Blessings from Heaven

​Lunch outing
 
What has also kept me busy, is that my youngest son and I agreed that a certain portion of his inheritance would go towards home improvements and just spoiling ourselves for a change.  We’ve struggled financially for as long as we can remember, so having a little bit of financial freedom for a short while feels so good.  I think that people who live with financial freedom all the time might get too used to it… take it for granted… or still want more of it and never really be satisfied with what they already have.
 
I once wrote
ENDLESS STRUGGLE
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I’m so tired of being poor
Is anyone tired of being rich
I won’t hesitate at this time
To make a happy switch
 
This struggle seems so endless
This trial so hard to bear
Will I ever know the joy
Of having much to spare
 
I’ve learnt so many values
I cherish little things
I have an abundance of love to give
But my happiness now needs wings
 
Please spare a little thought
For those less fortunate than you
For someday you may know
This endless struggle too
 
~ Panayiota Ryall
(21st April 1995 – Wishful Thinking!)
 
One of the first things we did, was to buy ourselves a good cellphone each… I was surprised at how expensive even the lower range phones are these days.  Just after I announced that we had new phones, someone very kindly added quite a large amount of airtime money on my personal phone number… I have two sim cards in my new phone which is fantastic… personal and work.  I still don’t know who added the airtime, but I really want to thank them with all my heart for their kind generosity.  When I lived in my old home, someone there topped up the airtime on my phone for months on end… Oh how I’d love to know the person who has been so kind then and now again… are they the same person or two different people… THANK YOU… whoever you are… Thank you with all my heart.

On the same day we bought the phones, we treated ourselves to lunch at a Spur Steak Ranch restaurant.  Something we would very rarely do.  In fact, I can’t even remember the last time we treated ourselves to a restaurant meal.  They are so expensive, but we allowed ourselves this one time and loved it so much!  The photo of me above, was one my youngest son took at the restaurant.
 
We also paid for our bathroom makeover, which my son in law and daughter organized for us and oversaw the choice and work on it, for which we are very grateful… it’s absolutely beautiful!  We let them choose everything for us and they chose so well.  If I had have chosen, I think my inner child, Patty would have gotten a bit carried away and I would have ended up with gaudy colours, glitter and Christmas lights in there… hahahaaa!  And one more dream that has come true was for more cupboard space.  We managed to purchase two beautiful white cupboards that were selling on special at our local hardware store.  They have freed us so much space and chaos in this house.  I was able to take a huge shelf out of my hanging cupboard space and spread my tightly compacted clothes out so that it’s easier to find what I’m looking for.  With everything in its right place and cleaned up surface areas, I feel I can breathe and think better!  The spring cleaning is still in process, but it’s nearly all completed now.  I found that the more I moved stuff around, the more work I created for myself… so it’s been a huge job… but with wonderful results!
 
27th September, the workers came to install irrigation in my little yard as well as the two Jojo water tanks we had purchased.  One for the back yard and one for the front.  Shem made the concrete bases for them a few days ago in preparation for their installation.  He did a great job.  Having the Jojo’s and irrigation installed ended up costing us a whole lot more than we had planned to spend… literally three times as much, so that’s a big worry, but too late now.  There is so much more we wanted to do, but very little spending money left.  We still hope to have a gate put into our back wall, so that we can access the interior of our complex where my son’s car (inherited from his dad) is parked when not in use… so, the gate is the next thing we are hoping will be fixed soon.  I don’t think there will be enough money left after that to have a motor put on our front gate… security on our front wall and locks on certain exterior doors and gates that still need better securing.  I’m hoping we can get at least the wall security spikes done… hopefully we can find second-hand spikes somewhere.  I also desperately needed to get a granite slab for my kitchen Zinc which is currently made of boxwood and is falling apart with all the moisture… it’s disgusting!  There was the raised (to catch more sunlight) front garden wall bed I also really wanted to make, but that’s for now on the bottom of our dream list, I don’t think that one is ever going to happen in my lifetime… It would have given us extra planting space for fruit and vegetables.
 
