Keep Calm and Be Grateful

I often find myself complaining about my seemingly pityful situation, compairing my career, life, house, car, blah blah blah, to others and feeling like I'm being totally hard done by. All it takes is a little perspective to realise just how luck I am to be me! Every now and then I take a drive to Tambo Village near Gugulethu, to a wonderful church there that I sometimes visit, to get this perspective. It takes me all of 5 minutes to have a smile on my face because of the congregations love of life and radient joy. As the year draws to an end and we all start counting the days until the holidays (32 working days to be precise!) I'm reminding myself just how blessed I actually am.

So here a just a few of the things that I'm grateful for today:

1. For a family who I love and adore (and I think that the feeling might just be mutual!) Their love and support is unconditional, their acceptance of my choices in life is unfaltering (not many white South African parents would hardly blink an eye when their daughter brings a Black man home!)
2. For the abovementioned darky (SENSITIVE READERS: please note that the terms whitey and darky will be used plenty in this blog - stop reading now if you feel that this is too non-PC for you!) who is the love of my life and has brought such happiness and joy into my world. After 6 LONG years of singleness, I'm now fully assured that the wait was WELL worth it and that passing over all the pursuing frogs along the way has led me to the most amazing prince.
3. For my job, albeit difficult to get up for each morning to at the moment. I have one (where millions go without.) One which pays the bills. One who's environment is not horrific. One who allows me plenty of free cups of coffee throughout the day. One which has provided great opportunities along the way. One which has underground parking for me to park my constantly-dirty-car in (a rare find in this city.) One which I will no doubt be sad to leave (in the hopefully not to distant future) after close to 6 years here.
4. That I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, which is not flooded at the moment (#superstormsandy.) Everyday I marvel at the beauty of the mountain, am amazed at the creativity of the people and am in love with the constant opportunities to be entertained indoors and out. 
5. For the abovementioned constantly-dirty-car. While it's not a ML, X1 (or any of the other fancy varients that some around me drive) and has just ticked over the 100 000 mark,  it gets me from A to B and is not costing me dearly each month.

So...Keep Calm and Be Grateful today :-)