👟👠 Up to the challenge? (#30)

Hi !  Welcome back. This is the 30th newsletter I’ve written! At about 2k words each, I’ve pretty much written a book! I’m having so much fun with it, so thank you for reading. This week I am thinking (and writing) about good food, good dates, challenges, courage and fear. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can join here or by clicking the button below. - Eve D.❣️

WEEK IN REVIEW

🍽️ This week was a week of good food (see below), good wine, excellent company. And so many things just shifted up, in my life and in my friends’ lives. Not all weeks are a win, but this one most definitely was.

🎙️Briefly reconnected with a friend I made on my Kruger trip. It was wonderful to hear her voice, and reminisce about the shared experience, which we both found to be immensely special and life changing.

🎉 My friend Laura launched her new blog, Wisdoms And Wrinkles. It’s about her midlife journey. Strongly recommend you check it out. We also had a great coffee meet-up where we gossiped, schemed and laughed. Grateful for all my friends!

📷️ Zac started his YouTube career (see below).

📙 I actually worked on my book, and there wasn’t a day that the Universe did not send me a strong sign that I need to finish and publish it by the end of the year. Now it must send me some more energy and stop time. (I am a big believer in the Universe and its messages. No such thing as a coincidence!)

🌹 I got flowers, as a surprise! I haven’t received flowers in years, and this was so unexpected and sweet. Made my day ❤️ . (Fun story: Micole, my eldest, was born on Feb 13 and my sister arrived at the hospital with the biggest bunch of flowers the nurses had ever seen, and a very loud complaint that these were the most expensive flowers known to man because of Valentine’s the following day 🤣 . And every year when we celebrate Micole’s birthday, Patricia still retells the story of how much she paid for them. 😂)

GOOD FOOD: Part 1

My Monday afternoon started like this:

and ended like this:

It was a typical girls-night out. The focus was fully on my friend, who regaled me with all her dating-app adventures. We laughed so much, and I really wish I could share but these are not my stories to tell (thank God!). I will tell you that at one point a guy who was sitting a couple of tables away came up to us and said “You’re right, men can be very shit sometimes! I’m sorry”. 🤣 I will admit that my friend is a little bit mad (she agrees!) and her reaction to this was:

(Fun fact: The above was Monday, and we were unexpectedly back at the same table, same time on Friday because she had a life-changing shift-up with respect to her love life. Once again, wish I could share but I can tell you this: life can change instantly for the better, and often you need to take the bull by the horns if you want that to happen. Very thrilled for her, and wish her all the best 🍾. )

GOOD FOOD: Part 2

The week continued to get better! My Tuesday afternoon started like this:

and ended like this:

I have had some very good meals in my life, but this one will go down in history as one of my favourites ever. The food was divine. We had two different types of curries (chicken korma, lamb rogan josh) and two different types of naan (one garlic, one with sugar, perawari). Chilli on the side. All the dishes were bursting with individual flavour, of course, but combing the dishes opened up a whole new experience of endless possibilities. I had avoided Indian food all my life because I was scared of spices, and it just goes to show you that a little bit of courage and adventure should be pursued, not avoided (this doesn’t just apply to food!). I am also not blind to the fact that the success of the dinner was very much due to the awesomeness of my date. The conversation, and the wine, flowed. I’m loving the progression of this new relationship. #G

As an aside: I’ve noticed a new trend in dinners-out. Food is shared, especially if there are only two people at the table. I haven’t had a “mine-only” meal in ages, unless the other person is having exactly the same thing. It’s really such a great hack, and restaurants should get more on board with this trend.

FREE THERAPY

ODDS AND ENDS

✅ If you use Google Suite, a cool short cut is to simply type doc.new in your browser search bar to immediately go to a new document. This also works for sheet.new for a blank spreadsheet. Other shortcuts: story.new to post a new story on Medium, shopify.new to open a new online shop, and there are 200 more of these! You can view them all here.

✅ If you ever need a digital notepad to write something down, save this link to your bookmark bar. It will open up a scratchpad in a new tab. (Might only work in chrome).

