This Chic: This is not my year, I give up.

And anyone who wants to get in line please do.
Every once in a while I hear someone scream 'this is my year y'all better watch out!!!'

Ok
I tried it, when I was 25 I said to myself ' this is your year, it has to be.'
And I got into a frenzy Doing this and that.

I was straight out of Digital Film Uni and I had an ego from here to Cyberjaya.
And in my first job interview, for a editing post I said I preferred to be an assistant editor. He didn't get why, but I got the job in 20 minutes.

I had spank but I was holding back a lot.
I wanted to tame my ego and my feelings of entitlement.

I also didn't  have any enthusiasm
For the work, writing about furniture wasn't exactly my main goal in life.

I just wanted to write books.
I wanted East African Book Publishers to call me and ask if I could work as a tea girl. Then I would interact with writers at lunchtime and sneak in my manuscript to a friendly editor one day and she would read it and be amazed that a tea girl could write so well and she would say
'We must get this published.'

And we would co-write a book and soon I would be signing my book at Sarit Centre.


After three months I asked if I could work as a staff writer, which they agreed and I moved from Nairobi thinking how I would wow them with my articles about 'Neglected colonial houses'
Or
'Colonial houses that would be as good as new with a bit of coating'

'The white highlands' monuments'

Blah blah

I was the only one interested in run down wooden structures from the past but I told the stories to my family and they laughter a lot .

Especially about one that was formerly a honeymoon getaway but now occupied by a religious minister and his wife.  When I had asked what the house was used for before he looked this way and that and shaking his head in sorrow  he said ' it had been used for unholy purpose.'
My aunt laughed out loud when I asked her what unholy purpose had been happening, supposing maybe it had been a brothel.

' No, it was a hotel and couples around here would book it on their wedding night.'

Cool.

I had thought.

It overlooked a great valley with flowering aloe vera and at the time of my visit, there were seasonal flowers, scattering the surrounding ground with white and blue.


So I started writing about Onion farming instead.

At 29 I told myself 'this is your year'
And I became a content consultant, whereupon landing a handful clients I settled into this relatively easy life Doing what I was trained to do and enjoying every bit but the pay.

At 30 I declared
'This is my year.'
But pretty soon realized it wasn't and every single time I said it after that, it wasn't.
(After 30 you don't count year by year. Every month counts)

So I declared, 'this is not my year !' two months ago, when I lost (every bit of everything I care about though that is a bit of exaggeration but it is true to some extent. I'll explain, by and by)

I decided to give up.
And to care less
And to lower my rubbish tolerance to about 1%
And to stop being nice

And I seriously recommend giving up.
What giving up does to you is not head you off to a hang line.  But I will talk about that another day.

'This is not my year, ' said I two months ago.

It didn't make me feel despondent as you would expect.
I looked at what I had lost and decided well, it could be worse.

By my age my mother had a teenager to pay school fees for.
And She must have worried about her aging Mother and her growing daughter.

And here I am worrying every year about my pay check.
Yet I have more than many my age and circumstance can claim to have.

I have always known I have stamina, confidence, beauty,positivity, cynicism  and  Intellect (this could be argued on depending on subject)

But I live in a society that wants you as a citizen of Venus to disregard what strengths you posses and highlight the one that requires the least effort.

But I learnt early that in spite of the big letters in blue ink, ' you cannot keep a cow if you are not going to kill it.'

And that was my loss, at least for many a formative years when I should have slung a Mars citizen on my shoulder to get me across the bridge. Rather, should have slung myself on their shoulder not the other way.

I'm glad for it though. I cannot be said to owe anybody other than those to whom I should without being coerced.

I mean my family .

Gosh. I was reading David Copperfield last night. I sound like a  classic costume drama.

Anyhow.
I took my strong qualities apart and thought ' if this is gonna end let it end in flames. Let it burn as brightly as we are.'

Thus the rebirth of my 60hour work weeks.
I work 10 hours a day
I sleep 7 hours a night
I do my usual shenanigans the rest of the time.(like this blog post; though very important it falls under the category of non-profit making activities of human occupation)

Admitting that this is not my year helped me to shed off the weight that one has to bear after affirmative resolutions.

And it not being my year doesn't mean now I'm a failure it just means my method are not working let's try another method.

It also brought me back to the question I've always asked myself, what do I really want to do with my life?

Being able to answer that question has propelled me to sift through job applications with a needle point.

I don't want to just work because I am a  30something and I should have a job and should earn this much and should have a plot in Kamulu and I should have at least a two burner and I should stop buying roasted maize in the street and I should try to act like A lady, a little? Maybe a little? No I will not.

