The Way to Sustainability - You're doing it WRONG!

Taking a detour from my usual happy posts and the object of this blog, but I really need to vent about this and share my opinion about this issue on a blog where probably nobody reads anyways.

So today I went to the airport to pick up a friend, and as I was about to enter the parking, my eyes almost exploded out of my sockets.  R30 for half an hour parking, R60 for an hour and going up by increments of R30 per hour.  WTF.  Prices have tripled since the last time I went a few months ago.  The reason for this?  World Cup 2010.  I guess the whole idea behind this is that all business entities are trying to milk whatever they can out of this big event where supposedly tourists will be flocking to South Africa from around the world, and why not make as much money as you can in the few short weeks where thousands of football fans are expected to come?

Domestic plane tickets are going for around R5000 during this period where supposedly loads of tourists will be wanting to travel around to see the favourite teams plane around the country in the various stadia.  Accommodation has doubled or tripled to exorbitant amounts, even in remote places where this is NOTHING except a brand new football stadium.

SUPPOSEDLY. 

Apparently though, there is a flood of unsold tickets because people around the world cannot afford to come, or concerns from volcanic gas in Europe causing the inability to fly here to watch the games, or fear for their lives due to the crime in South Africa.  As much as I wish for this World Cup to be a great success, personally I have a feeling South Africans are going about this the wrong way.

Yes we want to attract tourists.  We want to boost our economy.  Yes raising prices of everything ridiculously might help boost turnover during the few weeks of the World Cup.  But the question is are we attracting tourists here?  Are they coming here to pay these ridiculous prices?  Or are the locals the ones who are truly suffering and paying extra for all these things?  And is all this sustainable?

Not that long ago we were talking of the great recession, where millions of people around world were retrenched, fired, bonus cuts, involuntary salary cuts, etc.  At a time like this when there are still uncertainty where the gradual recovery in the world economy is sustainable, I do not expect people to splurge on a family holiday to South Africa to see the World Cup where it is very clearly NOT CHEAP.  International plane tickets are going at roughly R20 000, add to that accommodation, football game tickets, travelling costs, it all adds up!  And if a foreigner's first experience of South Africa is that things are in fact quite pricey, are they going to want to come back again?

Why not make everything dirt cheap, or at least remain at pre-World Cup fever prices?  That way, any Tom, Dick or Harry can come over and experience a bit of Africa, and possibly be tempted to come back again, and again, and again.  Are hotels and airline companies not making money at present prices that they have to hike up prices like that?

Honestly, I do NOT get it.  I hope for the best, really I do.  But all I can think right now is seriously?

Happy List following the *Perfect* Weekend

Oh what a wonderful weekend it was~

• Nothing better than starting your Saturday morning like so....

• Followed by crazy shopping and a whole new gym wardrobe! Woohoo I *love* factory shops and outlets!
• MacDonald's hashbrowns
• Blackberry messenger keeping me constantly updated on oversea friends' lives
• Hip shaking at belly dancing
• Not knowing what the hell you are doing at a latin dancing class and having tons of fun
• Going to a good yoga class, and at the GYM nogal!  AND learning during that same class that my flexibility has improved (even more?? On my way to becoming elastigirl? )! YAY
• Finding perfect buttons for my hoodie (note to self: please take pics when looking half decent and post up soon)
• FREE LUNCH! WOOHOO~~~~  Please do not ever underestimate my eating ability - you know who you are.  I'm waiting for free wine next time~~
• Seeing TWO rainbows at the *same* time - traffic was worth it

 

• Hiking day at Hennops with great company, great weather, great photo session! *BLISS*

 

Yummy yummy yummy!

