Should you quit your job?

Quiz from Self magazine

Your score is: 31 — IT'S time to say good-bye.
Set a deadline for your departure, start saving for living expenses (it pays to be safe) and get your résumé out there

—MP Dunleavey

Take this Quiz

If you identify with at least three of these statements, you could be spending more time at the office than is good for your health and happiness, says Gayle Porter, Ph.D., associate professor of management at Rutgers University School of Business in Camden, New Jersey.

	You rarely leave work on time, so your after-work plans are typically tentative-and often canceled.
	You feel panicky if you don't have access to your BlackBerry or cell phone, even in bed.
	You hide your work habits from your loved ones. For instance, you check your office voice mail in private.
	Your career is the main thing that gives you a sense of accomplishment.
	Sleep is no escape from a long day of toiling; you dream about your job several nights a week.
	Most of your out-of-office conversations with friends and family concern work.
	Delegating is not your thing. You have a tough time trusting that anyone but you will do the job right.
	Former interests have fallen by the wayside.
	You routinely miss your children's school events or family celebrations, or arrive late for important events.
	Your laptop is a vacation must-have. —Sarah Bailey

Treats below

I am currently reading The Heroine's Journey By Maureen Murdock.

"This book describes contemporary woman's search for wholeness in a society in which she has been defined according to masculine values. Drawing upon cultural myths and fairy tales, ancient symbols and goddesses, and the dreams of contemporary women, Murdock illustrates the need for— and the reality of— feminine values in Western culture today." Google summary.

Interesting blog post:

Shadows and the True Self – Jung and Merton by Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog

Treats

A little while ago, I got a treat from Hootin' Anni's.

I would like to say thank you Anni.

For some odd reason I can't seem to display the picture treat.

I like the idea that bloggers recognise other bloggers who randomly visit
their sites. The whole Halloween thing may not go down so well with some.
Personally, I am South African so it has not become part of our traditions
here. Like Guy Faukes Day or Dwali (from England I think and the Hindu tradition).
Also being Christian, I have been brought up to shun these days- I don't any more.
I believe I should respect others and their beliefs.

I would like to treat:

Mike Cook

Beth Allen II

Scott-O-Rama

Visit Hootin Anni to collect it or send on an image of your choice. I liked the message from Self Magazine below.

Dear Husband

Happy Birthday

Sometimes, we seem to take for granted
the people we love the most…
Those who are so important
to our daily lives;
And, who are so important to us.
It doesn’t mean we don’t care;
and no disrespect is intended…
It is just that sometimes, life gets crazy
and there isn’t time to do it all,
or say it all.

Especially today,
I want you to know how much
I appreciate the loving things you do;
And how much I admire you
for being the kind and giving person you are.
I hope you know how very much
I Love You…
Not just sometimes,
but Always.

Verse by RosaLinda

Food Cravings

I feel like my whole focus on food and my life is passing me by. But then if I give into my life will pass me by.
I don't want to be feeling sick all the time.Once these craving pass my health should get better and I can live life to the fullest.


Having said that, I am busy typing this and sipping coffee after 10 days of nada. Well I have drunk it half way - now I am going to throw it away.

So is this another caterpillar cocoon experience? Trapped until I eat the right things so that I can enter the peaceful state of being in the cocoon and emerging a butterfly. Or will I eat the wrong this go into a vegetative state and coming out moth and die a powdery death.

Craving (tanha)

The definition

"There are these three cravings. Which three? Craving for sensuality, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming. These are the three cravings."

§ 58. {Iti 3.9; Iti 50}

This was said by the Blessed One, said by the Arahant, so I have heard: "There are these three cravings. Which three? Craving for sensuality, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming. These are the three cravings."

Bound with the bondage of craving,
their minds smitten
with becoming & non-,
they are bound with the bondage of Mara —
people with no safety from bondage,
beings going through the wandering-on,
headed for birth & death.

While those who've abandoned craving,
free from the craving for becoming & non-,
reaching the ending of fermentations,
though in the world,
have gone beyond.

How do you get through cravings? Have you tried any of these methods?

Foodcraving: understanding body signals, MSN Women

5 Minute Craving Busters, About.com

Coffee Update 2

Its been exactly two weeks since I have given up my habit of drinking to cups of coffee a day.

Two days ago my psychological craving for coffee was at an all time high. I eventually bought a cup. The first three sips were divine and then...... it was downhill, I started feel nauseous - it could have been that I just walking too fast while drinking...but whatever the reason, I decided to throw more that half a cup of coffee away.

Today, I had the same desire for coffee. I made it, took two sips and then threw it down the sink.

The fact that I am now also attempting to wean off sugar, wheat and diary is probably contributing to my cravings.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLAUDELLE

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Get More Comments Here!



Claudelle Photography
Brothers Wishlist

Card created by My Space Birthday Comments

Alexandra

Alexandra ( a modern Romeo and Juliet)

(Based on the violence between the ANC and IFP in Alexandra in 1992)

Oh Alexandra !,
what should have been a flame of hope
has been consumed by the flames of despair.
Like two lovers who wish to be together,
no force on earth can keep them apart.
But their dance is one of death and destruction
and not of love.

