Bridget McNulty

Day 28: Phil Collins CD

// July 29th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // 29 Gifts, Inspiration

I like Phil Collins. There, I said it! Groovy Kind of Love, Two Hearts, he has some absolutely classic hits. Of course, this appreciation of Phil Collins has led to more than a few rolled eyes, every boyfriend I’ve had being slightly turned off me, and (no doubt) a drop in my blog hits.

Which is why it’s so remarkable, in this Phil-Collins-lovin’ world I live in (a lonely world indeed) that I could have put off making my dad a Phil CD when he asked me for it months ago. But I did. He must have asked me for it over a year ago, and reminded me in the interim, but somehow I always forgot to make it… Until today!

Check out that baby! Do you want one?

Day 26: Time

// July 28th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // 29 Gifts, Decisions, Time

So I’ve finally started reading the 29 Gifts book, by Cami Walker, the woman who started this movement. It’s a lovely book, all about how an emphasis on what she could give others let her energy shift from focusing on her debilitating condition (MS) to being able to regain some sense of control over her life. Wonderful stuff!

Anyhoo, one of the things she says about the giving challenge is that you have to give something that you feel is scarce in your life right now. I thought about it, and I think the thing that feels most scarce to me is time. We’ve had a craaazy busy week or two, and free time feels like a precious gift.

So I gave some of it to my sister-in-law, who’s in the market for some company this week while my brother is overseas. And when I left I felt so much more filled up than if I’d just hung out at home for an hour. Goes to show, hmm?

Day 25: Cute sand set…

// July 26th, 2010 // No Comments » // 29 Gifts, Cape Town, Love

… For the cutest girl in the world. Seriously, my neice just keeps getting cuter and more fun and cleverer and prettier and and and. I’m a bit of a doting aunt, can you tell?

So when I saw this Hello Kitty sand set I had to get it for her. She loves the beach (in summer), and kids love doing useful things like scooping up dirt. I gave it to her yesterday and we played with it in the garden… So in some ways I got a gift, too – spending time with her is always such a treat.

Day 15: Heartfelt card

// July 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // 29 Gifts, Life (and the living of it), Love

Do you ever have those, ‘What if I died tomorrow’ moments? I do, and not in a morbid way at all. I sometimes think to myself, ‘If I died tomorrow, would everyone I love know that I loved them? And, most of the time, the answer is a resounding yes. I’m very open with how I feel and I tell my man and my family and my friends that I love them, often.

But I was thinking, yesterday, that there’s one area of my relationships where I haven’t said how I feel – my future parents-in-law. I suppose because we got to know each other quite slowly, and I was (naturally) a bit reserved when I first met them. But I’ve grown to really love them, and I so appreciate all the delicious meals and incredible gifts (like my recent vintage crockery set!) and support they’ve given us over the years.

So today I wrote them a (very cool and sparkly) card saying just that.

Broccoli and Cheddar Soup

// July 13th, 2010 // No Comments » // Blogs, Inspiration, Recipe of the Week, food

Raise your hand if you loved the movie Julie and Julia. Really, who didn’t?

We watched it while we were away and it awoke in me a deep desire to cook. Not just to cook boring old regulars (which is what I’ve always done), but to cook wonderful, inspiring, deeply delicious meals. I mentioned before that part of my new job is going to be testing out recipes every week, sort of a Recipe of the Week Challenge. But the blog is taking toooo long to get off the ground, so I’ve resorted to using Facebook to share recipes. And here, of course!

Today is the first day of this cooking challenge, and I wanted to mention a little of why I love to cook… It’s only a recent love, so I’m still learning how it makes me feel and the various pleasures it brings me, but here are a few:

* I love that I can put together raw ingredients, and come out with something warm and tasty, that didn’t exist before.

* I love that when I come home from work and my head is all full of computers and To Do Lists and planning, I can focus solely on the food – on chopping the leeks and stirring the soup – and that moment is all that exists.

* I love that the more you cook, the better at it you get. This might sound obvious, but it’s a confidence thing. Right now I’m not attempting anything too difficult, but I can already tell that I’ll be able to do quite tricky things in the not-too-distant future.

* And lastly, I love that it results in food, and eating. Because really, what greater joy is there than a homecooked meal shared with someone you love? I can’t think of one right now…

So join me! If you please. This week’s recipe is for Broccoli and Cheddar Soup – mine is bubbling on the stove at the moment. It’s really easy to make, and actually pretty good for you (it uses a whole lot of broccoli). Directions below.

I’ll post my photo of it tomorrow – please feel free to comment and post pics of your soup too!

Broccoli and Cheddar Soup

Ingredients:
• 2 leeks, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• Oil, for frying
• 4 cups broccoli florets
• 2 cups (500ml) chicken stock
• 1 cup (250ml) low-fat milk
• 1½ cups (375ml) grated cheddar

Serves 4
Fry leeks and garlic in oil until soft.
Add broccoli, stock and milk.
Bring to the boil. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes or until broccoli is tender.
Add cheese and mix well.
Blitz until smooth using a stick blender.

Photo from Fresh Living magazine.

Celebration and sadness:

// May 28th, 2010 // 4 Comments » // Life (and the living of it), Love

So here it is: the reason I’ve been such a slack blogger of late.

Two reasons actually, one lovely and one sad.

First the lovely (because all the pictures relate to it).
Last weekend my man and I had our engagement party. It was wonderful! Such a celebration. We had a garden party at our dear friends’ house, and served all kinds of cake, and mojitos. The sun shone, loads of our friends came (some from Durban!) and my whole family was there (half of them imported from Durban for the weekend). Three dear friends stayed with us over the long weekend, and we ate pizza and picknicked in the forest and laughed. A lot.
The night after the engagement party, the three girls came home, changed into our pyjamas, rented a stupid-funny movie and ate take-out. Fun fun fun.

