Just Thinkin'...

Not having been thinking a lot recently, hence my silence on the blogs, but this one crops up again and again:

What's a luxury?

I've been shopping a lot lately... yes, I know: a confession video is long overdue... and yes, a lot of the stuff I don't really need, so I can happily admit to the luxury crime.

But take my cleaner! For some reason I myself still think I shouldn't have one. I am a healthy woman fully capable of removing my own dirt, and potentially I would even have the time for it - but I don't want to!

I want to spend my time differently. I want to explore things, I want to write, I want to meet people and get inspired to explore even more things, and I want to meet people to inspire them - and I am really good at that. A cleaner gives me all these things. So why the heck do I have to feel guilty?

My cleaner is a star, she wasn't as blessed with an education enabling her to do something else. Well, she actually worked in health care but can't do that anymore because it broke her back. Cleaning houses allows her to work at her own pace and she likes to be in the service sector. 

So she is happy and I am happy and at the same time we both do our business.

Could it be that luxury is a term coined out of  envy? Is anything that makes me happy or makes my life easier a luxury, just because I have the money to pay for it?

I call driving a Merc or having a yacht a luxury; not cooking but going out for food I find luxurious... but only because these things are not for me: I wouldn't want to do it and because for me it's not worth the money. 

Now my luxury lifestyle has enabled me to find a new aim in life. All the explorations and networking eventually is going to pay off in proper currency: I enrolled in a course to become 'Personal Trainer'. I have a new career prospect while my dear cleaner earned herself the money to pay for the visa and the trip from the Philippines for her daughter.

Long live luxury!

Murphy is still biting

This is a rant! I am not sure if I am pre-menstrual or menopausal, our English summer is taking place during this very week, and I have not seen a bloody bit of it, collecting overtime at work instead, and my bodybuilding competition is getting closer and I am in panic because I just can't focus on it. I had another week during which I didn't train. Great!

Well Mr Murphy claims that everything that can go wrong will go wrong, for me it is more: Pile on her shoulders as much as you can! Maybe it's Murphy's brother biting me.

I have set myself all those challenges, because my environment at home and work was calm and comforting for such sort of thing, and hence I organised my life accordingly. It seemed to be good timing to push the envelope a bit more and to find out where my limits are. Well, I learned that for sure: They are here and now!

See, everything was sorted and discussed at home, work was wonderfully boring and then, all of a sudden home and work changed drastically. I feel that I should be three people: A full time entertainment enthusiast, a full time business woman with a drive for a career and the will to work overtime for it, and the Rika who wants to write blogs, do photo shoots and bodybuilding competitions.

Does it always HAVE to be like that? Really? This is going on my nerves.

I had occasions like this twice before in my life. I had just braced myself to build something of my own, wanted to become a business woman in my own little company, even had visited courses on bloody boring accountancy - and then we moved to England. The second time round I wanted to become an artist/inventor/craftswoman and make that a business - and I got offered the BT-job that initially scared the hell out of me, so the idea died.

Although I am hoping that I can make the one or the other of my recent activities a business, the whole thing was meant to be a self improvement exercise. I wanted to learn some skills and gain a bit of confidence and most of all, for a change I wanted to practice patience and determination. For a change I wanted to be able to stick with something and not give up like the two times before.

It is so easy to say: 'Oh I moved', 'I got a job', ... and hence I give up. Nope, not this time!

Mr Murphy's brother is testing me big time, though. It could not just be the case that my husband would discover a new life  coming June, when the bodybuilding competition is over, so that I could discover it together with him? No, apparently not, it had to happen last fall, just when I had to pull things together.

Apparently it had to happen last fall as well, that new tasks were offered to me at work. I could have said no, but they were interesting and it is nice to be asked. Others have to beg on her knees for good jobs... Those tasks have now reached a culmination point ... two month before the competition. Hmmm?!?!

See, each of these people needed to live my life are in me, and I love every single one of them, just not at the same time.

So, somebody please tell me : This determination thing - where should I focus it on? I feel like burning the candle from both ends at the moment. If I drop one... would I still be determined? Or do I have to pull through all of them to fulfil my initial challenge of self improvement... ah crumbs... let's hope it's just the hormones talking!

On that note:
Have a wonderful weekend!

A Columnist

I started reading a book. Nothing unusual, one might think, but for me it is as I have not been reading in a long time: Too much other stuff to do - like writing.

So I thought: Then at least read a book about writing! I had started others of this kind before, but they reminded me of school and off they went into the rear end of the book shelf. This one is different. Although On Writing Well is written by a writer who is a teacher as well. He writes about other writers who do everything the opposite way he does, and is acknowledging those approaches as valid as his own. And that made me think about what kind of writer I might be.

A lot of the things he suggests I am already doing, although not confidently enough. So I feel in good company while learning my skill. But that does not explain what type of writer I am. And then, Monday morning, sorting my little chores for the day, mind floating, it occurred to me that 'I am a columnist'.

Yes, I know, I even have written a book with my columns in it. That is not what I mean. I am a columnist in my lifestyle as well. I always visualised my life as a scene from a sci-fi adventure movie. There is a huge opening in the ground, bottomless, and for some reason hot and glowing... it seems that I have a vivid imagination, I probably should attempt writing a novel. However! My task in life is to get to the other side of this nothingness.

