B90Days - week 2

Boy am I sure glad I'm through all those rules and regulations - even Deuteronomy's long sermon took some getting through but now I'm on to Joshua I feel sure I really enjoy reading each day.  I was pleased I only had one 'catch up' during last week - my morning reading time just seemed to slip away and I had to finish in the afternoon.

Three verses kind of jumped out at me:  Deuteronomy 10: 12 (Walk in His ways) 13: 17 & 18 (Keep His commands) and had a good chuckle at 24: 5 where a new bridegroom is instructed to not work for one year in order to keep his bride happy.  Wow! imagine that these days? LOL

DH is home on holiday this week - sadly we won't get to spend much time together as I am still required for childminding for another 3 weeks.  Much as I love these two 'nippers', I will be quite relieved when they are both at school for the new term.  While E7 begins on Monday 31st Jan, L5, beginning his first year at 'big school' starts a week later.  Called at the public library today and picked up two Elizabeth Elgin novels to read.  Very light reading - this woman writes novels about conditions during the World War 2 era - nice quick, light  'before going to sleep' kind of novels.

Below are two new acquisitions. I love the colours of the fuschia - just like a ballerina's tutu - and the orchid is tiny and quite fragile looking.

 Beautiful ballerina fuschia

Pretty pink phaeleonopsis orchid

Thanks for calling in - blessings!



B90Days

When I was browsing my niece's blog not so long ago, I came across commennts which led me to another website.  From there I jumped again and have come up with a great way to read right through the bible in 90 days.(See here) It is a schedule worked out for each day's readings.  Without too much thought as to why I actually wanted to do it (in fact I'm still not really sure!) I signed up.  It's not as though I'm signing my life away or anything nearly as drastic (LOL). Each reader is grouped with a leader who takes an active part through the internet in encouraging and praying for each participant in the group and is encouraged to check in to a website each Monday to update your experience and how you are finding it.   Prayer requests can also be made and whilst being part of the group, other members are also praying for you.

I'm now on to my 8th day of readings and I have to be honest I have found the past couple of days fairly tough.  My focus has not been great and I've been easily distracted, especially throughout Exodus where so much is repetitive.  Still I'm determined to keep up with it and I know I will feel an achievement at the end of the 90 days.

Thanks for popping in - blessings!

Happy New Year

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us".

Ephesians 3: 20

Last days of 2010

Looking forward to 2011, I'm posting a few of my last pic memories of December.



Rosy Galah's came to visit and tear up the grass!

  

Some new cards I made using the very cute "Magnolia" stamps




Beautiful soy wax Lemongrass perfumed candle which I keep on my kitchen benchtop




Butter beans, purple runner beans and the very first peas I have ever grown picked yesterday



90 Days

Here I am on the last day of 2010. I've decided to read through the Bible and will be doing it in 90 days. It will be a challenge for me as I need to devote about an hour of reading each day.  I didn't realise there were so many supports and resources out there for this kind of 'adventure' but I'm going to try to stick with it. The reading begins on January 3 and I'm hoping to update my progress here every Monday.

The weather today is hot!  It's just after 1pm and already the thermometer has climbed to 32C.  It is expected to get a bit hotter than that by late afternoon and I'm not looking forward to it.  Here in Sydney we've been given a real reprieve from this heat so far but it looks as though that might be reaching it's end - more and hotter over the weekend is expected.  These days I am trying not to use the air conditioner - our electricity bill has been creeping up with the increase in tarriff but we do have fans which are cooling especially at night - sleeping under one is a relief!

I've been checking out the internet for accommodation for our Family Reunion in June on the Gold Coast in Queensland and I think I've found one that looks OK which is half the price of the resort we stayed in three years ago.  I'm glad I decided to look around first.  It will be our early winter month when we all meet but Queensland temperatures shouldn't be too cold then. Probably swimming in the sea might be a bit cool but this resort has a heated pool and spa so for those who are brave enough, I'm sure that will be fine.

Not sure yet if I'll make it awake to see 2011 in yet - I usually fall asleep while waiting for the massive Sydney celebration fireworks to begin (on the TV I mean) but one of our channels is showing the Edinburgh Tattoo tonight so that should keep me awake for a while.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you my friend a very blessed New Year and peace throughout 2011.

Happy New Year!



Fireworks over Sydney Harbour showing Opera House



'Tis the day after Christmas

Christmas eve saw us delivering the grandie's gifts to them. They were full of excitement and we got this pic to remember the occasion

Christmas morning worship service then home to a king ocean prawn lunch by ourselves - the first time in our almost 49 years of married life! A very lazy afternoon, napping, watching TV, cross stitching then out to our son's property for a combined meal with ours and his wife's extended families. Thirty three of us in total and what a spread it was.