✅ This (old school!) website has 62+ tutorials on how to tie shoelaces in a funky way. Very cool!

✅ I have this weird quirk that anybody who knows me well just learns to respect (😂): I need to ideally sit at the same table (or type of table), in the same chair/position whenever I go to a place I frequent often (restaurant, someone’s dining room). And if there are “built-in couches” (like booths), I am sitting on them! This doesn’t always work out, obviously, and I have mini panic attacks if it does not. But the funny thing is how often it does work out. One of my favourite coffee shops has 4 such tables, and 50 other ones, but I always, always manage to get the “booth”. The waitresses pick up on this very quickly, btw, and always work with me to get my preferred seating. If I don’t get my spot, I am extremely disorientated and uncomfortable, and will often just leave. (Funny story: when I took G out to dinner a month or so ago, I got to the restaurant early to get my table, someone was sitting at it (!), and I asked him to move! #TrueStory. My kids were both horrified and impressed when I told them)

✅ I am determined to get fit and healthy as a priority, and I have a life hack to make this happen: I am partnering, individually, with all my friends to help me with different aspects of this process. Some I will hike with, others I will work-out with, others I will set eating goals with etc. So basically everywhere I turn there will be someone holding me accountable to some aspect of the journey. And I am definitely roping G in on this (poor man doesn’t know it yet). His fitness is miles ahead of mine and being able to keep up with him is a big part of my motivation. I already chickened out once from climbing a mountain with him, and I have regrets!

LIFE GOALS

What can be done?

Someone asked me recently...what could you achieve in 365 focussed hours? Or, in other words, what could you achieve by focussing on one particular thing for a solid hour per day, for a year? This is really intriguing to me. One hour doesn't sound like that much, and I am sure I could find it somewhere in my day. Here is a preliminary shortlist/criteria of stuff I could and could not do:

• It can't be something I'd do anyway (like, write).

• Must be something that I can, at least in part, do solo, and that I can easily do daily (so probably not tennis?).

• Getting fit seems like a cop out - I should be doing it anyway.

• Learn a language? Maybe.

• Grow a Youtube channel? (Requires more than an hour a day).

• Learn photography?

• Learn to play the piano (finally!?)

• Learn to play snooker, properly? (Fun fact: I have a snooker table in my house that hasn't been touched since my dad died, 23 years ago).

• Learn to draw? (I bet I'd see proper progress with this).

• Learn how to use a digital tool properly? (Photoshop? Procreate?).

What new thing would/could you do for an hour a day and are you willing to join me in the challenge of actually doing it?

BIAS TOWARDS ACTION

I discussed the above 365 day challenge with Laura and she also got very excited. This is a big difference between her and me: I am happy to start the challenge in February 2025, but she says…why not start tomorrow? If we’re going to do it, we might as well do it. She’s right, and I have huge respect for this let’s go attitude.

It’s tempting to write off 2024 as done. In South Africa, we shut down properly on Dec 15 for our summer/Christmas break and slowly reopen around January 15, but we tend to informally switch off much sooner in anticipation of the holidays. By November, we are all exhausted with work, school, life so it’s easy and tempting to postpone meetings and other plans to early 2025. But the reality is, there are still 67 days left, and we can do a lot in 67 days.

THE KIDS ARE OK

If you think we are done speaking about challenges, you’re wrong 😂 . Zac (my 13yr old) is quite convinced that he can become a successful YouTuber. And to start this illustrious and prestigious career (that would make any mother proud 🙄 ) he has set himself a goal of creating 100 daily YouTube shorts, where he builds one Minecraft house per day. (A YT Short is a 60 second video, much like an Instagram reel).

When he told me about this, I supported it but also spoke to him about whether he is prepared to do all that work, to only get 10-20 views per video. After all, he has no “audience” or network, and the competition on YouTube is stiff. I was worried that the disappointment will be crushing. He insisted he could handle it, and that his only worry is that he just won’t have the perseverance to see it through the whole 100 days (I promised to help with that, when the time came).

