Thankful Thursday

It's been a little while since I've posted in this what was meant to be weekly series.  Whoops.  We're now onto our fourth week of holidays, or I guess in my case: unemployment.  But I like to think of it as holidays, or even a really long maternity leave, because I don't plan to get a job before the baby arrives, and after will be a whole occupation in itself.

Here are some things that I'm thankful for this week:

Games with friends
We've had two nights of dinner and games with friends this week.  We haven't played games much lately with the stress of the end of the year at college so it was nice to have some fun.  I love that so many of our friends and neighbours enjoy playing board games and card games which means we have so many people to play with.  It was lovely to be able to catch up with these friends and hear about their holidays and chat about life. 

The health care system in Australia
We really do have such a good health care system here.  I haven't had to pay for any of my pregnancy appointments because I'm bulk billed as a low-income patient.  But even despite this there is good public health care available, free!  I had a hospital appointment this week and my glucose tolerance test today and it was all so easy. I'm hoping that my test doesn't turn up gestational diabetes but we'll have to wait and see.

Generous community
Two ladies in my community have just had babies and are also moving out at the end of the year.  Both of them have offered me lots of maternity clothes, more than I even need or could fit in my wardrobe.  I'm so thankful for their generosity and the blessing that it is living in this community.

What are you thankful for this week?

(By the way, my parcel arrived as expected two weeks ago!)

Thankful Thursday on Friday

So again I’m late with the Thankful Thursday, whoops.  I’ve been sick with a cold this week, since Saturday, and had a bit of a dizzy relapse yesterday afternoon so writing this blog post really wasn’t on my mind.  But here we are, better late than never. 

Here are the things I’m thankful for this week:

A gifted DVD player
We happened to mention to our friends J & E while we were in Brisbane that we didn’t have a DVD player and they offered us his old Play Station 2.  We had been wanting to get a PS2 for a while because we have some Guitar Hero instruments that only fit a PS2.  Well that’s why J wanted a PS2, I just wanted something to play DVDs because I was tired of using my old and slow laptop.  I was so thankful for this on Saturday while I was sick.  I think I spent most of the day lying on the couch working my way through a season of ‘Alias’. 

The Mark Drama
J rehearsed Thursday night, Friday night and all day Saturday to be part of the Mark Drama.  It’s basically a retelling of the gospel of Mark.  The actors memorise the structure of Mark and a few key links (a lot in Jesus’ case), and improvise the rest.  It was performed in a church hall set up as a theatre in the round.  The actors walked through the aisles as part of the performance, and the space in the middle was very small and intimate for the audience.  I loved the way seeing the gospel of Mark performed made the story come alive for me.  I’m thankful for the time the actors put into preparing for it and the great opportunity it is for sharing the gospel.  If you ever get a chance to see it I highly recommend it. 

The freedom to be stay home sick
I don’t mean that now I’m an adult I can decided if I’m too sick to go out rather than my parent’s deciding, though this is of course true.  I have the freedom to say home sick because I know that there are people at college who will notice that I’m missing.  There are people who will share their notes with me.  There are people who will pray for my recovery.  I am so thankful for the love of my Christian brothers and sisters at college.  I’m so thankful for the friends I have there.  I am so thankful for the beautiful way Christians care for each other.  And I’m thankful that God has made me part of his family to make this all possible. 

I’m not a runner…

I hate running, it is probably my least favourite form of exercise.  It’s monotonous, it hurts, it’s not very social, and I have no stamina.  I’d much prefer to exercise with other people by playing a team sport, being in a ballet class, or even an exercise class.  I can almost trick myself into thinking it’s fun if I’m doing it with other people. 

But I’ve started running.

I’ve heard of the Couch to 5k (C25k) a few times since last year but never had any desire to find out more.  A couple of months ago a neighbour, Bible study group member and friend, Liz, told me that she and a friend had started the C25k.  I don’t know what it was, but just by talking to her about their running she inspired me to give it a try. 

So I downloaded an app on my phone (there are so many out there, I downloaded the one pictured here because it was free) and I went for my first run. 

Down the bottom of our street there is a walking/cycling track that runs along a river.  This is where I ran.  During the first week you run for 60 seconds then walk for 90 seconds for eight sets.  Parts of it was a struggle, there were moments when I thought “I’ll just walk the next one”, but I got through it without giving up. 

Later on when I got home I had trouble flexing my feet and had some pain in my shins for the next few days.  This scared me off running.  I didn’t want to hurt myself again. 

Last weekend I was talking to my mum about running as she recently did the City to Bay.  I told her about the C25k and we decided to do it together, though separated in different cities.  So we tell each other when we’ve completed a day’s run to encourage and motivate each other.  We’ve now both completed week one, and I did the first run of week two this afternoon.  I now run around the park (on the grass) at the end of the street and I haven’t had any problems with my shins. 

I still have no love for running, but this program and doing it with mum have motivated me to keep going.  I even don’t mind doing it by myself, I can run at my own pace and I can do it whenever works for me (though I admit that sometimes scheduled running might be a better motivation).  I’m not sure what will come from this, but I’m exercising and that’s good enough for me. 

A trip to the hospital

On Monday night I drove J to the hospital. 

Before anyone starts freaking out, don’t!  Don’t worry, he’s fine, and healing up well. 

We had both just submitted our Doctrine assignments, due at 11:55pm.  I had finished a little before J, but because it was already waaay past my bedtime I went to bed and didn’t wait for him. 

When he got home at about midnight I was still awake but in bed with the lights off.  As he started getting ready for bed and went to untie his shoelaces…

THUMP!

I was impressed that he didn’t swear, or even use any form of exclamation really.  Though, I’d probably be more surprised if he had sworn.  Maybe his silence was the shock from the pain and the sight of his own blood (who ever likes the sight of their own blood?). 

We had just bought a new wooden dresser from the student op-shop at college, but we haven’t integrated it into the room yet so it’s still standing at the end of our bed.  J had bent down to untie his shoelaces and forgotten it was there (not seeing it in the dark), smashing his head into the edge of it.  He chipped a tooth and cut into his lower lip.  And wow, do head-wounds bleed a lot!

Once we got the bleeding stopped I thought the cut looked deep enough to warrant some immediate attention, though it was now getting close to 1:00 AM.  So we bustled into the car and I drove (I drove!!) us to the nearest hospital, a couple of suburbs over from us. 

The result was about two hours waiting in emergency, two stiches, a tetanus shot and an iceblock (to ease the swelling).  We got back into bed at 4:00 AM and skipped college that day. 

As much as it would have been great that this never happened in the first place there are a number of things we are thankful for that we realised in the process.

We are thankful that I can now drive J’s manual car.  I’m much more confident than I was (I even drove to college on Wednesday when we didn’t have anyone else in the car with us!).  I wanted to learn so that I could drive in an emergency and not freak out.  And that’s what happened, my learning was put to good use.

We’re thankful for the love of others where we live.  We’re rostered on to drive to and from college every day in the car pool, but we clearly weren’t going to be driving on Tuesday morning.  Someone else offered to drive and everything was sorted out fine without us. 

We’re also thankful for the love of our fellow students.  We missed our three Doctrine lectures and one hour of Hebrew for J.  People have given us notes and advice about those lectures and been really caring of us.  We’ve appreciated it all so much.  Thank you everyone.