Absent Minded

I'm sorry, I forgot about blogspot. It's just not pretty enough.

But you know who is pretty enough?

Wordpress.

Particularly http://www.twosylvs.wordpress.com

See you there!

I'm a good person and I get by

So, like I said, I'm working on getting a talk together. This is my third (and final) talk for the year, and I don't enjoy them. I don't mind giving them - public speaking doesn't phase me, but exegesis... That's tough.

It's even tougher that I have not been reading my Bible properly. I read through Judges, 1&2 Kings and 1&2 Chronicles, and a bit of Psalms, and then I stopped. I was tired, and I was lazy, and I let it slip my mind. I kept reading Christian books though, and I convinced myself that was okay.

Anyway, so I struggle with exegesis because after I read, I don't reflect. I love reading stories, and I hang in for the ride. Reading through Judges, Kings and Chronicles was exciting. Great stories, interesting characters, and awesome twists which you can always see coming (I hate suspense). Reading through the Gospels (which I also did earlier this year) reminds me of who Jesus is. But that's all I do, I read, I appreciate, and I thank God. I don't try expanding on it in my own time, applying it to my life, making it relevant to today. Probably my greatest flaw in "quiet time" and I'm blaming it on my post-modern indoctrination.

And then on Friday night, Sly asked if I'd been reading the Bible. I honestly told him that no, I hadn't been. He asked me to read on Saturday, and promise him.

I don't like making promises, because I don't take them lightly, so on Saturday morning I woke up and decided to read my Bible. But I didn't, I checked my email, had a squiz through the wedding forum I subscribe to, caught up on Neighbours and Home and Away episodes I mixed, and played Tetris on Facebook. Then I cleaned the house. Then I showered. Then I decided I was going to bake a banana cake... all the while the fact that I hadn't read the Bible yet plagued me.

So, at 2, thirty minutes before Sly came over, I decided I would read. I didn't know where to go, so opened up to my bookmark which was placed at Psalm 26. And then I closed my Bible and prepared myself to walk away, but something told me to go back and finish reading it. So I did, I read it again. And then I prayed, slowly, and read it a third time. And then I thought about whether or not I abhor the "assembly of evildoers" and if I "refuse to sit with the wicked". And then I thought about how I'd been filling the house with noise that very morning, by turning on Video Hits and letting those images fill the house (and my mind). And how I had spent the first hour of my morning watching Neighbours and Home and Away and procrastinating in picking up my Bible.

I think I'm going to do something about that.

If I could fall into the sky

Like I mentioned earlier, I'm reading A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. I think it's good. I don't know.

Way back when, Tristan told me I should read Blue Like Jazz. I bought it, I read it, and I couldn't put it down. It tore me up on the insides, it rebuked me, it challenged, it made want to be different - to be better. I read it through 2, 3 and then 4 times, and each time I read it, I was more challenged, more intrigued, and more analytical of myself.

Then, when I was flying overseas, I decided I should pick up another Don Miller book and revel in the enlightenment he offered there. I read through Searching for God Knows What in a matter of hours (maybe. The time it took me to get from Sydney to Abu Dhabi) and I was in awe. Again, I was challenged and rebuked, and I think that's because I compromise too much, and get sucked into post-modern Christianity. Don Miller is all about making post-modern Christian's less post-modern and more Christian

I fell in love with Don Miller. I found his blog, and read it every time he posted. I never commented, but it took all my will power not to send him an email (or comment on his blog) and tell him I loved him and I was ready to marry him. Pretty quickly, I fell in love with Sly, too, and it's kind of hard to be in love with two people at the same time. Maybe I really just wanted to be Don - as thoughtful as him, as clever as him and as funny as him. I decided I'd read everything he ever wrote, just so maybe one day I could.

So on Wednesday, I detoured on the way home from work, and hopped into Koorong to pick up his newest book. I read through it most of Wednesday night, and a little bit yesterday, and I've stopped with about a chapter to go.

I don't like this book (yet). I read through the first 100 or so pages rather frustrated. Interested, but frustrated. You see, it's not that it's poorly written. Miller is a great story writer. I want to learn to write stories like he does. His stories are gripping and thought provoking and real. But there is something lacking.

That lacking could be within me - in my heart, maybe that's why I'm not connecting so well with this book.

Anyway, I will start reading it again tomorrow, and tell you what I really think.

Read My Mind

A blog thinking thing....

Outside my window... it's dark and I'm really too scared to look incase there's a monster or stranger. I am thinking... about the story of my life, and if I'm an active character who provokes change, or if I am just kind of letting the story happen around me. I am thankful for... Sylvester, who encourages me not to quit even when it looks like I should. In the kitchen... I made rad veal parmigana today. I am wearing... leggings and a singlet. I am reading... A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Don Miller. I've only got a few pages to go, but I'll read it again soon. I'm also reading "A Call to Spiritual Reformation" by Don Carson. I'm reading a chapter a week and trying to take something on to revolutionalise my prayer life. I am hoping... that the insurance will be resolved. I am creating... a talk for CPC Youth on Acts 5 and the 10th Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Covet. I am hoping for inspiration and praying for God breathe words. I am praying... that it will be well with my soul. Around the house... is a lot of mess. We ran out of vacuum bags and haven't vacuumed for over a week. And my arm hurts to move things, but I think I'm just going to let it hurt 'cause it's getting so annoying! One of my favorite things... is singing. I sometimes don't know how to express praise to God, and singing helps me do that. A few plans for the rest of the week... (being tomorrow and the weekend) include having my (wedding) hair trial tomorrow; printing more labels for (wedding) invitations; cleaning my room; dinner with Sly's pastoral care group and picking Julia up from the airport. A picture thought I'm sharing with you... I don't know what a picture thought is, but as soon as I read that I thought I should share with you my wedding-day earrings. I think they're fine.

