Grrrrrrrrrrrrr........... AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
ooooh it's gonna be an awesome year - thank you to a faithful and merciful God!! we kicked off this year with a tops night in the Red Room. Scott was awesome with his talk... "it's not about you". he read out this amazing stories of people who lived a life of abandonment - disowning themselves to Jesus. And we played handball by black light which was heaps of fun too, and very glowy. there's was a real air of excitement and enthusiasm which was mad. and it was fantastic to have now Lachie and Heather on board. Jesus we want all glory to go to you at GAP. make it what you want it to be!!
i complain too much. i just read a thing that challenged me about that. i don't want to be known as a whinger. there is so much to be thankful for. and to complain is so often a selfish thing "woe is me"
i wonder what life would be like as a cat... i look at xander and think he must just have a ball all day, everyday. so much sleeping. and fed when he wants. and all the adventures chasing butterflies, and shadows, and invisible movey thingys. and eating grass. and rolling around in the dirt. sounds tops!
...those are some top moments. had one of those times today. driving to work i got a huge sense of overwhelm-ment. not necessarily because of anything in particular, but mostly directed at the hugeness of this year i think. i guess too mainly to do with work. as well coz we have staffing issues with work - not enough people available to work. so i got a bit stressed. i tried to give it to God, telling him i didn't know what to do and that it's all too big and i don't want to do it. i was pretty honest with him. then i felt a bit more at peace with it all. til i got to work, and the problems got a little more complicated. then i felt like i was gonna cry for about an hour. howie said it'd be funny if i did. but i don't like crying, so i didn't. after a little while though, i decided it will all be ok. and that i won't think too much about it all. and that God indeed does know what he's doing, even though i don't know what his big scheme of figuring outness is. so now, i just sit and wait and watch what will unfold. and in the meantime, fill in the gaps with myself where i can.
and then i walked into one of the computer monitors on the floor in the middle of the office, and that bruised my leg. owww.
i just found my copy of 'no compromise' on the piano this morning. i think tazz had it for about 2 years, after tim had it for almost 2 years. i reread bits of it just quickly. it's such a tops book. so powerful. God's work through Keith Green was amazing... is amazing.
oh how much do i suck... tim and my reign of all things trivial ended last night. and it didn't just end - it crashed and burned. dan and margaret/jo ripped it up, as did brett and brad. and me and tim tried again and again for that history piece of pie, and it just didn't work. so i take my hat off to you dan.
jakey leaves on wednesday - but had a little schbang yesterday to send him off. was meant to be at bronte - but the dodgy morning weather forced him to make a call, and so we all ended up going to his place in beecroft. it was a really fun day. trusty old australia day BBQ, good mates, lots of laughter, the cricket etc etc. was heaps good talking lots with phil, todd, lachie, shell, chuck, and snow. and good to see so many people happy to be sending off Jake :) hehe. it'll be a huge year for him and gen though - africa and all around the place. big experiences! it's funny all these people taking off to different parts of the world. i don't have much of a desire to travel. i mean i don't mind it. but i guess i've done my bit maybe already. it's nice to see places, and take photos and all that. but if i didn't leave Australia again, it wouldn't bother me i don't think.
fun then too was going to longreef beach after jake's place - more of a tighter crowd at that - although various people disappeared to go spearfishing, or kite surfing, or running. it was fun saying my 'last' goodbye to jake - and him typically picking me up, and threatening to throw me in the water. i'll miss him! i don't think tim will ;)
I saw 'the pianist' last night with tim. now to start with i've got a bit of a cold happening, so i'm not the most switched on i've ever been, but what a powerful, and horrible, movie. they didn't really seem to scrimp on any detail, and i just cannot fathom how people can treat other human beings like that. i know we still see it all the time today - iraq, zimbabwe, afghanistan, but even here as people take life for granted. but such a huge huge waste and extermination of human life, for such un-understandable and unjustifiable reasons. and it was a true story. and these things did happen. and that is mind blowing. tim and i were then talking about australia, and how it'd have to be a direct war on australia for anything too huge to happen. no one really cares about this 'little' country on the world scene - as long as we don't become too friendly with America maybe. that might be a totally simplified look at things, and maybe it's just more of a hoping nothing could happen here, but that doesn't stop it from happening elsewhere - bombs, shootings, mass executions, armies, wars... it's all so depressing. but thankfully we have a gracious and compassionate God who knows everything that is going on, and who will return with peace and comfort and joy. and thats not just some airy fairy thing. he is here, he is now. and that is comforting. nothing that can ever happen is bigger than him "what can mortal man do to me?"
