Author: Rubyletters

My dearest baby cousin

Happy birthday baby cuz!! Although I suppose at 15 you are no longer a baby.  You are however the youngest of many and therefore you shall remain the baby cousin for eternity:)  it’s an affectionate reference, so I don’ expect you to become difficult about it:)

I can’t believe you’re 15 already! How on earth did that happen? You were no more than a small child when I moved to Jozi and suddenly here you are, a proper teenager busy turning into a beautiful young woman before our eyes.  Please don’t ever lose yourself in the world around you.  You are beautiful and pure, affectionate and compassionate and your face is always ready to bestow that lovely smile of yours on all and sundry.

I hope you have the most amazing year ahead and that you are properly spoiled today.  My the years be filled with love and happiness and may God bless you beyond your wildest dreams.

Much love

Ruby
xxxx

Anschke

Dear Readers

You all know this little game by now.  I start and complete a few sentences and then you play along and finish the same sentences in the comments section.

Coffee

I have become……. a bit of a coffee snob.  There is no doubt in my mind about this.  I really battle to drink poor quality coffee.  Sometimes I force myself to drink it in order to be nice, but it’s not an easy thing for me to do.

I’m not….very good with goodbyes.  And by goodbyes I mean having to bid the people closest to me farewell and know I won’t see them for more than a reasonable time of say a week or two.  I get very sad, and while i generally hold my pose well at the time of the goodbye I do eventually shed a couple of tears.  But don’t go and tell everybody I’m a softy and ruin my street cred OK?

This morning….I was surprised with 2 very unexpected phone calls from old friends I haven’t spoken to in forever.  It was a very pleasant surprise.

I realised…that I probably became more of a grownup in the last 3 months than I did in the 4 years preceding them.

I love…..evaluating my life and realising that I’m well on my way to fulfilling my dreams.  Things that I’ve thought were ONLY dreams are suddenly becoming reality…it’s a wonderful feeling.

It’s OK….to feel insecure sometimes, just don’t make a habit of it.

Being a hero…..can be overrated sometimes.  I’ll be heading to a doctor soon to have my ankle checked out.  I’m petrified at the thought that something has gone wrong with the metal plate, but the pain is truly unbearable and walking and driving are becoming increasingly difficult.

I love….the cold weather we are having today.  I’m SUCH a winter baby it’s not even funny.  the cold weather makes me happy:)

My family…is the best family in the entire world…TRUST me:)

Now it’s your turn.  Looking forward to reading your sentences!

Love
Ruby
xxxxxx

Dear World

I hope you are ready for me! I have a degree and I’m NOT afraid to use it.  See Exhibit A:

Exhibit A
Exhibit A

So thursday it was finally my big day…graduation day!! It was met with much excitement as it was the celebration of something I’ve worked incredibly hard for : My Master’s degree in Forensic Accounting.  It was my little moment of glory for 2 years of blood, sweat, tears, celebration and hard work.  And today, after starting my new job, I can truly say it was worth every little bit of effort I put into it.

I was lucky enough to be accompanied by one of my closest friends and my parentals met me at the venue to celebrate this achievement.  They proceeded to spend the weekend with me, which is always fun:)  The entire day was perfect! Having people I care for very much with me makes me very happy, and the celebration dinner we had after the fact only sealed the deal. (was a definite yummy in my tummy moment).

So if you would, allow me to celebrate just for a moment.  To enjoy an achievement, and then to show the world what i plan to accomplish in the future.  My dreams are beckoning, and while some of them seemed rather unreasonable not so long ago I can now safely say that they are well within my reach.  I’m excited about what the future holds and can’t wait to conquer the world around me.

Love
Ruby
xxxx

P.S.  I’ve attached some pics of the day for your perusal:)

Now where did i get that degree??

With the Mommy Letters
With Daddy Letters

Dear South Africa

So today was another big day for our little country.  Local general election time!  While the run up to the election was filled with various toilet debates and some unsavoury  threats of going to hell, all in all I think the whole thing went along pretty smoothly today. For all of you making a double sigh and thinking ‘Oh joy! another blog about politics and voting’ Don’t fret…I’m not writing a blog post about either of those.  I’m merely marking another historic day on my blog calendar.  I voted, I sincerely hope you did.

Thumbshot

Love
Ruby
xxxx

P.S.  Dear DA……17, yes, i repeat, 17 sms’s in my personal opinion more than qualifies for spam.  While I appreciate what you are trying to do and while if you had stuck to sending me 1 maybe 2 sms’s I would have felt slightly annoyed that you are smsing me without my consent and without an option to opt out, but I would have smiled and nodded and accept that this is you doing what you do.  But 17…really??? 17 = spam and all you succeeded in doing was to create epic amounts of annoyance and negativity, which I’ll admit I was rather vocal about.  Next time I think you guys need to focus a bit more…and as I could gather from twitter I wasn’t the only person who got annoyed with this.  Listen to the people you are trying to reach, and take their views into consideration.  You’ll reach far more people, trust me!

A little something about change

In the last 6 months my life has gone from looking something like this:

fountainsto something that roughly resembles this:

weird fountain

In essence it’s the same picture…indicating that it’s still me (thank goodness) and certain key areas are still the same..i.e. it still involves a lot of water..but the picture is brighter and completely different.

When I decided to write this post I decided to make a list of all the things that have changed:
– I passed my masters degree and was no longer a student
– I quit my job (without having a new job lined up)
– I found a new job, a dream job really
– I became self-employed and started working as a consultant…good bye monthly salary, but hello being my own boss, determining my own hours
– I moved my blog to my own domain (yay me)
– I kicked off my new job by spending the first two months in a different country
– I took the leap and cut certain people out of my life.  This one was pretty hard.  But at some point you have to realise that certain people are bad for you.
You have to get to a point where you decide it’s NOT ok to be emotionally abused, insulted and unappreciated.
– I became more forgiving of the people around me
– I joined a gym AND I’m actually gyming regularly
– I finally gave up on my bohemian way of living and exchanged my bean bags for the most beautiful couches (How very grown up of me)

Point is, I’ve decided that this is my year.  I’m taking leaps of faith, making changes and doing all kinds of things.  Yes, the new picture of me is different from the one I had before, but in truth it’s still exactly the same, the elements are just meshed together differently.  And to celebrate all of this I decided my little blog deserved an overhaul too.  And while I adored its previous look, and while the blog will always consist of mostly letters..it was time for a change:)

Let me know what you think, but know that I for one really love the new look…it’s so very..well…ME:)

Oh…and a HUGE thank you to my much-loved and adored boy best friend who helped a lot with this…actually to be honest he did most of the work.  Thanx you:)