Hello new car

So I've been a bit slow in posting about this, but we finally bought a car. Not to replace Claude, but yes to replace Claude. We knew we would have had to up size from the Peugeot, which was only a three door (because the boot strangely counts as a door) to make room for the baby, but we said goodbye to Claude much earlier than we would have liked.

You may have noticed that the last few blogposts haven't included any photos. That's because my computer is currently having repairs done and I've been posting from my phone. Photos are much easier to do on the computer, but I will try and include a photo of our car somewhere in this post (to be honest, I'm not sure where in the post it'll turn up, but it'll be in here somewhere!).

The new car is a 2006 Mazda 3 sedan. 
Features include:

• black paint (wonderful in Aussie summers!),
• 6-speed manual (so you get into reverse by pushing the gear-stick down and to the left, very strange),
• red interior lights (so it feels like we're on an imperial ship),
• temperature control air-conditioning (no more too cold with air-con and too hot without it),
• 6 disk CD player (we could fit more than half of our Sherlock audiobook disks in at once if we wanted to!),
• Cruise control (which I really enjoyed using on our drive down to Melbourne yesterday),
• A sneaky aux plug (at first we thought there wasn't one, but I found it in the centre console with a little gap in the lid for the cable to poke out, how clever!),
• and the indicator is on the right side (the right side) because it's not a European car (sorry Claude).

We haven't named the car yet. Naming is tricky, and we've also got a far more important naming to think through at the moment. Any ideas for the name of our car?

Overall, we're very pleased with the car and thankful for God's provision: both in the money to buy it, and in our finding this car.

Thankful Thursday

Here are some of the things I am thankful for this week:

A new pillow
My parents were here over the weekend and we spent a lot of time with them, which was lovely.  We went out to dinner with them a number of times, J and Dad played golf, Mum and I went shopping, I drove them to a quilting shop Mum really wanted to visit.  One of the fun things I did with Mum was to make a pregnancy pillow.  I'm normally a back-sleeper so switching to sleeping on my side has been a bit of an adjustment. I'd seen a few patterns on the Internet, but I already had a bit of an idea of what I wanted.  I'd been sleeping with two extra pillows, one at my front between my knees and supporting my stomach, and the other at my back.  But they were a bit flat and meant I took up a lot of room in the bed much to J's dismay.  So I knew I wanted something to support my front and back, that was narrower and plumper than a normal pillow.  Mum and I had fun making it up as we went along and here is the result.  I am now, usually, sleeping much more comfortably (except for sore hips!).  

Community living
I've said it before, but I love living in this community of Christian student families.  This week I'm thankful that I can borrow things (like a sewing machine for that pillow!) and I can shoot out strange requests and the odds are that someone can help me.  This week I need egg cartons for the craft at kid's club so I sent out an email to our community and got about five replies from people who had heaps of egg cartons!  I had so much more than enough, thank you community!

What are you thankful for this week?

Thankful Thursday

Oops.  It’s Thursday again.  I had at least two posts that I wanted to write before we got here.  One was about the space thing I mentioned last time.  I guess that will have to wait, sorry. 

Here are some of the things I am thankful for this week:

Breakfast date and good advice
J and I went out for a breakfast date on Saturday.  We were already up early because our community had its annual photo that morning.  We had heard about a nice cafe just down the road and decided this was a great opportunity to check it out.  When we got there I saw that the menu had Nutella bombs! 

Now I understand if you don’t know what a Nutella bomb is; I myself only learnt about them a couple of months ago.  It is basically a Nutella milkshake, usually with a jam (or Nutella?) filled doughnut sitting on top of the glass with the straw pushed through it.  I’ve never had one before, so all this is just what I’ve heard from others.  The Nutella bomb at this cafe had a chocolate brownie on the top. 

I really wanted to get one, I’ve never tried it before and I LOVE Nutella.  But J convinced me that I wouldn’t be able to fit it in with breakfast as well.  So I made him promise that we’d come back some other time for a Nutella bomb.  Actually, I don’t think I made him promise, I just told him that we had to come back another time. 

This is what they look like.  When I tried to search online for Nutella bomb I couldn’t find it but it turns out the rest of the world (or just Sydney?) calls them Tella Ball Shakes.  If you click on the picture you can get the story about how they were created/invented. 

