packing

annie and i sharing love in the kitchen. (please note i am getting hassled from my mother for photos, so aaron took this before dinner tonight - hope this is good enough for now mama).

i packed another box or two today. that's a good thing. for those of you who don't know, we are being evicted. the owner of our rented house lives overseas and is moving home and wants to live in his house. how rude. so packing is the go. it doesn't help that i like to keep things (some people refer to this as hoarding) and it doesn't help that i have things here that mum and dad and darren all left behind for me to look after. but that's ok. things always work out.

i also packed for camp tonight. for the next two nights i will be out in the bush, hiking and camping, yes, real camping - tents, no showers, no toilets - with 20 yr 9 (14yr olds) kids. it should be fun. the weather looks like it will be fine. i love spending time with the kids like this. it's awesoem - as long as i get sleep. sorry to those who were around when i was 12-16, i rarely slept when i went on camps and i am realising more and more how frustrating this must have been for some people.

did you realise that today, while i was driving around and packing and doing all these odd jobs, and you were doing what you were doing, that 30,000 children died due to extreme poverty...

competitions and weddings

i am a competition person. i love them. i always am entering competitions. not to the point that i enter ones i don't want to win. but you know, i never win. actually, that'a a lie. i did win a competition once when i was in primary school. i can't remember what it was, but i won $25 to put into my commonwealth bank dollarmite savers account. i think i was in grade 5??? my theory is that if you enter competitions, one day, surely you've got to win something. i mean my friends dad won a car. a teacher at school won a trip to europe. mum won myer vouchers, darren won money on deal or no deal. people do win things. surely it must be my turn soon!!!

anyway, had a good weekend. i had louise's hens night (see picture below) on friday night - my cousin for whom i am a bridesmaid in january. it will go down in history. we were going to have karaoke and dinner at this nice place then go and have dessert and games at briony's house. turns out there was no dinner and the place (shanghi club little burke street - don't ever go there) was not so great. so we all headed back to briony's much sooner than expected and had noodle box instead. the night was great in the end.

still on the wedding theme. i scored myself a gig doing amanda's hair next week for her wedding and all her bridesmaids too. that will be fun. i'll remember to put some photo's of that on a blog after the wedding (mum's asking for them!!!). so, after the hair trial this morning i made it to the shops and finally found something to wear (to jayne and amanda's weddings - don't tell anyone that i'll be wearing the same dress - two different crowds). special thanks to sarah, who after i randomly bumped into her, came and had a look at the dress with me!

lastly, congratulations to jane anderson (or scottish jane as she's known around here) who got engaged this week!!!

thanks mum

mum forwarded this email to me today. i liked it.

Charles Schultz Philosophy

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schultz, the creator of the "Peanuts" comic strip. You don't have to actually answer the questions. Just read the e-mail straight through, and you'll get the point.
1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winner for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?
The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:
1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?
The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones that care.

Remember the people who have made a difference in your life.
"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia."
(Charles Schultz)

racing around

i spend a lot of my life racing from one thing to the next. this week i have something on every night. that is a usual week for me. anyway, this morning i was driving to work and i have two routes that i usually take. the first way, and the second way which is becoming my new favourite way. the second was is burwood highway and if i leave for work earlier and get a green light run, it would be the quickest way to go. i did that this morning as thought i was going to get a new record - currently it's 11 minutes. i was two turns away from the new record - maybe 9 minutes, when this big yellow signed jumped out at me DETOUR. i was so mad. the chance of the record was gone. i all of a sudden became 9 turns away from school. but then i was driving down these streets i had never driven down before and i suddenly thought. how much do we miss out on because we do the same thing the same way all the time. just by doing one thing a little differently, would we have a new, different experience without much effort. now don't get me wrong i am not going to continue to drive the extra 7 turns to get to school, i do want to get a new record one day soon, but i am thankful for the experience and what it made me think.

act justly. love mercy. walk humbly.

i spent the afternoon with some great friends. i had a bbq with most of my friends from work (and some who no longer work with us) down at jodie's. we had a great time, with too much food as per usual. non stop chatter and laughter, aslo as per usual. i think that i should mention chris. thanks chris for reading my blogs (chris is tam's husband).

act justly. love mercy. walk humbly.
this is how God wants us to live. day in, day out, when we feel like it, when we don't.

