Mannerisms

Something I notice about myself every now and again is how quick I am to pick up other people's mannerisms.

If I spend a bit of time with someone (and it doesn't have to be very long), I often adopt one or two of their mannerisms or ways of speaking, without meaning to at all.

I mean, I know I sound and move like my mum and dad - for example, yesterday I dropped something and my immediate response was to say "Giddy Art!" exactly the same way mum does. I think it's derived from the phrase "Giddy Heart" but I've got no idea really.

That I can understand, but I don't even have to like someone, let alone be related to them, to start mimicking them.

It makes me wonder - what's me and what's not?? Spooky...

It's That Time of Year Again...

The screaming frogs are back. Hello, summer...

Big Bed

It's Hamish's first night in his big bed (cot) tonight - I wish it wasn't, for a variety of reasons, but I'm so tired I've decided it's worth a go.

He's very unsettled at the moment and having him in our bedroom doesn't seem to be working so it's on to Plan B.

Lets see how we go....I feel really sad about it but if it means we all get more sleep then it will be worth it.

Obsessed

I'm a trifle obsessed with taking photos of the passionfruit vine at the moment. I know you're probably all sick of hearing about it, but every time I look at it I just go "Wow!"

Today, I saw the following on the vine:
2 different types of spiders
A baby cicada
A very small (like 5mm long) grasshopper
A baby ladybeetle
A native bee
A wasp
Tiny snails
Big snails
Plenty of normal bees

And that was in only say 5 mins of looking! God's creation is just so cool, I love having a garden where I can admire His work.

I've taken heaps of photos, but instead of posting them here I'm going to add them to the side bar one after another, so the picture will change every couple of days.

So against the rules

I keep noticing that Saffy is being particularly quiet.

Where is that dog? I wonder.

I look into the back room - and there she is. On the LOUNGE!

So, so illegal.

Lusting after Stationery

I am a sucker for buying stationery. I've been browsing www.kikki-k.com.au for a while now, would love to buy stuff but don't actually need it! I'm thinking of getting a day to a page diary for 2009 - I need to see them in the shop though because I am quite picky about diaries.

The thing is, I really really enjoy the shopping bit, but always end up using the diary much, much less than I planned. I think I like the idea of one more than the reality.

Energy

One of the frustrating things about life at the moment is that there is often quite a gap between what I want to do, and the energy I have. I want to do all sorts of things, but my body wants me to lie on the lounge and rest!

Body always wins, in the end.

This week

Busy week coming up:

Monday - driving lesson, dog and rabbit getting desexed, bible study
Tuesday - Hamish gets his 4 month vaccinations
Wednesday - Mothers Group
Thursday - probably grocery shopping
Friday - Going to a tupperware party!

I've never been to a tupperware party before, and I have to say I'm a bit excited about it.

Behind the wheel

Tomorrow I am having a driving lesson. I'm going to have one every week - the aim being to get my licence by my 30th birthday in April.

So if you're on the streets of the Central Coast between 10.30am - 11.30am, watch out!

Paradox

I have the urge to blog, but my brain is too fried to write much. Haven't been sleeping too well over the last week (actually, make that the last 4 months!) so I've been in a perpetual state of mental fog.

I'm tending to get really, really stressed out in the early hours of the morning when Hamish decides to wake up, and if I'm not careful the stress sort of spills over into the rest of the day even if the day itself is running ok. So I've been spending a lot of time feeling exhausted and frustrated.

But - at the same time I'm really ridiculously happy with life. Just have to remind myself of that fact instead of focusing on the stress!

Things I'm enjoying at the moment are:

• Hamish (of course!)
• The garden - I keep taking photos of it and they all look exactly the same as the ones I took last year, I can't help it though - I keep running inside to grab the camera!
• Adam enjoying his job
• Sitting at the kitchen table, getting work done, with a lovely view over the pool and backyard. Not a bad office!
• Feeling Christmas in the air
• Seeing my grandparents every couple of weeks
• The warmer weather

Lunchtime for Spider

I heard a buzzing noise coming from the window - this is why.

Does anyone know if I should be worried about what sort of spider this is? Note to self - ask Adam to spray house with spider stuff this weekend.

Complete Garden Care, Saffy Style

What is with the weather?

I mean, really. It's cold, windy and rainy. It's putting me a grumpy mood!

Hamish meets his soulmate

More from the garden

This is a bee collecting pollen from the passionfruit flowers - if you look closely you can see it on his back - little yellow dots.

We've got heaps of aphids on the rose bushes - but the trusty ladybirds are sorting that out for us.

In the Garden

How cool are passionfruit flowers? This one looks like an elaborate fountain or something. And so colourful! I think we'll have a bumper crop this year - there's heaps of flowers on the vine.

