Revamping 30 decades

In two days I’ll be returning to work, jumping into assignment mode, organizing my sister’s baby shower and starting a new part-time year at university completing my honours degree.  So this past week, I’ve decided to tackle a home décor project, not only to stimulate my right –brain, but also to make something new to inspire me to work harder at my studies.

As mentioned before, my sister is having a baby (Yippee!), and with a new baby, comes a new baby room.  And with a new baby room, comes cleaning out the old, and in with the new cute, tiny and cuddly things.  Therefore, when an old desk was about to be thrown out after many years of inactive service, I thought “Here’s a great opportunity to express my creative side”.   I also have to mention here that this particular desk has seen our family through many years of studious splendor and hardships.  It was there through my brothers’ university years, my sisters part time studies and even through my very own matric exams back in the year 2000.  So as you can imagine, this desk has quite the number of years on it and I might be speaking under correction, but it might even have been there through my brothers schooling years way back in the 1980’s.

So without further delay, here is a pic of the desk as I found it (ok, midway through the sanding already). 

And this picture of the drawer shows perfectly the state the desk was in, including the atrocious colour, and boring drawer knobs.

My aim was to create something that fit in with my current décor in my apartment but that also had a French twist to it.  It had to be small enough to store away when not in use, but big enough to comfortably work long hours into the night.  And of course, it had to look pretty.

So out I went, got some paint, some candles and some brand spanking new knobs….

It took me quite some time to decide between the two knobs, but I eventually picked one and with some creative painting, this is what I ended up with…also see the above pic for the detail on the desk top.

The final result with a make-shift stool in a nook in my apartment, is working wonderfully to type up this post.  Mission accomplished.

Till next time, Good night J

A New Year

What is the difference between being in love versus loving.  Someone recently asked me whether I was in love with them or whether I just loved them.  And I think the entire concept of that question is out of comparison.

Should the question not be whether I loved them or whether I was merely in love with them?  See, after some thought and of course some googling of the topic, I came across the following comment left by someone answering the same question:

I definitely agree with everyone that there is a difference..

I'm currently in a relationship for 3 1/2 years now.

Yes we fell "in love" together, but "in love" seems to be more about the infatuation stage of love. It's easy to fall "in love" but it's tough to just.. love.. if that makes any sense.

You can fall in love with many different people but there's only so many that you can truly love..

This type of love is the type where you can love the person regardless of the tough times, regardless of the time or distance, and regardless of the person's flaws. If you can pass the "in love" stage, this person is more than just a bf/gf, you begin to take it seriously, and the decisions you make start to involve them.

Now this answer got me thinking and nodding my head in agreement.  Unfortunately at the time the question was posed to me, I was not in this frame of mind and somehow thought that stress could be the reason for no longer being in love.  That with life being so tough sometimes, you forget that carefree feeling of being inlove but that it is indeed hiding somewhere beneath all the baggage.  AND that being in love was the begin and end all of a romantic relationship.

But, being in love is, as it seems, the beginning of a relationship.  But by no means the end of it.  Once the butterflies have died down, the heart not skipping that many beats anymore, if you lucky enough, what you’ll have left is Love.  Love, that as I’m sure many of you have heard at countless weddings, will be there through thick and thin, richer and poorer, through the good times and the bad.

Pure Love….that is my wish to all for  2012….Happy New Year!!