And the last thing that I’d still LOVE more than anything to have done, is to have the UGLY loose skin on my abdomen removed… but that one is for me only and for the part of my personal and forever ongoing, and never dying dream of finding True Love one day… so it’s not as important as all the rest of the dreams that would benefit both my youngest son and I who live here, and I would NEVER spend my son’s inheritance on that, so would still need to rely on a donation of around R20 000 for it to be done at a government training hospital.  I’m not going to give up hoping for it… it might seem like a selfish dream, but it is an important part of MY DREAM FOR TRUE LOVE… and I’ve come so far in life, why should I not still have such dreams, even in my 60’s?  Who is going to want me with this UGLY loose skin flap hanging down from my abdomen (and elsewhere)?!  Maybe winning the lottery is still a possibility… hahaa!  Whatever happens, I will NOT give up on this dream!
 
But gratefully, we’ve so far been able to upgrade our standard of living so much with what we have done up till now and it’s a beautiful thing after years of going without and living in disintegrating places where things just seemed to be falling apart around us.  ENOUGH ALREADY!
 
28 September, After having the workers here all day yesterday (invading our space), I was so disappointed that after paying so much for their work, that they did not add filters to our water tanks as we had discussed before they started the job… and that only just before they left at the end of the day, they mentioned that the irrigation nozzles could get blocked by debris coming from the captured rain water inside the tanks. 
 
By Saturday evening, due to the stress of the worker invasion on Friday and my disappointment, I felt as though I was going to have a breakdown.  Every nerve in my body was on edge… I felt nauseous, exhausted beyond anything I’d felt in a very long time and really very ill by the time I went to bed.  I worried that I might die in the night… my heart didn’t feel like it was working well… my breathing was also too shallow… not enough oxygen!
 
It seems that even when GOOD things are happening… like my longstanding dream of water storage coming true at last… somehow my psyche can’t take it all in at once.  It’s too overwhelming… even if it was all done perfectly, I’m sure I would have still reacted the same.  It’s like I struggle as much with receiving GOOD as I do with living with the expected BAD!  Life in general seems to be all too much for me most times!
 
29 September, I woke after only 5 hours sleep… during the early hours, I had a dilemma that I was trying to work a solution for.  I now realise that more money will need to be spent, to now divert the irrigation to our municipal water tap where it should have been in the first place so that the rain tank water would only fed through a hose… not through the irrigation system.  I felt so disturbed by this… already disturbed that we had to spend so much just to have the tanks installed… more than we paid for the actual tanks which were on special!  The irrigation will help so much with freeing up a large chunk of my time and stress… I could rather spend the time I would have been watering, by going out to weed the garden instead.  The weeds come up so quick and I don’t have time for both… I don’t even have enough time to rest anymore.  I really dreamed of that irrigation… I must now spend even more money to make it work for us.  That is so upsetting!    I already have to pay our handyman to rig up the outdoor plugs so that the water pumps can work.  We bought the plugs and their outdoor protective housing already.
 
And yes… I am obviously still a walkover… still trying to keep the peace… still a flipping people pleaser!!!!!  I couldn’t fight with the people about the filters I’d discussed with them before they started the job or the cages we had discussed for them to put around the pumps to prevent theft! 
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By the end of a whole day with them here, I couldn’t wait for them to leave… I just wanted my safe space back again, so I let them go without complaining about what HADN’T been done… HUMPH!!! 
 
DON’T WORRY… I’M KICKING MYSELF ENOUGH ABOUT IT ALREADY!!!
 
I could not go to church today… still feeling “highly strung… and exhausted”… had an hours nap while my youngest son went to church.  Woke after an hour due to a nightmare and very full bladder!  Flipping bladder… I would get a lot more sleep if it wasn’t for that! 
 
I’m still so tired… so-so-so darned tired.

OUR WONDERFUL BATHROOM MAKEOVER ABOVE.

BEAUTIFUL NEW CUPBOARDS... what a marvelous difference they have made to my whole house!

WATER STORAGE AT LAST... What a wonderful blessing ♥

We might need a donation to get a granite slab for the sink... but I will update you all when we've seen what happens with our remaining spending money.

OUR BEAUTIFUL, PRODUCTIVE LITTLE VEGETABLE GARDEN.

FLOWERS IN OUR SPRING GARDEN AT THIS TIME

Thank you for sharing our wonderful blessings with us.

~ Panayiota.