At the end of breakfast I realised J was right.  I’d only had a bowl of toasted museli with berries and yoghurt, with a glass of fresh juice, but I knew I definitely couldn’t have fit a Nutella bomb in as well.  Sorry I don’t have a picture of the food (it was delicious), but I’ve never been in the habit of taking photos of my food.  But when I have a Nutella bomb or Tella Ball Shake I’ll try to remember to take a photo!

A driver swap
As you know, our community organises a car pool to get to and from college each day.  This week I’m thankful for the driver who was willing to swap times with J and I so that we could get home a little bit earlier for an appointment we had to get to. 

Final assignment done!
Last night I submitted my final assignment (ever! J said, but I told him to never say never, or ever).  As far as final assignments go it was a pretty easy one to finish on.  It was the second of a two part research assignment where we had to reflect upon an application of our research and what we have learnt through the process.  And as maybe you can tell by the name of this blog, I don’t mind reflecting much at all. 

What are you thankful for this week?

Thankful Thursday

Getting an assignment finished
Last week was my final Research Week of my college career!  I chose to look at the significance of Jesus’ resurrection in the argument of the letter to the Romans.  I’m not sure that I answered the question very well, but I enjoyed looking at Romans in more detail and the things that I have now learnt about it.  Now I know roughly what is the subject of most chapters, and I’ve understood the flow of the argument a bit better.  Of course, the lectures that we’ve been having on Romans this week in class have shown up the holes in my essay!

I often grumble about doing assignments.  It’s my least favourite part of studying at college.  But I’m so thankful for what I have learnt through the process of doing assignments (and thankful that the big assignments are over for me!).

Adelaide catch ups
We flew to Adelaide on Friday for a family wedding.  (This made finishing the assignment due Friday a bit tricky, but thankfully we both managed.)  We saw a lot of people over the weekend because of the wedding and because we visited our home church on Sunday morning.  I’m an introvert, so by the end of the weekend I was feeling pretty emotionally tired (let alone physically because of the late nights of assignment writing and wedding reception).  But despite this, I’m so glad we got the chance to catch up with some of our family and friends. 

Clothes airers (and the space to set them up in)
Normally I do the washing on the weekend but that obviously wasn’t possible this time.  The weather was a bit dreary at the beginning of this week so I had to hang the clothes inside.  I’m thankful for clothes airers that mean a lot of clothes can be hung up in a small space.  I’m also thankful that we have some spaces around our house where the clothes airer is relatively out of the way.  We’re not going to have as much of that free space next year so I’m reminded to be thankful for it now.  (More about that decreased space in another post!)

What are you thankful for this week?

I am a music snob

I am a music snob.  I really am, I am ashamed to say.  I don’t mean styles of music.  You can like your punk/funk/heavy metal as much as you like and I’m not fussed.  Each to their own and I’m (mostly) happy to say that it’s just a matter of preference (but screaming, is that really music?).  When I say I’m a music snob, it’s in a far worse way than disliking a particular style.  I mean church music.

In the last while I have been to a few different churches or places where church music is played (e.g. college).  Each church has different resources (in terms of musicians available and qualities of sound systems and things like that).  And I have realised that I am a snob about church music.

I realised this recently when we were in a church singing a song that I knew well and the song leader and congregation sang a note wrong.  They sang two lines exactly the same without the subtle difference of one note.  It was only one note, but it annoyed me. 

Now, I quickly realised that this probably affected only me.  My snobbery caused me to lose joy in what I was singing, to focus more on the music (the tune, the instruments, the tempo) instead of the words that I was (meant to be) singing in worship to God.  It distracted me from what I should be focusing on while singing in church.

I know that this is probably my problem and not something I can blame on someone else.  I could say that the musicians should “work harder” and get the song “right” so that the music is good and doesn't distract anyone.  But I’ve been in far too many small churches to know that this just isn’t possible.  Your drummer is young and enthusiastic and plays too fast and loud, or your guitarist taught themself and can only play certain types of music, or your singers are shy and never know when to come in.  But there’s no one else who can do it, so you use what you have. 

Sure, my problem may be fixed by a talented music team who play well together and produce polished church music.  I will be able to entrust myself to their music and focus on the words and what I am singing to God.  There will be nothing in the music that jars me out of my focus on God.  But what if I’ve learnt the song incorrectly in the first place?  What I think is right and won’t jar, is actually not right, and even if the musicians play the song perfectly (or we sing along to a recording, arguably as perfect as you can get), my problem will still happen.