I don't have to act anything
And you don't have to act anything when you are around me either.
Coz this is not my year and I expect nothing.
Nothing but the real real stuff.

Coz I got this.

Middle Age Alert: For the love of healthy eating.

I have a health freak living inside of me. Actually let's just say I have been held captive by a -whole grain, white 

meat, salad, and soup eating goblin who is here to make me pay for the uncontrolled
 sugar intake of my younger days.

 Gosh, I can't even look at the flavoured yogurt counter without the voice shouting 'that's processed sugar!'

 My friend and I are in the supermarket, I came in to buy powder soap and remembered I need yogurt.

And he says 'come, the yogurts are over here', and I say 'actually the one I want is in this fridge.' 

'But Creambell has a new flavor, see it' s peach flavored I think I'll try it. '

He says

And I say 'oh yeah well. Enjoy.' Without glancing at it. 

I cannot even eat kale and spinach like an ordinary Kenyan anymore.. nohhh it has to be kunde and sagaa and 

nderema, greens that don't even have English names.

other people are drinking cocacola mimi niko hapa nangoja juice ya miwa

The other day I was in the house and around 4.00pm I started to feel like a snack.  When you have had ugali 

Omena for lunch your mouth starts to want sweet things. I looked around the house and the only thing I could 

snack on was a bunch of carrots. Carrots yaani.

Or sugar cane which I have to peel myself, 'to strengthen thy teeth.'

Because this crossbreed of a 50-year-old mother in law and a 24-year-old young wife (kuona mbee) won't let me 

eat store-bought biscuits. 

If you want a cookie you gotta make it yourself she says and then stocks my pantry with flour and nuts and 

other stuff so I don't find any reason ya kukimbilia Mandazi mbili pale kwa Maasai in the morning.

When people are buying sweet flavored teas, zile za Kericho gold,, she goes and buys me a packet of neem tree 

tea bags.

Honestly. 

In normal homes, people are sipping passion and strawberry infused teas after dinner mimi niko hapa na 

kikombe ya murubanne.

Sometimes, when I am considering buying whole box of ginger nut biscuits I feel like one of those husbands in 

their late fifties who have to hide from their wives so they can eat some nyama choma., but I stop myse'f 

before giving in to the temptation coz I know it won't end well. I will be forced to knock at every door in my flat 

distributing the biscuits.

Ati ni maturity and even if my Shushu came to visit she would wonder whose great aunt's house we are visiting. 

Coz I mean, Gathoni where did you learn to ferment porridge?

Why can't you just get ujimix ile ya exe?

So this is where we at. I'm sitting at this restaurant and the only thing I can order is tea, because "how do you 

know they don't make their cakes with mafuta ya kupima?' 

And then maybe I'll have the arrowroot soup.

Adulting 101: How to Recover from a Burn Out.

Around this time last year I experienced a major burn out.

A Burn Out is defined as : A Feeling of physical and emotional exhaustion, due to stress from working with people under difficult or demanding conditions. Burn out is followed by signs such as chronic fatigue, quickness to anger and suspicion, and susceptibility to colds, headaches, and fevers.

The only symptom I didn't have was the headaches.

I was doing everything I was meant to be doing but I was always tired.

Daudi, one of my fathers noticed and asked what's up Cici.

I explained how my months were running into each other and how my weeks were running into each other and how I was out of breath most of the time.

He said maybe there is something sucking your energy and we sat and we wrote down everything I did on a seven days week.

'No wonder you are tired,' said he.
'I'm always tired.' Said I
'When did you last watch a movie?'
I couldn't remember the last time I had watched a movie.

My days were packed with running this direction to work and running that direction for more work and coming home to do a bit of washing before settling down infront of my laptop to get some work done before I slept.

As a web content manager, I of course need to spend time online but that time had become all the time.

I would be on Facebook responding to comments and on Twitter looking for tweets to retweet and on YouTube checking how many views the latest video was at.
Then I would be on my phone reassuring clients who had missed an appointment that they could still come in next week.(I was side hustling at a mobile clinic).

So Daudi said we needed to plan out a sample week I could stick to for a while then adjust as time went by.

We aligned all similar activities to fit into one day. And all activities in the same direction fit into similar days. I talked to my boss too about my monthly,weekly and daily job allocation.
I had blank spaces in my week where I could decide to watch a movie, paint my nails or chat.

I started to seriously make a list of things to do monthly, weekly,daily.
Contrarily to the assumption I had before, making lists doesn't make you an -over scheduled -ADH-Maniac.

