2012 New Life New City

Wow!! I can't believe I haven't visited my own blog in a whole year!

That is all in the past now because I am here now back in action:)
I am so grateful that the year is starting with my family and I in a new city, Tauranga. We love this place and we have been here before only for 6 months and it was the latter part of the year, which was cold and wet. This time we are arriving here, it's sunny and beautiful. The people are full of smiles, the beaches are lovely even after the tragic story of the ship Rena which wanted to spoil them. It looks like we might still get a chance to pick our own strawberries, something we haven't done last year yet we love it. As I'm writing this, we're having our last night of nine nights in a three bed unit in a motel, paid for by my husband's work. We count ourselves blessed truly thus we are grateful. My kids have been so happy watching SKY programs everyday, something they have never experienced! That's only because mum and dad are choosing not to put SKY at home as yet:(

Life in New Zealand has really been great for my family. It has taken us on a path that I personally don't remember even dreaming of. It seems though that Ernest, my husband and my mum may have dreamt about it. My mum liked to say she knows us, her children, will study and go places. Now this is being fulfilled through her son-in-law who will be graduating next year for his Gynae/Obst specialty. We are praying that our parents join us for that event. My husband is the one who always said; we will be ok and comfortable in our lives. I think for me, most of my life seems to have been a cruise. Now, don't be mad at me when I say that. It's true for me mostly because of my simple childlike faith. I don't concern myself with too many things, surprisingly though, I have a first-born daughter who is so organized and wants to know so many things in advance that I have to remind her she is still a child, somethings are not for her to be concerned about. Whilst that is a true statement, it poses a challenge to me I must confess, to pull up my socks and be clear with my planning. I count it a blessing also to have such a daughter. Even right now she is all packed up for the morning while I still a few things out :).

I am so looking forward to this year and I believe I am ready for whatever I am gonna face because I have been promised in Psalm 112 that my children will be mighty in the land and they will be blessed. I have been promised also that I will have no fear of bad news, my heart is steadfast trusting in the Lord. I like it when it says: Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, so I figure out that my job is to conduct my affairs right and the rest will be taken care of. I will do the right thing and relinquish control of whatever is beyond me. One of the things I do is to endeavor to eat right and exercise and be consistent with it. I have learnt that I can avoid a lot if health issues by my eating habits. One aspect which I think most people are not aware of: is the amount of toxic chemicals we use everyday on our skin. While these are mostly available in small amounts, but their compounding effects seem too huge to ignore. If you don't know what I'm talking about, send me an email on zanechooselife@gmail.com and I can send you a list of ingredients which have been found questionable and best if avoided by all means. The most popular notorious ones though which I can mention are: Sodium Lauryl/Laureth Sulphate, and Propylene Glycol sometimes labelled PEGs. You can do your own search on the safety data sheets as to why they are best far from our skin.

That enough for today, I need to sleep so I can wake up early to vacate this place. Thanks for reading.

Feel free to comment.

Zanele

Lifelong Learning A Conscious Choice

Thank you very much for stopping by.
I'm still getting my head around what I'm doing right now, blogging. It's so unbelievable I tell you, even though I am actually doing it. I guess that's why someone once said " no one knows how to reach a goal until they've reached it."

My thoughts these days are on learning. I am so grateful that my parents were enlightened to know the value of education. My mum is a retired primary school teacher, when she retired she had been headteacher for about +/-16 years if I'm not mistaken. She used to tell us (I have 3 brothers and 3 sisters) that we should study and get the highest degrees, since she wasn't able to get them. By God's grace, we all finished high school and did some tertiary education. My dad recently commented on how he finds it amazing that he's the only one in his family who went to school. When asked how that happened, was he the favourite of his parents? He says he just had the desire to learn and he went to school, even though he was already much older than the school going age. This allowed him to get a job inside a sugar mill, later on he was called to be a pastor and he went to bible school for four years, gaining a diploma.
You may be wondering: why all these stories!

In my short life here on earth, I realise each day that, though living in the lucky first world country, second world or poorest third world country; what a person does with their current situation is a personal choice. How they feel and react is also up to an individual. In any given situation, I possess the will and power to act according to what my thoughts, feelings and actions are with that given situation or individual. I experience this all the time with my three kids, aged 7,4 and 2. I find that my toleration is very long for the baby, and it becomes shorter as the ages go up. If I engage my thoughts in the process, I find it much easier to be more accomodating even for my big girl. What is interesting also is that I become very angry when she exhibits a character of mine which I don't like, can you identify with that?

One of my maths lecturers once said: A teacher has to be three times ahead of his/her students. He said you don't study what your students are studying, be more knowledgeable. A thought flashed in my mind when I was thinking of how much of what I have learnt I am applying. I was starting to feel stressed that I know so much, but I'm doing so little of it. That is when it dawned on me that it takes time to unlearn some things so that I can learn new things, and that it is a process, not an overnight thing.( that should make you feel good, isn't it?) It does make me kinder to myself and allow myself the time to grow. I'm still a huge work in progress, but I'm not where I used to be, whoa! Thank God!

As I was typing this, I was teaching my four year old girl letters on the computer. She can sing the abc song, but she still have to identify them in big and small letters. She chose to sit and play, according to her, but I realised that I'm actually doing a lesson with her. A bonus is that my boy has a companion to play with today, and I'm so happy and grateful to experience that.

Life I have come to realise is each day an opportunity to START AFRESH, TO LEARN, TO GROW. A living thing, if it's not growing, it starts to decompose.

I choose to EXPAND today, I choose to GROW. How about you?

Thanks again for spending your time here.

Cheers:)

Where Am I And What Am I Doing?

I'm welcoming myself and you reading this. I'm asking myself this question: Where am I and what am I doing.



I'm still amazed at where I am in life and what I'm doing. Seriously speaking, before doing what's called 'personal development', I don't remember asking myself such a question. Growing up in church, we would be taught you have to find God's will for your life, and it would be elaborated upon what that means. I still can't recollect though, if that meant anything much in my life, probably, subconsciously, not consciously. I just remember though that, I lived a big part of my life conscious of the fact that, not many people had a clue of what I was about. I was a very quiet person who tried to mind her own business, till stepped upon, not literally of course. That's only when people would find out whether I was angry or happy. I still do find even now, that my feelings are really deep seated, I guess it's a learning process.



If you've checked my profile you'll find out which part of the world I'm at.

For me, coming from a "third world country," I keep asking my husband, by the way, where the second world is, I look around with fascination how human beings are easy to manipulate, as long as they don't want to engage their brains in any given situation. That doesn't exclude me, by the way. I'm just grateful now because I can see it and go along with it sometimes out of my own choice. What I feel sad about is when I see people being manipulated without them realising, by the time their eyes open, they would be fuming with anger at how they would have been so blind. Of course, the manipulators sometimes they're not even aware that's what they're doing, talk about 'blind leading blind!'



My prayer for you reading here is to ask yourself if you're consciously aware of your environment, who you're with, what you're doing, saying and thinking. If that's the case, you'll be grateful and not look back in anger, or look ahead in fear, but you'll look around in awareness. Awareness of the blessings you and I have, first by being alive, able to catch and release a breath and by knowing that the next minute, hour or day will turn out largely upon decisions you will make, consciously or unconsciously, willing or unwillingly, etc.



Bye for now

Zanele