Little Brown Pen

I love seeing the photos that Little Brown Pen load onto their blog. 

Their colour co-ordination and their beautiful images of Paris take my breath away.

Today I was catching up on some of my blog reading when I found these 'snow bird' images. 

I love birds. 

There can be such simplicity and complexity in them.

 I just *love* these shots. 

Check out the image of the 'snow fight'!

It makes me want to move to a place which has snow.

I would love these images on my wall at home. 

(Hmmm, lots of love statements today... images via little brown pen)

Only 2 and a half weeks to go!

My time has flown and today I realised that there is only two and a half weeks until we run the Kids Fun Days at church. I've been really busy over the last 5 weeks, but I can feel that the work load is going to be stepping up a couple of notches for the next couple of weeks!


God give me strength!!!!

Stormy Skies

The sky is ever changing.

The corner of Pennant Hills Rd and Loch Maree Ave at Thornleigh regularly has amazing skyscapes. 

Here are a couple I have seen in the last couple of weeks.

Truly amazing.

Christmas Bouquet

More Christmas Baking

I've been enjoying remembering my grandmother this Christmas. She passed away in July. I had hoped that she would see me get married (one day), but I have been so blessed to have her in my life as long as she was.


I've been making her Truffles this Christmas (this is officially batch number 3) and having sweet memories of when I would make them with Grandma as a little girl. 


I love her so much.

Deep thoughts

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me".

Erma Bombeck

When I read this statement on one of the blogs I followed, my first thought was, 'did the person who wrote this actually understand the eternal implications of what they were saying.'

Then I thought, 'did the person who blogged this statement understand the eternal implications of the statement that they loved.'

(Now I'm thinking - I am a bit of a cynic!)

But the next thought drove deeper into my conscious: do I fully accept the physical and eternal implications of this statement.

I could say to myself, 'that's nice' 

or I could choose to let the statement speak to the tumult of emotions that I have been experiencing in the last year.

It isn't that unusual to be talking with a friend about something that I've done or made and they have said, "you could make a living out of that." God has blessed me with many things I can do and like to do. 

Yet, I wonder... do I use everything God has given me?

The fact is, yes, to some degree I do use everything that God has given me. The deeper reality is that I don't know if I adequately use the things that God has given me. My heart and mind get pulled in many directions with all the things I can do. 

My heart would love to follow some of my creative inclinations in a career.

My heart wishes and dreams of using all my gifts in loving a family, cultivating them and growing with them.

My heart and head says you have a gift working with children, and sharing the truth of God and helping them grow spiritually is the best thing you can be doing. Focus on that.

Yet, the reality is I always come back to feeling... 

... it would be nice to be a florist or stylist

... it would be lovely to have a means by which to cultivate my culinary delights

... it would be lovely to take my life and transport it to the UK or Europe and experience life there

... would the right man look at me and love me if I was doing something different

These things are not the focus of my life all the time. Just dreams that have sat in my heart for years.

Occasionally things I see

or hear

or read

blow the dust off my dreams, bringing that bud into full-bloom again.

But just like with a rose in full bloom, 

a windy day

a unthoughtful knock

or a swirling breeze can blow the petals away,

that dream comes to nothing. 

There is nothing to make it live 

or thrive

or grow.

The reality is normality. 

A normality with only little sunshines in its journey. 

Sometimes, 

it hurts so much to have dreams that come to nothing

that I wonder why I bother to have them at all.

Christmas time is coming!

One of my favourite activities to do in the lead up to Christmas is baking!!!!

I LOVE my mum's Christmas Cake recipe. 

One cake usually weighs over 2 kgs, so in the last two years I have bought some lovely smaller tins

 and found that it makes two smaller cakes perfectly. 

This year there was a little bit left in the bottom of my BIG Donna Hay Bowl 

and so I pulled out a ramekin made a beautiful Mini-Christmas Cake!

Here you can see it just after I've pulled it out of the oven. 

I've poured brandy over it, and it is bubbling away :)

Spider Spinners

I look at my blog and feel like I haven't been blogging well for the last few weeks. I've felt quite low since I said goodbye to him. Things just haven't seemed as bright. 


Today, I ran a prop making day in at church for the Kids Outreach program in January. I only had a couple of people come to help. It was encouraging that there were those few, I was a bit worried that there wouldn't be any, yet it was disappointing that there weren't any more either. However, as a result I have the letterbox drop sorted out. It was great that I could give very a brief explanation to one of the guys and he could do it with very little help.  I have a feeling that I should get some more brochures printed. 
I then had the two guys who were there figure out how to seal a plastic tube to make miniature bottles and and make a tiny boat that can fit inside. We found an origami boat that looks like it will work well and we are still trying to seal up the bottles. I'll try to get some pictures up soon (everything is better with pictures). 
Finally, I had the girls work together to make over 100 craft bags for Spider spinners. They will be used as a teaching craft on the final day of the program. It was encouraging to bring a box filled with ready-made craft bags for this activity into my office. 
One down, another 4 or 5 (times 120) to go!


