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Tuesday 16 January 2018

New Years Resolutions

Let me just start by saying I don’t necessarily believe in “New Year’s Resolutions”, but I believe in challenging myself, improving myself, and encouraging myself. It’s easy to set yourself up for failure and thus rocketing oneself into self pity and dissatisfaction. For this reason I want to have the motive of putting Christ at the center of my goals. I want my goals to be about Him and not myself. On my own I am a selfish, lazy and indulgent person.

These verses will be my focus and my mantras for, hopefully not only 2018, but for the rest of my life:
  

So with that being said here is my list of things I want to strive for with the help of the Lord:

DO’S & DON’TS
Work on my spiritual growth
  • ·         Read my bible at least 5 times a week (Read the whole Bible in a year)
  • ·         Spend more time praying
  • ·         Read more books on improving the Christian life
Take better care of myself
  • ·         Exercise at least 4 times a week
  • ·         Eat healthier – cut down on carbs and sugar – EAT MORE FRESH VEG!!!!
  • ·         Drink more water – need to try to get up to 2L a day
  • ·         Don’t allow my legs to look like a woolly mammoth
  • ·         Keep my nails neat and pretty (Try to paint them more often)
  • ·         Wear perfume more often (Makes the husband happy!)

Try to read at least 20 books this year (that was my record last year)

Write more – I want to create a habit of writing so that when I am able to take a creative writing course my skills are sharp

Try to complete one household goal each weekday (excluding general house work)

Keep within the budget

Be a better mom
  • ·         Be more patient with my kids
  • ·         Talk kinder to my kids
  • ·         Do more stuff with them
  • ·         Don’t neglect teaching them about the Lord (Use every instance to point them towards Jesus)
  • ·         Read more Christian parenting books
  • ·         Pray for my kids
  • ·         Introduce Noah to Star Wars 😉

Be a better wife
  • ·         Keep my husband’s needs and desires in the front of my mind
  • ·         Wag my tail when he gets home (Personal joke – neither of us consider me or my role as a wife as inferior or lesser to his role as husband – point is to be happy to see him when he gets home, he has also had a long day and home should be his safe place as well as mine)
  • ·         Read more Christian books on marriage
  • ·         Pray for my husband

Be a better friend
  • ·         Don’t talk so much about myself - that’s what blogging is for, right? ðŸ˜‰
  • ·         Take personal interest in others lives
  • ·         Message or call long distant friends more often – don’t rely on Facebook for updates on their lives
  • ·         Pray for my friends

Don’t allow myself to get into a cooking slump (I love cooking and making new and exciting dishes, but my laziness can take over and get me stuck in a rut)

Be more organised

Don’t be so hard on myself – Talk to myself rather than listening to myself

Serve the Lord with a happy heart

Thursday 22 June 2017

Unbiological Sister

There is a saying:

You can pick your friends,
You can pick your nose,
but you can't pick your friend's nose.

Well, I have this friend - by no means an ordinary friend - whose friendship is almost without boundaries. I admit there has been no shared nose-picking, but don't get me started on scabs!

This friend is more than a friend. She is family. She is my un-biological sister. She is my person.

After my husband, she is the one I can tell anything to. She has seen and knows more about me than any other person. She is the one who I would pretty much do anything with. Don't make me tell you about our tattoo misadventure!

She is the one who after one phone call begging me to blog again so that she wouldn't have to do it alone, that here I am blogging!

I protest a lot to the things she begs me to do and she calls me a "hater", a term of which I derive all of her endearments. And yet here I am caving yet again! Because ultimately she knows how to light a spark of excitement in my life. She knows how to draw out the adventurer and dreamer in me.

We met at church. We and were thrown together in interesting social situations. Her husband was my dad's best friend. We would often have pizza and game nights at my parents. I didn't know her too well, but there was something about her that I respected and admired. So I asked her if she would meet with me regularly as someone I could talk to and be accountable to.

*Side Note: She is only a few years older than me, but her husband, Mike, is the same age as my folks. Lots of jokes and stories I could tell you there, but the most important thing is that they love each other and they both love the Lord! So I like to tell people that my best friend is married to my dad's best friend!