how good was last night's electrical storms! me and sam watched them for two hours at newport beach - just hanging on the sand talking for hours and watching all the lightning and impressiveness of it all. it was mad! such a good catchup too. sam, you're tops. fun too was coming back to my house to watch the end of the nailbiting cricket with my family. what a cack!
i have to get one filling - thought so. and then more xrays re: wisdom teeth, just for precaution or something. i couldn't be bothered getting them out - they don't bother me much, so no point?! but ouch - $120 for a 20min check up and xrays. phoaw!! plus more filling later and the extra x-rays. mannnn!!!
eek! i have dentist appointment today. and i'm a bit worried. i haven't been for a few years, and i think she's gonna tell me i need at least one filling. i've never had anything like that before. so i hope it's all good. but eek!
i'm excited coz i get to play with sam tomorrow night before he goes to egypt for 5 weeks with kirri. i miss sam. i haven't seen him for weeks! and then on saturday morning i'm playing with libby before she goes to byron bay for 3 months. i miss libby so much - i miss our friendship and the wonderful person she is. so that will be awesome. and then saturday night it's kirri and sam's "farewell" so i get to see a number of people there that it's been a while with - like tim dabinett. i miss him too! then on monday it's a bbq at bronte beach to farewell jake and gen who'll be going away for a year to africa, and europe and america. no jake for a year - that's crazy!! he'll surely be missed. and then i'm a bit bummed coz erin rang me tonight to go to her place tomorrow to hang out with her and the GAP girls, but i'm playing with sam. too many options!! but sam i won't see for 5 weeks, and the girls i'll see twice a week - so it's a fair enough sacrifice me thinks. it's good to catch up with people. the next one to see is chuckie, before she goes away for a while. everyone's going away. not me. but that i don't mind.
Kaia and Mark are engaged! Ki messaged me on Monday with the good news! So congrats to you both!! I want to know more of the story though!! (if you're reading this Kaia!!)
its funny how there's walking etiquette. (for early morning walks) it's a well known fact that you at least acknowledge your fellow walkers - "good morning" "morning" "hello" "hi" a smile and eye contact. it tends to be similar for evening walking too. but middle of the day 'normal' walking it's totally different - head down with no eye contact. strange. but it's also funny in the mornings when walkers aren't heaps keen to acknowledge other people. and i always feel discouraged by people not saying hello, especially if i've already said it - makes you feel pretty stupid. but there's these three people i always see, and always get a lovely greeting from. and two of those people (a couple) i've started forming a bit of a relationship with. like this morning - coz i haven't been out early much yet this year - the maureen's husband was plenty chatty noting my absence recently, and telling me about his dogs. people can be so friendly. and that makes me go yay.
there a moments when i love the beach - and there are moments when i feel i despise it. it's not the beach i despise - more the experience. the sand, the suncream, the wind, the sunburn, the glare, the cold water, the bluebottles, the seaweed, the swimming costume... but todays beach experience was pleasant enough - despite cold water and sandy southerly wind. we ventured out at 8:30am - luke elk, squeaky, joel, me, tim, matty, stu, benjamin, deb, deb dab and laura - and headed out to narrabeen. not too bad. got some foods as well. and ventured back home again. it was fun to chat with peoples. we had quite a spread of ages and backgrounds. that's one of the things i really appreciate about church - the range of people you meet and become friends with. i love hanging out with people like squeaky who can be such an idiot (in a hilarious way!) sometimes, but also come out with some really profound statements and questions. in the middle of everything this morning, he comes out with "i was reading it last night - what's the deal with ezekiel?" and he really wants to know and understand what it means. and then random joel goes "oh yeh, the last samurai is an awesome movie". me and daws were so lost as to his thought patterns. oh well. nah, but younger guys are so cool to hang around, not just coz fun and funny, but coz they often surprise you with their faith.
