Lest We Forget

Today is ANZAC day. The day we remember all the soliders who have fought for us. I thought it would be a fitting day to post the photos that Tom and I took when we visited the Australian War Memorial in Canberra last year.

This photo shows the remains of the HMAS Sydney. Tom's Gran's brother died on this Ship. The ship was lost off the coast of WA and sank without a trace. This exhibit shows it's only remains, a lifeboat and a life-vest.

The poppy up the top is the one that we put in for Gran's brother.

This next photo is of the HMAS Australia. My Grandad Bob's brother Jack died on the HMAS Australia. What I found out from this exhibit was that the men who died on this ship were killed by the kamakazie pilots who attacked the ship.

Here is a picture of me pointing out the poppy that we placed for Uncle Jack Annear.

Despite the smiling faces it was a very sombre reminder of the price that was paid by our relatives so we could have the freedom we now enjoy.

Lest we forget.

Look Mum, I Grew a Pumpkin!

Okay, so it was kind of accidental, but I managed not to kill it (unlike the rest of the plant)! Made pumpkin soup on Sunday night, had some in a funny vegie thing I made for tonight and are going to put some more in a pumpkin korma curry for Thursday night. Yum!

A Quiet Night In?

Picture this: I'm all psyched up for an evening in, Kaitrin's coming for dinner to share photos of her recent Liberia/UK trip and to catch up, I've set the menu: a roast followed by Butterscotch self-saucing Pudding.

Then she calls me. "Do you want the good news, or the bad news? I can't come for dinner, but we're going instead to Bjorn Again at Crown!"

Requires a bit of a change of mindset, don't you think?

Anyway, it was a fabulous night out, with lots of singing along and getting up and dancing, and once again I amazed myself with how many Abba lyrics are sitting uselessly in my brain for a rainy day (or Bjorn Again concert)! They really are a very talented outfit and have really paid attention to detail - including very outdated choreography. We had all the hits Dancing Queen, Fernando, Knowing Me, Knowing You, Money, Money, Money, The Winner Takes it All, to name but a few.

And that was it... my quiet night in with a friend.

Time out at the Howqua Valley

Well after my last blog I have sucessfully managed to take some time out with friends, and to relax a little. It was great over the Easter break to be able to 'go bush' for 4 days camping. I'm not a huge camping person so the first night was kept awake by 1) the birds, 2) the sound of the river flowing 3) a horse neighing at 1am and 4) the cold. Thankfully I managed to overcome these obstacles to sleep quite well the other nights!

Tom's dad has a 4wd which he loves to take off road so I enjoyed the opportunity to see him in his element and to see some of the countryside in the area that was ravaged by bushfires earlier this year. It's difficult to take a photo that shows how extensive the damage is but here's one that worked well.

In the foreground is Fry's Hut, built in 1930. There are a number of these huts which were built for the cattlemen to rest in when they were driving their cattle up to the plains in summer. In the middle of the picture you can see the green trees of Fry's flat, a camping area, and in the background are trees that were burnt in the fires (I know it looks a little like Autumn).

Behind Fry's Hut lies the Howqua river, to canoe from this point of the river to where we were camping would probably take around half a day. This is me by the river.

And of course it's all about the food when you go camping (with the Hanslow's and Boyd's anyway!). We had a magnificent roast which was buried in a pile of hot coals for 3 hours. This one's a bit of a story by pictures:

And then 3 hours later you dig it out of the dirt and eat it (it's in a pot). And it was magnificent! There's lots of other great pictures, it's just that I don't have them on my camera. It was a great relaxing time out, with weather you wouldn't think possible in early April, blue skies and 25degrees. Apparently, I won't be really tested in my camping abilities until it's raining... not sure if I'm too keen on that one, one step at a time.

Words I Hate

There are some words in the English language I just don't like to hear. Swear words are one group, but there are a few others that are almost just as jarring to my ears, words like "Stress" and "Busy". I remember having a conversation with a friend who is a dentist some time ago and he said that 5 years ago whenever he asked a patient how they were they would say "stressed", now whenever he asks a patient how they are, they say "busy".