A fun-filled game of volley ball where no rules were allowed followed to 'shake the first course down' - followed later by desert of Christmas plum pudding,  whipped cream, cheese cake, chocolate log, trifle, ice cream and fresh fruit.  Oh I forgot the chocolates and cheese dip which also added to the food spread.  Despite there being 32 mouths to feed (1 extra being a baby) there was still a heap of food left over.  No doubt that will be used over the next day or so.

Son had decorated his house and yard with lights which looked magnificent once daylight faded.

Despite the fact that youngest grandie broke three bones in his foot a week ago, and couldn't participate in the game, he had a good time and he and I sat on the old cubby house steps and watched the proceedings - until the mosquitoes began biting that was.

Well Christmas is over for another year - the preparation, the sending cards, the buying gifts, the eating more than we needed, the meeting of those we don't see regularly, all fades into insignificance when we remember the baby Jesus who came as the Saviour of the world.  That is something we can celebrate every day of the year, not just at Christmas time.

Blessings!

Merry Christmas to you!

As we reflect on the baby in the manger and the reason for his coming to earth, I wish for you a holy, peaceful, and safe Christmas.

Looking for someone?

If you look for me at Christmas
you won't need a special star -

I'm no longer just in Bethlehem,
I'm right there where you are.

You may not be aware of Me
amid the celebrations -

You'll have to look beyond the stores
and all the decorations.

But if you take a moment
from your list of things to do

and listen to your heart - you'll find
I'm waiting there for you.

You're the one I want to be with,
You're the reason that I came,

And you'll find Me in the stillness
as I'm whispering your name

Love, Jesus



Inspiration?

Yes I need some!  I pop in to read so many but at present I just can't seem to get any enthusiasm or inspiration to write even though there seems to be lots going on in my life.

The Christmas lights look great now they are all operating as they should, but alas, lack of sunshine at times has meant that the solar panel ones are not twinkling as brightly as they should.  Whoever heard of a December morning being only 12C outside?  I don't remember it in Sydney anyway. Maybe that's a reflection of our northern cousins who are experiencing chilling  weather at present.  The photos I took of the lights didn't turn out too well so I'm not going to embarrass myself further by posting them.  Suffice to say I just love looking at them out the windows in the evenings  when they start to 'do their thing'!

As I write this at least the sun is shining but there's a cold wind.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours doing some more stitching on my WIP. I've used all of one colour thread so will need to replenish supply.  I will get to post another progress pic on this soon but at present I'm off to do my Monday volunteer at the Information Centre.  I'll take it with me and hope that I have a chance to do a few more stitches on it. 

Blessings!

Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus - Must See!

Oh Christmas Lights!

Neighbours have had their up for days, right down to a gorgeous sleigh with Santa sitting relaxed being pulled by three beautiful twinkling reindeer. Santa's climbing house walls, Santa's on roofs, even the lady next door was busy up on a ladder a couple of days ago hammering long lines of lights to the roofline (a first for this neighbour, bless her heart!). So with all that's happening around me to make it all feel more 'Christmassy' I felt obliged to move myself and start a bit of decorating myself. 

Well, now the wreath's on the door, the little Christmas tree is up and the balustrade decorated with green and gold starry tinsel.  Two new sets of solar lights for the shrubbery by the letterbox now fired up enough to twinkle their little heads off.  Timer set on fixed lights around the roof line - last thing to do was switch on last year's solar lights (pretty multi coloured and flickering) which chase each other up under the eaves.  Oh no! not working - oh well, put the solar panel right into the sun's path for a full day - that should do it.  But Alas!  they have gone to God! 

Out with grandson L5 yesterday to the Christmas el cheapo shop to purchase more - darn it, I'll get two lots  (just in case).

Came home and put the panels out in the brilliant sun. Not quite long enough though so today will have them out early to catch enough sun power for sparkles tonight.

Oh the joys of Christmas!

PS might get pics when all are functioning (ahem)!

Clydesdale eating?

Another feature on our familiarisation tour was the Clydesdale Restaurant. An unusual way to see the historic sites around the Windsor (Sydney) area is to be pulled in a dining van by 3 beautiful Clydesdale horses.  We stopped by to check it all out while they were being 'dressed' for the evening's booking.  Beautifully docile animals stood patiently while their dresser plaited and twisted and knotted and decorated their manes and tails.

For just A$185 per person you can be fed a five course meal (collected along the way from the area's top restaurants) and be shown many historic sites in and around Windsor.