Jimmy Henderson

WW 24

Taken by Steve Crane

Taken by Richard Koker

Taken by Richard Koker

Fire on the mountain where I live. Apparently started by an arsonist. The smoke was awful. Luckily the wind blew it away from our homes.

Hope

Hope Abides

Hope abides; therefore I abide.
Countless frustrations have not cowed me.
I am still alive, vibrant with life.
The black cloud will disappear,
The morning sun will appear once again
In all its supernal glory.

- Sri Chinmoy

Poems on Hope

by Sri Chinmoy

Hope is my mind's secret fear.
Hope is my heart's sacred courage.
Hope is my life's daring experience.
Hope is my soul's illumining success
And fulfilling progress.
Hope is my Lord's ascending Perfection
And my Lord's transcending Satisfaction.

Poet Seers

WE WON WE WON

YAY

We won the rugby world 2007 and are also ranked number 1 in the world!

Congratulations to our team.

Now hopeful my insides can stop turning. Watching sports can be a dangerous activity.
My nerves.......

Rugby Fever

A few years ago I watched the last 10min of the Rugby1995 World Cup hosted in South Africa and we won. Last week I watched the semi-final match between South Africa and Argentina and today we are getting ready for ready for the Grande Finale.

Fire on Helderberg Mountain

I live on the mountain. The smoke has been awful, thank goodness the wind turned taking the fire and smoke away from our homes.

Some great shots were captured by Craniac of Craniac's Place.

Coffee Update

Well its been exactly one week since I have been off coffee!!
I experienced bad headaches and tiredness. Been drinking herbal teas in replacement.
Rewarded myself with SLEEP.

" It takes 30 days to develop a habit. It took you thirty days to develop your coffee habit, and it's going to take 30 days to replace it. The good news is that by the fifth day, or so, you won't be consciously fighting the "I want a cup of coffee" urge. Your subconscious will have taken over by then and the battle against addiction will take place mostly without you even being aware."
from an article: Kick the Coffee Habit

Since Tuesday , I have also cut all types of sodas drinks, sugar and sweeteners. Switched to soya milk and unsweetened yoghurt (still mixing a little low fat sweetened yoghurt to help with the taste)

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

We have a new clinical psychologist in our area who practises cognitive behavioural therapy.

What is CBT? (Click on the link to find out more)

It is a way of talking about:

• How you think about yourself, the world and other people
• How what you do affects your thoughts and feelings.

CBT can help you to change how you think ("Cognitive") and what you do ("Behaviour)". These changes can help you to feel better. Unlike some of the other talking treatments, it focuses on the "here and now" problems and difficulties. Instead of focussing on the causes of your distress or symptoms in the past, it looks for ways to improve your state of mind now.

The site in includes links to Free online CBT resources.

This type of therapy is supposedly sometimes more effective than medication and takes from 6weeks to 6 months to work.

I have been interested in studying Educational Psychology. After my first year of studying Education the psychology sections was not really what I expected and my interest died - that was over 11 years ago. Starting to rethink that now.

Happy 32nd Birthday to me!

I now officially off the calendar!Picture of me- taken by my husband last month

Blog Action Day

Today, October 15, is Blog Action Day. Bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.

Here are 3 ways to participate:

• Post on your blog relating to the environment on Blog Action Day
• Donate your day’s earnings to an environmental charity
• Promote Blog Action Day around the web

Happiness

Found this on Modern Goddess' blog and thought it was worth sharing.

This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen at the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded an Honorary PhD.

I’m a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don’t Ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.

People don’t talk about the soul very much anymore. It’s so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a winter’s night, or when you’re sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you’ve received your test results and they’re not so good.

Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocre at my job if those other things were not true.

You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So here’s what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.

It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the colour of our kids’ eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of to live.

I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby’s ear. Read in the back yard with the sun on your face.

Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.

Feelings

Emotions can be so fickle. The games we play with ourselves so silly.
Right now I feel upset despite the fact that I have no real reason or
right to be upset or so my logic tells me. Yet my logic just can't seem
to overrule the emotion. Wallowing in self-pity is not an attractive thing
and it really gets a person no-where fast.
Being happy and being unhappy both take energy the one gives life
and the other robs it. If it is all in my power of choice why do I keep
choosing the thing I know I do not want.......

Coffee & Books

Only had one cup of coffee yesterday and none today! Got up with a sinus headache that has just gotten worse as the day progressed. Still wondering if giving up coffee will really make a difference...... While eating a double cheese croissant the desire for a cuppa was really strong.

Starting to reading :Spud - The Madness Continues
By (author): John van de RuitSynopsis (from Exclusive books)
The year is 1991, and Spud Milton’s long walk to manhood is still creeping along at an unnervingly slow pace. Approaching the ripe old age of fifteen and still with no signs of the much anticipated ball-drop, Spud is coming to terms with the fact that he may well be a freak of nature. With a mother hell-bent on emigrating, a father making a killing out of selling homemade moonshine, and a demented grandmother called Wombat, the new year seems to offer little except extreme embarrassment and more mortifying Milton madness. But Spud is returning to a boarding school where he is no longer the youngest or the smallest. His dormitory mates, known as the Crazy Eight, have an unusual new member and his house has a new clutch of first years (the Normal Seven). If Spud thinks his second year will be a breeze, however, he is seriously mistaken. He is soon beset with women trouble, coerced into misguided late night adventures, and finds his dreams of a famous career on the stage in tatters after landing the part of the Dove of Peace in a disastrous house play production of Noah’s Ark. Hilarious, bitter-sweet, tragic and real, join Spud as he takes another tentative step forward while all around him the madness continues …

Giving up coffee?

