Update

So I am now 27 and3 days old. The last few days have been lots of fun. So love birthdays and stuff. So what's been up. Had my hair coloured on Thursday. It's a little out there but it's fun and hey, it's just hair isn't it. I got a little bit of a shock when I saw myself in the mirror at first, but it's grown on me now and it's quite fun.

Thursday night I went to a taping of the Ch 10 show 'Thank God you're Here." Man was that fun. I had an absolute ball and it was so fun. We were about 3 or 4 seats away from Tom Gleisner who judges the acts (and is also the main dude from The Panel). And me and my friend Matt got in a few of the shots when Tom was speaking. So exciting. Now hopefully we will make the cut.
Friday night Andrew and I went our for my birthday with our awesome friends Pete and Marina and I got some more pressies. I am so lucky. I got a little box filled with all sorts of goodies - a gorgeous necklace, a scarf, a notebook and my favourite - my very own tea cup. Have wanted one for ages so I can enjoy a real cup of tea and my beautiful friends came through for me. How gorgeous is it.

Yesterday we spent some of the day in the garden and then went in search of bathroom ideas. We have just found out that we have really bad water damage in our bathroom and there is water leaking somewhere which is rotting the floor boards. This means bathroom reno. Our bathroom is a very ugly khaki green colour anyway, so I'll be glad to get rid of it. It was just more in our 5 year plan rather than 5 month plan. But hey, things happen, right.
We got some good ideas, but a few of the places we wanted to look at were shut so we'll go out next week as well.
Last night, I organised a scrapbooking night at church. There are a few people who scrapbook at church and it was just an opportunity to get together, do your own thing, get ideas, share stuff. It's the first time we've had anything like this and there were 4 of us there so that's a good start. We had heaps of fun together and that't the main thing

My week is looking less busy than last week so that is good. May have some time to scrap now that I am all inspired after last night.

I think I have bored everyone enough. I didn't really want this blog to turn into a "this is what I did on Thursday and then on Friday, etc.." kind of thing so I will try and post something a little more profound and thought-provoking this week.

Before I go.. 5 things I am grateful for
1. My gorgeous tea cup
2. Beautiful friends
3. Sunshine
4. More gorgeous flowers for my birthday
5. Jesus for saving me

Till next time

Happy Birthday to me

So today is my birthday. 27 year old. When I was younger, 27 seemed so old and now that I am there, I don't feel as old as I probably should. I think in my mind I am still 21. 27. 27. That's how old my mum was when she had me.
I've had a good day. Had lunch with my nanna and sisters - Clare & Beth. Then Beth went back to work and Clare & I took Nanna to look around Knox. Man that place is big. Just had a walk around and then a coffee - well I had a Chai Latte - YUM! Last night we had tea at Mum & Dad's with the whole family to celebrate both mine and my dad's birthday - both in August. I got a cake and everything. Was such a nice night.
Present wise I got a small suitcase from my mum and dad. Something I have both wanted and needed for some time now. Clare & Matt (my sister and brother-in-law) got me a really gorgeous candle holder - will take a piccie tomorrow when it's lighter. My present from Andrew was the Scrapanalia Retreat but he is also going to get me an AMM litte scrapbooking tote. And I am getting my Crocs shoes from the in-laws. So excited. I am going to be like Katie, Brett and Liam now!!! LOL! I've also got some money to spend as well from my nanna and Andrew's grandma. So that should be easy to spend. So it's been a great birthday so far.
Tomorrow I am getting my hair cut... and COLOURED. So excited. Haven't had it coloured for ages. So will post some piccies. And then tomorrow night we are going to a taping of the Channel 10 show "Thank God you're Here" with our friends Graeme and Matt. Graeme got 4 tickets and then invited Andrew, Matt and I along. Should be a lot of fun. That show is very funny

Well, I am going to have an early night tonight. Not doing anything to special. But we are going out on Friday night to celebrate me getting old so that should be fun too.

5 things I am grateful for today.
1. That I have made it to my 27th birthday
2. Family and friends who have made my day so special
3. Chai Lattes
4. A scrapbook magazine in the mail - it's like a little present every month
5. Digital cameras - crap photo - delete it!

Till next time, Happy Birthday to me!

