It’s so easy to become wrapped up in the drama of life most days….

But there comes those moments in life when you take a step back and realise everything is going to be okay.  That you have so much more to be grateful for, than the things you complain about.

Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.
Henry Ward Beecher

So today I have taken some time out to think about and list all the things I am grateful for, so that when I have one of those days I can read my list….

I am grateful for….

• Amazing family that is very support of me and always there for me.
• True friends all over the world that respect me and no matter how long we don’t see each other for, when we do see each other then it’s as if we have never been apart.
• A job that I am enjoying, even though I bitch about long hours I keep reminding myself I have a really good job and there are many people without a job.
• For all the travelling I have managed to do, the breath taking views, the experiences and history I have been exposed to.  And all the travelling I am still going to do.
• The little luxuries that I can afford, the spa day trips, the new handbag, new heels – I realise that some people do not even have a home or food.  But it is very important to treat yourself if you work hard and deserve it.
• That I have moved on from past experiences and not let them strangle my soul. Yes, shit happens but that is life. Having the strength to dust myself off and pick myself up and move forward is a gift I am very grateful to have.
• Good health… well as good as it can be J

Just making this list already makes me feel more positive and fills me with energy to move forward to bigger and greater things.

What are you grateful about?

I am finally getting around to catching up on blog reading and keeping my blog updated….. by making time in my day for it!

I am looking for new blogs to read…..

So please let me know:

-          If I should be reading yours….

-          If I should be adding you to my blog roll….

-          If you know of any blog’s that I would love or that you love…

My brother is a talented soul, but he has had a hard time finding what his passion is. I think he has found it, he started studying photography this year and I am absolutely in love with some of his work….

I am very excited for the work he is going to produce in the future…..

All this bullshit about being *positive about SA* and ignoring Julius Malema is all a load of bullshit, if you ask me. Both these approaches only continue to promote the idea that the best ways to deal with a situation like this is to basically bury our heads in the sand and hope for the shit storm to blow over.

Julius Malema was given the freedom to do a large amount of damage in our country over the past two weeks and this reflects very badly on our current leadership. The current government has finally acted, but in my opinion their actions were a case of – too little, too late.

It is my opinion that the public outcry’s and media coverage on Julius and his actions is what forced the governments hand in acting on the “Julius Situation”. 

I promise you it was not the fact that the people said positive things about the country. And if we and the media had chosen to completely ignore Julius, it would have made it that much easier for the government to also ignore the situation.

I don’t know about you but I was ready to march to Parliament, throw dustbins over in the streets and set tyres on fire over the situation…..

What I am not ready to do is ignore the situation or bullshit myself about being positive right now, that is not what this situation needed. It needed people to stand up and say “Enough is Enough”!

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. ” – Theodore Roosevelt

So last weekend was my 27th Birthday Party!

I have always been big on birthdays but the last three have been pretty tame and I have not really been in the mood for celebrating my birthday since my Grandfather passed away (we shared a birthday).

This year I decided enough miserabelle and its time to have a birthday bash.

What an awesome night, filled with Black Tequila and Moet. There was table dancing, stage dancing, laughing and a bit of puking. I missed all my old friends from Durban, but I realised that night how many amazing awesome people I have in my life in Jozi and how blessed I am that they are my friends.

Thank you all for coming, the gifts, the laughs and the love. x0×0

Full pic’s on Facebook.

I am almost sure I do my best blog post’s after a glass of wine, or two or three ……

So its been a long week and its only Tuesday or is it Wednesday, who knows and who cares.

So what’s new….

My cousin’s have moved in with me and @za5, and we feel like parents. Not the kind of kids we planned for….. a 20 & 22 year old both in Varsity. One is in my bed now watching Ninja Warrior with @za5 and the other studying….

The laughter in the house makes me happy. It makes me want kids of my own. I feel my clock ticking now… and I really want my own kids. Next year I think I am going to have kids….

So in full overachiever style, I made the girls make vision boards for themselves when they moved in. Why? Because they come from a small town (which I know all about) and I think that girls today need to broaden their horizons and want more for themselves.

I am very proud of them – one has achieved over 80% for all her exams and the other has her second job interview tomorrow!

Oh goodness the one that cant spell just told @za5 she has written a book! God Forbid I have to read this…..not even spell check can save her.

My parents are leaving for Australia soon. Which is sad because we have all been a close family.

I am 27 now, which completely scares the shit out of me. I still feel 17 and don’t like getting old.

I had an awesome birthday party on Saturday night, surrounded by the most awesome friends! Most of them from Twitter.

Twitter has changed my life…. and brought so many awesome ppl into my life.

I woke up on Sunday morning with bunny ears on – and had no clue who’s they were…. (sign of a good party)……

I danced on tables, and the stage on Saturday night. In true SezLeigh fashion… I am glad that I can be 27 years old and still act like I am 17….

I just was told that my skirt on Saturday was Skanky by my cousin, looking at the photo’s from Saturday night.

My cousin handed me a pic of  my grandfather and I on one of our shared birthday celebrations tonight, which made me sad. This is the first year that I celebrate my birthday on the 3rd of March after he passed away. When I got home from dinner on the 3rd, she almost made me cry by bringing up the topic of my grandfather, we lit a candle and put one of our birthday pictures next to it.

