My own pensieve

Not feeling very discipley....

2012-01-26T21:01:00.002Z

I'm currently researching a new monasticism.

I am in need of a community and also some structured discipline to help me stay in tune and focus on where I'm supposed to be going.

I struggle alone and at the moment I'm plagued with self-hatred.

What I'm also praying for is an elder, a mentor who'll take me under their wing, inspire me and show me the ropes and walk with me a while...someone with that glint of wisdom and knowledge that says they've won a few battles with themselves...If i were to have one wish, I'd really like Jesus to pop round and chat, let me follow him around for a few months, give me some homework and things to work on and one day say, "you're ready to go out on your own, you know where I am if you need me".

In the meantime, until heaven decides the wish scheme's a good one....I'd like a mentor, please Jesus...like the mother in Little Women (or the Railway Children...or The Room)...aware of her own anger and impatience in her youth yet she's always so gracious and wise. Or one of the priests in Susan Howatch Starbright series of books which I read and immediately want to become a monk.

I secretly (well - not so secretly now) dream of a community that grows its own veg, keeps chickens and pigs, maybe a cow.....shares parenting and chores, has artists and musicians and pastors and carers and comics and thinkers...sharing life together, the ups and down, weathering the storms, growing in wisdom. Obviously it would always be sunny and the evenings balmy so we could sit under the stars and drink wine while the children sleep nearby...i don't know the practicalities of that...i don't know how the economics would work...but it seems such a nice thought, working and praying and worshipping together...reminding each other of our value and potential...

In the meantime, there's always Facebook which brings with it all the highs and lows of relationship with a variety of people. In fact, i was asked to blog about it over at BigBible if you fancied a nosy.

Put that mallet away! (Women's Worth)

2011-10-20T21:44:00.000Z

Accountability bit: I recognise that the post below uses broad strokes of that sticky hyperbole brush, and, if read without trusting my wisdom or insight, so many good women (who I love) could feel tainted with the generalisations that don't represent my whole perspective or the whole 'truth'.

So, in light of that I'd like you to trust in this - I am a wise and loving woman.

Really, truly.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not always!! - I'm not vainly bigging myself up here (and am desperately trying not get all self-deprecating to balance it out).

However, prayerfully, I believe I am wise and loving because the deep recesses of my soul testify that I was made that way and ever so slowly I step closer into that perfect me I was carefully planned and designed to be.

As I shall keep banging on - we all have that divine potential, YOU have that potential - to realise that genetic Godliness impregnating the blueprint of all that you are and can become.

Consequently, I have great faith in women (and men) and wish I knew more, had more time to build more friendships and didn't, at times, back away from pursuing them.

...cos you've gotta have friends! (I hear that in Donkey's voice from Shrek...fyi.)

So…moving on from my plea that you put your trust in me, if only for the length of today's ramblings...:

I write in response to @cory_copeland's guest blog on @Goannatree's site. I started to write a comment and realised I had much more to say than was helpful in a conversation (I don't know about you but I struggle when comments following a blog are longer than the initial blog...maybe that's just a reflection on my concentration levels!?)

It's worth reading Cory's post and the comments and then Hannah's (@boudledidge) really edifying post about Women in Church and, when you're done, if you can be bothered, strolling back here for a dose of my 'but…….!?' response.

Welcome back (and thank you!)

In immediate response to Cory's post, I felt that there's danger in boxing women as simply 'doers' and don't balance that with 'visionaries' or 'reflectors' or 'leaders' and agreed with @tim_hutchings as he put it:

"this post would have gone down a storm with, say, a Victorian clergyman. Religion is women's work, because they are so devout and so emotional and so good at sacrificing."

Reflecting more broadly, I have seen women 'do' all those things, be incredibly busy, fighting their corner, their perceived worth cemented in how much they achieve. "Martha complexes" abound; bitter resentment lashing out at any Mary that gets the opportunity (or chooses) to sit and listen, condemnatory or jealous of any other Martha that appears less or more active than they are, the words "too much to do" never far from their lips and the word "help" or "no" rarely there.

