So during the week in passing conversation with my minions, we were joking about just what a bad mom I am. My youngest minion reminded me of the day that she had an open wound and I didn’t have Dettol (antiseptic) to clean it – so I used tequila to disinfect her wound.

Admittedly I pulled a couple of weird stunts like, that so every now and then my minions ‘pretend moan’ to each other about me – but I somehow get the idea that they secretly love having a ‘Bad Mom’.

Their dad is a whole lot more uptight and so when they are with me, they joke about how the roles should be reversed …since I am the ‘mom’ after-all. I have heard them telling their friends in a fake looking for sympathy kind of way about stuff I have done, have not done or have put them through.

These include:

• Me regularly threatening to sell them on eBay
• Having a planned ‘bunk school’ day with them as a reward for studying for their exams … Bribery is the key to successful parenting
• I taught them how to gamble by teaching them to play klawerjas – a trick taking card game. We would play poker chips if they ran out of pocket money, but they better than what I am – so I’m the one always running out of money
• Me forgetting it was my daughter’s sports day and went hiking up Lion’s Head. Just a few meters from summit my son sent me a picture of her crossing the finish line 🤦🏾‍♀️
• We went on a family trip to Knysna and I took them with me into a pub. (The context being the whole family went to the pub for a meal – but still they love telling their friends “Mom took us to the pub”)
• Every now and then I feed them two minute noodles for dinner (note: only when I know that my own mother isn’t coming to visit – because then I would be in trouble!). I personally skip dinner in lieu of work from time to time, and then I tell them to help themselves to two minute noodles if they can find any. They moan about it – but I know they secretly love it…. much rather prefer two minute noodles to veggies
• I got them up early one Sunday morning to take them to an artsy film at an indi cinema. As we were walking to the cinema my daughter was incessantly moaning about being forced to wake up so early. So my son says to her “Sister, be grateful that our mom is a bad mom – things could be worse, you could have been woken up early on a Sunday to go to church”

So I am a bad mom. I might be the worst mom. I send them to school with creased clothes and unbrushed hair – but I make sure their homework is done. In fact always I do homework and school projects with them.

I don’t care what my kids look like. I do care very much that I teach them how to love and look after themselves.

When I decided to have kids, it wasn’t the plan to raise them as a single mom, but plans change, and that’s just how life worked out for us. And you know what, that’s perfectly fine. My house is a frequently in a mess and my wallet is regularly empty, but my heart….. yes my heart is over the top brimming FULL.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the good moms and also to all my fellow bad moms out there 🌻🌹❤️

No this is not evidence of S&M or an abusive boyfriend! I’m rather chuffed about my purple bruising because it is in fact evidence of my long awaited archery lesson! This happens when you accidentally smack your bow arm with the string of the bow as you discharge the arrow. A novice mistake….. because I am a novice! #PayingMySchoolFees 🏹 🏹🏹🏹

I have bruises on both arms because about halfway through my lesson I learnt that my left eye is my dominant eye. So I should hold the bow with my right arm and discharge the arrow with my left arm – hence I switched my bow arm and ended up having bruises on both arms 🤦🏾‍♀️. No matter, it was so worth it.

I wish I had my own bow with arrows that I could practice every day! Fun cubed for sure. My dream is to be that chic with a bow and a quiver of arrows on my back or side – and while I’m dreaming I might as well add a unicorn to the dream so I can shoot my arrows on the go…. 🦄 😁

Seriously though, it was more than cool. It’s an expensive sport to get started with though. Approximately 10K to just get set up. One day when I have extra cash, I believe I’ll definitely do it. For now it’s time to start saving. A great huge big Thanks to Luther and Sharon at Bowtime in Brackenfell. I definitely will go back to practice again.

Still revelling from an epic experience, Mel and I invited ourselves over to Berty’s house for a braai, and then later the evening he persuaded us to pop in at his Local, where a fundraiser was happening to pay for one of his friend’s charity entry to the Two Oceans Marathon. To end off a rather cool day I won a raffle prize at the fundraiser event 🤸🏾‍♂️👏🏾🌈 -A bottle of black vodka…. never knew the product existed before. So it’s been a pretty cool weekend.

But for now it’s back to work…. gots to earn some cash…. to buy my own bow and arrow! Catch ya later alligator

And so this above is the only picture I have of an amazing weekend spent with some new and extremely interesting friends on the West Coast.

The weekend was different for a couple of reasons. For starters it was a meat free, and mostly preservative free weekend… kind of. In total we were 10 people, of which 3 were vegetarian, 2 pescetarian, and 3 others weren’t vegan, vegetarian or pescetarian, but did not eat anything with preservatives or added sugar. That made the weekend menu very interesting. We all helped with the cooking, and I’m thrilled to share that we had the most delicious predominantly plant based meals that were tremendous fun to prepare.

