Hi ! Welcome back. May is done and dusted - wow. This week I am also thinking and writing abou - Eve D.❣️

Week in review…

👩‍🎓 This week was all about Micole, who had her graduation on Tuesday. She’s now officially a degree holder, and has the certificate to prove it. She really enjoyed her graduation, took tons of photos with all her friends, and we celebrated with cake and more cake that evening.

Then on Friday we went to what Zac described as a fancy-shmanzy restaurant to celebrate in style. As a bonus, Zac’s father (Craig) had just flown in from the UK that morning, so he joined us. The restaurant has many happy memories for my family - I’ve been going there since I was in high school, and will share more about this establishment in a future newsletter. The owner/chef commented on the fact that he’s been feeding me for over 30 years! 🤣 . Unsurprisingly, the evening was a big success. I have no vocabulary to describe the magical food, so you’ll have to simply enjoy the photos.

Look at the photo on the left. What do you think it is? (Try to guess…)

It’s…oxtail. Prepared off the bone, shredded, and served under a bed of triple pureed mash, that is unlike any texture you’ve ever had. That was my starter, and it was superb. Next, on the right, is rump of lamb. (That’s what Zac and Micole had).

As my main I had duck, served with a wine-infused pear. It was mouth-watering good. And for my dessert I had the concoction on the right, which was a thin moulded pastry shell filled with strawberries and some delicious combination of cream and stuff. Divine.

In a twist of events, Micole is still studying (towards her honours degree), so I guess we’ll be doing it all again next year. 😂 

🛍️ I went to the Kamers Makers Market with Laura. This is an “upmarket” pop up market, that is filled with vendors from across the country who sell locally made (often, hand made) products. I am always in awe of people who pour their heart and soul into a craft, and this market is an opportunity to see the best of the best.

Unfortunately, I left my wallet and all other means for paying at home, by mistake. Laura still made sure I was coffee’d up and nourished, but I didn’t buy (much), and was really kicking myself for being so careless. But then…the following day I missed nothing of what I did not buy, and realised I had saved myself a small fortune. Laura, on the other hand, dropped a fair chunk of cash and probably had some financial regrets 😂 .There is a lesson in there, somewhere!

🇱🇧 G and I had Sunday breakfast at a Lebanese restaurant, which was something new for me (and him!). I loved it…the eggs were scrambled with onion, which is exactly how my dad would make his eggs, and it reminded me of old times. They offer a basket of this fluffy bread/pita, with chilli paste on the side, and I think we asked for six refills of these basket. No jokes.

💪 I am still hitting the gym, and I am still loving it. I am at the beginners stage where I want to try out all the classes (that make sense), and then the various instructors who teach those classes, so I can find workouts that match my level of ability and desired fun. It’s still all a bit haphazard, but I am already feeling the benefits. My body and mind are thanking me.

🙄 In some urgh news, I’ve just found out about a substantial setback at work, and I have this feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. Know what I mean? But I also know that this is an excellent opportunity to step back, assess, open up new possibilities, and remove any self-limitations that have crept in. I already know this is exactly what I needed, and look forward to making this a “setback that unknowingly led to incredible things” kind of experience. On a related note: I love that I have a better and more stoic understanding of how life experiences flow and ebb.

The case of the missing earring, and other signs…

Do you believe is signs, as in…signs from the Universe? I most absolutely do! I attach a lot of meaning to happenings that others will write off as a “coincidence”. And, as you may well imagine, my life is full of signs. And I take them seriously. Let me give you some examples:

1.
My mother loved earrings, or any other costume jewellery, actually. She had hundreds of pairs of earrings. She knew each and every one, and had a special relationship with them all. She was the type of person who would buy a pair of earrings because she loved them, and then would literally go and buy a blouse to match them, so she could show them off in full glory. She had a unique outfit per pair of earrings, or close to it. (And, as a fun fact: my sister’s partner once told me that he never saw my mom wear the same outfit twice). You get the picture. Anyway, occasionally, and much more often than it normally happens to you or me, my mother would lose an earring. It would literally fall out her ear, and disappear. When she’d realise this, it was a tragedy that could match anything the Greek poets thought up. She was always devastated. My sister and I would be hearing about it for days. She’d comb the garden, go down on her hands and knees to look under couches and tables, go through all the rubbish and rope us into the treasure hunt. Sometimes the earring was gone forever, other times it would show up days or months later. Either way, the whole family lived through the trauma, and my mother mourned the loss gravely.

When she passed away, my sister and I split her jewellery. I also happen to love earrings, and I try to wear hers as often as I can, because a)they are lovely and b)I know she would want me to. But guess what? Suddenly…I am losing my mom’s earrings just as often as she did. I once put a pair out on my bedside table when I went to bed and woke up to one of them gone. I never found it.

When Micole had her graduation, I made sure to weak a pair of my mom’s earrings, because I knew that above everyone in the family, my mom would be the one who would have enjoyed the graduation the most. She lived for things like that, and Micole was her everything. But when we were driving to the post-graduation coffee and cake thingy with my sister (something else we did just because my mom would have insisted on it)…I realised one of my earrings was gone. I had lost it, sometime during the day. Now it was my turn to be devastated because it was a beautiful set. This was such a “mom event” I feel like that disappearing earring was my mom’s way of showing us that she was with us in spirit that day. She had left her mark, by leaving me with just one earring.

2..
Another sign, also involving my mom. At the time that my mom was in hospital, I was experiencing some fraud on my bank account so kept my transactional account with no funds, and transferred money from Savings into it as needed (it’s an instant transaction, using the banking app). I would sometimes transfer more than necessary to leave a little bit of money there, but not much.

On the day my mom passed away, but while she was still alive, we were in the hospital cafeteria eating cake and lunch, while one of us was upstairs with her (Covid times, so visitors were limited to one at a time). Eventually I asked for the bill and was about to transfer the funds across from one account to the other to pay it, but when I logged into my banking app I realised that my transactional account had exactly the amount of the bill in it, already. Down to the last rand. R191. I thought that was interesting and took a photo of the bill to remember. Then, as I was walking up to my mom’s ward, I looked at my phone and saw that I had exactly 191 unread emails. It was the first inkling from the Universe that something was happening. In the next hour or so, my mom passed away.

(Bonus sign: the 191 digits add up to 11, which I so definitely a significant number in our lives I could write a whole newsletter just about this.)

I know that most people would not link any of these events together, and most people will scoff at me saying that the Universe played a role in any of this. (One of those people is G, probably! 🤣 ). I don’t care. I’m not here to convince anyone of anything. But I do want to make one thing clear: I have now learnt that signs from the Universe are not a sign of “good things” or that “everything will work out” or anything like that. It is merely a sign that things are going according to plan. Whatever that plan is. And often, the plan is difficult to stomach, because that is how we grow. So the signs are a gentle reminder that there is a reason in all the madness, and no matter how it sometimes feels like we are walking the road alone, we actually have the whole Universe backing us, and cheering us on. Just need to keep on walking.

I’ve been watching…

This week we watched Sideways, which is a hilarious account of a Wine-country, five day trip of two friends, as a pre-wedding experience. I can’t remember a movie that was both so enjoyable and that had the most unlikable characters imaginable. These men made me want to punch them in the face. I was reading on Redditt that this movie is universally loved by men and hated by women. The reasons will be clear when you watch it. Either way, I laughed out loud many times watching it (not common for me) and I strongly recommend it.

Side note: wine is a third main character in the movie. I learnt that I know even less about it than I thought, and I also confirmed that I don’t care.

Thanks for reading!

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