Chocolatelessness

I have been focussing on my photography blog a lot recently, so I thought that I would take a moment to write a blog about the nothingness really that is going on in my life.

As I mentioned awhile ago, I gave up booze and chocolate for a month. Of course, that month that I give up booze and chocolate would be the month that I feel the need to turn to both of them more than ever. The day after giving up on these luxuries, all hell broke loose at work and after two weeks of clients shouting at me down the end of phone lines and making promises that we didn't really have too much faith in, I was feeling utterly exhausted. I actually started reveling in the calls for African Bank (we get around 50 of these a day, as our number is very similar to theirs) as it meant that the call was not from an irate client demanding money and explanations. However, after two weeks, the crisis was over and there were fewer phone calls to deal with. Of course, this was also the point where I started getting horribly ill.

I am not the best at coping with stress, as some or many of you will know, and what tends to happen when I stress is that, after calming down, I get sick. I have noticed a trend in this and feel that the two are somehow connected. However, I could not have expected this specific illness. I still have no idea what it was, since at the point that it came around I was too scantily monied to head to the doctor, but it left me with my stomach in knots, not being able to lie on either of my sides and feeling the constant need to hurl, since it didn't feel like any of my food was going down.

In any case, the illness eventually passed and it was back to work and answering phone calls and emails for me. Over the weekends, I tried as hard as I could to relax, spending most of my time in bed and not seeing too many visitors or doing to many things in general. I tried to get some reading done and, contrary to my high expectations of reading 5 books in one month, only managed to get through one and a half. Fair enough, the half book is an 800 pager, but I still feel a little ashamed at my lack of reading speed. I somehow need to pick myself up and get back in the reading game! I played a little WoW here and there, but nothing too substantial. I rewatched a season of Criminal Minds with Grant and just generally appreciated the fact that he was around to watch shows with.

At some point during the month, we managed to find ourselves a place to live next year, an accomplishment which relieved a lot of stress in itself, as I was starting to worry that we were never going to find a place at all. I spent quite a bit of time phoning moving companies to get quotes for moving furniture from Cape Town to Grahamstown, as my parents have some spare furniture that they expect to get rid of before we move in, but alas, that is not to be as the cheapest moving company I could find quoted me R4500 for the move. At that price, we could likely buy a brand new lounge suite!

Overall, this month has been a bit of a tough one and a bit of a busy one, though now that I look back on it, it certainly felt busier living through it than describing it to other people. Whatever the case may be, however, whether it was a long one or a short one, and easy or a rough one, the month of no booze or chocolate is over, and we celebrated this fact on Friday by tasting wine for Mike and Vicky's upcoming wedding and pairing it with a selection of chocolates. Delish!! Needless to say, we were all feeling more than a little tipsy by the end of the evening, and slightly rough around the edges on Saturday morning. This was nothing compared to some of my nights in Korea, but it certainly feels like a much more sophisticated evening of drinking to excess.

So what did I miss the most about not being able to eat chocolate or drink alcohol? In terms of chocolate, it was mostly the things that were put in front of me that I had to avoid eating - chocolate brownies and cake at work on peoples birthdays, ice cream with chocolate sauce and hazelnut chocolate wafter biscuits which Grant bought for dessert, that kind of thing. In terms of alcohol, I missed having a drink on occasion when I'd had a long day and I missed having a cocktail with the girls on occasion. I'm also glad that I didn't go to the movies last month, else I would have missed out on my usual Astro-popcorn mix, and that would have been sorely disappointing.

I expect to be having a cocktail evening soon soon to remedy the lack of cocktails in my life over the last month, so if anyone in Grahamstown is  up for it, please please let me know and we will make a plan to be at Yellow House and some point in the very near future. Or, possibly, to make cocktails of our very own. And now it is sleep for me and dreams of the sugary goodness that  is Nachtmusik that await. Have a great evening everyone!