Greetings from North West, South Africa!
It has been quite a weekend. one that I feel a little bit proud of for surviving! As I am writing this, I am going on about 7 hours of sleep, for the entire weekend, powered by only coffee and probably too much chocolate, but I have set a goal for myself.
I wanted to post four times before the end of this week. So here we go...
Now there are a few good reasons why this has been a big week for me stepping out of my comfort zone, but we will get to that... First, let's go back to the beginning.
Friday
A family member, on my husband's side of things, was to have her bridal shower on Saturday, and due to a conflict of schedules between me and my husband, who had to attend a bachelor party weekend for his brother, I decide to stay over at my mother in law's house for the weekend.
I had also volunteered to help with the preparations and final setup for the shower, so after travelling for more than four hours, we got straight to work on packaging and wrapping party favours and preparing party game cards, sharing a few pleasant chats and enjoying my mom in law's seemingly endless treasure trove of funny and strange stories as we worked.
We worked till quite late in the afternoon, but I managed to find time for some lovely doggie cuddles!
After that it was time to head over to the kitchen, where I helped to prepare some of the best pizza I had ever had the good fortune to eat. (I will probably be sharing the secret to that on here in the coming weeks)
As it was quite a pleasant and hot night, we decided to have our dinner out on the deck, where we were joined by Kitty aka Speakerbox, I suspect he wanted to try some of our food, who can blame him, right?
Saturday
After having only managed to fall asleep after one the previous night, I was surprised to find myself full of energy and ready to face the big job of setting up for the party, which was to start in only four hours, at ten in the morning.
The theme of the day was 'Paris' as the bride to be had gotten said yes to The Big Question there. I think it looked quite nice.
Even though I had been having a lot of fun prepping everything and setting up for the party, I did eventually run into some of the usual trouble, once my stupid social anxiety reared it's ugly little head again, but I chose to distract myself by attempting to find some things to practice my photography skills on. I am still trying to save up for an SD card for my cherished camera, which I am just about dying to get to finally use, but my phone worked well enough.
I was also fortunate enough to find a cute little jumping spider and a bunch of friendly zebras to be the subjects of a few photos!
By the time I had sufficiently distracted myself, while also avoiding having my own photo taken any more than absolutely necessary, it was finally time for dessert and party games.
My favourite activity of the day was each guest being given a part of a photo of the couple to paint, though I admit, I was quite intimidated when I found out that I would be painting the groom's beard and teeth as it is not something I have ever attempted to paint before. Attempting a more realistic style of painting was also something that was new to me, but I think it looked okay enough in the end.
The activity filled day was only over at around four that afternoon, leaving us with only two hours before we had to meet up again for dinner at a local restaurant.
I chose to end the night with a well deserved glass of red wine.
Sunday
After finishing my morning coffee (Yes both are mine, I was unable to sleep until two in the morning) I had to leave for home again, which brings us to here and now, and the joy of finally having a quiet moment to alone, to write and gather my clearly scattered thoughts.
I think, after this I will have a cup of tea and and fall asleep to an episode of my favourite guilty pleasure tv show. I think I have deserved it, because, you see...Up till now, I haven't been able to travel by myself, stay over at other people's houses or attend parties without being drunk enough to not run away due to anxiety.
This weekend, I did all of those things, and I was okay.
Things are looking up...
Till next time! Have a great Sunday!
Credits : All photos are my own, taken on Samsung A(something?) mobile phone
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