darryl crowden spoke at church tonight. he's a salvo officer from our church who spent the first three months of the year working in sri lanka with salvo emergency relief efforts after the tsunami. he spoke very powerfully, finishing with the idea that God doesn't ask us if we are able, just if we are available. that word keeps popping up in my life at the moment. everytime it does, i know that the choices i have made about my immediate future are the right ones. he told us about some of the things he had done in sri lanka. one thing they were working on was getting new houses built. each house only cost about $800 aussie dollars. by now, he said, the salvo's in the area he was working in had managed to get 50 (i think) new homes built. i still find it so hard to comprehend what those people would be going through. one couple on a video he showed, had lost their 3 children - all swept out of their arms. their house, gone. they were hoping for a new house to live in so they could start to rebuild their lives. darryl told us that they are way down the list for a house because they do not have children. the other night i happened to watch the news. the first 10 minutes was all about how the socceroos had qualified for the world cup. not won it, just qualified. now, while i do love sport, and am excited about the socceroo's, at the time i said isn't there anything else going on in the world right now? there is.

court, gaol, scrape and bay

i went on an excursion today. firstly to the coroner's court. interesting. a homicide case. then later onto the old melbourne goal. i surprisingly enjoyed this visit. i thought it was going to be a bit boring at the gaol, but i really enjoyed it! i wished we could have stayed longer. oh well. i guess i just thought boring, but there were some good stories and interesting things. mum and dad were going to alcatraz this week and it made me realise that you sometimes take for granted what's in the city you live in. i mean i was so jealous of mum and dad, but i have already been there and instead i got to learn some new things about my own city. an eye opening day.
it was all going beautifully til we got back to the train station and i found that someone had left me some lovely scrapes down the side of my car and they were kind enough to do it anonymously!!! i have had to tell myself repeatedly it doesn't matter it's only a car.
then i finished the day with a swim in the bay. for my bronze course - to be a surf life saver. the water was actually much warmer than expected so that was nice.
that's all for today.

IR rights - strike

today i did something i have never done before. i was part of a protest march. i even got in the spirit and was wearing a red poncho (as were many other australian education members - aeu). annie took a photo, i'll see if i can get it. if you are an aussie, then i am sure you would have seen it on the news tonight. they are saying there was about 150 000 people in melbourne today and about 500 000 around the nation. i was a little disappointed with the way the news described the event, of course, they didn't mention the actual issues of the new ir laws they are trying to bring, that annoyed me a little. if you do want to know more, go to www.yourrightsatwork.com.au to undertand it a little more.

after hearing about the legislation, while convinced that my rights as a teacher were going to be pretty safe, the push from the aeu was to stand up for the rights of our students who would end up in lower rated/valued? jobs that would be affected. i was down with that. but, when i got to the march, i was really moved seeing so many 'working class' people there who really could be affected by these new laws. i was glad that i had made the effort to get out of bed on a day that i would have just loved to have had a sleep in and even that i had given up a day's pay in the first place.

it's important to me to do my best to be proactive where i think that justice is not being served. and sometimes i suck at it, but today i know i did the right thing.

matt & the mercy rule

matt parker preached tonight at church and he was good.
he talked about 'the mercy rule'. the idea came from when his basketball team was getting trashed last monday night and the opposing team could only have one player outside the 3 point line defending, it's the mercy rule.
anyway he went on to talk about how God's whole way of functioning is on the mercy rule. how does God's mercy get shown on earth? through people!
his main points were how can we show people God's mercy.
1) STOP. take time out of our busi-ness to stop and help someone who needs it
2) URGE others towards Jesus.
3) HELP others to see what life can be like with God.

but above all of these, DON"T WAIT for the cry of help.

he was good. (thanks matt)

also, beth was leading worship. i love her honesty. just before the meeting closed, she asked the congregation if anyone else had seen the rat run up the tree in the courtyard outside during matt's sermon. i saw it. so did others. what concerned beth was that it hadn't come back down!!!

thanks kez and wendy for the comments and to bec winter too, she says she's going to comment soon! thanks ladies. oh and of course i can't forget the ever faithful tamara and kylie who of course read my blog all the time (they both just like getting their names mentioned. it makes them feel important, who am i to stand in the way of that???!!!)

why?

why doesn't anyone hardly ever make a comment on my blog?

hot, rain, hot, rain...

hot, rain, hot, rain, this is the weather pattern for the last few days. it is melbourne, so it is crazy, like when i say hot, i mean hot, and when i say rain, i mean rain.

