Category Archives: Life

Turns out… I’m a Trekky

Posted in Family, Life, Love, Top 10 by

Day 7: Say how much you love

I have a confession to make… it’s about an interest of mine that is often shunned by the ‘cool’ people of the world, but I feel like ‘say how much you love’ is an invitation to just bare it all and let it out… haters come at me because… I don’t really care. Ok are you ready… here it is…

I love Star Trek… a lot.

I know it’s not the coolest thing in the world to be passionate about, but I can’t help it, in fact for a long time I shunned my own brothers (who I just told you how much I love) for liking such a ridiculous show… but I am hooked…  And let’s face it… I was never going to be the coolest person in the world.  The thing is I feel like confessing this is like confirming what I already know in my heart… and what I have tried to keep from the world for so long…  I am a full on nerd… but you know what… now that it’s out there… it turns out I am ok with it… and this love of all things Star Trek is just something else to add to my random and somewhat eclectic list of interests.  I mean there probably aren’t that many other people in the world that can say they their interests include:

Country music,
Anything Disney,
Watching the V8 supercars
Zumba
Big Brother
Star Trek and
Trying new breakfast places

And that’s just a few… It’s a pretty random collection, but it’s just another thing that makes me who I am, slightly odd, but easy to get along with (secondary to a versatile range of interests), girl… And even though it’s weird… I love it all, and i’m sure this is just the beginning of a whole list of random interests still to come.

Live long and prosper.

The Bumpy Bumpy Road

Posted in Faith, Family, God, Life, Love by

Day 6: Love Your Bump

Love my bump ey?  Well while I do have a bit of a gut… I don’t have a bump because as I mentioned earlier… I am not pregnant… but thinking outside the box a little and determined to use as much of this love list as I can, I decided that while I don’t have a physical bump, I certainly have had, and still have some metaphorical bumps in that crazy journey that I am currently calling life.  So I thought that I would post about something I have been thinking about for a while… Embracing these bumps and moving on, and learning to love the person that they have made me become… which I guess by default is… ‘loving the bump’.  Some of you would know that over the last couple of years… Well maybe more than a couple, my life has been a bit topsy turvey, there have been some really crap parts and some awesome parts, and I think for the I have slowly been getting better at dealing with events such as these.

This year, yes I know it’s only the second week of Feb, has unfortunately been no different, the bumps they keep on coming.  Each time I deal with one and I am just starting to get my confidence back, it seems like there is another just sitting there, ready and waiting to pounce.  I have spent a lot of time thinking about the purpose for these bumps and I know for one,  they are making me stronger, in fact I often catch my self thinking surely I am strong enough… but apparently not, coz they just keep coming.

In my most recent bump I was reminded of something very important the way I respond both immediately and ongoing in a choice… I can either choose faith or fear…. Now despite the fact that I love and serve the king of kings, saviour of the world, all powerful, all knowing, omnipotent God, and I know that faith is the better response… my first reaction is usually not god, but fear.

Fear is something I have struggled with for a long time… Most of you probably already know this, in fact, in the middle of last year I preached about it, but once again it’s back and… once again I have had enough of living by it.  The thing is, most of the time fear seems like the easiest option, but more often than not, it just makes things worse.  So, in order to get on top of this fear and faith thing I have found my self seeking god in completely different ways than I normally would, I have been reading different books, listening to different songs and trying for the first time podcasts from churches around the world.  I have now listened to three podcasts from Bethel church in the states and surprise, surprise I have been learning… I know I shouldn’t really be surprised, coz in the bible it talks about the fact that if we seek, we will find and if we press into god, He will press into us, but I still am, just a little bit.  Anyway, in the first sermon I was reminded that we are called to be warriors of hope, and that it’s by our faith that we inherit the promises of god… Pretty cool ey? And then in the third one I heard something that I don’t think I had thought about before… That when you believe the lie, you empower a dis-empowered devil.  I know that the devil is defeated, but when I let the bumps get me down and cripple me with fear I actually just give the devil a stronger hold on my life.

So once again, I am taking a stand and making some decisions…

1.    The worry box is back… I will hand it over and let it go
Mark 5:36 – ‘Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe’
Philippians 4:6 – ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God’

2.    I will be thankful for the bumps because they have made me who I am but I will not let them bump me off the track…
2 Timothy 1:7-9 – ‘7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. 8 So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. 9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time’

3.    I will choose faith. I will choose trust and I will not empower a die-empowered devil.
Romans 8:28 – ‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’
John 19:30(b) – ‘Jesus said, “It is finished.”’