The other difference was it was really chilled in strange way, considering we don’t know each other that well. I guess I expected some anxiety since I didn’t know them well, but to my surprise, everyone was super relaxed and friendly (happy?). I think it’s because everyone that was there, was self assured and just confident in their own skin. Silly things to illustrate my point…. after an amazing dinner and socialising on both nights, everyone went to bed by about 11pm. Despite there being loads of alcohol (and vegetarian food) available, overindulging just wasn’t something that appealed much to anyone. Over the weekend I went for two longish runs and my friends did various things including cycling, kite-surfing, sculpting (one posed and one sculpted), a few of us read a bit, listened to music, had stimulating conversation while we prepared food and at times we just all chilled on the beach. And during the entire weekend no one bothered to watch tv.

The culmination of this translated into the most significant difference, the outstanding feature about this weekend….To me is feels that everyone there was present. And that was seriously cool.

It truly was different to any other weekend I’ve been on before. We didn’t take pictures. No one bothered to ask anyone else to take selfies with them. No one posted on FB or Insta or anywhere else that I know of. It’s not because the weekend wasn’t fun – it’s because we were all fully engaged in the weekend. On Saturday I realised that there wasn’t a single person that seemed to be preoccupied with their smart phones. Smart phones all lay on a pile on one of the tables while we sat outside sharing pita and talking about that various activities that everyone got up to that day.

Every time I caught myself thinking about the past, or the future (besides a few very practical things that needed my attention), I gently acknowledged and then dismissed those thoughts. I don’t know for sure, but I surely am inclined to believe that this thing, this new experience to me, aka living in the present is the source of true contentment and happiness.

Anyway who knows….. but lets try this Bronwyn why not!

Goodbye 2017. Thank you for the happy times, special memories with friends and family but thank you for the challenges too. I am not sad to see you go, but I am very grateful that I am not the same person I was when I met you.

Most of all, thank you coercing me to get to know myself better, your most valuable lesson for me…

I shall not forget.

So Hello and Welcome 2018, Let’s be friends

To my other friends, have a fun but safe NYE everyone…

See you all in 2018

Ok peeps – so this post is heavy. If you not in the mood for heavy then I strongly recommend you rather skip reading this one. I have a couple of hopefully interesting posts coming up shortly, besides the Bespoke vlog. Gonna write something on tattoo removal (yikes I’m getting that done!… again) and other cool summer vibes.

I’m sure you’ll enjoy those blog posts. Have a few awesome plans for summer – another murder mystery dinner, more on the Galileo open air cinema I went to last night, an archery lesson coming up etc etc etc. Bring on summer! (Yeah yeah Ok – Some work too :))

8 November 2017 – Crafting … that’s what it feels like. I love the word ‘crafting’, because in my mind there is a connotation between crafting and creating something good and beautiful.

Two nights ago, Monday 6 November was particularly significant to me. That the day that I decided to surrender and separate the anxiety derived as a consequence of my past from my current identity. That is not the same as surrendering pain, Nope. Forgiveness is surrendering pain – surrendering the past – well that is something different.

Few months ago I surrendered pain. I forgave. That was good for healing. So the start of healing took place – and yet on Monday I realised there is still something holding me back from fully embracing my future. I was holding on to my ‘history’ as an integral part of my present-time identity. Through nothing other than grace, I started realising that for me, this can no longer work. Certainly not in light of the aspirations of the future that I have for myself.

Thus, I am mentally excising my (what I regard as painful) history from my present and my future. In a nutshell – whatever events has happened to me previously from as early as childhood, and whatever I have thought, said or even did in the past is not part of my identity any longer. I am crafting a new me. The ‘new me’ is based on all the lessons I have picked up along the way in the past, but without giving that past any credit (memory) or importance in my life, and who I am today. All the negatives that happened in my life before this particular moment shall have no share of my current identity.

See I forgave people who I felt wronged me – some deliberate and some of it sincerely unintentional. But that was not enough though. I know some people did not mean to hurt me – what happened was more about them than about me. And in 2017, I also discovered I had deep seated self-esteem issues related to my relationship with my mother. This sort of shaped my personality and is partly the reason I have been so rebellious my whole life. It’s partly the reason why I have sought approval in places and from people (including previous partners) that I did not need to do. #WorkInProgress.

After I identified this, I worked through other issues – seemingly failed moments in my life. Then I did the next  important thing, – I forgave myself and I started truly loving myself and working toward filling my own needs. This feels really really good. Owning my own sense of worth.

2017 has been a struggle. But I guess a good struggle?…, I had to deal with painful situations, some related to my studies – but most of it related to myself. About 50% related to relationship stuff and 50% related to discovering myself. True story – the 50% related to relationship stuff would never have come about or transpired the way they did if I had investing more time in me in the first place. Dumb ass girl –  But no regrets. I think we only ready to do what we do when ready. 

During the above-mentioned time, I picked up skills such as identifying emotions and using my feelings to guide my thoughts, listening to my inner voice and gaining strength from that. On Monday, by doing this, it dawned on me, that all the forgiveness (of others and of myself), the letting go of the pain and the exercise of loving myself and others regardless, is completely useless if I don’t surrender the association between that that happened (and the ‘healed me’) from my current ‘identity’. Whatever is done is done – thinking about, remembering it, or using it to direct decisions in my future is rubbish. Tired of it so I’m tossing my history. All of it. Serves me no longer.

Happiness Everyone. Seven more weeks before the end of the year, and I feel like rocking it. Let’s have ourselves a kick ass glorious summer!