I have romantic attachment to coffee. Grew up being told that caffeine was a big no-no. Coffee and coke were off limits. We had beverage 'cereal' drinks, milo, rooibos tea and 'English" tea. At some stage de-caf crept into the cupboards. Don't remember when I had my first coke. Had my first cup of 'real' instant coffee on farm just outside of Ixopo, 14 years old.

Reading books, watching movies and my imagination all turned coffee into this substance that I associated with intelligence, high-culture, socialising, fun, poetry and Europe (specifically France and Italy for some reason).

There something about the taste and smell of coffee

There something about the taste and smell of coffee
That transports me to another world
Sitting in my office I drink Stacey's filter coffee and
I'm back in America sitting in Eric's jeep outside of just
Dunkin Doughnuts
Or Starbucks with Elaine and Micky

Drinking Irish cream coffee at Milkylane and
I'm back in America at home in my room
Or at "My Father's Place" shooting pool
Driving to Seven Eleven or the corner store
Trying to decide do I want Irish Cream or French Vanilla
And when I get there I say bugger the budget and get
Both plus a packet of big chips on special for 99c * Pleasure

Ah the fine association and memories and but slowly
I am getting addicted * but whether its decaf or caf
It doesn't matter it's the smell and taste of coffee

Now I home in South Africa and I admit
That I am now addicted to coffee in totality
It's the romantic atmosphere of the Shop
The intellectual experience of the conversation
The solitary moment with a book
Excitement of a relationship
Socialisation with friends
The extra motivation when working
Fills in for the boredom and avoidance of food

There is just something about the smell and taste of coffee**
By SALF

After seeing a dietician a few years ago I decided to cut down to 2 cups a day. I rarely drink more. I have given it up twice (once just show that I could and for over a year during pregnancy and breastfeeding period) and I stopped a few times for detox purposes. I decided that there are few things I do wrong, why give up coffee. Don't drink alcohol, don't smoke, don't over do red meat etc... In fact I even read studies that have shown that coffee in moderation does have some health benefits. More benefits. New Health Food.

Well the cons of coffee are starting to out weight the pros and I find myself at a cross roads. Do I give up a drink that has become a comforting habit or do I give it up and potentially receive some good health benefits.

The two main reasons leading to these crossroads is the constant fatigue, it may be feeding a bacteria in my body making me feel ill (this is still sketchy and needs to be proved by my doctor - he reckons I should make some drastic dietary changes anyway) and the fact that it may inhibit weightloss.

Thus far I have believed that I don't drink enough coffee to be concerned that it is a problem. But now I wonder.........

Hidden dangers of coffee
ADRENAL FATIGUE
Candida diet: what to avoid
Top Reasons to be Caffeine-Free

Final analysis from MotherNature.com

I am still in limbo.

WW 24

Blast from the past. My husband as a child.

Block Action Quiz

A funeral and an armed car hijacking

I travelled safely. Everything went smoothly for my Gran's funeral. She would have been happy to know that it was simple and everything ran on-time.

Unfortunately the day ended in trauma when my nephew Charles and his friend had three gun men rob them and take the car. We were thankful that they were not hurt. A day later the car was recovered and seems to have no damage but we are waiting for that to be confirmed. My nephew was almost in Nelspruit a 11 hour drive away in the insurance courtesy car when we got the news of the recovery.

I am really worried about him. This is not the first that his experienced being robbed, I am concerned that the previous trauma added to this is going to make his life even more difficult. We are just praying that keeps a level head while recovering.

Journey to Durbs

Leaving early tomorrow morning for Durbs (Durban, Kwa Zulu Natal).
My gran is getting buried on Sunday.

Be back home late Monday evening.









Got a book to read (from one of my students) during the flight and the some knitting (re-doing Jeandre's sock).






It’s South Africa, 1990. The country still squirms under the iron fist of Apartheid. Two major events are about to happen: The release of Nelson Mandela, and more importantly, it’s Spud Milton’s first year at an elite boys only private boarding school.


Sounds like it will be a fun read. Here are 2 reviews from South African bloggers.
Tiffany Markman: Review 1
Joel Basson : Review 2

Digital Scrapbooking swap (1)

Hearing loss

I had a hearing test done yestersday. Apparently I have a large % percentage of hearing loss in both my ears for my age. Unfortunately it does not explain the dizziness and naseau that I have been experiencing. We can rule out my ears and my sinus.

That means I need to go back to my doctor to plan a course of "investigation" and action.

One to find out what has caused the hearing loss.
Two to see what is causing the other symptomes (could be a viral infection).