So much of the way we do music at church is communal.  We learn together and we teach each other.  We may get used to the way that our church music team plays a particular song, and this becomes our favourite and comfortable way to sing it, even if it is “wrong” in certain aspects according to the original composer(s) and performer(s).  

My music snobbery is just something that I need to get over.  I can’t control the music at any church and getting upset about it just puts a barrier in my way to worshiping God through what I’m singing.  I want to cultivate an attitude of thankfulness for the way that God has blessed the church with the people who are there, and I want to focus on the words, more than the music.  Any time I hear that jarring of music not–quite–right–to–my–ears, I hope it reminds me to refocus on the words, to mean what I am singing, and ultimately, focus not on myself, but on my God. 

Thankful Thursday

Here we are again at Thursday.  Sometimes I can’t believe how fast the week goes.  This week has been a bit up and down for me, but I know that there are still things I can be thankful to God for through it all. 

A chance for some crafting
On Saturday we had the college Spring carnival.  It’s kind of an excuse to have lots of people at college for Open Day, which happens at the same time.  It’s lots of fun, particularly for families: there’s face painting, balloon animals and a jumping castle.  One of my favourite things is the cake competition because after the judging you can buy slices of cake for a dollar and try them all.  Unfortunately I was too full from my lunch to try all the cakes, and I stupidly didn’t make good use of the fact they had take-away containers available.  Oh well, it’s probably better that I didn’t. 

Spring carnival also has a lot of stalls, populated and run by students.  Lots of these things are handmade so when I got home that afternoon I was inspired to do some craft myself.  I made a whole bunch of earrings, did a bit of crochet, and fixed a hole in one of J’s pockets!  Very industrious!

Calming colouring
On Sunday I (officially) started some adult colouring.  It’s a bit of a trend at the moment, that has really take flight.  I’ve seen lots of adult colouring books in stores and seen it mentioned on the internet.  A couple of weeks ago I ordered a special colouring book as a gift for a friend (and I got one for me too!).  One of my fellow students put me onto it actually.  His sister-in-law created this book as a way to meditate on verses from the Bible as you colour in the patterns she has drawn around them.  The book is called Meditations and you can find it here. 

This afternoon I was feeling anxious so I did a bit of colouring and it really helped me to calm down and remember God’s goodness.  Last night as I did a bit of colouring before bed I used it as a time to pray for others.  I love how colouring gets you to stop and wind down and how this book in particular gets you to focus on God and his word as you do it.

The Library Box
Third year had an assignment due last night (which I submitted at 10:30pm, woo hoo! just within my acceptable bed time limits if I race).  I had at least ten books to return this morning.  Now, since there’s a big construction site at college the library has moved a few hundred metres down the road.  That doesn’t sound that far… I’m going to look up how far it is.

Haa! Yes, it is only 300 metres.  I probably had to walk further to get to the uni library when I was studying at uni.

Aaanyway, I didn’t want to take them all the way to the library.  Thankfully there is a library returns box on campus so I could just tip all my books in there this morning before chapel.  Thank you library box!

 

What are you thankful for this week?

A thankfulness post

So I forgot to write a Thankful Thursday post yesterday…  But I really do want to get back into the habit of blogging so that you far-away-friends still get news about what I’m up to.  So I’m writing it anyway, a day late. 

Unexpected flowers
But they weren’t from J!  On Saturday we went to a friend’s birthday party.  She had planned to have a picnic outside on our community lawn but it had rained a lot in the days previous so she decided to reduce the number (family celebrations could happen another time) and move it indoors.  So we had a picnic inside her house!  She had decorated the living room with lots of bunches of flowers and told us all that we could take some home with us (she had so many that she let me take two bunches!).  I love how flowers easily brighten up a room, so it has been lovely to have some in our house.  Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of mine before some of them died so here’s a similar picture.

Sharing friends’ joy
We have some friends who are struggling with life at the moment.  I’m not going to go into any details because that’s their business.  Recently they have experienced a blessing from God, an opened door to ease some of their struggles.  It has been wonderful to see their joy knowing the contrast with their sadness.  I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited for someone else before and it’s such a wonderful thing to be able to share their joy.

Easy love
J has had (and continues to have) a very busy week this week.  I’ve ended up doing the dishes by myself a couple of times.  But he loves it, and it’s such an easy way to love him!  J hates a messy kitchen, it really stresses him out and he’s so thankful when he comes home to see the kitchen clean.  So I’m thankful that he is easy to love in this way, and that I enjoy doing it for him.

What are you thankful for this week? 