Soon after I started meeting with Kea (better known as Keakree to me) our friendship blossomed. It wasn't long before I started working for her and Mike as their secretary. The years of fun that we had everyday is something that I will treasure always.

Rubber-band wars
Scare-wars
Playstation at lunch time
Insult-wars
Pants-wetting laughter

Approximately 12 years of friendship later our friendship has grown into one stronger than I have ever known. We no longer live in the same town, let alone province as each other anymore, but our bond has only grown as it does it such cases.

I have kids and she has her dogs (don't you dare think they are any less important!). I am a stay-at-home-mom and she is a high-school art teacher. She is athletic and I am more into spectator-sports. Our lives are very different, but the things we value and care about are parallel. Not to mention a same love for books, movies, and comic book characters!

I have her back and she has mine. She is the only friend I say "I love you" to. I love Kea like David loved Johnathan. I am the Meredith to her Christina. She is my person.

So Keakree, this is my public declaration that OLIVE YEW!


If you would like to follow her blog you can find it here tencentmillionaireblog.wordpress.com

Wednesday 11 September 2013

Battle of the Bees

Our war on nature continues...

Some honey bees have built their hive in what I believe is a sewage ventilation pipe. Its high up on the roof out back where our clothes line is and quite frankly they weren't hurting anyone - yet.
 
A couple of weeks ago Gabriel was doing some work out back and he got stung. There was a moment of concern as Gabriel remembered the last time he was stung as a child he got sick and the doctor told him he was allergic. Fortunately nothing seemed to happen and all was well and the bees, for the time, were forgotten.

Once or twice a rouge bee would find its way into our house. Mainly into our bathroom, which is right next to the pipe the hive is in.

Then two days ago (Monday) I was in the kitchen making dinner and Noah was fiddling around, getting in my way, when he started to cry. Exasperated I looked at him and asked "What's wrong?!" (Patience isn't my strong suit) He whimpered and looked down at his hand. There was a tiny thorn sticking out of his pinky finger. I tried to pull it out and he started to squirm and squeal. After fussing at him to hold still so it can be over quicker I finally pulled it out. But when I looked at it didn't quite look like a thorn. And that is when I heard the buzzing on the floor. Noah had tried to pick up a dying bee and had gotten stung.

After applying a paste made from bicarb, Noah's temperament quickly improved. We were relieved that the sting didn't seem to be too bad and he showed no signs if being allergic.

The next morning (Tuesday) I stood on a dead bee. Rotten dead devil still managed to sting me.

Since all three of us had now been stung Gabriel decided it was time to do something about these bees. He made a few calls and got a hold of a lady who said her fiance dealt with hive removals, but he was away and she would call us back later that day. She never did.

The following morning (Today - Wednesday) Gabriel made some more calls. They all seemed to be dead ends. We didn't want to destroy the hive (we're not supposed to anyway, they are on the endangered list) and no-one seemed to know anyone who wanted one.


So Gabriel thought in the meantime he would cover the pipe with a board and a couple of bricks to keep the bees inside for now. Hmmm... Not such a great idea. The distress call was made and all the hundreds of bees that were out harvesting pollen or whatever else they do flew back to their blocked up home. And being locked out of their house was not making them very happy.

Still on the phone trying to find a solution Gabriel called a friend of a friend in hopes he would be able to help. When Gabe told him what we had done the guy said that was probably a mistake because we now would have angered the bees.

With a combination of concern for our family's well-being in light of now having hundred of angry bees just outside our house mixed with feelings of guilt at having them trapped and possibly killing them in the long run Gabriel asked me if I thought he should go back up on the roof and remove the board. I told him I wasn't comfortable making that call. He decided he would.

I told him to wear long pants and a long sleeve shirt before he went up there. On his way out the back door I jokingly (but seriously) asked if he had a balaclava he could wear. I knew he didn't. 

I watched as he climbed the ladder and pulled himself up onto the roof, slowly approaching the blocked hive. The released bees had seemed to have calmed down and were massed along the pipe. As Gabriel slowly slid the board off a dark swarm shot out of the pipe and started attacking Gabriel mercilessly.

Swatting them furiously, Gabriel ran along the roof to where the ladder was and jumped. He barely touched the ladder so much as using it as a springboard before falling to the ground. I watched helplessly thinking he must have broken his legs, but in that instant he was up again running toward the house screaming "Shut the door! Shut the door!" The bees were still after him!