Feelin a little less stressed

Aren't my flowers pretty? My work friend Sharon bought them for me for my birthday. Don't stress about my presents people - it's not till Wednesday! LOL
This is going to sound really weird but I am so glad this weekend is over. Bring on the normalcy and routine of a working week. The last couple of weeks have been so crazy trying to organise this trivia/auction night.
Andrew got home safe and sound on Friday night - said he had a great time but was extremely tired. Got ourselves an early night cause we were both wrecked. Saturday I spent from 9-4 at the last day of my first aid course so I'm all trained up now. It was lots of fun actually. Near the end we split into two groups for scenarios - first aiders and victims. The victims got to think of all sorts of situations and use texta to draw blood and stuff on ourselves. Was great to be dramatic for awhile. Some of us were really going off.
Got home from the course, did the dishes, hung some washing up, ate some tea and then left again to set up for the Trivia night. It was such a fun night and although I was a little stressed at the start (would there be enough people, auction items, would people have fun!) I ended up having a ball. Was on a table with my friends Bruce & Jackie (hi Bruce - my fellow geek), Pete & Marina and Linda & Gareth. We came 3rd last (much to our disgust LOL). We ended up with over 30 auction items and they all went so that was great. Some went for an absolute bargain price. I bought myself a little country birdhouse. Made a bid for $5 and I won. It's worth about $20. Bargain!


Yesterday I was at church in the morning then the rest of the day turned into a candid camera/joke show scenario. Andrew had to stay at church from some training so I decided to do the food shopping straight after the service and then hopefully have an hour or so to just chill out. YEAH RIGHT. Took me about an hour to do the shopping which is fairly normal. Gotta home and started to unpack the stuff. Umpacked the frozen things first and went to put them in the freezer (our freezer is at the bottom of our fridge) when I noticed the door was ajar. Andrew had had ice-cream the night before and when he put it back the fridge didn't close properly and the freezer had completely iced over. So i proceeded to clear out as much ice as I could. Luckily because the freezer worked overtime to keep stuff cold, most things were still frozen. So that took me about 1/2 hour. Then I started putting all the other stuff away. Had a bag of shredded cheese which we put in the fridge in a Tupperware container. Cut the top off the package and tried to tear it open and it just exploded in my hands, cheese flying everywhere. Managed to keep most of it on the bench which I had just wiped down so I saved most of it (I did however find some cheese in my hair later that night!) After cleaning up and putting the rest of the shopping away, I decided to take the rubbish out. As I pulled the bag out, it split sending rubbish all over me. Ran to the outdoor bin before too much came out. Cleaned to floor and myself.

I swear some had a hidden camera somewhere and I will soon see myself on Funniest Home Videos. So my hour of chilling time before Andrew got home turned into about 10 minutes.

So you may have thought my "I am glad this weekend is over" statement was weird, but now you may have some idea as to why.

Gotta have a laugh at it all though.

Playing basketball again tonight- 10:00 - what a sucky hour of the night to be playing sport - really hope we win (we lost last week)

5 things I am grateful for today
1. A fun night at the trivia/auction night on Saturday
2. Sue & Sharon for taking me out for coffee today for my birthday (Wednesday)
3. Daffodils
4. Awesome friends to hang out with
5. That Andrew is home

Sorry about the mammoth post. Good for you if you made it all the way through.

Till next time, smell some flowers and watch out for flying cheese

Busy, Busy, Busy

Man it's been busy around here. Remind me never to organise another auction night - so much driving around to pick stuff up. Thank goodness our car is on gas or I would have paid a small fortune in petrol over the last few days. I think I am pretty much ready for the night tomorrow. Just have to set the hall up tomorrow afternoon.
Spent the afternoon with my nanna on Wednesday. She is over from Adelaide for 9 days. Sorted through a stack of her old photos, getting them out of those horrible old albums. Some of those photos had stuck down really well but we managed to get them all out without ripping any. We are going to put them in proper albums and write who's who in photos and where, etc..
Was lots of fun looking through them. Seeing my grandparents as youngies, and my mum and aunt. Seeing how things have changed. Really made me appreciate scrapbooking and what it's all about.
Andrew has been at Sovereign Hill for the last couple of days. He says he's been having lots of fun, getting dressed up and doing all sorts of fun things. Really looking forward to having him home though. Not a fan of being on my own for a long time, especially at night. It's funny how many strange noises you hear when you aren't used to being home alone.

Started my training for Bronze Medallion yesterday. Man I am glad I have 8 weeks cause I was stuffed after two laps! I am so determined to get better otherwise I am going to be a little embarassed in front of everyone at the course! I CAN DO THIS!

And finally, another LO. This is the one of my mum and dad that I've been working on for about a week. It's been sitting there pretty much finished since Monday and all I had to do was journal. Finally did it really late last night. So this is my mum and dad. Love them to bits and am so blessed to be their daughter



5 things I am grateful for today
1. Andrew coming home tonight
2. Yoghurt from Healthy Habits in Eastland (sooo yumm and healthy too!)
3. Photos that allow us to remember what used to be
4. That my nanna will be here for my birthday next Wednesday
5. My mum and dad (love you guys)

Have a great weekend.

Till next time

Great weekend

Blogger is not making me happy at the moment. Was going to share with you a very happy flower piccie and Blogger does not want you guys to see it right now. GRRR!