when i approached my work to work for them in march 2002, i offered to be working in Wombat Wardrobe - our 2nd hand clothing and bric-a-brac store. I ended up never working a single shift in there... until today. we needed emergency wombat ladies. so howie and i stepped up. i think howie did a superb job. he got right into it: trying on clothes (particularly women's) was his specialty i think. but i had much nervousness being a shopkeeper. compared to mr. natural, howie. the bizarre thing was my hands didn't stop shaking the whole time. and that was almost 2 hours. i must have been pretty nervous. but now i've done it - i've worked in wombat. it's pretty fun - you get to use a pricing gun, and a cash register, and talk to funny people, and sit down. top job.
after that me and howie played handball in the office for a while. then after work we played out on the path until it was time for howie to catch the train with ryan. so then i went home too. next week i'm 'team leader' coz i'm the only one in the office for the week. got plenty of work to keep me occupied though. it's all good.
i've decided to call any unproductive time at work "lunch break", coz we don't really have a lunch break. today's lunch break involved a slapping fight, between howie and myself. he declared war. and i think he won. but i got the last two in at the very end of the day. but then i apologised. so again he wins. but it hurt a lot - very red arms, with very burny feelings, and sore muscles from swinging to hit. my oh my... the maturity.
i can't believe it's already 2 weeks into 2004. it's crazy. but what's very cool is that tim and i are still powering with the see each other every day so far this year thing! i know it'll cease pretty soon - but it's fun in the meantime anyway! hehe.
how come the most inconvienient things happen at the most inconvienient times? or is it just that the thing or the timing is inconvienient - hmmmm...
i don't like bugs. i guess it's the creepy-crawlyness. maybe coz they tickle. maybe because they bite and make me itchy or sore. maybe coz i'm scared of cockroaches crawling into my ears at night and nesting and laying eggs, and baby cockcroaches burrowing into my neck.... yuuuk! and all that is my reason for loving mortein and other bug sprays - only in inside purposes coz that's my domain not theirs. they can have outside (unless it's on the verandah - that's still my domain). except it's fun to watch ants go about their business. but i dunno. i just don't like bugs.
i enjoyed being back at work - i think we all did. it'd been a while. and in some ways it felt like it hadn't been any time at all since we three were last in the office. howie and steve are so much fun. and we did get quite a bit done today which was good! tomorrow tim's coming in to set up our new computers - 2 new dell's. how exciting. after i got home from work, i sat around for a bit talking to my sis and parentals. after dinner i went to tim's where there were two surprise visitors - luke and matt had run through the bush for over an hour to tim's house. and so i drove them back to cherrybrook. apparently tim wasn't planning to drive them home, but they saw me coming and knew i'd say yes. and i did. after that tim and i watched a dvd downstairs. and then brad came home after a couple weeks in Tassie with michelle. so that was cool chatting to him a bit. took a quick look at some of his piccies. there is the grossest picture (and i only saw it in index card size) of a blister on karen's heel the size of at least a ping pong ball diameter. yik! they certainly did some heavy duty walking! and an exciting development today - mum bought grapes. i love grapes.
back to work tomorrow. that's cool. i like the people i work with and i haven't seen them for almost 3 weeks. and i only have a four day week this week, coz i have some schmancy lunch on wednesday for my aunt's 50th. i think that although holidays rock (like today i got up, read the paper for an hour, watched Fellowship cast commentary, went to tim's for the arvo, then church, then hang at my house, before picking up my car and coming home to internet) i guess it'll be good for me to get back into actually doing something. so yay for work.
