I would kill for shoes, no I really would!

I have a disease and it all takes place below the belt. Now, now, now all you voyeurs! I elude to my feet. Toosties, the "soles.

Being a full-time mom, I am now officially a non-contributor to our household turnover. I am now unable to walk past the Nine West outlet and handover my credit card in wanton abandon, just because I can. My shoe collection has suffered immeasurably. I was once likened to the notorious Imelda Marcos! I was honoured! At the height of my addiction the collection clocked in at nearly 50 pairs! And I loved them all.

I mean, one never agonises over your choice of shower gel as much as you carefully contemplate the acquisition of a new pair of shoes. And I can be a real agoniser when it comes to shoes.

I liken buying shoes to a near on spiritual experience. The Dalai Lama would be proud. There is just something about the lighting on the display that speaks to me. I imagine myself wearing the pairs. I imagine all the jiggery pokery I could get up to in them. I fantasize about the things these new shoes will see. They are the perfect accomplice. They can never tell on me!

If you didn't know this about me before, I have, by my own standards, large feet. Size 7 to be exact and sandals just don't cut it in my world. They just look like twin pontoons waiting upon a torrential downpour when they will float me to safety. So I have found curious solace in boots.

Now there is no science behind it really but boots are less likely to make you look fat. They bulk up your feet to match your pant size if you choose them correctly! I always err on the side of "the bigger the boots are the smaller the bum looks"! This mantra has stood me in good stead thus far and I pray it continues. I mean, you don't ever hear your husband chiming, "nah, those boots make your bum look big". But any husband worth his salt wouldn't offer up any comment recognising this as being a loaded question anyway!

I think my love affair started at 18. I had been saving the money from my first real job (web-designer at SASOL!) and whilst the masses were flocking the local chain stores too get their fix, I was able to pause...............................and take my lolly to an exclusive joint and marry a pair of black suede platform pull-ups! It was better than sex. That being said I was only 18 and didn't really have much to go on in the sex department. But this shoe lark I sure could get used to.

So there I was, 18, and having just spent a stupid amount of money on footwear. Now my father, frugal Scotsman, was livid. He is of the school of thought that you save your money for rainy days but I simply, in all my naivety replied that there was a downpour in my soul! He was speechless.

And boy the things those boots and I got up to! Whoa. Something magical happened every time I put them on. I almost felt all I needed was a moulded rubber catsuit and Gotham would have a new face in town. I had my heart broken for the first time in those boots. I danced on tables. I slipped into exclusive clubs and VIP rooms in those boots. I was woo-ed in a Maserati in those boots. I think I may have even smoked my first cigarette in them too. I was invincible. Good times.

But those days are over now. The boots have gone to the beautiful shoe-heaven in the sky. The are kept good company by Gianni Versace and Alexander McQueen so I know they are far from lonely.

Now at present my meta-tarsals yearn for Italian leather with a tassle detail and hand-stitching. I am now stricken as to what shoes to wear with what because post baby I had every conceivable type of boot known to man. Black suede, brown faux, grey anklets and too many more to mention (notwithstanding that I lived in a place where the ambient temperature seldom dips below 25 Celsius, in winter no less!). Also, I am no longer in a place of financial freedom to keep up this lifestyle. I have also run out of grannies to trade!

But I am still a shoe slut. I perve over peoples shoes when we are out and about. I found myself doing it on Friday night at a friends house. I am terrible!

Menopausal women can get injections. Chocoholics can have hypnosis. Smokers can have a patch. I think I can imagine a patch to help me too. It's plastic, rectangular looking and shiny and has VISA stamped on the corner!

Best foot forward peeps!

PS. Donations welcome. :-)

so that's 9 is it?

Today is my ninth wedding anniversary. Shocking I know. Firstly because I found someone daft enough to marry me and secondly because he hasn't yet killed me and hidden the evidence.

So what is marriage? Well there is the Oxford's hoity toity definition and all I can merely sum it up as having a live-in witness to EVERYTHING you do.

Now this doesn't mean that after nine years, his majesty is privy to how I work, inner mechanisms and all. It merely speaks volumes for his pain threshold or more like his willingness to consciously instill pain upon himself.

Nine years ago today, I, all of twenty two (!), was given away by my father. I still wonder if money changed hands and if so, who got the better deal.

But it's been fun.

We spent eight of those years childless and in hindsight were granted a period of "getting to know each other". Although, some days I think I don't know his majesty at all! We had fabulous holidays, adventurous trips scuba-diving, canopy tours in trees, rearing countless animals, building a home and "nesting".

It has been a time of learning, growing-up, changes and many, many tears. They have often been tears of joy but they too have been moments of sadness and frustration.

