Rachel MacDonald

This totally sums up my life at the moment.

I feel like everything is aligning – I’m more clear-headed than I’ve been in a long time, I’m meeting incredibly passionate women all the time who inspire me to go bigger and go better, and I’m utterly content. Happy with my lot, aware that where I am is exactly where I need to be.

The analogy above of being helped by invisible hands is so fitting. Actually, it feels more like being “lifted” by invisible hands, carried delicately along a windy path, and then washed in a sense of calm  that doesn’t seem to be wavering despite the swirl of the outside world.

It’s hard to articulate properly (and completely opposite to the way I normally feel at this time of year) but I can tell you a few things that have helped immensely – starting this blog, documenting what I’m grateful for each week in these posts and eliminating the word busy from my vocabulary. All game changers.

With that in mind, let’s see what’s on my love list this week….  

1. Kings of Leon

 

Hang on. Just checking the list again to see what the highlight of the last week was.

New clothes? Getting the best park at the supermarket, right near the entrance? Sunny days?

NO. Says here the highlight of the past week was meeting Kings of Leon and rocking out at their (brilliant) concert last Wednesday night. Who would’ve known?

Want to know how it happened?

The Followill boys called me, begging me to skip bingo for once in my damn life (there goes my 2011 Perfect Attendance trophy) so we could indulge in a bit of quality hang time and I could do back up vocals on a few songs, which they know I hate doing but well, what are friends for, right?

Alternative story:

My lovely friends Bec and Bek, PR guru’s for Jupiters Hotel (who I work closely with in my day job in PR/ Digi Comms) gave Ramai and I free tickets to the concert, and then, on Wednesday afternoon, I got a call from Bec who told me that she had one spot for a VIP meet and greet with the band before the gig, and would I like to take it.

Obviously, I replied omg-are-you-freakin-serious-hell-yeah-I-do-woman-and-by-the-way-is-that-even-a-question? yes please and thank you kindly dear Bec, I would be delighted to meet Kings of Leon but only if our bodies don’t touch in the photo and make sure I’m not standing next to Jared or Caleb.

Clearly THAT memo didn’t get passed on to the band.

Ha!

Silliness aside, yes the night was incredible, yes we had a ball, yes Kings of Leon are one of the tightest bands I’ve ever seen live and well, I didn’t know it was possible to fall in lust with a voice, but apparently it is.

You’ll fall in love too when you see this:

I now present you with two awesome vids I took on the night – where “awesome” translates loosely to shaky, blurry, all-round shizen, that is. But never fear because the redeeming feature of both these vids is Caleb that the audio turned out surprisingly good and you’ll feel like you’re actually there if you watch them. Loudly. So, please, take a moment to appreciate the zoom-in-zoom-out craziness of my mad camera skills and prepare for multiple eargasms.

PS: I actually wasn’t drunk when I recorded these, but the people next to me were so I’m holding strong on my claim that I was drunk by association, hence the wobbliness.

2. Raw Cherry Bombs

 

Remember the raw choc bliss balls?

Welcome to the NEXT. LEVEL. I saw this recipe on The Wellness Warrior last week and made a batch over the weekend (with adjustments – I left out the honey, cinnamon and vanilla bean paste) and can confidently confirm that they taste even better than the original! The combo of the creamy (and bitter) chocolate with the sweet, refreshing cherry in the middle make them the perfect afternoon treat. Just like a Cherry Ripe, but bettererer.

3. New Office

 

My work relocated last week and I’m a little bit smitten with our new office for a few reasons:

1. It takes me 14 minutes door to door to get to work (in traffic).
2. We are under 2 minutes walk from the beach.
3. My gym is across the road which means I can bust my booty on my lunch break and still have time for a shower before returning to work.
4. There are plenty of shops and yummy food options close by.
5. I get to start from scratch with decorating in a clean, modern office (this is my favourite part, unsurprisingly!)

Above is just a small part of my desk, but I’ll show you the rest once I finish pinning up all my inspiring quotes and get some photos printed. They say change is as good as a holiday, and I think “they” just might be right.

4. Shopping

 

You know how sometimes you go shopping, your very specific list in tow, and you find nothing? And other times you go looking for one thing and walk out with bags full? The latter was me on the weekend. Some may call it a spree, but I prefer to call it… EARLY BIRTHDAY PRESENTS.

Picked up some hot new work pants (skinny leg, slimming, perfect fit) from Kookai, a cute collared sleeveless top from Cue and another work top from Portmans, two envelope clutches from Sportsgirl, a silky maxi dress, three new tee’s for Ramai from General Pants (one of which he didn’t love, so I nabbed it) and some other bits and pieces (not shown). Shopping success!

5. Nine in Nine

 

How are your goals going?

The end of the year is only six weeks away now and I’ve completed four and a half tasks on my list, with plans of getting the handwritten letters – which may turn into handwritten cards – done by early next week. I love having these goals to focus on in and amongst the wildness of the end of the year, they’re definitely keeping me grounded!

6. Rilke and Rumi

 

Rilke

 

René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke, 4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926, better known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was a Bohemian–Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most significant poets in the German language. His haunting images focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety: themes that tend to position him as a transitional figure between the traditional and the modernist poets.

Rad Rilke Wisdom: 

“I would like to beg you, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” 

“Believe that with your feelings and your work you are taking part in the greatest; the more strongly you cultivate this belief, the more will reality and the world go forth from it.”

“The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realisation is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”

Rumi

 

Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi, known to the English-speaking world simply as Rumi, 30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273, was a 13th-century Persian Muslim poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic. Rumi was an evolutionary thinker in the sense that he believed that the spirit after devolution from the divine Ego undergoes an evolutionary process by which it comes nearer and nearer to the same divine Ego. All matter in the universe obeys this law and this movement is due to an inbuilt urge (which Rumi calls “love”) to evolve and seek enjoinment with the divinity from which it has emerged.

Rad Rumi Wisdom:

“There is a community of the spirit.  Join it, and feel the delight of walking in the noisy street, and being the noise. Drink all your passion, and be a disgrace. Close both eyes to see with the other eye. Open your hands, if you want to be held. Sit down in this circle. Quit acting like a wolf, and feel the shepherd’s love filling you. At night, your beloved wanders. Don’t accept consolations. Close your mouth against food. Taste the lover’s mouth in yours. You moan, “She left me.””He left me.” Twenty more will come. Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence. Flow down and down in always widening rings of being.”

But wait, there’s still more!

 

+ Writing the content for our wedding website + the design of our wedding website (pretty!) + Printstagram + stocking up on goodies from Typo for work + Talihina Sky + lazy Sundays lying on our daybed reading stacks of magazines + drinking loads of water + crystal decanters + Evernote (still loving it) + super positivity + family time – I adore my beautiful family + a new baby girl, due on Saturday! + mango salsa + icy cold banana smoothies + special time with my ladies (girly hangs make the world go ’round)  + M83 + anticipation for my birthday next week and my party next weekend (what can I say, any excuse for a celebration!) + running + love, sunshine and happy, happy days.

+ What’s lighting your fire this week? You know the drill – I’d love you to share your sunshine in the comments below!

Images: 1. via White Hot Truth 2. Thing by Alyssa Nassner 3. The Wheat Field 4. Sweet Southern Sorority Life

Posted on: 16 November, 2011 | Filed under Making Me Happy | 8 Comments | ADD YOURS
Tags: happiness, making me happy