This will make your day – it just made mine…

Sweet Life, the new diabetes lifestyle magazine that we’re launching in November (check it out here!) spent the day wandering the streets of Cape Town, asking people what makes life sweet.

Here’s the answer… 2.15 minutes to happiness! Check it out.

I’m curious: what makes your life sweet?

I just read the most remarkable article: I have lived over half my life.

I haven’t lived over half my life, unless something extremely unfortunate happens to me and I die at 58 (or younger). But so much of what Miranda Sawyer writes about strikes a chord with me. About cherishing each day, and being appreciative for each moment of good health, and not taking anything for granted. I am in the midst of my most eventful year ever, and yet I understand that drive to have done something, to have made some mark on each passing year. This could be because I just finished reading Nick Hornby‘s latest book, Juliet, Naked. Oh how I love Nick Hornby’s work! He manages to write about the everyday in a way that means so much more than every day. And his book is about a musician who wastes away 22 years of his life not creating anything, and a woman who wastes 15 years on a dead-end love affair. Together, they have made me want to Create! Produce! Live! Love! As loudly and vibrantly as I can.

And then there’s this lovely quote from Miranda’s article:

Online, I find an interview with Yalom. He’s 65 and says that he doesn’t have unlimited years left so he tries not to do anything that feels repetitious. He’s changed his work (from teaching to writing), he turns down lunch invitations “from a lot of people that I just don’t want to be with”, and he’s very tender to his wife.

Don’t you want to live like that now? I do.

I’m spending the afternoon (or a large chunk of it) transferring names and addresses from saved drafts on my email to an Excel doc. What could be more dull, right?

Except the names and addresses I’m transferring are individuals who have said that they want to sign up for Sweet Life, my very own magazine, that I’m convinced is going to change the world (or at least the diabetic segment of it). I feel so perfectly in tune and on purpose with this goal that even the most boring task fills me with deep satisfaction.

Either that, or I missed my great calling as a secretary.

FYI, what I’m listening to (on repeat) helps with this calm, on purpose feeling. I am completely in love with Max Richter, and this piece in particular.

How are you doing? Are you feeling on purpose today?

PS: Have you signed up for Sweet Life yet? It’s free, and will be posted to your door four times a year from November this year (only in South Africa though, sorry!)

Since the beginning of the year, my man and I and another very talented friend have been working evenings, weekends, public holidays and spare moments on our passion project: Sweet Life, a new diabetes lifestyle magazine that we’re launching in November this year, just in time for National Diabetes Month.

I got the idea while we were still on our Round the World with Diabetes trip – actually while we were snorkelling just off the coast of the Gili Islands in Indonesia. It hit me, mid-snorkel, and I came up choking on sea water and needing to tell my man immediately! We spent a delicious seafood dinner on the beach plotting out the details… Over a year and a half later, that inspiration has turned into Sweet Life.

So far we have a website and community blog (www.sweetlifemag.co.za), where people can submit questions / advice / information about living with diabetes, a Facebook page (Diabetic South Africans) for everyday contact with a diabetic community, and a new mobi site (www.sweetlife.mobi) that we’re figuring out as we speak! We’re going to be sending out short and snappy email newsletters every month, and we’ve just put up our first monthly competition – to win an Accu-Chek Performa Nano and Smart Pix device. Exciting!

Essentially, Sweet Life is all about living well with diabetes. As you know, from the many many posts I’ve written about daily life with diabetes, I’m a pretty lucky diabetic. Most of the time I feel really well, and happy, and the condition doesn’t take anything away from my life. But I do feel a bit lonesome sometimes – I wish I had people to speak to who understand the lingo of diabetes and who know what it feels like to wake up at 2am with low blood sugar. That’s why we wanted to create Sweet Life: to form a community of South African diabetics.

And also, of course, to impart basic information like what the symptoms of diabetes are, and the difference between the two types of diabetes, and what a diabetic diet actually is, and what the state of diabetes in South Africa is.

The most exciting part for me is that we’re creating our own magazine! Four times a year, Sweet Life will be posted to subscribers all over the country. Signing up for the magazine is quick and easy, and best of all, it’s free! Everyone who signs up will get four issues of Sweet Life delivered free every year. What’s not to love about that?!

Anyone can sign up, so if you know anyone with diabetes, or who works / lives / relates / loves someone with diabetes, please let them know about Sweet Life – click here to sign up. The more people we can reach, the better.

Sweet Life: Life can be sweet, without sugar.

This is my new motto, I’ve decided.

Il dolce far niente… Doesn’t it just roll off the tongue? Deeelicious. Especially seeing as it means the sweetness of doing nothing. Could there be anything sweeter?

I am ridiculously busy at the moment. Waking up early in the morning to write, spending a full day at work and juggling another hugely exciting project (that I will tell you about in a mere 10 days!) in the evenings, weekends, and spare moments in between. Add in attempts at exercise, quality time with my lovely husband, seeing friends, catching some obligatory TV (30 Rock, how I love you!) and at least 8 hours of sleep a night and I really don’t have many moments leftover.