Now I'm packing up the mess and have to decide if I will play in the church Orchestra that is going to Hope Street to play Christmas carols. I've been see-sawing about doing it all week. I haven't felt a really passion to do it this year. Maybe it has something to do with the grieving process. 


I still miss Geoff. Massively.


Today, I wished I had been able to talk through the things we were preparing to get his logical mind to work on it. He always finds the best solution or verifies that I have worked out the right solution. It would have been even better to have him here helping out. Either way, it was not and will not happen. Unless by some miracle he decides to talk with me and try to work this all out. I need to trust that God is in control of this - even though it hurts and is a great disappointment (even expected disappointments hurt).

Review Goal Session #1

Yes, today was the last in the first 9 weeks (it has actually been a little longer) of the Vision Personal Training Program. This meant I had to have a final weigh-in for the 9 weeks and have a whole heap of  other measurements taken.

Well, I was surprised to find I had lost 2 kilos over the last week, which means I have lost 10 kilos over the last 10 weeks or so. My blood pressure had been hyper-tensive when I started the program, but is currently perfectly normal and I've lost
10cms from my chest and hips.

It has been a tough road, with some rough trips along the way (falling down the stairs at the gym last week really didn't help).
So, I doubled the expected weight loss that the program allocated. I should feel like jumping up and down, but I just don't feel like it.

One of those days

So today has been one of those days. I went to sleep feeling bad last night and woke up feeling the same way. I have really wanted to contact Geoff and been really struggling with the fact that I can't and I have to stop loving him. To try and distract my mind, I decided to get up and go get coffee. I did this, but found that it didn't help my thought life at all. After coming back (and nearly texting him), I felt the only way I was going to do something productive was to get out of the house. So I showered, got dressed and drove to Hornsby station. I bought a return ticket to the city, thinking it had been a long time since I'd been. If I could cope with the heat I would walk through Hyde Park or the Botanical Gardens, if not, the QVB would be beautiful this time of year.


I was pleased to find a train to the city leaving in 10 mins. As I was a little early I waited on the train, only to hear two messages. Firstly, the train has been delayed, and then emergency evacuation of Hornsby Station! This was no drill, as when we arrived at the entrance of the station there were a dozen police turning people away, not only from the trains but with the instruction to leave the station and go to the mall. I found myself sick to the stomach and faint for the next hour. Going to the city never happened. 


Once I could stand up for more than 2 minutes without feeling like I would throw up, I went to get my fare refunded and decided I would go to see the Harry Potter movie that I have wanted to see for about 3 weeks. I had a free ticket and wanted to use that. When I got there, they said I had to purchase the ticket online to get the free ticket. As I had 45 minutes until the next session, I sat down with my phone and tried to book the ticket online. 45 minutes later I still had not achieved this. So, I decided to go home. There was not much point staying there.


I did nap a bit once getting home and had some dinner. Now I'm thinking about putting up my Christmas tree. At least do something today that will be nice and turn out right.


I hope your day has turned out better than mine.

Some pics I found as I was looking for Christmas garland inspiration...

The first one is for Vicky.

She loves owls and I instantly thought of her when I saw this.

Isn't it so adorable??????

Then I saw this one. 

I've never seen an otter in real life, but this is just adorable. 

I feel like it is doing what many of us do with young children when we are encouraging them to say goodbye.

Sooooooooooooo beautiful!

images via pinterest

Weigh-In #8

I think I have missed a weigh-in somewhere, because next week the first 9 weeks (with the extension of the weeks I couldn't make it)of my weight-loss challenge is finished. 


This week I hadn't lost any weight, but hadn't gained any. My clothes were baggier so I thought I must have lost some weight - apparently not. Considering the extenuating circumstances of the previous two week, I was really happy with this. 


Typically, when i am distraught the first thing I reach for is comfort food - Especially cake. I only had a couple of small pieces over that time, so I was really pleased with myself. As things had been exceptionally busy the previous week, I was also happy that I had managed to keep my food pretty much on track.


So, one more week to go. I need to pump it up for the last few days. Tmw will be a hard day to do much as I have a lunch and dinner at church, but Monday and Tuesday I need to work hard at it. Both exercise and food.


Catch you soon!