You know what does make me happy? The fact that my mum and dad check my blog and comment. Love you guys so much and am so blessed to have you as parents. I am almost finished a LO on them so when I finish I'll post it so you can all see how cool they are.

And thank you to everyone else who leaves me messages. Big thanks to Angus for his message the other day - so cute!

Had a great weekend. I was supposed to take a group of kids from church up to Lake Mountain to go tobogganing but there was just not enough snow up there to warrant the two hour trip up there so we took them bowling instead. Gotta love bowling. Really brings out the competitive side in people.

So because I didn't have to be up at the crack of dawn to get the kids to the snow, I had a really relaxing Saturday. Andrew and I met Richard & Katie and their 2 gorgeous girls, Miriam (3) and Hannah (1) at Eastland for breakfast. Apparently I am Miriam's favourite person at the moment so I got to ride on the Thomas train around the shopping centre with her. Was such a precious experience. She waved at all the shoppers and just had an absolute ball on the train.

Spent the rest of the day cleaning the house and pottering around till bowling at night

Sunday we went to church in the morning and then spent the rest of the day at our friends' Scottie and Kathryn's house. It was supposed to be for lunch and then I was going to help them organise some photos in frames, but Andrew and I didn't leave their until after 8:00pm. It ended up being lunch and tea! These guys are the most precious friends and Andrew and I are so blessed with so many awesome people in our lives that we can call friends. And their son Ethan is such a fantastic kid. I had so much fun playing with him outside. Such a cool little dude.

Fairly busy week ahead. Andrew is going to a school camp on Wednesday (till Friday). They are off to Sovereign Hill and he is really looking forward to it. Should be a great experience for him and the kids. They all get to dress up in Colonial costume and do school like it would have been done back in the goldrush day. Have told him to take the camera to get a shot of himself all dressed up.

And I have a fundraising trivia and auction night coming up on Saturday night so I am running around all over the place this week getting things organised for that and trying to get some more donations of things to auction. Anyone got anything they want to donate, or any ideas??

Anyway, 5 things I am grateful for
1. The people in my life who I am grateful to call friends
2. Beautiful flowers
3. A sunny, windy day yesterday to get washing done (and actually dried) all on the same day
4. A train ride with my special little girlfriend Miriam
5. The opportunity to hang out, and share with the younger girls at Church yesterday

Off to play basketball tonight, so hopefully we'll get another win

Till next time, take time to smell the flowers.

Bronze Medallion

As part of the new Safety & Care procedures in working with children and youth at The Salvation Army, you aren't not allowed to take kids anywhere near water unless one of the leaders has a Bronze Medallion. Gone are the days when we just let the kids wander free, eh? So that leader is going to be me. I am going to go for my Bronze Medallion on first weekend in October. That's kinda scary cause although I am a pretty good swimmer, I am majorly unfit. One of the assessments I have to do is swim 400m in 13 minutes. Easy I said. But then they said "CONTINUOSLY." Like, no stopping for a 5 second breather. Just hit the wall and turn around again. AHHH! So my training is starting this Saturday morning down at the local pool. Andrew is going to come down with me and make sure I actually do laps - not just swan around!
The other thing that is slightly freaking me out is that I am going to have to spend a weekend with strangers - in my bathers. Am hoping the training and better eating (as of now) will work some magic on my flabby bits by then. 7th October - that's 8 weeks to lose about 12 kgs. HA! I'll aim for 8 (and hopefully make at least 5!)

5 things I am grateful for today
1. Lost Finale tonight - love that show but getting frustrated at the same time
2. More stuff donated for our fundraising auction night
3. Zucchini slice for tea - sounds gross but is so nice
4. Some time to scrapbook tonight
5. Motivation to get fit

Till next time

The Book of Everything

I'm halfway through reading a little book called The Book of Everything by Guus Kuijer. My friend Marina loaned it to me and it is such a gorgeous, moving book. It's about a nine year old boy named Thomas whose strictly religious father rules their house with his fists and a wooden spoon (with which he beats Thomas), and who insists that the family live according to the Bible. But Thomas finds an escape route from his misery - he sees incredible things that no one else notices such as the tropical fish which swim in the canal, and the frogs that fill the street and try to climb through the letterbox. Thomas starts to record all his observations in a notebook, which he calls "The Book of Everything". In it he also records his dearest ambition: to be happy. But he is not sure it will ever be possible with his father around. One day, however, Thomas meets his neighbour Mrs Van Amersfoot, a widow whose husband was executed by the Nazis and who is consequently something of a rebellious spirit. She recognises a similar spirit Thomas and encourages him not to be frightened or to believe that he's all alone in his battle for happiness. She plays him Beethoven records and lends him books. Thomas discovers that in the fight against his father, his uniqueness, and in particular, the extraordinary power of his imagination, are the biggest weapons he possesses.
It's such an awesome little book and is really making me think about the extraordinary nature of the human brain and the capacity it has for imagination. This book is actually a children's novel but it's well worth the read as an adult

5 things I am grateful for today
1. Loving parents who taught me about faith not religion
2. The ability to imagine
3. A ministry to kids at my local high school
4. A great night out with girlfriends on Saturday night
5. Great books

Till next time

I've finished a LO

So I finally finished a LO. Had the stuff for this one sitting on my desk for about two weeks and I sat down on Wednesday and did it. Didn't turn out at all how I had planned but I'm really happy with it. I'm just happy to have done another LO. Am at home by myself tonight and all day tomorrow so hopefully I'll be inspired to do some more.