In this time of instants - instant noodles, instant cash, instant subscriptions - I feel we have become an anomaly. I mean, who stays married, happily, for nine years. By choice no less!

Our relationship is by no means perfect. It is not problem-free. It too stagnates sometimes and needs some sparkle injected back into it. But it works. The main reason being, his majesty and I decided to put each other first before all others, even ourselves. To strive to be the best we can be for the other. To pause for a moment whenever making decisions about anything, to consider the other. This has often been difficult. But is has been a work in progress. There are days when I battle to put his majesty first because I'm feeling selfish, and those are the days when I feel the most guilty.

My fervent wish for the "marrying" youth of today would be that they not give up on these relationships. Irreconcilable differences is truly an escapist reason for divorce. To end a marriage simply because we're too caught up in ourselves to try. That is simply my opinion and seeing as Oprah hasn't exactly contacted me to do a self-help segment, I wouldn't get your knickers in a knot over my rantings.

To his majesty - I love you dearly and while I hold you personally responsible for every grey follicle on my noggin, I somehow can't imagine a day without you. You drive me nuts and push my buttons on purpose but I can't think of anyone I'd rather have do it that you!

Live long and prosper friends............

Are you there God, it's me Margaret?

The title of a book by famed tween author, Judy Blume. And one which I read repeatedly from the age of 11.

In a nutshell the books deal with a girl's coming of age and how she thinks these changes are divine retribution for some sin and how she keeps asking God what's going on with her. Comical to the fault but a deep read which has recently made me question my own faith.

I haven't prayed in quite a long time. I sit, eyes open in church, while everyone else mutters their thanks and requests and seem thankful for that which I recognise as karma and calling it prayer. As cynical as I sound, I've stopped asking for things. I've stopped being thankful to a deity who seems to have forgotten my number. I feel unloved and neglected for all my goodness and rudimentary attempts at obedience. I am a good person, honestly. I am by no means the poster-child of perfection, but like us all, I try.

But something sinister has been afoot in our home recently. For the last 2 days the princess has exhibited a tearful night time ritual of crying and laying awake in absolute terror. And as I entered the nursery each time, I would play the day over in my brain trying to pinpoint the moment when I failed as a mother and something scary happened to upset her so. But to date nothing. I am not of the habit of shouting at Imogen. I find it pointless really. She doesn't understand me - it just leads to tears from her and insurmountable guilt on my part.

Last night, after his majesty had been to her bedside numerous times I decided to go in and lend a hand. And as she catapulted from his arms to mine I realised how incredible the responsibility of her spiritual well-being is for me. And as I sat there on the rocker with her little eyelids fluttering at me I felt nothing but sadness. I had let her down. By cooling my own faith and not remaining vigilant, I had allowed someone to enter our home and rock her world.

Okay, don't call me cuckoo but I am of the belief that children see the world on a whole different plane to the adults. If you don't agree then please explain the imaginary friends or the ramblings of a 3 year old who tells you someone was in their room last night talking to them? When Imogen was a teeny baby she would continually stare past us at something or someone else in the room. She would smile and gurgle and derive great glee from interacting with whomever it was. His majesty still reminds me of how I would say she was "talking to the angels". Hey, don't judge but I still cling to the belief that they are out there.

So, if there's good there's got to be bad, right? Otherwise the universe would be off kilter and everything would be out of whack, cosmic balances and all.

The last few months have been far from easy for our little family. Crippling expenses, spending months apart. selling most of our possessions to afford to move, leaving our beloved pets in another's care and being the "new" people, it hasn't exactly been a joyride!

My heart has been crying out these last few months for God to contact me. Send me a divine sms via the cosmos and let me know that I am still on His speed dial. I have been a virtual flounder. Stuck in the spin-cycle which is my life but then again it would appear that selfishness has reared its ugly head again and I'v made it all about me!

Perhaps the going's on the last few days have been God trying to make contact. I will never know. Quite honestly, I would've settled for a phone call, a sneak peek at the next chapter!

When I spoke to his majesty about all of this last night, he asked that we pray together at her crib each night and I think I am finally in a place to give it a try.

Whatever it is, it has me scared too. I worry, always have and always will but maybe now I can do it without the trenches on my brow growing any deeper and the grey taking over my whole head!

Faith 101 - there is a manual, but it's in Hebrew, and I'm far from fluent.

As my father frequently quips - stop counting sheep and start speaking to the shepherd!

Later alligators. . .