I am somewhat scarred by the word "busy", when I had my accident 3 years ago, I had a few friends who never came to visit me at home. When they saw me at church they'd say "I'm so sorry I haven't been to see you, I've just been so busy". And all I could think was "I nearly died, what more will it take for you to make some time for me?" I promised to myself then, that I would never be so busy as to not make time for my friends and for people. John Piper has a great quote in his book "Don't Waste Your Life" that goes 'No man has ever lamented on his dying bed, "I wish I had spent more time at the office"' But now I look at my lifestyle over the last month and feel like it's out of control. I love what I'm doing but I'm so ... you know the word. In fact I've been so ... that I forgot a dear friend's birthday! I don't want to be that person, I promised myself I wouldn't become that person - Lord, help me to keep my life in balance, that I may remember to appreciate the small things, that sometimes look insignificant but help us to appreciate all the goodness that you have given us. Amen.

A Tearful Reunion

As I get older (about to turn the ripe old age of 25 - so this is said seriously but also can't help be a little tounge-in-cheek) I'm starting to reflect more on the relationships that have helped to form me as a person, and the people who have had an influence on me without me even really realising their importance.


On Saturday I had the joy of seeing one of my many other "Mums", Mary Lewis. Mary is the mother of my good friend Phili, (whose Blog you can check out on the right of the page) and therefore, by default also became another "Mum" to me as during my high school years in Adelaide it was often the case that if I wasn't at home, I was at Phili's and that often meant enjoying Mary's company as well.


I ran into Mary, quite to my surprise (and her's) on Saturday at a "Ridley Women" (as in the Bible College) Mentoring Day, after not having seen her for quite a number of years. At morning tea I tapped her on the shoulder and (after she figured out it was me - it can be hard with a married name!) gave each other a warm mother/daughterly embrace! What a joy it was to see this amazing woman of God again and to see the way in which God brought us together at that exact moment when I needed a motherly embrace from someone who has seen me grow up all through my adolecence (and it's been almost 12 months from my own Mum). I was taken aback by the strong affection and connection I felt with Mary after such a long time of separation, for, as I said at the beginning of my post, it hasn't been until the last couple of days since seeing her that I have reflected as an adult on the impact she had on my life. So thanks Mary, for being one of my special "Mums" (and thanks Phili - for sharing her with me while she's in Melbourne!)

And because I knew Mum would love a photo:

An Extrovert Living an Introvert's Lifestyle

My apologies for a severe lack of blogging of late. No excuse really as I've been at home more than I would usually be with uni only going back next week. I've been spending large amounts of time at home working on my own as Tom has been working his second job binding books at Swinburne Uni. I've been thinking about what it was that was sobering my mood of late and came up with the title for this blog "An extrovert living an introvert's lifestyle". You see, I would not normally choose to spend 8 hours on my own, let alone more than once a month! So the past few weeks have left me like a fish out of water - kind of limp!

But tomorrow marks O-Week, a full day of on campus work. Chalking, meeting new people, catching up with old people and a general happy extroverty kind of vibe. (And a free lunch because there's a CU BBQ!) So hopefully this will wake me up from my dazy time of trying to live like an introvert, ie. reading books, sending emails and generally enjoying space, give me people and lots of them in all their fullness, then maybe I'll wake up enough to start blogging again (what an introverted thing to do!)

A Yarra Valley Day Out

Had a very fun weekend with Josh (my cousin) and Jayne (his girlfriend) down from Sydney for work but also to hang out with us for the weekend - lucky us! Tom and I had been planning the day out for some time as Jayne mentioned she had been to Melbourne a few times but not really seen much of Victoria! Unfortunately I don't have too many photos but the day started out at the Yalley Valley Dairy (mmmm, cheese...) where Tom, Jayne and I tried out their taste-tester selection of cheeses (the tastes were a little too strong for Josh).

We then drove on to the Yering Farm winery, where we were able to taste both wines and jams and then we had a coffee together overlooking the beautiful (if not so green) countryside.

We then drove on to the famous Healesville Pub for lunch, and then, because the day was not yet old enough, we drove them through the Black Spur to Marysville, where we stopped once again for coffee, cakes and to see the lolly shop.

And because it made for a good photo...

Thanks Josh and Jayne for a chance to take you out for the day. And to all our other friends interstate... we'd do it for you too if you came to visit us!

Tom's Birthday Celebrations

Well Tom turned the ripe old age of 24 on Friday and so his parents put on a bit of a party for some of his old mates, so I thought I'd give you an idea in pictures of how the night went.

This is some of the boys playing a strange version of cricket in the pool.

This is a nice photo of myself with Katie (L) and Krystal.