Anyway, this kid came up with the challenge and then just did it starting the next day, ala Laura style. He figured out a plan, set a schedule, found all the apps he would need to make it happen, taught himself editing and recording skills, set up a new channel…and just went for it.

And guess what? In only six days, he has accumulated 1,500+ views and 11 watch hours (which means that people have spent eleven hours watching his videos! That’s mad!). So much for my 10-views-per-video fears. Colour me impressed. I’ll see myself and my pessimism out the door.

A favour: if you have kids that are into Minecraft, or if you just want to see what 13yr olds create on YouTube, please forward or check out his channel, @crafteez. He needs 1,000 subscribers before he can turn his dreams into actual cash.

Side note: It turns out getting paid by YouTube is very difficult. Aside from the 1,000 subscribers, he also needs 10 million (!!!) views of YouTube shorts, or 4,000 watch hours before YouTube will consider taking him on as a partner. But I am done doubting whether Zac can (eventually) do this.

Side note 2: How long have I been saying I need to get on social media, to at least promote my book? Have I done anything about it? No. Is my 13 year old putting me to shame? Yes. I mean…he literally is pushing me to join him in the challenge and get my butt into gear. The student becomes the teacher!

WOMEN’S HELL

I need to say something about Gisele Pelicot (74), and the mass rape trial. (If you haven’t heard the story: her husband drugged her throughout her marriage, and brought home 50+ men over a period of nine years, to rape his unconscious wife. She is now standing up for herself in court, and accusing all of them directly.).

Obviously, I am sick to my stomach. I want to write much more on this, and I will do so either here, in the near future, or as a separate blog post.

For now I will say two things: Firstly, Gisele’s courage is breathtaking, and I really do hope she gets Time Person of the Year award, or some similar recognition, for showing women that we all deserve a voice and cannot hide behind any shame that is not ours to bear. And secondly, I don’t know a woman who has not been triggered by this incident. We are weary (scared?) of most men, and have learnt to deal with this for the most part, but to think we should perhaps also be scared of our men is overwhelming and debilitating.

Gisele has said in court, of her ex-husband: “So many times, I said to myself how lucky am I to have you at my side. For me, he was someone I trusted entirely. How can the perfect man have got to this? How could you have betrayed me to this point? How could you have brought these strangers into my bedroom … ? I wouldn’t have stayed 50 years if he had behaved like a violent brute. Like all couples, we had arguments. We got through lots of challenges, illness, work, money. He wasn’t a brute. He never hit me … This case for me is total incomprehension. I would never have imagined a man could do this.”

Since the day I met up with G last year, way way before any romantic involvement, I felt particularly safe with him, probably more so than with any other man. It’s almost a defining characteristic of my relationship with him, and I have told him this repeatedly. This is obviously not in the context of personal safety at his hands (that’s a given!) and neither is it a guarantee of an unbroken heart (never a given!) but more a sense of general protection from the world at large, when in his presence. I don’t know the reason I feel this, nor do I know the reason for why I sense this protection so strongly in him. But I suspect that it’s because all of us women carry an inherent fear with us everywhere we go, and we simply don’t realise it. And only when we can release it (for whatever reason, and apparently very rarely!) does the absence of this fear make us aware of the magnitude of the burden it forces us to carry.

I am processing all of this, and discussing with my girlfriends, and will definitely write more on it when my mind is clearer.

MOVIES

Nik and I watched Thelma this week. It was sweet, and funny, and very different. If you are looking for a gentle but rewarding watch, you won’t regret spending 90 minutes with this movie.

🎃 Next week we are watching Beetlejuice Beetlejuice because it’s Halloween time and we always choose an appropriate movie for that week! (I am not at all a fan of horror, but there are cute scary movies, which I can handle).

I also finished Nobody Wants This (with Kirstin Bell and Adam Brody) and absolutely loved it because I am a hopeless romantic and a sucker for a cute love story. Highly recommend.

Thanks for reading!

That’s it for this week. (Want more? You can find past editions here). I hope you have a great weekend and upcoming week. Please keep sharing /forwarding to your friends/groups 😄 . You can also email me privately by hitting reply on this email.

PS