'that 70s show' certainly has it's funny moments. some of the rest of it may be a little rude, or a little crude, or whatever, but often it does make me laugh. i like to laugh. yesterday i was a bit mopey for some reason or another, of which i'm not really aware of, but i was a little subjued you may say. tim and i went into the city at about 6pm to walk around, check out the Sydney Festival offerings, and get some dinner etc. and i was a bit quiet etc (which me not knowing what's wrong justifiably drives both me and tim a little mental). but after dinner tim did the best thing to cheer me up - he pulled out all three of the funniest things ever that he does - "a croodle...", "ben and steve" and "adam". i laughed VERY loud and quite long. maybe a bit too loud. we were walking to macquarie street so there weren't too many people around to think i was crazy. but that just about made my night, and things looked much more up from there. good on ya tim!
Freckles
Water
Tan
Bulla frozen yoghurt
Sleep (oh yeah)
Time with tim
Laughter
That 70s Show
Singing worship songs
Breezes
Walking
Clean teeth
Long plaits
A watch that works
Airconditioning
Emails
Text messages
Sales
Lazy nights with a couch and video
Pretty views
French onion dip
Organisedness
Feeling connected to God
Driving without paying for petrol
Xander
Stretching
Reminiscing
Photos
Hanging out with old friends
Table tennis
Quality DVDs
Nectarines
Grapes
Sea spray
It seems – not just coz of holidays either – that I spend a lot of time passing time. Like waiting for certain events, “it’s only 3 days til ….”, or thinking about more longer time periods. I don’t feel like I live much in the moment, or take advantage of the opportunities (whatever that might mean) that present themselves. I’m not sure why it’s like that for me. It’s been like that for quite a while though. maybe it’s a hopefulness of future things being tops and looking forward to that (or getting past things in the future that aren’t so fun, and seeing the relief in that) Or maybe it’s just a disengagement from everything. I really don’t know. I haven’t thought all that much about it. But it frustrates me a bit.
what a walk! timand i walked it (well most of it) yesterday evening. 2.5 hours nonstop taking us from manly to clontarf, to sydney road and along that back to manly. (but its ok howie coz it wasn't spit to manly so nothing 'exciting' happened). some pretty good views. photo worthy, except for the brown layer all over the place coz of the bush fires. but quite a workout. my back's telling me i should improve my posture! only 3 days left of holidays. better make the most of it!
tim, me, cath, chris, shell and lach went 'wondabowl'ing at Castle Hill this evening - $18 for two games - phoaw! And I'm very excited to say I ripped it up winning both games - boo yeh! with tops scores of 122 (oh yeh) and then me and tim tied 1st on 105 in the 2nd game. really quite depressing scores, but yay. it was lots fun hanging out with chris and cath, and lach and shell. they're tops people. good to see cath a bit more often. it's a bit strange being best friends, and never seeing one another. but it's good to know that it doesn't matter if we see each other or not. the bond is still there! i reckon that deb and lach should hook up coz then there's three fun weddings all involving cath, me and deb, and two involving cath, me, deb, chris and lachie. hehe! and i'm HEAPS sure that'll happen!!
which is a bit of a bummer, coz i was looking forward to it. kathy had asked me at the same time that mal had asked someone else, and his someelse won. oh well. probably for the best. somehow.
there was a change in plans with the cooler weather - birkenhead point was today - for me and tim to spend all the money we both don't have. i didn't buy a thing. but that's ok. and then tomorrow is warringah mall day - not sure why we keep going shopping when we never buy anything and can't afford to anyway. silly people.
gap meeting tonight - with new team member Lachie. that's very exciting. i like Lachie. and i'm proud of him taking this step, when it's something he's pretty scared to do. and he prayed lots about it, and i think he'll be good value. so hopefully tonight is highly productive. i like scott's thoughts about how we could plan the whole year tonight - and then have catch up meetings throughout the year - so for maximum efficiency and more team time too i guess. i'm having to start to think more about getting back into things, with gap and with work. i seemed to have totally switched off my brain over these holidays. really taking in the non-working, non-responsibility type stuff. not that i'm not keen about getting back into it, coz i miss the fun of gap kiddies and cafe kiddies, but i just have to be preparing myself again. ooh, and at birkenhead today i saw april who's a girl from our trips, who's from Mt Druitt. I said hi.