This is me trying to take a snazzy shot with the night vision on the camera, as you can see, I need a tripod.

This is Heather's magnificent trifle, she has to put it in a lasagne dish and three times the recipe! YUM!

And because trifle with ice-cream wasn't enough, there was a gingerbread house (made by Christy) for afters.

Yet through all this I didn't seem to get a picture of Tom, so here's one I took tonight! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Holidays

We are currently enjoying holidays in Newcastle which have been very relaxing so far including trips to the beach and long talks with our cousins and aunt and uncle. Josh and his girlfriend Jayne picked us up from the airport and we went out for a beautiful breakfast in Stockton, it was the first time we had met Jayne and she was every bit as gorgeous as Josh had described. We have also been watching lots of DVD's including "You, Me and Dupree", "Bridget Jones's Diary", "Robin Hood, Men in Tights". Tom has also promised Uncle Dave that he'll watch "The Sting" with him before we leave on Thursday. Went to the 20/twenty match at Newcastle yesterday and it was packed. A fairly close game coming down to the last two overs. NSW kind of stuffed it by letting one of the Rugby players into their team as he wasn't very good. I enjoyed it because it was a faster game of cricket!

Only two trips to the beach so far, the weather here hasn't been perfect beach weather and the water on Saturday was 15 degrees, I mean, if we wanted to swim in water that cold we could have stayed in Melbourne!

Anyway, the food has been great (as one always gets with Aunty Sue) so much so that we will be doing some serious trips to the gym this month! Anna leaves to go back to London tomorrow, but we have enjoyed spending more time with her this year as she was already there when we came last year. It has been freaking us out how similar Anna is to Jocelyn and Uncle Dave is to my Dad, like, REALLY FREAKING US OUT. It's also nice to get a taste of familiarity though with Mum and Dad overseas. It's amazing how similar familes can be even when they don't see each other very often!

A Teppenyaki Treat!

Tom and I have never dined out to Teppenyaki before but with Entertainment books in hand and a cousin over from Perth with her husband, Connor, Tim and Amy, Heidi and Adrian and Tom and I thought it might be fun to take them out somewhere fun. So we ended up at Southbank at a Teppenyaki restaurant.

From L-R: Eloise, Heidi, Amy, Me, Tom, Tim, Connor, Adrian.

And now for the food:

Yum!

For Phili (who loves irises)

It's so lovely to have a garden, but I have been quite concerned about the beautiful white irises on the path to our door. This is why...

They just didn't seem to be flowering. Anyway, we got a bit of rain on Sunday morning and when we arrived home they looked like this...

I have no idea why they decided to start flowering or how they did it in a few short hours, but I will enjoy them all the same. Isn't creation great?

A Tour of My House

Well the Optus man has come and done a double deal for us! I was only expecting to get the home phone connected but he's done the cable Internet as well! I'm thrilled and glad to get back to blogging as I have so much to share and many pictures to show. I'll start with our beautiful house!

The house with the driveway and our car (so you actually know that it's ours!!)

This is the path to our door - isn't it cute?! You can also see the rose bushes at the fence line. Only 3 at the moment but when the drought breaks I hope to put in 4 more.

This is the entry hall with Howard's beautiful painting. And the roses are from my garden!

This is our master bedroom, it's kind of long and skinny.

This is MY study, I can't show you the picture of Tom's study/guest room cause it's too messy at the moment.

This is the lounge, I couldn't really take a photo that does it justice. It's a great room to sit in and the lilac walls have really grown on me. I bought some new cushions for the couches yesterday - 4 for $20, I thought that was a bargan. I put the colourful cushions on our new cane chairs we got for Christmas that sit on our deck - they look great there!

Then there's the dining room:

The kitchen:

...and the deck:

And I think that will do! I hope that you enjoyed the pictorial tour of our new house - please do come and see it for real sometime!

New Home

Well much has happened since my last blog and with no current Internet access at home (currently at the in-laws) blogging is rather difficult, the unfortunate thing being that I have so much to blog!

Here's a quick run-down of what we've been up to...

Went to Canberra for National Conference but stopped at the War Memorial beforehand to pay tribute to Tom's gran's brother and my grandfather's brother. Photos to come (one day...).

Had National Conference, was crazy, complete with fire evacuation at 1am on the last night - NOT HAPPY!

