programs and organisations doing excellent work. Within the constraints they have, a good job is being done by hundreds of NGO's around the country. But they need resources. Funding. Support from government. Co-ordination of their efforts. it makes me so angry...Lip service is being paid, but it is hard to see the results of all the talking. There is very little. We need to move beyond the talking and political commitment to action and providing ARV's to the people that need it. That we are talikng about it in organisations, the media and in government is progress. Progress is not enough. Progress does not save lives. Progress does not feed children who are hungry and caring for themselves because they have lost their parents. Progress ...The grant for people living with HIV/Aids is R750. Not even a month's groceries. Progress.