Just got an email from my best friend in Adelaide - the pregnant one. She sent through a picture of her pregnant belly. She looks so cute. I'm bummed I can't go over for her baby shower at the end of the month but I have to save all my money for Fiji in January. But hopefully I am doing up some invitations for her so that will be my contribution to the party.

5 things I am grateful for today
1. All the businesses in my local area who have donated stuff for our fundraising auction night in a couple of weeks. So generous!
2. Homemade pizza for tea
3. A fairly free weekend to scrapbook (fingers crossed)
4. A healthy pregnancy for my friend Cath
5. A gorgeous sunny day

Till next time

20 days to go

So it's only 20 days to go till my birthday. I can't believe that. Usually it takes ages for my birthday to come around but this year is zooming by. It's around this time that my family usually starts asking me what I want for a birthday present and I usually say - "I don't know." Well for once, this year I actually know what I want.


1. A pair of Crocs (which I found out that my local Rebel Sport sell-woo hoo)
Loved these shoes ever since I tried a pair on at Katie's house (their house is like Croc city!) so I am hoping to get myself a pair of these bad boys for myself. They are supposed to be like the most comfy shoes ever. I may even have to get two pairs - it's too hard to choose what colour i want. There's like 20 different colours - pink, khaki, chocolate, navy, lime, light blue, orange, red.. the list goes on!!



2. Toteally Cool tote from AMM
Loving this funky little scrapbooking bag to hold all my pens and tools in. And loving the green and black.

Love birthdays (don't know if I'll be saying that in 20 years time though!)

On the scrapbooking front, have almost finished my first LO since the retreat 5 weeks ago. It's been tough trying to finish it off but I am determined to finish tonight and hopefully my mojo will be restored. Will post a picture once it's done

Anyway, gotta run

5 things I am grateful for today
1. Central heating
2. Hot cups of tea
3. A win at Basketball on Monday night
4. A night at home tonight with Andrew
5. My 3 chickens for laying us eggs every day.

And one thing I am not grateful for - INTREST RATE RISE. All I can say is What The...????
Sometimes I really don't like being a grown up and having to deal with stuff like mortgages and interest rates and petrol prices. Being an adult sucks!!

Till next time,

TAGGED

I've been tagged by the lovely Katie so here goes
1. How old are you? 26 (27 on August 23)
2. How many kids do you have if any? None but hopefully that won't be the case for too much longer
3. Are you married, single, divorced, widow? Married to Andrew for 5 years.
4. What is your occupation? I am a youth worker with The Salvation Army
5. What are your passions? God, my husband, my family, the kids I work with, scrapbooking
6. Are you a dreamer or a dream seeker? I think I am a bit of both. There are things I dream about but don't have the guts to just go and do and there are other dreams I just seek out, jump right in and do
7. Are you happy with the way you life has turned out? Definitely. There are probably things, looking back, that I would have done better but i'm happy with where I am at the moment and am looking forward to what's ahead
8. Are you a scrapper and if so how many hours a week do you scrap? I am a scrapper and would love to say I scrapbook 4-5 hours a week but the last few weeks there has been none so on average maybe 2-3 hours a week (averaged over the whole year)
9. What do you want to do before you die? Have babies, travel back to Africa, travel overseas, win Austalian Idol!!
10. What is your favorite food? I am going to be greedy and have a few favs - Chocolate in any form, Watermelon, avocados, roast turkey with cranberry sauce.
11. What is the food you hate the most?Peas, tomatoes and bananas - I think I have a thing about mushy stuff.
12. What is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you?
Although I can be easily embarassed at times, one most embarassing thing does not spring to mind. I'll have a think about that and let you know.
13. What is the happiest day of your life thus far? Well I think my wedding day is a given but after that the day Andrew proposed to me.
14. Are you a neat freak? Or a dirty house cleaner? I really do like having a clean, tidy house (although as my mum and dad will vouch for, my bedroom when I was younger was an absolute pigsty - they used to joke that they never knew my room had a floor). It just makes me feel better when I sit down and relax to know that I can do just that. In saying that, my house is not always clean and tidy. My mum will be so proud of me for saying that.

Now I will tag Marina, Nat and Sofi

Will post again later tonight (including my 5 things)