Thankful Thursday

I’ve been sitting at home this afternoon waiting for it to rain.  The weather forecast predicted a lot of rain today but I’m yet to see any of it!  I’m glad that I made it home while it was still dry.  Here are some things I’m thankful for this week. 

It’s my birthday!
It’s my birthday today!  I have to admit that I often feel a bit strange on my birthday.  More people talk to you than normal, saying ‘happy birthday’ and doing nice things.  I’m not used to the extra attention and I’m not really sure how to react to it.  But I have enjoyed the love that friends and family have shown me.  I’m thankful for these people. 

Quick crafts
On Monday I started a crochet project and I finished it today.  It was for a sock bun, I found the pattern here.  It was basically a large square that I rolled up and sewed together.  I haven’t tried it out yet but I’m looking forward to it.  I’m not sure how curly hair goes in a sock bun but I figured this would be a cheap way of trying it!  I’ll let you know how it goes. 

Rebuke and encouragement
There have been a number of instances in the past two weeks when I have felt rebuked about my Bible reading and prayer habits, but particularly prayer.  A lecture two weeks ago, a small group that I led and a chapel sermon.  I’ve been encouraged to get back into the habit, and though it has been slow, I have been more regular than before.  I’m thankful for these painful reminders and the motivation they produced in me.

I’ve got to stop there are get ready to go out for my birthday dinner!

Goodbye Claude

Last week, we were driving home from our anniversary dinner.  I was driving because J doesn’t like to drive when he’s had some alcohol.  Part of the drive home involved a long left-turning lane, at an intersection, with a stop sign at the end.  J reminded me of the stop sign so I pressed on the brake.  And then we were jolted forward. 

The car behind us had hit us.  Perhaps he wasn’t expecting me to stop, maybe I did stop too suddenly.  He was following too close behind and maybe he was looking for oncoming traffic like I was, instead of looking at the car in front of him.

I’ve never been in a car accident so I had no idea what to do.  I'm so glad J was with me. The man in the car behind me got out and apologised, and asked me to pull over on the road we were intending to turn onto.  We exchanged details about insurance and license and then went our separate ways.  

After taking the car to the insurance-approved smash repairer it turns out that our car wasn’t worth the money it would cost to fix it.  Or to put it another way, the cost to fix it was more than the car was insured for.  So that means it has been written off, not deemed worth driving anymore.  

Our car was a Peugeot.  J bought it as his first car when he started full-time work.  Since it was French he wanted to name it with a French name and "Claude" was chosen.  We prayed over the car, that it would be used for ministry and its seats shared with friends.  It got us between state capital cities a number of times.  I learnt how to drive a manual in that car.  We’ve used it to help a stranded stranger and to car-pool colleagues.  

We handed Claude in on Wednesday.  It was only fitting that we also had a bit of a wake.  J wanted to buy a croissant or baguette in memoriam, but we couldn’t find any in the bakery we walked into.  So we settled for a crème brûlée and a macaroon.  We ate them at home in Claude’s now empty car space.  

But despite the sadness over losing our car, there are a number of things we are thankful for.  Firstly, we’re glad that this happened during the holidays while the college car-pool isn’t operating.  We’re thankful that it was only a small crash (we were stationary and it was only a small bump) and we weren’t injured.  We’re also thankful for the friends who have let us borrow their car while they are away on holidays.  Another friend has offered us his dad’s old car to use until the registration runs out.  We'll be looking to buy a new car but we’re thankful that we don’t have to rush about it.  

Farewell Claude.  We have many happy memories with you. 

Thankful Thursday

Here we are at Thursday again.  I’m particularly thankful that we are because it means that my last assignment for the semester is finished!  Here are some of the other things I’m thankful for this week:

Growing things
On the weekend I did a bit of work weeding in my veggie patch and was excited to see that some of the seeds I had planted a few weeks (or months? I can’t remember) ago have started coming up.  I have some carrots (I think…) and some kale growing next to my exploding tomato plants, and a few little cucumber seedlings have popped their heads up too.  It has been rewarding being able to eat some of the things we’ve grown ourselves and seeing little seedlings emerge makes me marvel again at how intricately God has made his creation.  All I do is plant and water (and even then I don’t do it very well!) but God is the one who makes it all grow.  I’m thankful most of all for this and the opportunity that the veggie patch has given me to marvel again at God’s creation and to participate in some of his creative work. 