Confessions of an OCD Perfectionist

For as long as I can remember I have been this way. Anal-retentive. A know-it-all. A perfectionist. And seeing as how I have been this way for such a long time, I know no other way to be. My earliest recollection of this syndrome was going to Friends houses and tidying up their rooms. Needless to say I didn't gain many popularity points for this behaviour.

Now, being a perfectionist is an easy feat when you're solo. No one can comment on you insane habits. Well maybe the cat starts to give you odd looks and the neighbours avoid you but generally you can exist in happy oblivion. 

Then, kaboom a spouse to the equation and you life suddenly gets very complicated. I mean, I do still maintain that I am fairly easy to live with? Apparently not.

The first real adjustment I had was sharing a bed. Though simple as it sounds I had a real tough time adjusting to this. The odd allowance being made for "sleepovers' post marriage, carnal passions and all, but this arrangement was going to be long-term. How do you share your bed with someone else when you've spent the last 5 years mastering the art of cocooning yourself up in the duvet and 4 pillows. It is an art, really it is. But alas one that Husband 1.0 did not appreciate. To this day he will swear on his granny's grave that I still exhibit this behaviour.

Another terribly OCD trait I display is I cannot bear to open packets, of anything, with the label upside down. I swear the crisps taste different. But then again true to my perfectionist self I usually dispense said crisps into a bowl as I cannot bear the awful rustle of the packet every time I grab a handful.

I sort my undies according to type, size and degree of nakedness. I honestly do, you can come and check at any time. There they all are, black with blacks; creams, beige's and other "fleshys" all folded cup over cup; and virginal whites on a crisp, neat pile.

I pack rolled up newspapers into all my boots and arrange them in order of "leather-ness".

I pack teh trolley with military precision when I go grocery shopping.

I cannot sleep if there is a crack in the curtain. I can see the light poking though even when my eyes are closed.

I was so bad that there was a time when I arranged my books in colour order so that they created a rainbow of spines on the bookshelf.

I cannot bear to have fruit and veg in the same drawer in the fridge! I am not really sure what they would get up to while I wasn't looking but you never know.

I have an inane fear of running out of lip gloss and as a result own more tubes than I can ever use before they expire.

I cannot sleep on an unmade bed. In fact I will make it before I get in to sleep. Which leads me to another dilemma. In our co-habituating, his majesty and I have come to an unwritten schedule in the mornings and it would be that he would disembark the coils and head off to shower whilst I made the bed and weekends the roles would reverse and he would be left to make the bed. But me being me, an untucked corner, a crease, a squiff pillow case and I would be stripping off the lot and starting again. He later confided that he simply stopped trying in light of my unattainable standard of bed-making!

I cannot fall asleep unless the maximum amount of electrical appliance have been shut off. I swear I can hear the hum of the DVD player in the lounge 5 houses down!

I am fixated with the towels. They have to be folded and stashed in the basket (sans rail) like little perfect sardines!

And the loo paper. I am sorry but its got to come up and over, not out and under! Really, I can't bear giving the loo roll a yank and the whole lot goes merrily rolling of the roll (no pun intended!). Up and over, people, up and over! Honestly how difficult can it be.

And if you think these OCD tendencies are restricted to home, pfffffffffft, NOT! In what would have been my longest job, I displayed the same shocking attentiveness.

In part I think my behaviour stems from my maternal grandfather. A Polish POW who survived the holocaust and spent many years on the line in Europe. You see, my grandparents would come and stay and as all parents do, mine would play the "grandpa" card on us with regular alacrity. So when we had made our beds my mom would send grandpa up to check them, which sounds harmless. But, he would produce from his pocket a coin of no particular importance, and then bounce it on the bed sheet. Now, in the army the inspecting officer would come round and do this on your bunk each morning and if it wasn't up to parr your bed would be stripped and you'd have to start again until the coin would produce a suitable degree of bounce-back. I can still remember the first time my grandpa did this to my bed - it was winter and we had on our thick flannel sheets. The coin hit the mattress with a disillusioning "thuddd". And before my eyes he stripped the bed and made me start again. It was also during this visit that I learnt what a "hospital-corner" was! To this day I will regularly carry a coin in my pocket to bounce on the bed. Don't tell my mother but I still do it to her beds when we stay there! Naughty, naughty!

Now after reading all of this you may start that old yarn that I get myself into an overwind about all these seemingly meaningless rituals which not only waste time but will inevitably shorten my life, but ha, bully for you! I am quite happy being this way, and as previously mentioned, I know no other way to be.

I stick to the firm belief of "disorderly space, disorderly mind".

His majesty has been exceedingly patient with me, or me with him, the jury's not yet out on that one! A case of whose training whom I ask?

To coin the old cliche' - I am still a work in progress, watch this space.