What a great way to spend an evening on a special occasion!

Blessings!

Hawkesbury River

During the day out at the familiarisation tour, we crossed and drove alongside the Hawkesbury river in several different places. Here are a few photos I took along the way...




Looking towards Wisemans Ferry




Beautiful blue Jacaranda's in bloom





View from Cornwallis House



HISTORIC SYDNEY

As a volunteer with my local council, I help at the Visitors Information Centre for my area.  We are ready when visitors come in to the centre to help them out with brochures and information regarding accommodation or attractions in the area.  As part of the volunteer team, every two months we are taken on a familiarisation tour to inspect many of the different venues and places of interest in the area known as The Hills and Hawkesbury.

Last week we had a full day and visited four different places - at three of them we were treated to either morning or afternoon tea and lunch. It was fabulous.

We went by coach to an out of the way place named Ebenezer.  It is situated high up on a hill overlooking the Parramatta River and it was here that a stone church was built by Scottish settlers in 1809. Fifteen pioneer families who settled in the area made a huge contribution to the development of the colony in this area in those early days. Now 200 years is not that old when thinking of history but for Australia, it was only 30 years after the first settlers arrived.  There were others built around that time around the Sydney area but this is now Australia's oldest surviving church and was the first non-conformist then Presbyterian church in Australia.

Ebenezer means ‘The Lord has helped us all the way’ or ‘Stone of Help’ and is referenced in 1 Samuel 7 and verse 12.

The church began a school in 1810 and pioneered education in the colony. It is the oldest extant school building in Australia.

After sailing for 90 days to get to such a strange place, I wondered what their reactions must have been on arrival in this harsh environment. But hard as it was, they never forgot the Lord who had kept them safe. After worshiping in the open air for 5 years, the work on the church commenced. It was indeed a privilege and an honour to sit on one of those very hard wooden pews and reflect on those families who had worked so hard and sacrificed so much coming to a new country to start a new life for themselves and their families. 

What a very special contribution they made and one that we were able to reflect on during our visit to this beautiful little stone church tucked away amongst the gum trees. 

 

The roses are a picture

Blame it on the wet year we've had, the fertiliser, or just good fortune, but the roses have been magnificent since they began their blooming a few weeks ago.  I never get tired of looking at them - or taking pics of them for that matter.  Each one so different in colour and shape and yet each of them reminds me of Jesus, Rose of Sharon!  Beautiful Saviour! Wonderful Lord!

Blessings!

Aotearoa (NZ - Land of the Long White cloud)

Brigadoon

Diana Princess of Wales

Julia's Rose

Just Joey

Moonstone

Shocking Blue bud



Shocking Blue in the rain





Christmas baking

This morning dawned blessedly cool compared to the past three! With day time temperatures around 33C and night time inside still around 27C it was a relief to be able to open the doors and windows and let some coolness in.

Since today promised to be the coolest for the next week, and since I had put the Christmas cake dried fruit to soak in brandy last week, I decided it might be a good day to bake.  I had just put a loaf of banana bread into the oven when a phone call announced that young grandie L5 wanted to visit. Of course his mum was pleased to take the opportunity to do her weekly grocery shop at the supermarket as well so knowing that I was not going to be able to 'entertain' too much with the process of cake making in hand, decided the best thing to do was get some gingerbread dough on the way as well. 

Had just taken the banana bread out of the oven and put the Christmas cake in when young L arrived.  Excited at the prospect of making his own gingerbread men, he got started right away. He kneaded and rolled and cut his way through a stack and we baked three trays full.  Once cool enough, the finishing touches were made with white icing.  By the time mum arrived back to collect him, a large container was filled for her to take home and freeze. Of course L needed to carry out a taste test and reported that they were certainly yummy! 

Banana bread, Christmas cake and gingerbread shapes all baked beautifully. A successful morning indeed.  We made precious memories today. Thankyou L for being part of that special time together!

Blessings!



Christmas craft chit chat

For the past couple of weeks I've been slowly getting my Christmas cards made. This year I've used a Cuttlebug Christmas tree embossing folder and a cute little Magnolia stamp.  Now for the best part - writing inside them and sending them off. 

Has been a hot day here in old Sydney town.  Got to 32 degrees with brilliant sun. Not even a sign of storm clouds in the sky - but I won't hold my breath as they are predicted for Monday.

As long as it cools off a little, I will bake my Christmas cake though so I'm really hoping for another few days of clouds and rain.  I'm really late in making it this year as normally it would be baked in October however being away then, it didn't get done.