Forgiven failings
On Sunday afternoon J and I played tennis with some people from church.  This is a semi-regular thing, happening every few months.  Now I say ‘played’ tennis… I’m sure that’s what J was doing but I’m not sure I was.  I’ve never been very interested in tennis, though I don’t mind watching bits of the Australian Open each year.  Mum and Dad would try to teach my sister and I whenever we visited the local tennis courts but we weren’t very committed.  So I found myself flailing for the ball on Sunday and apologising to my partner whenever I missed it.  But I am so thankful that I could still have fun despite my abysmal tennis, and that my partner and opponents also had fun.  (I’m also thankful that I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t that great at tennis.)

Resolutions from assignments
I wasn’t going to talk about my assignment but I realised that aside from being thankful that it is finished, I’m also thankful for what I will take out of it.  This assignment was for my preaching subject.  We had to reflect on what we had learned about preaching, about feedback, our strengths and weaknesses and plans to improve our preaching.  The two things I resolved to start doing to help improve my preaching was to work out the fallen-condition focus of the passage and to pray for understanding of the passage.  Now, I don’t get many opportunities to preach (not that I’m complaining!) so there’s not much opportunity to put these things into practice.  So I resolved to do these things in my personal Bible reading time.  I’ve often struggled with personal Bible reading, making it more than just reading to tick a box but not taking it in.  So I’m thankful that through this assignment I have made some resolutions that will hopefully not only help me the next time I come to write a sermon, but will help me in a very practical way in understanding the Bible. 

What are you thankful for this week?

Thankful Thursday

This week has felt like a pretty regular week.  At least, I’m struggling to come up with anything interesting to write about for today’s Thankful Thursday post.  But that’s kind of the point of this series.  It was to help me to find things in my life to be thankful to God for, perhaps especially when life feels pretty normal.  Here are some of the things I’m thankful for this week:

Internet
We recently had new hardware installed in our house that has made internet access much easier at home.  I know that we are incredibly blessed that college provides us with internet at no extra cost.  I am now even more thankful that it is working at home again and not just in our studies in the unit block next to ours.  When we moved here to study at college we never expected to be provided with internet so this is something we are constantly thankful for (even though we sometimes grizzle when it is slow or not working).

Progress with my knitting
I learnt to knit last year (or relearned if you count the one square that I never finished when I was a kid).  I knitted one scarf and then promptly stopped again.  By the time I had finished it the weather had changed out of scarf-temperature.  But I have been re-inspired lately and had a lot of time on Saturday to knit, for which I am thankful.  I’ve been following a pattern sort-of.  Well, it’s really following a certain stitch or texture and I’m making up how wide and long I want the scarf to be. 

  
Dinner with friends
This week we’ll have gone out to dinner at friends’ houses twice (Tuesday night and tonight).  I really enjoy the opportunity that having dinner together gives for getting to know each other better.  We’ve really enjoyed winter dinners in our community where we have dinner with a different family each week.  Tonight’s invitation came from some fellow students in our year at college and I’m thankful for their hospitality in inviting us and the chance to spend some time with them outside of college.

What are you thankful for this week?

Thankful Thursday

Friends, I’m sorry that it’s been a while since I’ve written.  There isn’t really an excuse.  But here I am again, perhaps procrastinating a little from my research week assignment, but I really did want to get a post out today since I haven’t posted in a while.  So here are some of the things I’m thankful for in the midst of this mad assignment–writing week:

A package in the mail
This wasn’t a surprise because I ordered it myself, but I was surprised with how quickly it arrived.  On Tuesday I got my gumboots! 
I have complained twice on Facebook (and more times out loud) that I didn’t own a pair of gumboots.  The first time was when I went to the show (you can read about it here) and it rained for half the day.  I walked around with wet–sneaker feet all day. 
I haven’t had a chance to wear these gumboots yet because it has been sunny all week (I’m not complaining about that) but when I do I’ll try to remember to take a picture to share with you.

 Concentration
There has been a sad pattern to my research week experiences.  I’m not very good at staying on track (this may be partly my personality but I might talk about that in a different post).  The assignment is so big it overwhelms me and I often wonder what I’m even doing at college at all.  I’m not smart enough for this!  So I get distracted and waste time on other things because I can’t face the fear of not being able to get my head around the assignment.  But it’s a vicious cycle.  The assignment looks bigger as the time left to do it gets smaller.  But I am thankful to say that this week I have been pretty focused (aside from this small break, shh!).  I prayed at the beginning of the week that God would help me to concentrate and to understand what I read, and while I’m not sure about the second part, I really do think that God has helped me this week.  So this thanks goes to God. 