I have observed people building little bits of land right to the cliff edge where they are standing. They do that by learning things which seem sensible at the time. They look for the bit of the cliff edge that suits them best and by staying with the subject and specialising they are building a solid bridge to the other side.

That's not me!

I have been looking for the right part of the cliff several times and my choices turned out to be very crumbly. Then I found an interest and pursued it for a while, building a column in the middle of the vastness. And on I went building column by column, some of them are a bit short, others a bit high. Some I was made building, and they seem to be a bit crumbly, too. Meanwhile I was walking up and down that cliff not getting anywhere, still hoping to find the perfect spot for a bridge. The bridge builders already were far ahead.

And now, in the last phase of my life, I realise that some of the columns stand rather densely, they are starting to become part of a whole. I can jump from one to the next, and from where I am standing I even can see the solid  and the crumbly ones. I have options to choose from, while some bridge builders have hit crumbly ground and have to go back. Jumping is still a bigger risk than going steadily, but it is more fun, too!

So no wonder then, that I have become a columnist.

Unexpected Appreciation

I am not sure if I will get this finished, as I messed up my wrist today while copying and pasting stuff from one form into another. Hence I am typing like a two year old who got hold of an old typewriter: let your hand fall with fingers stretched and hoping for a good random hit. Probably that should be the way to write anyway. I have a hunch, though, that after a while my neck will follow my wrist... oh well, others had greater hardship to bear for their art.

Talking of art: a lot of my thinking still evolves around photo shoots. Together with a new photo shoot proposal I got notice today that the DVD with the pictures of the last one is in the mail, and then another email dropped into my inbox asking for a shoot, too. This lady is in demand and this lady is flabbergasted due to the fact, that in parts she is in demand for reasons which are a bit beyond my understanding. OK, most of the guys like the red hair, the more that it poses a photography challenge - too much light on it and everything in its proximity looks red, too little and it looks dull - I can understand that. And I can understand that my cleavage has advantage points. Although the bosom part of it is rather limited, the muscles seem to make up for it in a good way.

One of the things I cannot comprehend, though, is that quite some attention is paid to the rear end. Oh, don't smirk... the interesting thing is, that it is not any old rear end, but mine, the very one that caused a myriad of tantrums and hysteric breakdowns which poor hubby had to endure, and it is the one which even got its very own article ... and not because it is so gorgeously pretty...

The other thing is the pale skin. I thought people were just kind when they used the term 'fair', my dad used to call it 'cheesecake'. In front of the camera this all of sudden becomes a desirable feature, and from the pictures I can tell: It works.

Wow!

This is a photo therapy of a completely different kind. It is therapeutic to watch myself through the eyes of a photographer, and all of a sudden I do not see paleness but  reflecting light and contrast. It is an approach to amending the body image which I can only recommend. I find it a wee bit difficult,though, to apply this method to the rear.

Getting Shot again!

I need more clothes! If I keep doing those photo shoots I definitely need more clothes. The very first shoot with Babul saw me in clothes which I am not that keen on anymore. When I started 'Project Rika' I was so disappointed to find out that my colour scheme basically was 'dirty', or 'earthy' how it is called, to give the fact that bright colours are not suitable a positive note. See, that is another confidence thing: These days I don't care a ...!

 

Of course I would not go into a business meeting of undertakers wearing an outfit that would make their eyes water, although that might even be the right thing to do for various reasons... However, I know all too well that in certain circumstances one has to play with the rules. Want money from a banker? Play their game and wear sophisticated!

All those years back I really learned my lessons. I know my shapes and I know the colours that go for which occasions. And like in any other subject: Once you've learned your basics you are allowed to push the envelope and start breaking the rules. OK, it really does help that I don't have to win a reputation ... or a good reputation, that is... anymore, hence I actually have places to which to wear all those colourful things I buy; not just for photo shoots.

And now I need more!

It is starting to become a task to determine which outfits to give to which photographer. Well, Babul is a glamour guy, that is fairly easy as usually not a lot of clothing is involved. The type of clothing to use in order to not end up in the page 3 department is difficult to find, though. Then there is Chris; well, again not a problem. I need to buy a decent posing bikini anyway, which should suit him well for bodybuilding photography. Matt who did the lovely burlesque/theatre style photos which I used as templates for Columnbina already booked the purple corset, asking for everything purple in my book... and Barry is in a 'moody/dramatic' phase which either asks for black or ... well... again... not a lot.

Hmmmm!? Is there a theme developing which goes into a direction of less clothing rather than more...? That could save me a lot of money.

However, at least I have black stuff now. At the beginnings of my journey, black was a forbidden fruit! Black is the colour of the undecided, the thing that always goes together, and which is not questioned in any situation, not even a summer ball. For quite some years I didn't have a single black item in my wardrobe and only a couple of years back it got introduced again, together with vibrant colours. And this will be today's theme: Everything colourful! I hope Rob will be happy with my choice.

Well, spring has arrived after all, Easter is approaching. It should fit the bill.

... and tomorrow I am off to Camden Market - I really need to do a travel blog about it, it is fabulous - and cross fingers I will burn another hole into hubby's back pocket by making the credit card smoke!