It all started last weekend when it was one of my beloved girls' birthday.  Buying presents I find is becoming increasingly difficult as most of us have practically everything, as I much more prefer to give presents from the heart.  And so I baked.  I've had this cake recipe for almost a year now, but never tried it out alone since the person who initially taught me made the cake with me the first time.  Plus my scribbles were almost impossible to make out, I was a bit worried all the ingredients would be wrong and the cake would be a disaster.  BUT, it turned out GREAT.  It was a two layer cake (one chocolate, one plain) seperated and covered in chocolate icing and sparkly sprinkles on top.

In fact, it was so yummy that I just want to eat cake everyday...  So I baked AGAIN this week, but this time I made chocolate cake covered with irish coffee cream icing with cocoa powder sprinkled on top.  Nom nom nom...  Following my cake indulgence this week, I went to gym for 3 hours yesterday to make up for my sins hahaha (note to self: must go to belly dancing class AGAIN!)

Besides my cake obsession, the extreme knitting continues...  Am so very happy with how the Twinkle Hoodie turned out, was a very easy knit, took me less than a week I think.  Moderations made to the pattern was that the body is somewhat longer than what the pattern suggested and slightly longer sleeves too.  I loved how the sleeves are joined to the body and knitted in one piece, therefore minimal seaming which I still totally suck at.  All I need now is to get some big fat buttons and sew them on....  Where is a nice sewing shop for that?

(excuse the crappy resolution from phone camera...)

Have started the Karate Sweater already, in fact I'm much further along than when this pic was taken.  Very easy to remember pattern, leading to mindless knitting while watching tv and vegetating in bed...  One problem though, armholes appear to be somewhat bigger than the diameter of the sleeves, which also happen to be somewhat tight around my shoulders...  I am feeling too lazy to undo it and knit it again, just praying that the problem will be solved after a few wears, maybe it will stretch...  If I do ever knit this again, there are a lot of changes I would definitely make.  Hopefully will finish this over the weekend!

Constant home decor

After moving into my house for 3 years now, I'm still in the process of decorating.  It seems like an endless task at time, as there is always something extra that you can do to make your house more like a home - a home that screams out "KAREN" when people walk in.  A difficulty I'm having with my place are the walls.  The main space in the house is surrounded by 3 double volume massive WHITE WALLS which look soooooo bland and clearly that is not me!


So ever since I started doing photography, um, I should make it sound less professional as I'm not.  Let me rephrase, so ever since I started taking pictures on a more frequent basis, I've been thinking how I should just get MY pictures printed and put them on my massive walls!


Due to my still limited photography skills, I have a limited collection of good pictures, but do hope that it will expand as time passes.  I'm really keen to print this out... 

I am happy...

This thought occurred to me today when I was driving: we struggle to recognise and appreciate the simple happiness that happens almost every second of every minute, everyday of our lives.  How often at gatherings do we complain about our jobs, our spouses, our acquaintances, the problems in society, rising prices, the lack of time, people being too friendly, people being too rude, and the list is just endless.  I for one, complain a LOT.  It's almost built in me to be unhappy for some odd bizarre reason, criticising one thing to the next.  But it's not just me, we ALL do that. 

Today I was driving in the rain wondering if it was ever going to stop raining, when I looked into the horizon and it was all blue skies and white puffy clouds.  It was beautiful.  Why are we able to appreciate these wonderful things in our lives only when they slap you in the face with it?  Look around you, there are endless things to be grateful for and happy about every second of every minute, everyday of our lives.

A while back my beloved yoga teacher started this "Happy List" post on her blog which I attempted several times, and I found it DIFFICULT to find things I was happy about in a week, until my feeble attempts fizzled out.  But let's try this again.