I think I’ll stop there and get back to my essay.  Thanks for the break!

What are you thankful for this week?

Thankful Thursday

It has been a little while since I’ve posted but this Thankful Thursday series always seems to give me a little push back into writing.  I already posted something earlier today (mostly because it made this post too long so I had to spread it out).  Sometimes I have other things that I want to write about on Thursdays but I have to wait to spread the posts out. We’ve just gone back to college after a week of holidays so I’ll write a little bit about that.  I also want to post about some of the things I’ve been learning about myself in the last few weeks but they’ll wait for another post.

Anyway, here are some things that I’m thankful for this week:

Busy but good holidays
We did a lot in our one week of holidays.  This has left us a bit tired as we started back at college but I don’t think there’s much I would have changed.  The first weekend we flew back home to attend a family wedding and it was lovely to catch up with friends and family there, and to spend some relaxing time with our parents.  We flew under the radar in order to not tire ourselves out, and only organised one catch-up with friends.  We’re sorry friends if you wanted to see us.  Please let me know if you would like to catch up next time we’re home and let me know what you’re up to in the mean time!  I love hearing from friends.

After flying home on Tuesday we readied ourselves to go camping with friends at a spot three hours drive north of Sydney.  We stayed there Wednesday to Friday and had a lovely time relaxing by reading, drawing and knitting (well the drawing and knitting was me not J), sitting around the fire, and doing not much.  On the first night we didn’t have marshmallows to toast over the fire, which was a travesty in my mind.  How can you be camping and sitting around the fire without marshmallows?!  The next day the guys kindly drove the half hour into town to buy some!

Friday afternoon when we got home saw us quickly unpacking the car and re-packing (with the full-size keyboard) to go to a youth conference as part of the music team.  Thankfully that was all we were involved in so we could have some time to relax and get in a bit of college work before term started. 

I loved each of these things that we did but the rush between them was sometimes stressful.  So I’m also thankful for my wonderful husband and his care for me through all of this. 

Wooden floorboards (or simply: no carpet)
If you’ve been paying any attention to the weather in Sydney this week you’d know how the city has been turned into one giant wading pool.  (Actually, as I write this the sky is sunny and the ground dry, hoorah for a reprieve!).  So this week I have been thankful for the wooden floorboards in our house that I don’t have to worry about getting wet as we step inside from the rain.  In fact, our whole house has no carpet.  It’s all floorboards and tiles.  So with the back door leaking a puddle I’m glad I can just leave a towel there to soak it up and not have to worry about drying out wet carpet.

Raincoats
I ran home from college this week!  I’ve posted about it here.  It was rainy and windy and I was so thankful for my raincoat.  It didn’t keep me completely dry but it did keep the wind out so my ears could stay warm.  My ears always ache in the cold wind which makes running unpleasant so I was extremely thankful for warm ears!

What are you thankful for this week?

Thankful Thur– Friday

Oops!  After all that rush on Wednesday I’m late with my Thankful Thursday post.  Here are some things that I’m thankful for this week:

Church camp
Last weekend J and I went away up into the mountains for church camp.  It was a lovely time away and a great opportunity to get to know some people at church better, and have fun together.  I felt more relaxed (and sometimes a bit crazy) than I usually am at church.  Thanks to everyone who shared thoughts with me, sat next to me, played games with me, puzzled with me and prayed with me. 

Making music
On Monday night our college had their graduation ceremony and J and I were involved in leading the songs with three others from college.  It was lots of fun.  There was playful banter, helpful instrument carriers, some insistent glasses cleaning, nerves and beautiful noise.  I also surprised myself by being chatty in the car when we were taking instruments back to college.  It was particularly lovely getting to know our drummer a bit and to see her enjoyment and enthusiasm for music.  Thanks music team!

Our year group at college
On Thursday afternoon we held a “senatorial inquiry” on Luke’s gospel and how it provides hope for a number of different people groups of the time.  It was hilarious (and also informative of course).  People dressed up in togas (or dresses or toilet paper bandages or hessian sacks) and went to town on first century jokes and year group references.  I’m thankful that our year group is funny, friendly and overall fantastic.  I’m so grateful for the friends I have, the helpfulness people show, and the fun we have together.

A flower
I only noticed today that my passionfruit plant has produced a flower!  To be honest, I wasn’t sure that the plant would do very well in a pot so I’m excited that this has happened.  One step closer to getting fruit!