Nothing compares

I have been wanting to blog for a month, and started maybe 4 or 5 posts but didn't do anything about them. I've also been feeling like nothing I write will suffice, because I've been trying to write a talk that was heaps dud. I mean, the topic wasn't heaps dud, just my writing abilities.

I wanted to to you about A Call to Spiritual Reformation, that I am reading through again, but this time with Peter who is old and clever. Peter is so clever, and every time I came to say something about it, he'd say something much more insightful and holy and then I'd feel like there's nothing interesting I could say about it.

Then I was in a car accident. I'd never been in a real one before. I mean, once a guy hit my car, and I wrote about that on mindcaves, and the worst thing that happened was I had to pay $900 excess. His car was only a little dented and my doors were swiped, but everything was mainly okay. This accident looks like a $2200 excess, and the airbags came out, and the car was written off. And it wasn't my car, lame.

And then we gave out wedding invitations, and that was fun and exciting too. I like weddings. I want my wedding to happen already, so I can be married, 'cause I'm kind of getting sick of waiting around, and planning. When I grow up, I'm going to be married and play "house" with Sly. It's going to be a ball.

Anyway, so I'm back on the blog mobile. You should read, and comment, so I feel loved, and feel like I have people to blog for.

Heh. Blog rhymes with bog.

The kind of girl you read about in new-wave magazines

I must have been in at least grade 5, and I was getting dressed to go to the Library with my sisters. Although it always seemed like the easier option, I was never allowed to go to the Library in my school uniform. I think Mum and Dad thought as long as we were in "mufti", we'd appear anonymous, or blend into the crowd (no one would be able to track us down, I guess).

I had this pyjama top that I loved. Someone had sent it down from Egypt with my brother when he'd visited the year prior. It was a long sleeve, purple tee-shirt, and it had a big, droopy eyed mustard dog in the centre, kind of like this one. Anyway, I always wore it as a pyjama top, even though I thought it had potential, 'cause it had a matching pair of mustard pyjama pants.

But then, one day I was reading a Baby Sitters Club book, and I discovered that Claudia Kishi, who was cool, funky and had great fashion sense, was wearing a pyjama top to school. Now, don't think this is some lame fashion trend. Claudia Kishi and Stacey McGill formed a lot of my childhood understanding of fashion. And not just mine, there is a blog dedicated to Claudia's fashion, and it's just fantastic. But I digress.

So, I am getting dressed to go to the library, and I put on my purple and mustard pyjama top. And my black ski pants (they were the closest to leggings I had), and my school shoes. But I laced a pair of mustard shoe laces through them, as was the fashion in those days. And I entered the hallway, ready to go to the Library.

Of course, my sisters made fun of me for wearing a pyjama top out in public. I went into the bathroom, just to double check that I actually looked okay, and while I was in there I overheard Mum telling Dad how great my fashion sense was. "Raw3a", she said, which I think means super awesome. I'm pretty sure she was right.

I've had enough now I want my share

They say the most important thing for a Bride to know is that no one is as excited about her wedding as she is. It's sad, but true. While I care so much about my latest wedding purchase (a petticoat for my kitchen tea), your average plain Jane is more concerned about the earthquake in Indonesia, the sale at Myers or the fact that she's lost another 2 kg.

I must say, though, some people are more excited about it than I am. I have friends who track every wedding thing I say down to a tee, and then ask specific questions next time they see me. They're awesome. So awesome about it, that I'm just so sick of wedding preparations. I just want to be married now, and over it.

I was almost going to say "I wouldn't even mind if I had to miss the wedding day", but that's only true if I get to wear the dresses and shoes and get my hair and makeup done, regardless.

In my dreams

I keep having wedding nightmares. Apparently they're normal, but I had my first one in March and they just keep coming back.

The first nightmare revolved around my dress. I got to the Church, and my dress had turned green! I didn't know what to do to fix it, so my sister-in-law and oldest sister decided to try fix it by painting white polka-dots on it. I didn't work out what they were doing until the finished, and then I started crying. If they could make bits of it turn white, why couldn't they make all of it white? But I resigned myself to walking down the aisle regardless, and just as I was about to, I realised Dad was gone, and there were no flowers. And as I started panicking, Dad appeared, with some of those cheap Woolworths bouquets, putting one in my hand. "The flowers never came," he said, "let's go". But the Bridesmaids hadn't walked down the aisle yet, so I turned around looking for them, and Julia didn't like her hair, so she wasn't going to go, and Joy had already gone to sit in the front row because she didn't like her shoes and refused to walk down the aisle in them. As Dad and I started walking down the aisle, someone stopped me and ripped the plastic bag off the flowers. I had forgotten to take it off, and there was a big sticker that said "REDUCED: $4.99". Then I woke up.

The last nightmare was a hair and make-up fiasco. I was running down Burwood Rd looking for hairdressers and make-up people, 'cause the make-up artist didn't come and wasn't answering her phone, and the hairdresser died. I eventually found a place that could take us in at 9.30, which is the time I wanted to be leaving for the Ceremony! I think I eventually worked out it didn't matter how I looked, what mattered more was that I get to the Church on time. And then I got there before Sly, and realised I could have spent time at the hair-dressers, anyway.

I'm kind of looking forward to all of this being over, so I can, you know. Sleep easy.