Results are in!

I've been really quiet lately!

I've started a new job in September, after which I wrote exams in October and November, shortly after which we relocated to a new house.. at night after work, after which it was financial year end and I had been working almost 18 hour days for a week.

But... it's all behind me now and it is with GREAT joy that I can announce that in the midst of going through probably one of the most stressfull times of my life, I have received 3 distinctions out of the 4 subjects I wrote.

Maybe dreaming of moving to New Zealand was inspiration enough for good marks!

I remember sitting in front of masses of books and wondering how I'll make it, and ALL I kept thinking of was how this piece of paper was going to get us to where we want to go.

So happy it's year end, the wind down has started and everything feels much slower.

I've gone to the bookshop and gotten 5 books... all non-finance related and romance filled for my reading pleasure and stocked our fridge with a turkey which will feature soon enough.

Christmas is around the corner!

x

Grey skirt

It's finally starting to become spring.  Here, there's blossoms on the rows of plum trees in the borchard I drive past on my way to work.

I love this outfit Jessica Biel is wearing.  I think I might just copy this skirt in a nice wool mix, t-shirt kind of material.

PS: I'm so glad these two seems to have gotten back together!

Tired much?

More of my latest style crush - the dress

Found all of these on Style.com, Talbots NY.

I feel like going shopping!

Work life

Well, it's official.  I need to look for a new job.

Thursday morning my boss came to talk to me and told me that realistically, I need to find a new job.

Which I knew a very long time ago.

Since returning from London, where I had a fabulous job with one of the biggest firms in the world, working in Export Finance, I have struggled to find an appropriate job back in South Africa.

It's just not the same, and living in wine country, really makes it impossible to even consider having corporate dreams.  Here, people drink wine, eat cheese, enjoy life and take really slow paces.

Well, I'm not quite there yet.  I wouldn't call myself a super successful and driven person, but somewhere in between, I definitely want more for myself than just getting by.

So, having this opportunity where I am actually forced to go out and find a new job, really has pushed me to find something good.

I have been looking for weeks without finding anything on the internet, and suddenly, after going to three agencies, I now have three possible interviews.  All amazing corporate type of jobs.

Yesterday, someone phoned my boss for a reference, and she gave a star review of me.

Hopefully, next week this time, I'd be well on my way to working in Corporate Finance again!

1950's Dress

This weekend, She's out of my league was on TV, a 2010 movie, which I guess didn't really ruffle too many feathers.  It's just a nice laugh, boy meets girl type of movie... not too intelligent and the plot was visible from Mars.

But I fell in love with the dresses the lead character wore.  Real 1950's revamped dresses, and I realised, as I am now firmly in my thirties and things are not as slight as they used to be, that the style of those dresses were extremely forgiving to one's curvacious flaws.

Either way, I've always been a lover of old things... I think it connects me to my gran.  She taught me how to sew, and a while ago, I picked up an old pattern.  But, like most of my projects, still lies unfinished in the closet.

Louis vuitton

Mad Men

And with Louis Vuitton and Mad Men bringing the 50's back, I might even be able to pull it off.

Suddenly, I'm over finding a house...

I had an epiphany on Friday.  I'm psychologically over looking for a house.  I'm done being pressured by parents into buying a house simply because it's a good investment.

Sure, it is an investment, and sure, if we don't buy right this minute, we might never be able to afford a house in the Western Cape (since it's practically becoming impossible to find a place less than a good R1.8 million).

Things at my work have been strained.  I think my New York boss, who's come and bought a wine farm in Stellenbosch has woken up to the realities of farming in this little politically strained country of ours.

At first, it was all wonderful and moonshine and roses, and now, she's hating everything.  With passion.

So, I'm not sure if I have a job any more and the Western Cape isn't exactly known for their high pay scales, nor the frequency with which jobs appear on the Gumtree.

Therefore, I have decided on Friday that until I know that I have a job, we can't possibly look at buying property.

When we went away to Hermanus, my husband's dad told us he'd borrow us some money.  But I've been feeling strange about that all the time.  We can borrow enough to buy a house, it's just that just because you can borrow enough money doesn't mean you can pay it back monthly.  We are sceptics by nature, me and my hub.  He too doesn't want to accept parental support.  We need to do this on our own, or not at all.

I just feel that they want us to buy a house so that we could leave this nonsense of going overseas business behind us, make babies and settle down.  His parents were vehemently against us going back overseas.  

Unfortunately, I am more scared of settling down before seeing the world than seeing a snake lurch his body in full blown attack mode.  Yes, at 31 years of age I am still plagued by wanderlust.

So, this dream I have that just doesn't want to quit about immigration has flared up when faced with pressure.

Auckland skyline, via the wonderful Auckland Daily Photo

I just want to have this sky line as my own too. I want to make NZ my home.  I know it won't be easy, but aren't the best things in life really difficult when you go through them?

Please Lord, You can make this happen?