What are you thankful for this week?

Thankful Thursday

Hi everyone! 

Here we go with Thankful Thursday again.  I hope you have some things that you can be thankful for this week.  Here are some of the things I’m thankful for this week.

Books on my phone
I spent several hours at the airport and in a plane last weekend and I’m thankful for technology that fits into my pocket that provides entertainment anywhere.  Sometimes I still marvel at how much phones can do.  I’m particularly thankful for being able to read books on my phone.  This weekend I read through Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.  I have recently seen the movie and I often find Austen novels easier to read after I’ve seen the movie.  I enjoyed reading it already knowing what was going on. 

Friends who feed me
I had dinner at our friends’ house Wednesday night because J was out at Bible study (which includes dinner).  My friends didn’t want me to have to eat alone.  Then after dinner we sat together in their house and studied (they are both students at college as well).  Being an introvert, I don’t often mind being alone but it was nice to have company that night, to chat about our day and companionably read together.  Thanks friends!

The relevance of the Bible
Today a dear friend preached in women’s chapel on Exodus 3:16-4:17.  We have college mission coming up in a couple of weeks and she used this passage to help us think about mission and encourage us to rely on God who uses even our fumbling words and who helps us to speak.  I’ve been feeling nervous about mission and if I’ll say and do the right things so this was a great comfort and encouragement to me.

Thankful Thursday

This week has been tiring.  I’ll explain why a bit further on.  Here are some things I’m thankful for this week:

The car pool
I may have mentioned already that there are some major building works going on at college at the moment.  One thing this has meant is a reduction in car parks reserved for our community.  But thanks to the generosity of the other satellite community we now have two car parks we can use.  This has meant we can get more people in to college with our car pool.  Thank you Westies!
But this also ties into why I’m tired.  I’m in a 7:30am car four out of five days a week and I haven’t been very good at adjusting my sleeping patterns.  But I’m trying to remember to be thankful that I don’t have to walk two and from the train station anymore. 

Friendly Friends
Someone cared enough yesterday to sit next to me when I was alone.  We’d arrived a little late to college because of a broken down bus in a clearway.  There were no spare sets next to friends so I took a seat in an empty row.  A few minutes later a friend from the row behind me moved into the seat next to me because she didn’t want me to be alone.  I don’t think I was sad about sitting alone but I was really thankful for her expression of friendship.  Thanks Ra Ra!

My husband
I seriously should write about him in every Thankful Thursday post.  But this week I am particularly thankful that he cooks for us.  I don’t enjoy making dinner but he generally does and I’m so glad this means that I don’t have to do it.  Even on Wednesday night when he was out with his Bible study group for dinner I didn’t have to make my own dinner because there was something for me that he had prepared earlier.  Thank you J!

What are you thankful for this week?

Thankful Thursday

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

Electric Fans
There have been a couple of times this week when I’ve gotten home from a run or the walk from the train station and I’ve turned on the fan and just stood in front of it to let it cool me down.  The humidity in this city really makes it hard to cool down.  So I’m thankful for electricity and fans. 

Bible study
This week the women’s Bible study in our community started.  Over the past two years I’ve loved this group.  It’s been a great way to get to know the other wives who live here and to love and support each other.  There’s a different dynamic to a Bible study group when it’s all women and it has been wonderful to hear from different people’s experiences and wrestle with the Bible together. 

Harmonies and forgiveness
I didn’t know that I was rostered on to play the piano at women’s chapel this morning.  I should have known, the roster was emailed to me last week.  I just hadn’t integrated it with my diary.  So when I was almost at my train stop for college I got a call from someone asking if I knew that I was on music this morning.  Cue speed-walking from the station to college.  I didn’t have time to practice with the singers (I found out later that my lovely husband had been around earlier when they were waiting for me and had helped them practice).  Thankfully the one song I played was familiar to me and we couldn’t find the music for the other song so we sung it acapella.  And it sounded great!  We even had some harmonies going on.  I’m thankful that it all turned out okay, the singers forgave me and the singing was fantastic.  I love music. 

What are you thankful for this week?

The argument about poetry

This year at college we’re studying the Psalms and we had our first lecture on it yesterday.  Though almost all of my subjects at college are the same as J’s, this is one that isn’t (because I’m studying the Old Testament in English and J is doing it in Hebrew).  J will study the Psalms too but not until later in the year.  So I was telling him about my class later in the afternoon.