It has the advantage of making you know what you really need to do, what can be postponed and what is urgent .
Urgent vs Important.
That's a theory I read somewhere but can't remember where.

Having lists and planning out my month doesn't mean I've got my life together better than the next person, but I am less rushed.


I take time to reflect on things.
I don't rush through things just to get them done (I now have three White items that are not off white..  )

I have changed the weekly schedule many times to suit my needs.

But the wonderful outcome is I am not the half crazed burned out  irritable human being I was at some point.
I have also come to appreciate the importance of sticking to a job until it's done.

Daudi said why do you go home, make some tea, chat, start to read, stop, cook, take a shower, study some more....

Or why do you start to work, get on Facebook, watch a video, start to write an email, get up to make tea.
 Finish that email!

Work will stretch to fit the time you allocate it.

There are days I write a 500 word article in under one hour.
There are days it takes me the whole day and part of the night to write a 500 word article.

We all need a little help.

Sometimes we think we know everything we need to know about life and the affairs of existence but it helps to have someone with more years and experience guide us along.

Tips
1. Make a to do List
2. Use mornings or late nights to organise the day
3. Learn to say -no I can't handle this right now-
4. Watch a movie/ read/ listen to music
5. Reduce the time you spend on tasks- learn to do them faster

How to cook food: An incomplete and shallow guide for cooking rice, flour, meat and vegetables among other basic meals

Lesson 4

omena fry

Omena's nutritional facts
Protein
Calcium
Vitamin D
Iron
Zinc

How to cook Omena
Wash them
Boil them for 5 minutes
Lift the out of the hot water
Dip them into cold water
Heat them on a pan to Dry them
Add oil and fry until crispy
Add onions and stir until the onion is brownish
Add Tomatoes
Stir until soft

Add a pinch of salt
Add hoho and stir
Throw in some dhania
It's ready to eat with your ugali
You can squeeze in lemon for taste.

I never considered omena a food item until I went to Malaysia and found out that Omena is a national dish, rather part of the national dish. In one month I had eaten enough omena meals to compensate for a whole adulthood of not eating the fish. They call it ikan bilis and nasi lemak, the national food has omena in the red paste, and on its own. You also eat omena in kampong fried rice and as a snack you can buy in the supermarket to eat in the bus on your way home.

their nasi lemak

our omena with ugali

their omena 

Our omena


I googled the three beautiful pictures, asanteni sana.

This Chic: Do You Have The Nerve?

If I ever get the nerve to say hello in this cafe

Say you will

Say you will

I got picked up today

Not at the bar, but on the road on a bright mid Sunday morning.

He said

I am Kevin and I like how you look

I said thank you

I like your figure He said, to be specific

I said okay

He said you know your father and mother met the same way you and me have met, let's make history where are you going can I come with you?

All in one breath

I considered it for three seconds

I could let myself get picked up

And become Wakefini

And nine months later I will be waBrayo for the rest of my life because he will insist we name our child after his cousin  in America.

I said, I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Do you know any deaf people around here?

He said oh right JehovahWitness

He said there was a deaf around the corner.

Kwa club Ile iko pale Shell

She works there? I asked.

He explained some more.

I asked if he wanted something to read.

 He said if you give me a book I'll read. I gave him an Awake! 

And he left.

Nerve

My  Samsung dictionary has nine entries for -nerve- 

No. 4 Nerve- is the courage that you need to do something difficult or dangerous.

That's close enough.

Is that all that is needed? I mean was Kevin courageous and was it dangerous to run a pick up line on a total stranger on a Sunday morning?

I don't think so. Here you are blaming culture and this being a man's world but It's probably he's just not that into you.

But maybe some suffer from nerves

No.3 Nerves

Feelings of anxiety or tension.

But reflexology cures that and I know just the person to give you the fix. Just inbox.

"Mr.Bennet! Have mercy on my poor nerves!"

No. 6 Nerve-disapproval - when you do something which you have no right to do. 

As a member of the female species even in a world that grows chicken in one month, you are not supposed to have the nerve to use a pick up line.

So keep your nerve girl

No.7 Nerve- The ability to remain calm and determined in a difficult situation.

Until the right Kefini picks you up and literally carrys you home.

More

This Chic: The person you create

The person we create.

I had a bad beginning this morning.
It was one of those mornings where you want to turn around and go back home.
Nonetheless, I love my job because as a INFP personality, doing something purposeful is enough motivation to get up when the alarms go off at five like a stringed instrument orchestra.

But most times I would rather take a Math test than go to work.
If I had a tunnel that could take me directly from my house to my desk without having to smile and wave and talk about Equinox I wouldn't mind it one bit.