And that is all…

So much happens in a year. You never know how your life will change a year later…

Last year this time, I was living in London and jetted off to the Maldives for two amazing weeks….

It was a trip filled with delayed flights, staying in a dodgy hotel in Male after missing our flight out to the island but when we arrived it was magical to say the least…

Sea Plane out the the island…

Coconut Ice cream…

Spent my mornings with baby sharks..

Massages with this view…

Days on the beautiful beach….

One of the best holidays ever and some of my best holiday memories…

*Warning this post contains swearing. **This post has not been proof read and I don’t give a shit about spelling or any other mistakes in it, so please don’t even waste my time with a comment rather fuck off and go proof read someone else’s blog.

Today I had a super shit day!  I had a lot on my to-do list but honestly – FUCK IT all! If I had a bottle of tequila I would probably be doing shot’s right now at my desk as I write this. But instead I have watched an episode of Grey’s Anatomy which has resulted in me fighting tears for 60 minutes and now my poison is a Sarah McLachlan CD and chain smoking.

Am I the only one that has these days’s where I lie in the bath and think – WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING HERE?

Who wants a life filled with deadlines, bills, bonds, potholes, broken robot’s, traffic, crime, people with no integrity, a president with 20 kids, a country with no accountability…blah blah you get the picture.

Its day’s like this that I close my eyes and I can see my hut on the hill top in Thailand. In my hut I have essentials (a battery powered GHD, a bikini and sun block) – and that is all I have to my name! (Okay maybe a little MAC makeup)

Series of events that leads me to these thoughts:

• Meetings where peoples actual goal is to basically deliver on 80% of a project and hope for the best, and when I am like WTF they look at me as if I am an alien from MARS!
• A SMS sent from collection agency to my ex who I own a property with for back dated rates and taxes totally R10k. I expected this bill – I did not expect: 1. It to come from a collection agency, as I provided all details & never received a statement (when I called to follow up I was told to wait for a statement, we are not the only complex they are registering). 2. A demand that we settle it today otherwise they will cut our service off (This I laughed at, what are they going to cut off – garbage collection? Sure, they going to know which dustbin or garbage bags are our units and leave it behind on collection days. Or god forbid they might switch my sewerage off….  3. My statement was emailed to me as a .TXT file (you have to be shitting me – no City Of Johannesburg logo or details, even the Nigerians running the 419 Scam’s are more professional).
• Finding out that Liberty Life is holding my RA payout as SARS marked me for an audit (due to my previous accountant being bloody useless), Gay Husband sorted all my tax out in one afternoon (note: he is still doing his articles), and submitted audit documents already but now I am at the mercy of SARS processing audit doc’s and by the time they do that some sort of other tax will be due! For goodness sakes SARS I think I have paid more tax than most people pay in their life time and always done it on time – cut me some slack or do you maybe have a platinum package or loyalty package I can join?
• I have like another 10 things I can add to this list but I am getting bored bitching.

Anyways so this dinky bottle of champagne I found is finished and now I wish it was Thursday night so I could take my ass off to club –  line up a row of tequila’s and dance on a speaker like I am sixteen all over again! I need to do something with all this pent up energy.

Anyone that knows me knows that I don’t give up, if there is a will there is a way and believe you me I think I have moved mountains before to get stuff done.

But tonight I surrender – dealing with stuff in this country is like trying to keep a bucket full of holes filled with water!

There will be no bitchy emails to the collection agency, or emails to SARS and Liberty Life or reworking project plans….tonight I have learnt that I cannot fight every battle….there are just some not worth wasting my energy on.

But tomorrow is a whole different story….

So it started with a tweet this afternoon: I am in desperate need of a whole day at the spa….

And then the idea of a Spa Day Tweet-up was born….and then my @replies were filled with ladies super keen to join…..

So it’s decided I am organising a Spa Day Tweet up, and I am probably going to rope @JessicaMcD and her exceptional organising skills into helping organise

I was thinking of having it on a Saturday morning in early March. That way I have time to secure a venue, group booking pricing, possibly some sponsorship for gift bags and it gives everyone time to arrange babysitters, space in your social calendar and money from your bf / husband or SO to spoil yourself

So what I need is some feedback from you guys:

• If you keen to attend.

• Venue suggestions – We would need a day Spa set up so we could chill in between treatments and enough treatment rooms / staff.

• Sponsor’s, so ladies get your little black book of contacts out! Send me details of contacts that you think would be interested in getting involved.

Once we have finalised all details I will post details and open for RSVP’s.

PS. If there is anyone out there interested in sponsoring / contributing products contact me.

My brother and I never really got along as kids.

Last year I lived with him in London for four months, and we bonded. For the first time in my life, I let people be there for me. Why? Because I had nothing left in me to be there for anyone else….

That being there for me and this so called bonding happened after one night out at Clapham Grand in London. My drink was spiked or I drank too much who knows, but I landed up puking on the pavement and passing out. My brother picked me up off the side of the road, found an “unofficial cab” (who he paid extra money too, so the cab driver would take his puking sister home) and a plastic bag to see me through the drive home.

I needed someone to pick me up off the dirty pavement, outside a busy night club in the middle of winter in London. The next morning I realised that was rock bottom, it was time to dust myself off and pull myself together.

My brother recently moved to Australia to study and has taken up photography; here are some of his recent pictures I love….