In the house Gabriel continued trying to beat off the few bees that had managed to follow him resuming their assault. I grabbed the new can of DOOM that I had just bout after my incident with the spider-that-would-not-die. Gabriel was on the floor trying to fight off the bees that were in his hair and I started spraying over his head. One bee received the order to take out the chemical warfare being used against them and came after me! I screamed as it went for my hand holding the DOOM, dropping the can I retreated. 

Gabriel was up again yelling at me to grab Noah and get into the car. I pulled Noah out of the highchair where I had left him and bolted into the garage that is just off the dinning room. Gabriel slammed the door shut behind us.

As the adrenaline pumped through our veins we stood there breathing heavily staring at the closed door. I turned to my husband and asked if I needed to take him to the emergency room. He said yes. I must admit in that moment I was probably the most scared.

Gabriel had been stung multiple times on his ears and hands, and his ankles were in excruciating pain from the fall.

After going back inside, to get dressed and grab my purse, Gabriel told me his ears were throbbing. I looked at them at and there was still a stinger in one of his ears, which I removed with tweezers.

I drove us to the doctor's office praying that Gabriel wouldn't go into anaphylactic shock on the way. Once at the doctor's office and after the doctor berated Gabriel for messing with the bees he said that Gabriel showed no signs of being allergic and gave him a cortisone injection and pain medicine for his bruised tendons. He said his his feet still weren't right in a couple of days he would need to go for x-rays.

On our way home we got a call from the lady who Gabriel had spoken to the day before and said her fiance could come and try to remove the bees this evening. Great.


Monday 9 September 2013

The Spider That Made Me Wet Myself

It was Friday night and I was home by myself (Noah not included) Gabriel was away at a retreat. I had the house to myself.

It was after 8:00 PM when I went to use the bathroom off of my bedroom. I had left the light off because the bedroom light was on and provided me with what I thought was enough light to see, but as I was sitting there, mid-flow, I looked over and there on the wall just above the toilet paper was a spider the size of my palm!

In that moment I levitated off of the toilet seat away from the spider and toward the shower - still peeing! The spider of course noticed the crazy human leaping around and marking her territory at the same time and fled behind the bathroom door.

I quickly ran out of the bathroom and to the hall toilet to finish my business.

Not wanting to waste any more time (who knows where that thing could get to if left alive and unwatched!) I run to the kitchen to grab the can of DOOM. But all I can find is an all but empty can. Undeterred I take the pathetic remains of bug spray (worse case scenario I could always beat the spider to death with it...) and rush back to the room. Armed with the poison in one hand and one of Gabriel's shoes in the other (like I'm going to have smooshed spider on one of my shoes!)

I carefully open the bathroom door, and bid farewell to the eight-legged-freak. Standing at a safe distance I take aim and fire - knowing full well what little spray I have won't kill it, but hoping it will drop off of the wall so I can smash it with the shoe! But the dastardly devil will not succumb that easily. He races up the wall and onto the ceiling. I dart out of the way in fear that he may attack from above. Once again I use the full and final force the can of DOOM will allow, but it only drives him further along the ceiling until he is over the shower.

I stand at a loss for a couple of seconds. Our ceiling is too high for me to squish it there, so I need something to knock it down... Inspiration hits like lightening and I grab a wad of toilet paper and quickly wet it. Standing on top of the toilet seat I hurl my wet projectile at the spider. One wad after another I miss. It is as though this spider is the arachnid version of Neo from the Matrix, dodging bullets!

Eventually I chuck the empty toilet paper roll at the thing. Nadda. I look around for something else to throw at it when I see the can of air-freshener on the window-sill. With a triumphant laugh I spray the spider once more. For a second there it doesn't seem to faze it, but then finally it drops. I let out a scream, because lets face it - I'm a girl, but wasting not a second longer I rip back the shower curtain and bring down the full wrath of the shoe in hand.

Victory at last! Now I can go to sleep in peace.... After I clean up the puddle on the floor, of course!


Wednesday 4 September 2013

Late 20's Life Crisis

Gabriel was joking with me the other day that I am going through a mid life crisis early. Of course there is no "crisis" unless you would call the crisis the need-to-escape-complacency a crisis.