Trying to muster up a happy, open  and cheerful countenance is harder than the work I do actually.

I managed to get through the first hour but at Midday I wondered why don't I just ask to leave?

At lunch time I decided to watch some BBC Sitcoms. I munch up BBC sitcoms like oat biscuits, Black Books is a fine one and I relate to every character. Though when I need to laugh thoroughly I  watch Jeeves and Wooster.

It gave me energy to face the three deadlines staring back at me from the screen, and of course it is at such times when the computer decides to reduce its pace. So of course I didn't beat the deadlines.

On my way home I made up my mind that I would go straight to bed. I would feed the cat, brush my teeth and sleep.
I would not even check how many like my Instagram post got.

Whatever
I deserve to be unhappy


Quite hysterically I run things in my head that have gone wrong or not worked out and how unfair life is and what's the use of trying too hard when nothing works anyway?

All day long I had been trying to make a huge decision and didn't know it was affecting my outlook.

There are never clear cut decisions and you only know if it was good or bad after you have made it.

When I got home I heated water, took a bath and as I was drying off my brain was making a calculation of the vegetables in the kitchen.
"I need and onion, ginger and carrots,,,  "
Automatically I had started to plan what to cook.
OK, so I'm having supper after all.

I would not have my supper cold. I was going to make a proper meal and serve it on a proper plate and eat it with a fork.

And I really smiled at myself because that is the person I have created.
No matter how hard I push against her she will bring me back to common sense and make me do the things That need to be done.
After a long day, common sense dictates you take a bath, eat right and rest.

I cooked and after I had eaten I started to read about manna in the Bible, because I had been thinking about manna all day long and how collecting manna in a bright orange karai might have worked on some Israelite men's masculinity when they had been used to working hard physically to provide.

Husband: Honey, usipike, nakuja na supper.
Wife: Na hizo umeokota wapi?

I spoke to my friend about it. She laughed and asked so what's the manna you've been picking up?

Anyway the conversation went south after that but I was ready to sketch.

Because sketching has become part of my daily life

When I started it was simply to create good regular habits.
But now it serves two purposes . It forces me to write all the stories running through my head.
It also makes start something and finish it to the end.

Taking a bath
Eating good food
Daily Bible reading
Communicating with friends
Cleaning the floor, clearing dishes

All these might start as habits but then they become part of us.
(I don't always clear dishes but it's one of those long term goals)

The person we create will ensure that we stick to them. They become automatic and even on a bad day, you don't sleep in your work clothes just because.

The person we create pushes us to do better. To try harder even when we really feel like crap.

We are born creators, we can create an image of ourselves for the world to admire and applaud.

We can also create a significant human being inside who may never be applauded or even seen, but the job he does for us,,,, wacha tu.

Dairy Farm Diaries: Finding peace behind the house

Two countries can be peaceful towards each other but not in unity coz they re not working towards the same goal"


In my family, we always had this saying:
'Caria thayū.' (Search for peace)
When one of us kids would be annoyed at something and probably hiding behind the house sulking,
The grown ups would say
Tigana nake aambe acokwo nī thayū (let him/her alone until he/she regains their peace)

I guess I came to really appreciate having peace, feeling at peace and basically having peaceful conditions.

When we prayed we prayed for peace in the country.

And when all of us were in a bad mood that prolonged for long,  as it might happen in any normal family or more in a not so normal family.

Someone would say,
Hgh, ta mūndū nīagerie gūcaria thayū wa ngoro
( better each one to try and find peace in their hearts )
And that would break the ice somehow.

I guess it brought us back to our senses to realize we were not doing  ourselves a favor by being grumpy.

Peace of mind, peace in my heart
And best of all, the peace of God which I have had plenty of during tough times.

I've had wonderful days. Two wonderful weeks of real connection with friends, two weeks of actively purposefully living.
I even went dancing.

 We hardly talk about the happy moments of our lives.
The moments when each step feels like you're walking on some Air Jordan's  with Gregory Isaacs in your ear.

Days when you get away with doing what your head wants to do because all the Planning and early mornings have bought you more time to draw.

Times when you know things are tough but you are able to look at those tough situations in the face- I guess like a horse runs into battle.
Because either way, life goes on.

Regardless.

And the little bits of sanity that can be grasped must be treasured and welcomed as big moments would be.

And in the midst of all these, the bad the good the frightening moments and the occasional periods of rest where life might even seem boring-

A constant thread has held me together -

It has a name.
The peace of God.
Peace that gives you freedom
Peace and that gives you courage to be brave.