i was chatting with some of the girls tonight and the discussion got around to money. i got really aggitated. it can be such a big thing. sure ok, it's nice to be set up for the future, but really, is it that important? money can be such a powerful thing and our money can do so much more for others (talking here about those with nothing in our world - no food, no clean water, no shelter, no clothes) than it could do for us! living in nice middle class suburbia, teaching at a nice middle class school means for me, it could be quite easy to fall into the trap of wanting to make sure i have nice things, go nice places, live in a nice house, wear nice clothes, drive a nice car. but i have been thinking lately about how important this really all is to me. not that it has been important, but when you make big decisions about how you are going to spend the money you do have, you kind of have to think about it a bit more. i do agree that you have to be responsible with it. but what is responsible? is that to yourself to save enough money to buy a home with a few houndred thousand dollar loan or is it to spend a tenth of your home loan deposit so you can build a whole school in africa? is it to go and buy a new outfit or spend the same money (potentially less depending where you shop) on sponsoring a child for a whole year? how responsible are you with your money?

hezekiah

tonight i read a little about hezekiah. he was a man, a great man, well respected and a leader in his city. however, at one point in his life, his heart became full of pride. his pride almost lead to disaster for the whole city.
i am sure there are times in my life when my attitude and/or my pride means that someone else misses out on something good. what a waste. maybe a bad attitude towards someone, who then doesn't get to show their full potential. or maybe my pride stops me from asking someone for help, who may need to feel useful or needed at that time in their life. or i don't congratulate someone on something they got, but i didn't get, because i am jealous. i could go on...but i won't!
i have seen some of these things in my life over the last few months and i am glad to report that i have made improvements. these improvements have allowed there to be kindness and concern that wasn't there before.
what selfish attitudes/behaviours do you change to give others a fair chance???

(p.s. i had my first night tonight of training to become a surf life saver. my friend, Sarah, from school does it and i am going to do it with her this summer down at lorne!!!)

disturbing???

i was flicking through beth's vogue magazine that she left her after our pool party (yes, you can still have a pool party if your pool is 2 metres by 3 metres and is inflatable), when i came across this comment..

'i've had money. i've had no money. given the choice i would take money. it gives you some sense of mastery over your life'

what things do we need to have in our life to feel like we are in control? i have a friend who likes to be in control (yeah, i probably do too) and she has seen that while we don't like it, sometimes it's better not to be and to realise that God is, even when we don't feel like it.

is having money all that bad? no, if you can control it and use it to make a difference. yes, if it controls you.

hungry and thirsty...make change

God blesses those who are hungry and thirsty for justice.
this was the bible vrse talked about at church tonight. there are a few different versions of the bible and this verse comes out differently in them all. but the meaning is the same. another version had it something like happy are those who do what God wants them to.
God is not as concerned about what we do as He is with what our intentions are. i am not suggesting that it's ok just to have good intentions and nothing else. i am suggesting that it is ok that sometimes we have the best intentions possible, but we still fail or end up off track. i think the point here is that we have good intentions, that we are hungry and thirsty for justice, and we work at putting them into action. the verse doesn't say God blesses those who make justice happen or who have made big changes to the lives of those around them. these feats can be done by people who have the wrong intentions. the verse says God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice (or righteousness,as another version says). before you do anything, check your heart, why are you doing it?

this month the youth and young adults at our church are trying to go without or do something extra so we can pool our money to build a school in a poorer country than our own, we also hope to have extra money to pay for some children to be schooled and to help provide for child-run families (those families whose parents have died from aids and the oldest child is left to look after the other children). andy decided he is going to half his petrol costs and donate that moeny (luckily he is one of the country's top mid-long distance runners in his age group so he'll still get aorund) and hollie has committed to donating the whole of her next pay cheque from her part time job. i'm still coming up with my idea...

we are doing it through tear australia - go check out their website www.tear.org.au to see what you can do for those who are way less fortunate than we are. it doesn't take much to make change...

courageous?

for those of you wondering, my friend thought michael vartan was staying somewere at southgate? 3 of them actually went to try and spot him the other night to no avail. some of the things they do on alias are just crazy and i wonder if it was real life would anyone behave in the same way? don't get me wrong, i love the show. love it. i am not bagging it, just being real.

i have mentioned lots before that i don't want to live an ordinary life. tonight i was at bolt (high school aged church) and dan lian spoke. he talked about how at times we all have fear. but to break the fear, all we have to do is see the invisible God and we will get brave. for some supernatural reason, when a situation looks scray or grim but then you can see God in it, it doesn't look so dark anymore.