With the sunshine predicted for the next couple of days, I got out into the garden this morning with the spray bottle of weed killer and spent a couple of hours finding those that had sprung up in the past few weeks.  The past two Saturday's DH has done a great job and pulled out heaps of them which had grown down one side of our boundary.  I just followed up today to try to avoid them springing up again too quickly. 

Tomorrow the two littlest grandies are coming for lunch. They have swimming lessons in the morning so their mum will bring them here when they've finished.  They love to get here especially when 'Grumps' is home from work.

Till next time - blessings! 

Searching for friends

Over the past few years I've done a good deal of searching for old friends and was reminded again of this today when reading one of my favourite blogs here - what a feeling of achievement when someone long thought 'lost' is tracked down.

When in New Zealand recently I met up with someone I had known in primary school, but at the age of around 10 years she was moved to another school and we lost contact.  We 'found' each other about 12 months ago through one of the 'friend' websites where we had both registered with our old school.  That meeting prompted us to both try to 'find' another mutual friend from those early years.  With a little digging, and contact with her brother, I managed to get a phone number for her.  It was a thrill to talk and catch up on marriages, children, careers, grandchildren.  Now our mutual friend has also 'caught up' and because both live in the same city, they plan to meet soon to get to know each other all over again. 

How good it is to know that we can never be separated from our Heavenly Father, not by time, nor distance nor any other circumstance.  In fact even if we tried to move from him, he would still faithfully be by our side, just waiting for us to 'make contact' again. 

Thank you Abba Father for Mercy and Grace...

Mercy - I don't get what I deserve


Grace - I get what I don't deserve


Blessings!

It did go away - the rain I mean

It was a very shaky start to the day - from my kitchen window all I could see was fog - thick fog - not usual for early November - but I guess I felt I couldn't lose anything by pinning the washing out on the line. (For those 'northern' friends, if you didn't know, we 'down under' peg out wet clothes out on a clothes line to dry in the sun and breeze, not in the clothes dryer).  I'd managed to get some washing almost dry yesterday by hanging it over the airing rack inside, but there's nothing like bringing it in off the line smelling so - kind of 'sunny'!

So I trudged out over the very wet grass and in the coolness of 13 degrees, put it on the line.  I guess I was hoping that when the fog lifted, there'd be a bit of a flapping breeze enough to dry it.  We set off for church - the weather still not looking hopeful, but by the time we left again for home, the sun had come out and it was looking really good - in fact, brilliant. 

A light lunch over, I took my WIP with me and sank into our lovely outdoor chair and breathed in the beautiful sunny afternoon.  I could almost feel my skin taking in big gulps of the warmth.  So many days of dull, cool, damp! It was great to feel that Spring might almost have decided to visit.  It's less than a month till our 'down under' Summer officially begins, but I'm not holding my breath even though today is forecast to be warm and dry, as the weather people are predicting rain and even storms before the end of the week again.  Perhaps the long range forecaster was correct after all and we'll be still 'soaking it up' until at least December.

Anyway I'm grateful for the sunny afternoon I spent working on my Daisy Girl - I might even do it again today - it's looking promising!

Blessings!



Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (brunsfelsia) in bloom at present



Rain, rain, go away

A rainy, foggy Sunday morning. Everything feels damp. I'd like to think that soon we will dry out and get a little sunshine here, but the forecast says more to come!

My vegies are getting waterlogged and won't grow without sunshine so things aren't looking good in my little garden.  The potatoes are just coming in to flower but with no sunshine or bees I fear we may lose the lot after about 10 weeks of growing!

A load of washing finished and I thought I'd be tempted to pin it on the line and just 'hope for the best' with a few possible dry spells during the day enough to dry it but it's not looking positive.

Despite the 'big wet,' the birds begin their early morning twittering and busy themselves seeking out tidbits for their young.  The butcher bird family I've discovered to now be six.  In the bottle brush tree close to the house yesterday, four young sat waiting for parents to bring food.  They are amazing! Baby spied a (rather large) grasshopper and flew down and grabbed it. Back on the branch it tried to shovel it into it's mouth sideways. 'No, no, baby - that's not the way to do it!' I sensed mother saying.  She neatly took the bug, 'mangled' it in her beak and neatly turned it around so that head first, it fitted right into baby's open mouth.  After a couple of huge gulps, it was gone!  Amazing to watch these small creatures who, despite the patience they show, are also quick to admonish when babies step out of line!

Thank you God for this your day, and for the freedom we have to worship you! I'm off to do that right now.

Blessings!


Rainbow Lorikeets feeding after the rain