I think that around mid-pregnancy with Noah I started to feel like I wasn't pretty. I had gained extra weight - Duh! I was pregnant! I was also in the process of growing my hair really long. I wanted it down to my hips, thinking super long hair was beautiful, but instead I was just looking like a hippie.

There was a short while after Noah was born that I started to feel good about the way that I looked. I lost so much weight while I was breast feeding that I weighed less than I did before I got pregnant! So many people commented on how thin I looked, and let's be honest, when people compliment you on your looks it feels good!

But it was short lived. When I stopped breast feeding the kilograms I had lost came back - with friends! And by this point my hair was so long that I permanently wore it in a bun to keep it out of the way, not to mention I felt like I was wearing a fur coat when it was down, but even then it was such a mission to style it.

We had just moved to a small town where we hardly knew anyone and there wasn't anywhere to go that you would need to dress up for. So the rut that I found myself in seemed to be made of quicksand and I was slowly sinking. I rarely wore make-up and my daily sense of style consisted of ill-fitting jeans and tank tops.

Saying all this it would seem as though I was just miserable. I was, but I didn't realize that I was. It was worse. I was complacent. I would push back the unhappy thoughts of my appearance and just not think about it. But it's not that easy to escape the tiny nagging thoughts in the back of my mind. The thoughts that knew I was discontent. They would surface when I got dressed - and worse when I got undressed! They would be there, evident by the frown on my face as I would look into the mirror as I tried to do something with the masses of hair. And the clothes that didn't make me look womanly.
  
The turning point for me was whilst looking through all the wonderful things on Pinterest - all the thing that I wanted for myself, the things that I wanted to be. I found a picture of Mandy Moore and I thought to myself that I want my hair to look like her's. And right there and then my mind was made up. Gone was the long desire to have hair down to my waist. I put the picture on Facebook saying that this is what I was wanting to do and asking what people thought. Within two days I had a bunch of "Likes" and comments saying "Go for it!" Three days after sharing the picture I had my hair cut.

 Once more I shared a picture on Facebook this time a before and after one. And this time I received more than double the response. I don't say these things to brag, but to express how wonderful it felt that others were happy for me and the fantastic results of what a simple haircut could bring.

Life as a missionaries wife I don't have a disposable income that I can just buy a whole new wardrobe to go with my new look. But I was greatly blessed when my close friend Alana gave me a bag of clothes that she didn't wear. In this bag was a ton of hardly worn items that matched the style that I had been pinning for some time on Pinterest. Just dressing better made me feel better about my post-baby weight, the other day someone even told me I'm looking skinny!

Now feeling pretty and confident once again I couldn't stop there. I took the plunge and did something that I have been thinking about for years and I got a small white snowflake tattoo in a discreet place.

I'm still not as happy with my body as I know I could be, and this is where the real discipline has to take place. I'm a stay-at-home-mom in a small town, and going to gym with a toddler is not an option for me. So I dived onto the internet looking for work-out routines to do at home. I found one I thought was doable and printed it out and stuck it on my fridge.

The real problem is eating right. Gabriel and I LOVE pasta and normally have it around twice a week. My mom was telling me that one of the biggest weight-loss secrets is to go gluten-free. I'm not sure if I could completely do that, but I will try to at least limit it.

So, there you have it. My "Late-20's-Life-Crisis" and my endeavor to be happy and satisfied with myself.

But alas...

"Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
    vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 
What does man gain by all the toil
    at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
    but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
    and hastens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
    and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
    and on its circuits the wind returns.
All streams run to the sea,
    but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
    there they flow again.
All things are full of weariness;
    a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
    nor the ear filled with hearing.
What has been is what will be,
    and what has been done is what will be done,
    and there is nothing new under the sun."
Ecclesiastes 1:2-9

Thursday 29 August 2013

To Blog or Not To Blog

To blog or not to blog? That has been my question for a number of years now. I love to write (mostly fiction) but I have felt like I have been hitting a wall for sometime now. So, I thought I would try blogging as a way to get my creative juices flowing. I cannot promise that my grammar and punctuation will always be correct. Nor can I promise that I will be consistent in maintaining this blog, but I will endeavor to give it my best.