Psalms are examples of Hebrew poetry so we started the lecture talking about what poetry is.  It turns out that J and I have different definitions of poetry, specifically, his definition is much narrower than mine.  Now, I’ve written some poetry in my time, mostly in the anxiety-ridden final year of school, and I suppose not much of it was very good.  But I fought for my definition of poetry because what I’ve written doesn’t fit into J’s definition. 

Here’s what our lecturer had to say about poetry.  Poetry uses images and metaphors, it condenses experiences (economy of expression as J eloquently put it), there are less verbs in poetry than in prose (called verb gapping), poetry can have some sense of metre, and it can have structure with the use of parallelism, word pairs and so on.  But poetry is more like a syndrome than a disease.  To diagnose a syndrome you have to tick a number of boxes from a list of symptoms, but they don’t all have to be there, and it will be a different set of symptoms in each case. 

I didn’t really mean to write about our argument about what poetry is (but you might like to know that J apologised for devaluing my poetry with his definition, though he’s yet to read any of it). 

I wanted this post to be about how I’m excited to be studying the psalms.  Though I didn’t always enjoy studying poetry at school I actually find myself wanting to go back and read some poetry again.  And I’m inspired to write some poems again.  Maybe, if you keep an eye out, you’ll even see some here one day!

Thankful Thursday

So it’s Thursday again, just as it always happens after Wednesday.  Now that I’m back at college and (getting) back into a routine I feel obliged to again pick up the routine of this regular post series. 

It’s been a while.  That doesn’t mean that I haven’t been thankful in life between these posts, but with routine can come the mundane so I think it will be important for me to continue to remind myself of what I’m thankful for in my life. 

With that introduction aside here are some things I am thankful for this week:

Friends who drive into college
There are some major building works going on at college at the moment and among other things this means that our regular car parks are no longer available.  Despite this there have still been people in our community who are willing to drive into college and venture through the maze of back streets and side streets to find a park off-campus.  So I’m thankful that I’ve been able to get a ride into and out of college every day this week.  I’m not adverse to catching the train or the bus, but the car is quicker and gives us the opportunity to enjoy chatting together. 

Running faster
On Saturday I participated in my first parkrun.  I ran the five km much faster than I expected and have been motivated to run faster for the rest of the week.  My running goal is to run the eight km home from college but I’d prefer that it didn’t take all afternoon so I’m pleased that I’ve been able to pick up my pace.  But most of all I’m thankful that God has given me legs to run with and the surprising pleasure in doing it. 

A veggie patch
I’ve just started growing some things in a veggie patch at out community.  There are a limited number of these and in the past I have been content to just grow some herbs in pots but this year I wanted to grow something bigger.  A friend gave me two tomato plants he wasn’t using, I left some marigolds behind from the previous gardeners and I’ve started some other seedlings.  I’m thankful for this opportunity and space when we live in a small place with no garden.  I’m thankful for friends who help and I marvel at God who makes it all grow.

What are you thankful for this week?

Thankful Thursday

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

Assignments are over!
On Saturday I submitted my last assignment for the year.  It was meant to be submitted Friday.  Oh well.  It was a big assignment so I’m just glad to have finished it.  I think a number of students were relieved it was done.  On Monday morning back at college I had more than one deliriously silly conversation about the assignment  with a friend. 
But the year isn’t finished yet.  I’m thankful that this was the last assignment so that I can now concentrate on exams.  We’ve got two more weeks of classes, a study week and then exams. 

A family visit
This weekend J’s mum came to stay with us.  It was lovely having her with us, being able to show her our place, our community, church and college.  She was a wonderful house guest, she even did the dishes for us!  J and I are both thankful for her love and kindness and support.  We were glad to be able to share with her what our life is like here. 

Catching a leak in the act
On Tuesday night there was a big storm that hit our city.  I was at home watching NCIS.  (there are three NCIS series on at the moment, how am I supposed to watch them all?  Yay, for catch-up TV!) 
Our front window leaks in heavy rain and drips all the way down the venetian blind.  But it wasn’t just dripping Tuesday night.  The water was practically pouring down the wall and behind the couch.  I had to dash upstairs for some towels to soak it all up. 
The wall looks like it needs a bit of a clean, but I think I caught it before it got too out of hand.  If I hadn’t been home who knows what our couch would have looked like.  So thank you NCIS for distracting me from study so I was home to catch the leak.  Well, more like: thank you God for your providential timing. 

What are you thankful for this week?