Musing and Rambling

Excuse me if this post is a bit all over the place.

I've had a couple of inspiring weeks, both spiritually and professionally.

Spiritually, I'm grateful to God for the many lessons I've learnt in the past year. If I was to write them all down... it would take too long. Okay, I guess I could share a few....

Since I left my job, I gave up my income, so I've had to learn to depend on hubby financially. That was one huge step for me because I was brought up to think I should never rely on a man to provide for me. I think God needed to teach me this lesson because earning my own income made me proud (not in a good way), such that I could give hubby attitude if he wanted to know what I was doing with my income. I also felt like I didn't need him to agree with me regarding any purchases I made, afterall it was my money, not his! Now I'm a lot wiser and calmer, I'm also less wasteful, realising that I don't need to buy everything the fashion mags are throwing in my face. I'm also learning to be humble because I've made the mental shift from thinking "it's my money" to "it's our money".

I like the way God uses the mistakes I make and turns them around for my own good. Several times I've been kicking myself for making a wrong move, and then a couple of days later, I realise that the mistake I made was actually a good thing!

I've been learning to trust and rely on God every step of the way. I've had to pray that God should help me to be better organised with my time (and stop procrastinating). I think I'm a lot better at managing my time now unlike in 2007 when I was swimming in oceans of time without structure, and still not managing to be productive.

God has been helping me with good ideas, inspiration, meeting the right people, organising my work, prioritising my projects, etc. I think it was a great idea to make Him my CEO. lol

Professionally, I've been attending a few literary events at the Southbank Centre since the beginning of the month. So far I've attended three book readings including the Booker Prize reading, a Book Club discussing Sadie Jones' "The Outcast" and a creative writing class on blogging. I've learnt a lot, and got some great ideas for my work. I've also met some really nice people that I intend to keep in touch with.

I'm considering the idea of getting rid of my anonymity. I know a lot of people know who I am but I have still managed to cling to the idea that I'm still an anonymous blogger. Hmmm.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Totally Random

This is dedicated to the one I love.

Thank you Mr Leo Sayer.

It's midnight. I'm sitting down on my bed. Utterly bored, yet restless. I have lots of things to say but I'm feeling too lazy to write. I'm too awake to go to bed thanks to several cups of tea. I'm tired of the conversation I'm having with a friend on yahoo messenger. I decide to blog but I've been staring at the screen in frustration for twenty seven minutes. I give up and try listening to music instead. This song by Leo Sayer come on. "Dedicated to the one I love". Hmmmm.

The one I love is sleeping beside me. I'm reminded of one of our dates in February 2003. Valentine's day. We had been quarrelling three days before. I've forgotten what the argument was about. It doesn't matter anymore, maybe it never did. I still love him though.

Another song comes up: "Clubbin" by Marques Houston. This song reminds me of my days as a student. Days of hanging out with my friends. It reminds me of going clubbing on the night after exams. And those wonderful summer barbecues, that turn to house parties that go on till 2.00 in the morning.

"Unfaithful" by Rihanna comes up. Even though it's a fairly recent song, it makes me think of my teenage years. It reminds me of complicated love triangles.

Another song come up....

Gosh I'm soooo bored! And I'm in need of inspiration. Can anyone help?

This is the most random post ever! I wonder if it even makes sense? I don't know jo, I'll post it like that. I blame writer's block.

I Need a Wife

Yes I'm female and I'm married to a guy, excuse the tongue-in-cheek title. I've got so many things going on in my mind and I couldn't decide what to talk about. So I just decided to write whatever popped into my head today.

One day I popped into my local WHSmith and picked up a writers magazine. In it there was an article talking about how writers face time management issues with structuring their work around other daily activities, especially if they are full time writers and don't have the structure of the 9 - 5 routine. The article included a survey of writers, a mixture of both men and women, and the responses they gave. The majority of the male writers said that they had no time management problems as such, they just got up from bed in the morning, had breakfast and then went to their study to get on with work. The female writers seemed to have a more complicated day however. One of them said she has to get up, make breakfast for everyone, get the kids bathed, dressed and ready for school, go and drop the kids off, come back home, clear away the breakfast plates, do the washing up, sort out the laundry, and plan what to cook for lunch before she starts her writing for the day. She might need to also do some shopping to stock up the fridge. In the afternoon, she has to prepare lunch, pick the kids up from school, feed them, supervise them and play with them, or find something to engage them while she works. When dinner time comes around, she has to cook for the family and clear up before returning to her work. It's much harder for a female to work from home where there are a myriad of tasks that keep distracting her from her work.