and i do hope that steve waugh has a nice end of test-cricket-time. i think he's tops (except for all the swearing and sledging stuff).
i've had two nights a dodgy sleep. well, the sleeping's been ok, but then in the morning i get really fidgetty and can't sleep proper, and a bit nostril stuffed. i'd like to have a nice sleep. maybe i'll go have a nap soon.
would it like to be any hotter these days?? hoorah for warringah mall and beach tomorrow then. so much water and swimming though. i had 5 showers in 24 hours. not good for water restrictions - although they weren't particularly lengthy. much smarter today, as i predict at least another swim coming up tonight at tim's. how good is it having neighbours away, so you can use their pool! awesome. hoorah for alvin and lyn. enjoy your holiday!
or maybe more precisely - 'kilometreage'. (that looks weird) my sister has driven over 4000km in her car in less than 2 months. THAT is CRAZY!! but Sabotage (that's our car's name) is still powering on! what a champ of a car. and he's almost 13 years old! go the toyota seca. quality vehicle that.
yesterday evening tim and i went on adventures around bradleys head, mosman and cremorne. we went walking for about 2.5 hours from parking at the wharf at the bottom of taronga zoo, out to bradleys head (which is pretty cool with the war stuff) and back around to cremorne point along the harbour edge. bit of a trek in parts. and it was a pretty warm arvo too. although we were walking after 6pm - it's just light forever these days. but the city was looking pretty good - especially when it got more night-time - and i like walking. and no mossie bites - hoorah!! so maybe we can do some more such walks around the place. one day we'll do that spit to manly walk.... one day :)
debs is home - yay! she's been in melbourne for over a week. she's only home for a day (til 3:30pm) and then tomorrow is off to a camp at vision valley for another 5 days. but i like debbie. except she did heaps of shopping in melbourne and bought three skirts just like my new one. grrrr... :)
apparently i'm going to be housesitting the walker's for 2 weeks, coz they're dog needs to stay home, and needs someone to look after since injuring self during the new years fireworks - poor thing. so that's fun, coz the walker's live about 700m down the road from tim. and i like the walker's. i've never housesat before. i think debs will come too though, coz otherwise it might be a bit scary in a big house i don't know very well. funny is that after years of having boys housesit for them, they want girls this time. i reckon it's coz jon pratt always breaks things.
i guess i should recap. we had a HUGE new years... nah it was fun but. there was just luke, tim, me and luke elk. quite subjued really. we hung at luke's place for a while. started to watch 'phone booth' while waiting for elkman, but once he arrived we were off. we went to narrabeen - very very cold water. but kept ourselves amused there for a while. then to dee why for an early dinner - and a visit to some pretty bodgy stores - some cash traders place, a pet shop, a closed charcoal chicken. then to dee why beach for but a moment (although i got a park which was very exciting and unexpected). next we ventured on to manly in search of 'cold rock'. and magically we found it. went for a stroll on the harbour side of manly along that pathway that goes somewhere. then back for icecream, before travelling up to north head to see the 9 o'clock fireworks. it's a bit of a trek for 20mins - no shoes mean very sore feet! i love how you watch fireworks from north head, and the sound is so far behind. everyone held their cheers until the last of the "boom"s were heard - even though the sight had finished about 15 seconds earlier. we chatted with a few poms on the way back to the car, and then headed back to good old cherrybrook for some table tennis, music, television, plenty of food, and the midnight festivities. after those fireworks (with jenny and neil's company also) we played more table tennis (i only won one game out of about five - mawww), and eventually went lights off at 2am after elkman left. although, me and luke, and tim a bit too, proceeded to talk for another 2 hours. and the dawson floor is not the most comfortable in the world. so sleepover seediness has been at it's peak today. but it was fun to usher in the new year with tim and the luke's. hope debs had fun in melbourne. she's such a little party animal!