Getting To Know Victoria from SMB {Guest Post}

Happy Friday everyone! I'm not going to be here long today because I'm handing over to Victoria from Social Media Blooms so without further adieu... 

Hi Coral Tinted Perception lovers, I'm Victoria from Social Media Blooms. Earlier in the year I profiled Natalie on my blog, did you catch that post so she allowed me to showcase on her blog. { #Bloglove - ok this is Natalie adding the hashtag!} 

I thought I could share a questionnaire with you so you could get to know me better:

1. Who in your every day life knows about your blog?

My sisters, mom and fiance. In fact my youngest sis and a close friend started blogging recently, I would like to think that I've inspired them to do so. 

2. How long have you been blogging? 

Wow, good question. Can you believe it, almost 3 years. I had a pen and paper diary all my life, so I'm not really surprised that I started a blog. 

3. What would be your best advice to newbie bloggers?

Find your own voice and stay true to what you love + like. Please don't compare and despair, rather focus on your own strengths and go from there. Sooner or later you will find + connect with your tribe, amazing, like-minded individuals like you!

4. What social media platform do you like most?

Definitely Instagram. I love the vibrant images of food,  decor and nature. 

5. What's your favourite beauty product?

The Body Shop, Honeymania Body-butter, I'm slightly addicted to the smell. I also love early morning showers with the Whoosh Shower-jelly from Lush. 

6. Team Aniston or Jolie.

I recently joined team Aniston. I really love Jennifer's simplistic style and zen vibe. 

7. Favourite band?

The Beegees. There's a certain flow to their music. 

8. If you could live in any era which would it be?

The seventies, maybe because I'm a bit of a carefree hippie myself.

9. How important is fashion in your life?

I love dressing up a lot, it makes me feel confidence and pretty. While I'm grooming myself in the morning, I'm also mentally preparing myself for the rest of the day. Someone’s first impression of you is your visual presentation, it's kinda sad but that's just human nature. I'm currently loving the colourful tribal/boho fashion trends. 

10. What's your biggest goal for 2015?

To live simply and to not worry about the small stuff that much.

Well everyone, I hope you enjoyed my blog visitor today! Go follow her on , Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest and have an awesome weekend! 

November Update

I was intending on showing up for Bloggers cool circle yesterday but I just did not have the time. I'm not going to give you the inevitable apology about how busy life is because obviously some important stuff is happening because I'm neglecting thus very important part of me.

Well, it's November and I've got huge list of things to do this month before everyone goes into full on party mode next month! 

What I will tell you is that I have a bucket list Summer 2014/15 planned as well as a guest post from one of my very sweet blog buddies,Victoria! 

In the midst of tying up lose ends this year, I hope you don't forget it's Movember! I shared a pic of my support on Saturday on my Instagram account (shameless plug, I know!) 

Also, Johannesburg has been having a ridiculous amount of load shedding for electricity which is super annoying and disruptive but I suppose it would be a #ThirdWorldProblemInAFirstWorldCity 

Have you set your goals for November? How about your resolution list from the beginning of the year, any of them still viable??

Where did the last Two weeks go?

While I'm not sure about you, I can tell you exactly what I did with the last 2 weeks of my life!

Yes, I'm back from my eurotrip and to be honest it sucks to be back! I mean I love my family and my life here but I absolutely adored every moment of proving to myself I was capable of more than I ever thought I was. 

Before I continue, thank you SO MUCH to my guest bloggers, here are there posts.... and especially to one of my favourite bloggers, Meghan Silva bucket list post,  was exactly the type of post I would do so I knew you would appreciate it! And while I'm sending out thanks let me say, I really missed blogging and reading all my blogs so I will be a busy lady in the coming weeks.

Back to my trip, I think I'll have to do posts for my different towns that I visited but ill mix it up with other posts so you don't get too tired of only travel posts! 

If you haven't noticed yet or you don't link to my blog of the web then you wouldn't have seen I have uploaded a gadget which allows you to see my Instagram pics which I've uploaded and let me tell you that is the absolute bare minimum of what I wanted to Instagram!

While I have so much to say about all the places I've seen I wanted to state now, at the beginning of my travel post recaps - this was hard. Traveling alone is difficult especially because it was the first time I travelled using hostels and you know what?! I learned a lot about myself!
 

I'm so excited to share my trip with all of you as I am certain it is indicative of big things to come but here's some of my favourite moments of my trip and pictures (if I have them) 

*seeing my friends from my masters class, Julia and Oliver in Germany, they were the ones who invited me to visit Germany and seeing them after almost four years was awesome! They were truly the best hosts!