The writer of the article commented that it must be nice to be a man and have a woman in your life to do all the domestic stuff for you while you just get on with your job. Somebody has to look after the home whether one or both parties are working. Nowadays there are some men who don't mind helping the woman out in the home sometimes, but it's still not automatically a shared responsibility. That got me daydreaming about how nice it must be to have someone who looks after me while I spend hours in my study writing.

(Daydreaming) I would like to wake up in the morning and my breakfast is ready for me on the table. My study has been cleaned, my clothes are washed, ironed and ready for me to wear to work. After breakfast I disappear into my study to write for hours on end and I don't come out until lunch time. When I finish working for the day, my dinner is on the table and I can just relax and watch TV. The children are tucked into bed and I go to wish them goodnight. My own bed is neatly laid when I go to sleep and when I wake up in the morning, the cycle continues. (End of daydream).

Unfortunately life doesn't work that way! For most working women, many of us have to juggle our jobs and careers with housework, whether we are single, living with parents, or married. And house chores have to be done - there is no getting away from them. I can understand why many women back in Nigeria have to get maids to help them with the housework and nannies to help with looking after young children. Personally, I don't think I would ever get a maid, because these things tend to become complicated, but once in a while I feel like I wouldn't mind having a wife to do my cooking and cleaning, to look after the kids and make sure that my home runs smoothly, while I sit in my study to write. It's nice to imagine.... LOL.

In other news, the Caine Prize Award 2008 was held last week. The shortlist was as follows:

Mohammed Naseehu Ali (Ghana) ‘Mallam Sile’, from ‘The Prophet of Zongo’
Henrietta Rose-Innes from South Africa ‘Poison’ from ‘Africa Pens’
Stanley Onjezani Kenani (Malawi) ‘For Honour’ from ‘African Pens’
Gill Schierhout (South Africa) ‘The Day of the Surgical Colloquium’ from ‘African Pens'
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu (Nigeria) ‘ Cemetery of Life ’ from ‘Wasafiri’ No52

And the winner was: Henrietta Rose-Innes from South Africa, with her story ‘Poison’ from ‘Africa Pens’. If you want to read any of the shortlisted stories, there are links on Molara Wood's blog: here

Meanwhile I need to go and check out Blogville Idols, seems like I'm missing out on all the fun and excitement going on. Hope you are having a great weekend!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to you! Hope you have a nice day, perhaps with an unexpected gesture from a secret admirer or your partner. I'm having a lovely one with my permanent valentine. Hubby tricked me this morning and at the end of it I discovered a bunch of roses, chocolates and a card, which was really sweet! Unfortunately though, the rest of my day is going to be somewhat dry. I'm at work all day and I have a class to attend this evening so I won't be back home until very late. But we've got some groovy plans for tomorrow and the weekend. I love celebrating valentine's day although I don't think we need one day in the whole year to remind us to love or appreciate each other. We should do that at every opportunity shouldn't we?

Today reminds me of how we used to mark valentine's day in secondary school. Then it was fun to anticipate getting a card and presents from your "secret admirer" or your boyfriend. Well for most girls it was fun especially the pretty and popular girls back in school. Meanwhile for the guys, it was a competition to see who would get the most impressive things for the girls. Guys would save up for months to buy the cutest teddy bear, the biggest box-card, the odd bottle of wine, chocolates and tinned cookies. And if a girl was lucky, her admirer would be a rich guy that could afford to get her picture frames and personalised jewellery. There were often touching love letters to go with the gifts which the lucky recipient and her friends would laugh over and dissect every single word.

Unfortunately for the guys there were no guarantees. I remember one poor chap who tried to impress a girl with a card and chocolates, but she sent it back to him because he was too 'razz' in her opinion. Then there was another guy who had spent all his money on expensive stuff for a girl. He went all out to impress her with dozens of stuff, but we later heard that she slapped him the next day! And who can forget about the guys that would suddenly stop talking to you at the beginning of February and resume the friendship three days after the 14th? Classic moves!

Anyway back to the present, when I went out for my lunch break this afternoon, there were long queues at all the supermarkets, full of guys clutching cards, chocolates and roses. It was all very amusing. And a guy in my office is cracking me up now, saying valentine's day has turned into nothing more than a con by retailers to charge extra for flowers, cards and dinner in restaurants. While I agree with him to some extent, I still think it's up to individuals and couples to make of it what they want to. Funny enough, I read somewhere that couples are more likely to have a big row and break up around this time. That's probably due to dashed hopes and unreasonable expectations.

Well that's about it for my ramblings today. I hope you enjoy the day and the rest of your week.