Soak it up

Posted in Faith, God, Life, Love by

Day 5: Do something you love

Tonight was the second night service for the year, and I am really glad that it was because it was most definitely my ‘do something you love’.  I love being there.  When there is no night service through January, while I enjoy the decrease in responsibility, there is a bit of a hole in my life.  I know that church isn’t the be all and end all of my faith, but I also know that it is a super important part, gathering together, sharing, learning and growing together.  It’s not perfect, but that’s because it made of imperfect people… but there is a lot of love and it’s good.

Tonight I was really encouraged by the honesty of the worship and in fact the whole service, it was real, not a show, or a routine, but passionate, honest and simple… it’s moments like that that I wish I could just stop time and soak it up.  I don’t think I stop often enough to just sit and be still in the presence of God.  But I know it’s something that I need to do more often… because it’s good… really really good.

This year our church, in particular this service and the youth and young adults bit, is going through yet another transition time but I am really excited about what’s about to happen, and hopefully the lives that will be changed with it and through it, including my own as I continue to grow and become closer and closer to the person that God wants me to be.  I am glad to be a part of the army, and to call this place my spiritual home, I know it is where I am meant to be and am glad that it will continue to be my ‘do something you love’ for a long long time to come.

Being a Big Sister

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Day 3: Be someone you love

When I first read my job for today… be someone you love… I have to admit I was a little confused by the concept.  I don’t really want to be any one but myself, because it has taken me a long time to be comfortable with that idea, so after a little bit of thinking, I realised that even though I am me, there are lots of parts to who I am… There is:

Emma the Daughter,
Emma the Wife,
Emma the Friend,
Emma the Dietitan,
Emma the chore-avoider,
Emma the Zumba tri hard,
Emma the Disney princess (she exists… even if it’s only in my brain),
Emma the Dog owner, and
Emma the sister.

Now I am not saying that being a sister is last on the list of what makes me, me, in fact it’s actually shaped who I am, but I put there because that’s what I got to focus on today, being a sister.  I am lucky enough to be the big sister to two brothers, one only 14months younger than me and one 5 years younger, and today I had the privilege of hanging out with my youngest brother Jake.  In fact you can read about what we did on his blog… as it was quite a tale and seeing has he has already written it so eloquently, I won’t do the same (but I will mention that I made meringues which was number 16 on the list!).

But I did want to say that I really love being a big sister.  I know as I get older, my brothers seem to be catching up to me in a lot of ways, they are both taller than me, although that’s not that difficult and in many areas they already are or soon will be wiser and better than me (although I will always stand by the fact that I am the smartest).  I can’t look at figures and business stuff and get excited the way that Dust does.  I can’t do a high ropes course let alone supervise one the way Jake has.  I can’t ride a bike or wear Lycra quite the way that Dusty can and I can’t wear a mullet as proudly as Jake can.  There are lots of things that I can do, but there are so many more things that the boys can do that I just wouldn’t dream of, or couldn’t even if I tried.  I am so proud of both of them and the things that they have already accomplished as well as the things that I know they are still to do.  But more importantly I am proud of who they are and the young men they have become.  I am also glad that I get to laugh with them, cry with them… cry with Jake, hug them… hug Jake, except on my birthday and Christmas when I get to hug dust too and just generally share my life with them.  I am glad I can be there to support them, encourage them and to blame them when need be.  In fact I can’t think of things that I am not thankful for about them and I am very much looking forward to sharing many more years, life experiences and Monty Python movies with them.

Who else but Dave

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Day 2: Show someone you love

Just to keep this interesting and a little less like the bold and the beautiful… I thought I would ‘show’ my top three faces… ok top 10 faces of Dave… because I love him, and all the strange faces he can make….