* Seeing some friends I made in my previous Ireland Trip, in 2010, and just getting a chance to hang out

*I really loved Heidelberg, Germany, and even though I may have complained to Oli about the walking the place was just so picturesque

* Notre Dame in Strasbourg, France, was incredible. The picture says enough for now.

 

* the first time I walked into the Grand Palace Market in Brussels, Belgium  - I was literally left speechless! 

* making new friends along the way from the lovely people that Juls and Oli introduced me too to the people I met in airports and hostels! 

* The Cliffs of Moher : Ireland

And lastly, this may be my favourite of the entire trip.. Walking into Taffs, a pub in Galway and a live traditional band were singing "Galway Girl" = bliss 

So that's the highlights, for now.. There will be much more to come :) 

Have you heard of any of the places I've mentioned? have you been there? Tell me about it, I missed hearing from all of you! 

Guest Post : Ebony Delights' Samantha : Funny Movie Line Series 2

Hi, here is my bio: Samantha is passionate about reading, watching movies and hanging out with her sisters. She recently acquired a Project Management Diploma and is an expat living in Joburg for the last 5 years. She currently looking for a job and blogs about reviews and goal challenges in her spare time. Check out her adventures on her blog

Here is an old post :

A while back I started the funny movie line Series 1 and as a person who loves movies a lot, I thought I should do it again. Here's a few more, hope you enjoy.

"Let me bring you up to speed. We know nothing. You are now up to speed." - Pink Panther 2

"I'm sick and tired of busting my ass while your ever-widening ass sits around getting wider."

"I heard you singing, a cat choking on a fur ball sounds better than you."- Cop and a half

"I don’t think you have the balls for this job" Answer "Perhaps! The advantage is I don’t have to think with them all the time." –James Bond Tomorrow Never Dies

"I'm gonna tear off your head and spit down your neck."

"Everything will be alright in the end, if its not alright it's not the end." The Best Marigold Hotel

"God didn't make plastic surgeons so they could starve." Joyful Noise

"I always thought archaeologists were funny little men looking for their mommies."Indiana Jones

What funny movie lines have you heard lately??

Guest Post : Meghan Silva : Sky's the limit

Hi guys, I am so happy to be guest posting on Coral tinted perceptions, I hope you having a gorgeous time in Europe Natalie I am totally green haha . So today I decided I have to share some of whats on my Bucket list with you guys as Europe happens to be one so it just seems so fitting. If you read my blog you will be well aware of my Food Bucket list but I do have one about general life. I think having goals and wishes for the future really is so important( well at least to me) it helps keep you excited and optimistic about the future.

1) I would love to sail somewhere around the world and I don't mean on a cruise ship I mean on an actual sailboat.

2) Visiting Paris is a total must for me.

3) Grow my own fruit and vegetables (since eating healthy costs an arm and a leg).

4) Take a photography course.

5) Learn how to ride a bike (yes people I had parents who didn't teach me to ride a bike *looking at my parents as I type this*).

6) Take a girls weekend trip once a year.

7) Have a regular game night once a month.

8) Learn at least 3 new languages in my life.

9) Have a kid one day (to teach how to ride a bike).

10) Do something that will make a difference in this world.

There's more but I will leave it at that, I hope you enjoyed this post I have to know what is one thing that is on your bucket list? Care to share?

Guest Post : Cookies for Thugs

I like to think of myself as an aficionado of all things counter-intuitive. From the books I read to the music I listen to, to even the company I keep. I pride myself in thinking different and thinking for myself. My Christian beliefs help me to aim in order to achieve, the impossible, seeing as “with God nothing shall be impossible” as Luke 1v27 states. I believe in love as the sole (soul) purpose of human beings and anything done in love and for love will succeed. I love laughter, both administering it and sharing in it. I believe that in some way or the other, big or small, I will contribute to changing the world. Maybe through the poems, raps or articles that I write or maybe just from being “that guy that thinks differently”. #GodGotMe

In the spirit of being different and constantly striving for the impossible, I took an opportunity to blog on behalf of Natalie as she was taking a vacation.

 The chance appeared to be an opportunity for me to express a side of myself that I would not normally express on my own blog. Perhaps still too afraid of the ever piercing eyes of my small circle of readers. Basically, I wanted to be me, but a different me, the me that I know I am but am too scared to share with people who think they have an entire idea of me.

 Because of this freedom, to be me, to express myself  to  a readership that doesn’t know me and won’t judge me correctly, or incorrectly, for this freedom, I thank Natalie.

 

 

Here it is....

 

On the 7^th of August 2013, I was robbed on my way back from school at approximately 18h00, not only of my material possessions, but of the dreams I had invested in those possessions. Robbed of the good that I was planning to do for the very same “type” of people that robbed me. That’s what hurt me the most.