It was a really wonder-full weekend.

The sadness comes in because at the beginning of the week we found out that the girlfriend of one of my man’s best friends committed suicide. Only now they can’t find a cause of death, so it’s possible it might have been a really severe asthma attack. So so sad. She was only 22, but she was bipolar and had had a really hard year. Still, to have life snatched away (or given away) at such a young age just makes my heart ache. As much for the people who are left behind as for the poor girl herself (I didn’t know her that well, I know him really well). And there’s just nothing you can say, you know? No way to make it better. It’s really just a matter of letting time heal.

So it was an unusual week: so full of happiness and so full of sadness. It’s taken me some time to process all of it.
What I’m left with, though, is this feeling of gratitude for so many things in my life. When I first found out that she had killed herself, I thought, “What about ice cream?” What about sunsets and cups of tea on the verandah and long walks in nature and really funny TV and going to the movies and fresh avo on toast and bear hugs and waking up next to the one you love and long silences and laughing till you cry and the quiet of early morning?

But of course, if you’re severely depressed you’re not thinking of these things. I get that.
But it has made me reassess how much I love in my life. What do you love?

The tiny things

// May 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // Cape Town, Inspiration, Life (and the living of it)

I’ve realised that it’s the tiny things in life that make my day.

Driving to work this morning, the clouds looked like they’d been splashed across the sky with luminescent pearly paint. The outline of a cathedral against the brightest blue of the sky looked like something out of a painting. And when I pulled in to work, I saw the tiniest scrap of a rainbow lurking among the clouds. (Can you see it? A little pixellated, but it’s there!)

Lovely!

I had a very, very lazy weekend and that, too, made me so happy. Lying in bed reading with my man, lingering over a cup of tea on the verandah and looking at the mountain, feasting on a lazy lunch with my siblings… I’ve come to realise that, for me, it’s all these tiny little moments that make up a happy life.

Don’t you think?

In the mood for a holiday?

// March 3rd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Durban, Life (and the living of it)

I certainly am!
So I’m going on one… but not to some exotic island. Nope, I’m off to Durban, to visit family and friends (but mainly family) and spend some QT with them. My dad had an operation last week, and my brother and sister-in-law and amazingly cute niece are heading back to the Netherlands next week, so it’s time I spent some family time at home.

No complaints here!

Oh, and my mom and I are going SKYDIVING on Thursday, did I mention that? Eeeeek!!!

(not Durban!)

I am the anti-brood.

// January 27th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Inspiration

As most of my friends and family (and definitely my man!) are aware, I am the opposite of broody.

I can’t imagine ever being unselfish enough to look after something 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, for at least 18 years. And then never really be able to let go of the thing.

Yes, I just called babies things. I love my niece to bits and pieces, but I have no desire for a baby of my own. I’m hoping hormones kick in around 30 years old. So is my mom!

That said, I found this really rather lovely passage on ‘dooce’ (www.dooce.com) – this fantastic American blog. And it made me ever so slightly lean over to her side of the argument. What do you think?

“But these risks and these sacrifices, I think, are a fundamental component of this unique experience that has given me more insight and understanding into other human beings than any other of my life. And all of this is to say thank God we chose to have children. Thank God for those endless, sleepless nights. Because I now know what I know. Because raising Leta more than anything else in my life has helped me piece together the puzzle of what it means to be human. I understand my own childhood so much better, understand my own parents so much better, and there is so much about myself that I have tried to improve that I didn’t know I needed to improve until I was reduced to a late night pair of pacing legs.

So much more makes sense now, and I don’t know if there is any other way I could have gained this type of insight into life. And I think this is what a lot of us are talking about when we say it feels like we were let into a secret club, a club we didn’t know existed until we got here, like we had no idea there was this much to know until our children showed it all to us.”

Allow others to be responsible for themselves.

// January 13th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Decisions, Life (and the living of it)

That was my motto for the holidays, and I’m carrying it into the new year.

I wish I could say I came up with it myself, but I actually stole it from my practical philosophy teacher, and the whole thing was: “Allow others to be responsible for themselves. Forgive yourself and others.”
She gave it to us as a suggestion for peaceful family holiday time. It worked.

I don’t know about you, but I often feel like I have to organise things. Like I have to make sure everyone knows what’s going on and is in the right place at the right time and happy to be there. The problem is, although I used to love organising things (the control freak in me would shiver with glee at any organisational task) I no longer do. I don’t like the weight of responsibility that comes with it, I don’t like encouraging other people to be useless and depend on me to make a plan, and I don’t like the guilt that descends if something goes wrong. Because I had convinced myself that I always had to be responsible for others, though, I never gave them the chance to be responsible for themselves. I thought that if I stopped organising, that if I stepped back and let people screw up by themselves, that’s exactly what they’d do – screw up.

Boy oh boy was I wrong!

I heard this fascinating theory a little while ago that spoke about the necessity for balance in the world – that there always has to be, for example, blue and red in every situation. Say you’re in a meeting and everyone is spewing out red red red, one person has to mention the blue. The problem comes in when it’s the same person over and over again always mentioning the blue. What’s so interesting about this theory, though, is that they did tests to see what would happen if the blue person didn’t say anything, if they went against their urge to be blue (or responsible for others, or bossy, or organisey – fill in the blank). Amazingly, the weight of red was too much and someone else in the meeting had to mention the blue.

It’s a long story for a simple idea – if you step back and allow others to be responsible for themselves, it’s the darnedest thing, but they actually will!

Try it… And let me know how it goes. It worked for me. As soon as I stopped feeling like I had to be responsible for other people, they stepped up and became responsible for themselves.