1. His ‘Your an idiot’ face

2. His ‘Please no more photos’ face

3. His ‘little boy, sick’ face

4. His ‘Surprised’ face

5. His ‘I love coffee’ face

6. His ‘Blue Steel’ face

7. His ‘I’m working Hard’ face

8. His ‘Fun Dave – oooooooOOOOOO’ face

9. His ‘Happy Dave’ face

10. His ‘I love you’ face

3 Reasons I love this Sunburnt Country

Posted in Friendship, Life, The List by

I love Australia … and I also really love Australia day…  I love almost everything about it… the only thing I don’t like is the assumption that it must include copious amounts of alcohol, but other than that I am very much down with the whole thing…  Anyway, this year I got to spend Australia day with my good mates from Castlemaine and a few more of their friends too and it was a lovely way to do it.  It also meant that I could cross number 63 off the list… so I decided that I would make it a post… but in order to avoid the grade 5 styles holiday diary… I have decided to make a Top 3 reasons I love being Australian…

  1. You can put a flag on anything… and it’s not offensive… its embraced… for example… the fence…  bathers… tattoos… plates… severities… or even a pool
  2. It doesn’t matter how ugly or ridiculous an idea can be… It can still be a friggin good idea… enter the magic punch fountain
  3. It doesn’t really matter where you are…  your can make a good time anywhere if you have the right people.

There are heaps of other reasons I love being part of this sunburnt country… but these are just a couple that came up yesterday…

Hope you had a good Australia day…

I’m too old for this…

I have decided I am getting old… I know this seems like an outrageous comment from a 24year old, but it’s true… I used to be able to stay up all night and have no issues the next day… but those days are gone. Last night I stayed up to watch Lleyton Hewitt’s match on TV, which didn’t actually finish that late, but I am really stuffed now… and it sucks, mostly because his opponent Novak Djokovic is only 24 and he was up playing tennis, full on tennis while I was whinging about being tired.

What I want to know is how did this happen? How did I get to this point where I can no longer hack the pace? And how do I get out of it? Perhaps it’s because I am not very fit at the moment, or because my diets terrible, or because I don’t get enough sleep when I should… perhaps it’s all of these things, I don’t really care what’s causing it to be honest, I just want it to stop and go back to the way it used to be… where I could party hard all night and then crash, but not a moment before I was ready! I mean what would happen if heaven forbid I got into cycling and wanted to watch the tour? I would never make it! And what concerns me even more is… what am I supposed to when the Olympics are on this year? I love the Olympics, in fact I can’t get enough of them when they are on… I love the good sports, the popular sports, the terrible sports and the just plain weird sports… how am I meant to soak up all that is London 2012 if I can’t even make it to 1am to watch the tennis? I think the only option is to pretend it’s not happening… So here is to living in denial… were I just pretend I can still do it, like right now and just have to suck it up and deal with the consequences… and in the meantime I can work or getting myself fitter… making more energy, well making my body better at using energy…and with the help of my new exercise piggy bank (no. 86 on The List)…

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I say… bring on the health kick… again…

Help… I don’t know how to stop!

Posted in Life by

Something I have discovered over my years of blogging is that I am a terrible blog finisher… in fact it’s probably the reason I don’t post a lot of things, I say what I need to but then I can’t bring it all to together and make it sound complete.  They just tend to stop… I am sure there is a skill to it, and perhaps I just need more practice… or perhaps I am trying too hard, if I just didn’t think about it maybe it would just happen, all I know is what ever this is… isn’t working.

Perhaps it’s because my blogs don’t have a specific format… My Curious George Blogs have an ending because they are asking for something and they have their own format, maybe that’s what I need a format for the rest… On my old blogs I used to have a tag line that I would use to tie it all together, for example on my original blog, back in 2006, I used the tag ‘Just a thought I had…’ which was ace but then there was an unfortunate incident and it stopped… When I had my 22 adventures blog I finished everything with some variety of ‘I guess that’s just all part of the adventure!’ which made sense because the blog as called 22 adventures… but now I have a blog, which is really just there for me to record and document my life as I see it and perhaps bring joy to a few people along the way.  It doesn’t have a particular feel or flavour and I kind of like it that way, but this is what I think is causing my problem… If they were letters I could sign of… if they were questions I could finish with the question (obvious I know), if they were all statements I could finish with some awesome tag line, but there are all over the shop… Maybe they have terrible ends because about now when I am writing I realise I am rambling and no one really cares about whether I have a tag or a purpose or if I even blog at all…

Anyway the point is I know it’s an issue and I am working on it, but if anyone has any suggestions… now would be a good time to share, perhaps even by using the comment button below…