some of you will know that i just applied for a year off school. i am planning on spending 5-6 months next year in toronto, cananda. the whole thing came up rather quickly and while the idea is exciting, when i handed in that letter to take the year off, all of a sudden i was overcome with 'what have i just done?'. but since taking that step, i have had so many confirmations that i am doing the right thing, that while it is still scary, i can definitely see the invisible God and i have a peace that one who has just taken a year off wouldn't ordinarily have.

time

i learned a lesson today. it didn't take very long. here it is. if you want your blog page to get some serious hits, then just mention a t.v. star like i did with michael vartan. today, my blog page received almost as many hits as it did for the whole of last month. i only mentioned mv because i love alias. and while at times i thought i was obsessed with the show, i have discovered that i am just an ordinary fan. i didn't really know about any of the websites dedicated to the show, i thought there was only one (how naieve - actually i'm not sure how to spell that).

anyway. this made me think.

time is a precious commodity. if you could sell time, you'd be rich. i mean how many people would buy a few extra hours while on holiday or with a loved one who was dying or a few extra hours of sunshine on a beautiful day or a few extra hours to get that assignment done. time is precious. that's not a new idea.

i don't want to waste time. i am sure i do, but i don't want to. i even hate going to the toilet coz i think it's a waste of time. i watched a movie the other day (some may say that's a waste), but in it they were talking about death. an adult was trying to explain it to a child. they said that they believed everyone had a clock inside and when time was up, time was up! all of us have numbered days. we can spend them doing something that will outlast ourselves or we could spend them looking up tv stars on the internet...

i want my life to make a difference, to mean something, to build something that will last when i die. i guess that's partly why i became a teacher. it's why i invest into kids lives, my friends lives, the lives of my family. it also has to do with my faith in God and why i want to show others who He is. i do believe in life after death, heaven or hell, and i want everyone to be in heaven. while i'm not the judge who's going to decide who's in and who's out, i do believe i know where i will spend eternity and i want others to think about it too.

it's time to go....york st

so we at york street are being evicted, that's the big news for the day! i love this house. bugger. apparently the owner is moving back from overseas, so we have till the 20th december to get out! a bit unexpected and rather annoying, but i'm sure something will work out. though i'm not sure how it will match this place.

to those interested in the michael vartan case - today i spoke to someone who spoke to him on saturday. he's filming a movie in warbuton - that's the story. another of my friends sat at the table next to him on sunday night. oh and my other friend thinks she knows where he's staying.

there are a lot of things going on right now, in my life, not michael vartan's, i can't help but wonder what will happen next. i mean 4 weeks ago, i was happily planning on spending next year living at york street with aaron, brad and annie(?) and working at school. now, i don't know where i'll be living or what i'll be doing. that's two pretty big things not to know. i do believe there is a bigger picture plan for my life and i've always said i don't want to live an ordinary life, so i guess that this all just fits in together somehow. funnily enough, i think i am not that worried. i have a faith that allows me to trust when others might freak. i feel more content right now than 6 weeks ago, i think thats a good thing.

the beach

hello hello. i am back. i have been down at the beach - mccrae and safety beach since friday and have got home tonight! 4 glorious days and nights away. it was really great to have a break and even get some sun and go swimming!!! annie, jayne, cath and i went down friday night and stayed up till 5am just chatting. that was good. sat we just hung out. then sunday was the same. jayne and annie went home sunday night to go to work on monday. cath and i went to the caravan and hung out with merf and rick, lou and al were down as well. monday i went and visited jodie (from school) and her new baby heath. then came back to go and lie in the sun on the beach. annie came back monday night. we got up this morning and headed back down the beach and jayne came back down and brought aaron and luke with her. cath came over too. more beach time. the weather was perfect. we then headed down to sorrento for dinner then made our way home. it was great to hang out with friends and do nothing!

while i was away my favourite brother in law had a birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY HIL!!!

during one of my walks/jogs on the beach - which by the way, i have decided that long walks on the beach are not romantic by any means, they are actually hard work - anyway, i stopped and just looked out to the sea (well the bay, but you can't see the other side so it's ok). it made me think - what a little dot on this earth i am. i thought of that song 'your love oh Lord is like the oceans, deeper than endless seas'. if God loves me more than the oceans, then that is A LOT. i will never be able to comprehend that. the God that created this world, loves me.

since i got home i was just doing some reading and it talk about how if it is beyond us how much God can love, then it is also beyond us how much God can hurt too. think about that. it's nice to think that God can love us more than we imagine, but not really so nice that God can hurt more than we can imagine.

(two things to finish 1. michael vartan is in melbourne - i love him, he's vaughn in alias, my favourite show 2. kylie angland - there you go, you got a mention)