But I’ve come to realise that along with all the obvious important ingredients in the cake of life (good food, exercise, rest, downtime, company), there also has to be some nothing time. Some time not reading, or watching TV, or hanging out, or baking, or eating, or sleeping. Some time just spent staring into space, or watching the sun set or the moon rise, gazing around the garden or at the mountain, lying down and letting my head clear. This is the sweetness of doing nothing: just being, for a few moments in a busy day.

If I can give myself that gift, all the other elements of the day slot into place like well made puzzle pieces and I have energy and enthusiasm for all of them…

So that’s my challenge to you! Take some time to enjoy il dolce far niente. You might just get hooked.

I would also like to announce to the Universe that if ever there is a time machine invented that can let you choose one day to live over and over, Groundhog style, I would choose the 19th March 2011. All my favourite people, sunshine, lovely food, overflowing joy… Yes please! And thank you.

PS: If you don’t want to turn your head sideways, this is apparently a public link to our Portraits on Facebook… I figured these were the most indicative of the day in general!

So I’ve been married two months and one day! Woohoo…

And it’s been interesting, and wonderful, and challenging, and so. much. fun.

Interesting because we made vows to each other, and we’re both taking those vows really seriously. My man and I decided to take the classic marriage vows and add in some extras – meaningful extras to create the kind of relationship we strive towards. We promised to not hold the other responsible for our happiness, but to support each other in everything we do. To always strive to be the best possible version of ourselves. To make sure playfulness plays a big role in our lives and love.

So yes – challenging, fun, wonderful, interesting. When I saw this wisdom from Rainer Maria Rilke today, though, I just had to share. Whether you’re married or just on the lookout for that one person, I think this is good advice:

“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of their solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side by side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.

That is why this too must be the criterion for rejection or choice: whether you are willing to stand guard over someone else’s solitude, and whether you are able to set this same person at the gate of your own depths, which he learns of only through what steps forth, in holiday clothing, out of the great darkness.

Life is self-transformation, and human relationships, which are an extract of life, are the most changeable of all, they rise and fall from minute to minute, and lovers are those for whom no moment is like any another. People between whom nothing habitual ever takes place, nothing that has already existed, but just what is new, unexpected, unprecedented. There are such connections, which must be a very great, an almost unbearable happiness, but they can occur only between very rich beings, between those who have become, each for his own sake, rich, calm, and concentrated; only if two worlds are wide and deep and individual can they be combined….
…For the more we are, the richer everything we experience is. And those who want to have a deep love in their lives must collect and save for it, and gather honey.”

Image credit

Inspired by my favourite blogger, Naturally Nina, I’m going to give you a list of reasons why I’ve been an absent blogger lately. You ready?

a) Being married is really fun! This has taken me by surprise. Everyone kept telling me that it wouldn’t feel that different, but it does! We’ve had a lot of public holidays lately, so technically lots of time to blog, but who wants to sit behind a computer when you can be walking on the beach / eating croissants and drinking cappuccinos / watching Boston Legal / reading in bed / going for nature walks with your favourite person? Not me little flea.

b) I’m working on two enormously exciting and almost-overwhelmingly large projects, which I can tell you about in a couple of months, but unfortunately not till then. They’re creative and exciting and challenging, and they’re taking up most of my energy.

c) I work online. So I have to be online all day… And much as that means I’m a regular tweeter, it also means that I don’t really want to go online when I get home, and I don’t really feel whimsical or thoughtful enough to blog while I’m at work, surrounded by deadlines.

d) For some reason, I feel like I have to do a Whole Post every time I blog. I need to switch my head around on this, because sometimes all I have to say is a paragraph long, and that’s just fine.

e) I’ve been having such fun blogging for Travelstart Street about a few of my favourite things – check it out, I do a weekly post here.

f) I have rediscovered my passion for reading. Last weekend I read ‘One Day‘ by David Nicholls in three days – I think I read for four hours the one day (it was raining, that was my excuse). Is there anything I love more than reading? I don’t think so… Many things I love as much as, but that’s another post!

g) All of the above.*

* Obviously, this is the answer.

PS: The pic above is a photo from our honeymoon, when we were flying to our hotel in a helicopter. Oh yes.

It’s a cool Tuesday evening and I’m sitting on our verandah watching the clouds roll in over Table Mountain. The seasons are finally turning, and the air has a delicious crispness to it that makes me think of crunchy apples and cool glasses of water.