Adam's new wheels

Vroom vroom!!

hello good lookin'!

In a fit of extreme time wasting, I have followed Nixter's excellent advice and yearbooked myself:

1980's

1970's

1960's

1950's

Try it out yourself here!

Bunny Maintenance

Here's Bunny getting his claws trimmed. I'm ashamed to say this is the first time we've clipped them since we got him 2 and a half years ago.

More Happy Snaps

Fluffy Mail

In taking care of Hamish's rear end, I have entered the world of "Modern Cloth Nappies" (MCN). There's a whole world out there of people crazy about cloth - I first got into it to save money, and also because I like the idea of being able to reuse nappies instead of chucking them out. So far it's going well - although I'd be stuffed without the clothes drier!

The bulk of the MCN business is online - mums at home making nappies and selling them over the internet. This adds to the appeal of the whole thing, as it's good fun to get packages in the mail, and a lot of the nappies are really cute. And to top it off, there's a special term for it - fluffy mail! It's actually easy to get slightly obsessed about it and order far more than you need, so restraint is necessary.

Here's Hamish modelling one of my latest purchases - it's called an Itti Bitti D'Lish:

I do use disposables as well, but I have to say that using cloth nappies has been one of the very satisfying aspects of baby care.

And just because he's cute, here's another shot of our model:

Esther not so pure?

Interesting article on Esther over at the Sola Panel. It suggests the heroes of the story, Esther and Mordecai, behaved questionably at key points in the narrative.

This is often the case in the bible - the people God chooses to do His work usually display a few glaring faults. They are all reassuringly human!

I might download the study notes and take a closer look at Esther...

Another classic moment in my life (not)

I was feeling pretty stressed out one day this week. I was getting ready for bed, and was very tired, yet not relaxed.

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I decided that the best thing to do to help me sleep, would be to get rid of some of the excess energy that the stress had generated.

So I started wildly waving my arms around like a lunatic. Crazy looking, but therapeutic. Seemed like a very good idea at the time.

Unfortunately for me, in my tired state I forgot that I was holding an open tub of moisturiser. As I flung my arms around, the tub went too, sending streams of thick, white moisturiser into the air. Some landed on me, some landed on the floor, some landed on the sink...in fact some of it is still on the floor because I couldn't be bothered doing anything about it. I possibly now have the best moisturised bathroom on the Central Coast.

I had to laugh - it reduced my stress - just not exactly in the way I'd planned!

Oh well

I found an old pair of 3/4 length pants in the wardrobe this week, and checked the size - 12. Would they fit? I doubted it, but thought I'd try them on anyway.

To my great delight, they did fit - in fact, they weren't even tight! Well done me - as you can imagine, this was Doing Good Things for my post-baby self esteem (as far as clothes are concerned anyway).

Then, today, I discovered something previously overlooked - they are maternity pants!! No wonder they are so loose...

Go Esther!

I am rather excited to discover that Equip '09 will be looking at the book of Esther. This was my favourite book of the bible when I was a kid, I think because it had a princess in it. I don't think I realised when I was little that Esther was a concubine - the subtleties of her spending a night with the King were lost on me at that age!

I recently re-read the book, and it is a cracking good story.

Wedding vows

Another idea that struck me from the DVD (see below), is that marriage is a covenant between two people. It's not, fundamentally, about feelings of love - it's about the making, and keeping, of promises. This is what distinguishes marriage from de facto relationships, where there are no explicit, public promises.

This means that the actual vows are really important - these are the promises we make and the core of the relationship! I wonder sometimes about modern wedding vows, whether the promises made are in keeping with what marriages need to survive and thrive. For example, some vows include sections about helping the other person reach their potential, or fulfill their life dreams, or become all they can be. This, in a subtle way, to me seems to be promoting the individual as more important than the marriage.

Of course there is plenty of room within the marriage relationship for people to achieve their own goals and develop as individuals, but when this becomes more important than the marriage things are in trouble.

If times are tough I try to ask not what do I need, but rather what does my marriage need. Why? Because I promised to. Here's what I said to Adam on 24 March 2001:

"I Alison, in the presence of God, take you Adam, to be my husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to submit to all the time, as long as we both shall live. This is my solemn vow and promise."

Now, I love Adam very much. But if those feelings weren't there, the promises would be. That's why vows are important to the health of a marriage - and why we depend on them!

Sovreignty of the Individual

I watched a DVD yesterday of a talk given by Phillip Jensen at the Equip Ministry Wives conference earlier this year. The talk was on what the bible says about being a wife.

It was very interesting, and there were a few ideas I found particularly striking. One of them was that our culture practices the sovreignty of the individual, which by its very nature is diametrically opposed to marriage and families. For families to be healthy, individuals need to submit to and serve one another, and in a culture where individual is king, this poses some challenges!