• Joburg sky.  Look up, almost every day is a beautiful day.  Even today whilst it was raining in the North, the sky over the East and the South look beauuuuuuutiful!
• The birds tweeting outside as I type this post, somewhat offsetting the horrible drilling noises going on in the warehouse.
• Going to watch Alice in Wonderland in 3D tonight with my together forever kekeke
• Finally finishing the lace ribbon scarf last night! YAY!  It's about time, taken me long enough, and it came out beautifully :)
• THANK YOU SARS finally my VAT and PAYE numbers are out...  
• My order of from yarncountry.com has arrived safely today, was starting to get worried that it would get lost along the way although I doubt many people working at the post office would be interested in a box of yarn...  Can't wait to go home and open up and check all my goodies!  Winter wardrobe, here I come!
• Awesome photo editing tools like BigHugeLabs, Poladroid, and nEO iMAGING which adds to my photo fun~ (note to self, please upload the cool mosaic pictures when you go home)
• 4-day weeks!  We've had 3 in a row now, and it's a bit sad that this will be the last of the 3, but there is another public holiday coming up at the end of the month!
• Counting down the days to my Hong Kong/Taipei trip! *27 days to go*
• So happy that I have a netbook now and I will be travelling with my netbook this time, instead of lugging my heavy Vaio around...

Happy days~~~

Extreme Knitter

Everyone has a blog now days, so what's the challenge here?  Given the fact that I've had probably 3-5 blogs in the past few years where I've never managed to keep to one and maintain it (usually the idea and energy fizzles out after a few weeks...), shows how difficult it is for me to make a habit of something.  Blogging isn't the only habit that I've had difficulty keeping to.  In fact, almost everything I do, I seem to do it extremely well for about a month or two, then I forget about it, and go back to it after several months if not years...  This is one of the challenges I'm giving myself.  GET RID OF THE EXTREMENESS!  I am a total extremist.  Either I DON'T do anything for a few months, or I'm suddenly reading 10 books a month or, as I am doing in the past month, knitting frantically as though I would have nothing to wear if I were to stop knitting!  Balance is something I have extreme difficulty in maintaining, despite believing strongly that balance is the key to a healthy and happy life.

That said, I am very happy of everything I've completed in recent weeks...

This is not all, there was also one glove (the other one was finished about 18 months earlier), one capelet (which I have not had the energy to weave in the ends and block and take photo yet), and near completion is the lace ribbon scarf for my dear friend Ivy, a present I was meant to give her over a year ago!  I'm not a big fan of knitting scarves for my attention span don't seem to allow me to finish after the 100th row of knitting the same pattern.  I enjoy wearing scarves much more than I enjoy knitting the actual item, with the exception of knitting with super bulky wool because that will usually allow you to finish within the day!  However, I've told myself to suck it up and finish this scarf and the pattern is just toooo beautiful and finally after being more than half way done, I have memorised the pattern and no longer need to keep referring back to my notes...

I'm looking so forward to finishing this and giving it to my friend.  This makes me happy.

Here we go again....

So the other day I watched Julie and Julia.  Basically it's a movie based on two true stories: one of Julia Childs, the author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and the other of Julie Powell, a writer who attempted to cook all of 524 recipes in Julia's book in 365 days and blogged about it.  I identified greatly with Julie, for I, too, was looking for a challenge.

What kind of challenge one wonders?  Well last year August I quit my job, decided to do a 180 change in career path because I felt like I was stuck.  There were plenty opportunities moving forward in my job, and I knew I could build a career out of it, but do I really want to be an economist and do forecasts and write reports for the rest of my life?  Do I really care which direction each currency was headed tomorrow, in 3 months, 1 year, 5 years so that traders and decision makers of big important companies could make well informed decisions to their next move in the financial markets?  All I knew was that it was taking me weeks to get over a cough, my hair was falling out, I was waking up at 5am in the morning sometimes to get to work before 7am, only to sit next to this horribly annoying colleague of mine which emitted a cloud of dark and negative energy onto me the whole day (I'm not being very fair to the other colleagues though whom I all love very much).

So here I am 7 months later after making a radical change to my life.  Seven months ago I decided that I will do what makes me happy, which just launched all these other questions - what does make me happy?  How many of us know what makes us happy? 

This brings me here...  to the Pursuit for the Seven Wonders of My World....  Maybe even more than seven....