I stay in Joburg and I study in Pretoria, Tshwane University of Technology to be precise. I am studying Quantity Surveying. In my final year. So you can just imagine the inconvenience of losing all of your academic paraphernalia when you are so close to the finish. To make matters worse, I had digitised all my work, course material and goals on to my iPad, which the thugs that got me called a “laptop” when they realised they had left me with something of value.

I lost my iPad with not only my school material on it, but also my music, my raps, my poems and my communicator. I lost my life source. Opening the docket at the police station the following day, I realised that I had been walking around Marabastad all this time with goods over the value of R10 000, including the shoes they took off of my feet. The ironic thing is this: contained within my bag, other than the academic stuff and the money and the phone etc., there was a book called “How To Worry Less About Money” which I hope they are curious enough to read. It’s a good book and I think it will help them…to worry less about money.

Needless to say, I was pretty cut up about the loss and went Facebook that night, cursed out everyone involved and then slept like an unhappy child. The following day, I found myself taking note of the people who were more concerned with the value of goods I lost against the people who were relieved I was still alive. The ones relieved where outweighed by the ones upset about my loss.

After a long period of mourning, in an epiphany, I realised something: I was still alive. I was still alive. I looked in the mirror and saw myself, without an iPad yeah, but still in one piece.

6 nyaope high boys lifted me off of the street after a day of education, choked me to a point of submission and made me give away what I valued most in my life, even after a prolonged scuffle…but I was still alive. No stab wounds, no scars, no iPad, but still in the same packaging God sent me here in. I saw this as a miracle. I still do. I could have been dead. But I’m not. The next natural question for me was “why am I not dead?”…

I’m here for a reason is the reason I have now to live. I may not know it, I may not understand it, but I believe that through a gracious supernatural act expressed through the kindness of the drug boys that robbed me, I am still alive.

And because I understand kindness to be “unmerited favour”, I want to express my gratitude to the thugs that robbed me. Thanking you for taking my stuff and not taking my life. Thank you for sparing me when you didn’t have to. More importantly, thank you for showing me what to value most in life: life itself.

I hope that I can return to Marabastad soon and give them all some cookies. Just to say thank you. I strongly believe in showing gratitude in acknowledgement of kindness exhibited.

 

I am currently working on a poem with the same title as this blog post “Cookies For Thugs”.

 

Guest Post : Book Review - Imperfect Spiral BY Mandy Mabizela

Hi

My bio:
I'm Mandy Mabizela I'm the kid from the 90's | Lifestyle entrepreneur | Communications Manager | Food lover | mother | daughter | dreamer | do-er | liker of things | vintage lover | bookworm | internet junkie | overall happy person.

I chose to be the guest blogger to express the love I have for my city,books and everything between.

Imperfect Spiral - Debbie Levy

 

Imperfect Spiral is a novel about finding your voice, and finding courage and strength to take a stand. Danielle Samuelson doesn't think she has much courage, ever since her huge panic attack the day of her bat mitzvah, she has doubted herself and her ability to ever be in public without making a fool of herself. (Specifically talking in public). Her best friend, Becca, wanted her to be a camp counselor with her. But Danielle was hesitant; instead she chose to babysit one kid for the summer. His name was Humphrey. The first chapter reveals the tragedy: Danielle and Humphrey were walking home from the park one evening when Humphrey was hit by a van. He died in Danielle's arms. His death upsets a community; neighbors are calling for change and reform. They want sidewalks. They want street lights. They want stronger immigration laws. (The driver of the van was an illegal immigrant.)

 

What I loved most about Imperfect Spiral was the depth of the characterization. I loved Danielle and her family. I especially loved Danielle's older brother, Adrian. I love how there he is for her during this. I also loved her best friend, Becca. I thought the author did a great job establishing Danielle in relationships. Danielle was a character I cared for. And I wanted her to succeed, to find the strength to speak up.

 

If the novel has a weakness, it may be in a series of coincidences that are revealed toward the end of the novel. To speak of these coincidences would be to spoil the book.

 

I liked this one. 

This is where I am at.....!

I am planning my much anticipated holiday which I take NEXT WEEK!!! Eeeek

It's strange to think I have been planning it for so long that now when I am days away from it, I still have so much to do :(

However, I did tweet the other day that I am looking for guest bloggers while I am away, please email me on coraltintedperceptions@gmail.com  and send me topic suggestions and your link if you're interested.

Also, I launched my About me page .. stop by and tell me what you think? I realised it was definitely time to put it up because there so mcuh on my blog that doesn't explain anything about me...

All the while, I can't get this song out of my head...

 

 

I will be posting my usual football friday post later in the day!

 

Until then.. have a fab day!xxxx