Packed up and moved out of old house, looked much cleaner and more spacious without all our stuff in it! Funny that.

Moved into NEW HOUSE (before settlement I might add - long story will fill in when I have more time). It's just beautiful and I can't wait to post HEAPS of photos but can't yet as I don't have the camera on me (and haven't actually taken the photos yet). Moving day was relatively straight forward and we were very quickly unpacked and settled. Have even taken our first trip to Bunnings to buy "things for the new place" can tell this is going to be very dangerous.

Christmas shopping today with Tom and Christy, was very straightforward and have a beautiful new dress (thanks Mum!) the shop assistant almost convinced me to buy two and I was oh so tempted but managed to resist - bring on the post Christmas sales with Tom at the Cricket for (at least) 3 days!

Okey doke, must get going, time to go home to our beautiful house. It's very hot today so we might even have to try out the cooling!!

Muscle Work

While I know that going to the gym this past 8 or so months has been very helpful in giving me some beautiful definition in my arms (no picture, shouldn't boast too much!) I think I've found something that's just as good for all round toning and definition of those arm muscles that seem built by God to be flabby.

It's called "Moving House"! Weekly routine could involve:
- packing and moving boxes
- vacuuming those "hard to reach" corners
- scrubbing the floor with disinfectant
- reaching for those cobwebs in far corners
- getting into the grouting in the shower (my personal fave)

So girls! If you want to get some definition, just move house! It does wonders for the muscles.

(Ok so there may be a note of sarcasm in my tone here, just in case you didn't pick it up. But the house is starting to look cleaner and emptier and moving date is fast approaching!)

All girls love to dress up! (Don't they?)

Was at a wedding (Kirk McKenzie to Renee Downie) on the weekend so I had to take the opportunity to put the photos on the Blog.

Here's one of me and Amy (who was a bridesmaid):

And me and Tom (Mum, please note that Tom has lost lots of weight, we can't stand the thought of you remembering us as podgy! - And yes, he's getting his hair cut on Tuesday.)

And I suppose I should put one in of the wedding party!

It was a very relaxed wedding, the only traditional thing about it was that the dress was white. I don't think I've ever laughed so much during a wedding actually. It suited them very much!

And then there were two...

You may remember some time back that I mentioned our fish. Well, one of them died some time back, which was quite sad and it had appeared to have been bullied by the other three fish. Wouldn't you know it, now another has died of a similar fate! And not only that, but when we found it dead, it's tail was missing - ugh! Even fish canibalism makes me squeamish.

So now it's a battle between the remaining two fish, both of similar size. I must say that now I know what they get up to when we're not around, I'm not all that keen on getting many more fish, their calculated coldness to consistently bully another fish to death and then eat it's remains doesn't exactly float my boat. UGH!

And we thought fish were such nice simple creatures.

Bad Habits

I'm happy for you to disagree but in my opinion drinking beer could be classified as a bad habit (no offence Dad!). But I suppose perhaps you just need to start early enough to get the taste of it. I was flicking through some photos on the computer today and came across this very cute one of my goddaughter Jemima. I'm thinking that she will probably be a big beer drinker when she gets older! It's a Boag's draft for those of you who are interested. Maybe she could become a Boag's tester reserve?

Greenthumb

Actually, I've never been much of a greenthumb myself but now that we're moving out I figure the small courtyard area we actually have should be kind of tidy! So on holidays a couple of weeks ago I was out there with the weed spray and went CRAZY! Hmmm, not sure if that's really called "gardening" more like "weedocide" (like genocide but with weeds). So this weekend has been the weed killing aftermath. I've uprooted all the weeds along the path, the paved area, the rocks and the soil area and while I did kind of kill the few plants that once lived there, I'm hoping that the weeds won't come back too strong before we move out so that my greenthumb days can begin in our new place that actually has a nice garden. In fact, I've already got a Japanese Maple tree all ready to plant when we arrive. (If you go to the picture a few blogs back, I want to put it near where that bushy thing is near the window on the right.)
A successful weekend had by all - except for the weeds (and the snails - I have it in for them too!).

Cricket

For those of you about to tune out because even the word cricket puts you to sleep - WAKE UP! Tom's parents recently returned from a trip to Europe that included a trip to the famous cricket ground of Lords in London and brought me back a tea towel that generously explained the rules of cricket - for those uninitiated, like me, I thought it would be helpful to share the tea towel's words of wisdom...