And for the first time since about a month before our wedding, I have some space to be still, and reflect. What a lot has happened! My blog decided to purge itself of about six months of posts, but my genius brother is seeing if he can find them. If not, well this wasn’t meant to be a permanent record anyway, I suppose…

Our wedding was absolutely magical! I had lunch with a dear friend today and she said exactly the same thing, and so many friends have been telling us what an amazing time they had… It was relaxed and joyful and SO MUCH FUN, crazy hot, still, with a super moon (apparently the moon was 30% bigger than usual, just for that one night!) and so much laughter in the air…

The week before the wedding was possibly one of the most fun weeks of my life. We had a flood of friends pouring in from all over (USA, Ecuador, Scotland and South Korea, to name but a few!) and the days were filled with laughter and great food and wonderful memories. That sounds so lame, ‘wonderful memories’, but it’s true! I’ll remember those days as long as I live.

The day before the wedding we set up the venue (which looked AMAZING – the 1000 paper cranes were a hit!) and then I spent the evening with my parents in a little house on top of a hill with incredible views out over the ocean. In the morning, three of my best friends came over to help me get ready and we had a lovely chilled morning before heading out to get married.

Married! It’s going to take some getting used to!

The actual wedding was extraordinary. So meaningful and personal and funny even! A very talented friend of ours did the service and I loved every minute… Then there were photos (I’ll post them as soon as I have them!) and drinks and delicious food and funny, heartfelt speeches and plenty of dancing and fabulous music and a soft serve ice cream van (!) and love love love. The day stretched out like warm bubblegum and it felt like it lasted hours and hours and hours…

And then! We went to Vilanculos in Mozambique for two blissful weeks of island paradise. Warm sea, deserted stretches of white beach, incredible seafood and Portuguese feasts, sparkling pools, wonderful snorkelling and diving, and nothing to do but revel in each other, and the pure joy of starting this amazing journey together.

Seriously. Honeymoons are the BEST.

I’ve been back at work a week now, and slowly settling back into the lovely rhythm that is our life together. There are a lot of public holidays coming up this month (woohoo!) and one of the main things I want to do over them is write, so you’ll be seeing more of me, I promise!

I’ll also post links of where we stayed etc on our honeymoon, because it was amazing. A-ma-zing.

For now, it’s time to make supper and eat it with my husband. Ha!

So as some of you might remember, I wasn’t always such a good cook used to only cook with feta, lemon and chilli. Seriously. Since I’ve started working at Fresh Living magazine, I’ve been doing a Recipe of the Week challenge, which has seen me attempt things like grilled trout, chicken pie with pastry-from-scratch and once, disastrously, homemade sweetie pies.

Still, when Yuppiechef asked me if I wanted to review the new Jamie Oliver book, I was hesitant. I mean, Jamie Oliver? He knows how to cook. And I kiiiind of know how to cook, but not quite at that level. So I said no. Then I saw that it was his new 30 Minute Meals book, and I said yes. My man’s away this week, so I decided it was the perfect time to invite my favourite women over for dinner. For a Wonderful Women dinner, with Oozy Mushroom Risotto, Spinach Salad and Quick Lemon and Raspberry Cheesecake on the menu. Yum.

Apparently all of this could be made in 30 minutes. So I laid out all my ingredients (just like Jamie told me to), and stuck in at 6.30pm. My guests were arriving at 7pm.
The book is beautiful, as all Jamie’s books are, and laid out in an interesting way – he tells you what to do blow by blow, instead of recipe by recipe. So you get the risotto going and then start on the salad, toasting the nuts, and then go back to the risotto, then to the cheesecake, then to the mushrooms, then back to the risotto. You get the idea. I like this method, cause I’m a bit of a spaz when it comes to timing things out: I’ve been known to serve a cold chicken breast with piping hot veggies. That said, I needed to concentrate a lot more than Jamie obviously did, and so it took way, way longer than anticipated (see above photo, and the very messy stove – a result of my attempts at speed cooking).

My first guest arrived, and I set her to work on the risotto. Then the next two arrived, and were promptly set to work. It was rather convenient that they were all wearing matching stripes, no? I like my kitchen staff to be properly attired.

For the next hour, I cooked as fast as I could. Check out the blur in this photo! That’s how fast I was chopping. But Jamie’s 30 minute meal still took me (dare I say it?) an hour and 20 minutes, and that’s with 3 dedicated helpers, and 1 photographer.Still, an hour and a bit for three dishes? Not bad, not bad at all. And as you can see from the photo below, I had some very happy eaters (although, to be fair, this was before the food was dished up)… The mushroom risotto was absolutely incredible – creamy, full of flavour, oozy and delicious. The spinach salad was full of oomph, and had everyone oohing and aaahing. And the lemon and raspberry ‘cheesecakes’ were a real treat.

So all in all? A great success. So great, in fact, that we’re now going to have a monthly dinner of Wonderful Women, and rotate houses and dishes. I love the intention of this book: to get people out of the kitchen and spending more time with friends and family, at big tables with big piles of food. My kind of meal.

Now that I’ve conquered my fear of Jamie Oliver recipes I’m looking forward to working through more of the book (in slightly more than half an hour), and lending it out to my friends so they can cook for me too! (hint hint). I think anyone who has even the vaguest desire to learn how to cook better would love this book… Buy Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals here. Then invite me for dinner, please.