I arrived, as The Minister's Wife, at a church and was, in no uncertain terms, told who always baked the shortbread, the victoria sponge and the chocolate cake. I could look after the children if I wanted (as long as I did it quietly). At church events you'd see (or hear) elderly women looking hurt/angry as their role as table-setter or victoria sponge baker had been usurped by a, slightly, younger member of the congregation - their perceived worth within the community lost because they can no longer 'do'.

[It's funny, after a year or so, I was defending my position as The Brownie Baker (of joy) (full-title, ™ to follow) and would, only half-mockingly, despair if anyone else dared bring brownies to a church function.]

There are plenty of women who, in another era, would have been actively encouraged to preach, teach and/or seek ordination. Instead they were on creche duties or catering, "pillars of strength" and support but not, necessarily, fulfilling their true calling.

The wonderful women of the LWRB who amaze me with
their love, compassion and strength.

Women have the whole host of human potential; to be insightful, wise, challenging, caring, intelligent, creative….but, on the flip side, they can also be at the heart of evil campaigns of gossip and exclusion, they can be the blockers and the bullies that maintain the unconstitutional hierarchy that sits, the elephant in the corner, in church meetings or the school playground. Their staunch defence of their position and control no less powerful because it's born of frustration at their lot in life or hasn't been voted in by committee. Emotions used to floor men wanting to do it the logical, rational way, manipulating through anger or tears their own way of doing things.

(Please forgive the armchair psychology and wild suppositions and I hope, as I characteristically fling my arms around, that you can eek out some 'truth' hidden somewhere in it all)

Unfortunately, in my experience, it has, just as often as men, been women that have excluded or pushed me back into my 'place'. I admit that I'm outspoken, upfront and loudly share my dreams and hopes (judgements and fears). As I grow older, hopefully wiser and more gracious, this outspokenness will hesitate more, listen better but still be very much a part of who I am. Men often, not always but often, like that - it can be a language they recognise and it gives them an opportunity to encourage new ideas and diversity within church.

To other women it can be threatening - that I would pursue activity outside the 'woman's job description', that I talk to men and banter with them, having more in common or more to say than I do about the topics of conversation with women, revelling in the opportunities to talk about 'grown-up' stuff rather than children (I love them, I love them, I love them!!!).

It has been the women who remind me how short a time I've been in a place, how old (young!?) or 'inexperienced' I am, women who say how it should be done, how it's always been done...from contradicting parenting (some praising, some reprimanding for the same bit of parenting) to advice to what to wear while pregnant.

I know, I know... if women had been encouraged by their husbands and the male leaders of the church, not pushed into the "perfect wife" or "Christian woman" mould, then they wouldn't want to do the same to me. And, If younger women weren't so afraid of oppression and missing their rightful opportunities and calling, they wouldn't look me up and down and either bristle up in the belief that I'm intent on vicious competition for their hard-fought-for place in society or dismiss me as not being any sort of competition and therefore of no use to them anyway.

Perhaps it's telling there's a little hurt and bruised person in me that just wants to be encouraged and loved to be the best, most creative, most confident, most loving woman I can be. I want to be believed in and not stomped down or criticised. I reckon there's probably a little bit of that woman in all of us - wanting approval and not condemnation, trust and not cynicism.

Is it helpful to remember these things, to cement these reflections into my memory?

Growth moment: For my own health and growth - I forgive them.

Every woman that has judged me without knowing me, every one that has criticised me and told me what to do when all I needed was sleep, affection and some compassion and every on that didn't mind-read, didn't know that I was hurting/lonely/lost/needy.

I forgive them and I let it go.

Light at the end of the tunnel (the hopeful jog to the finishing line): Loving, appreciating and accepting others does not mean not addressing damaging behaviour. I always hope that, whenever I make an arse of myself, it'll be the people that love me and accept me that'll help me sort it out. I hope that, because they love me, they'll remember that I need ten times more building up than I do bashing with a mallet to get the kinks out.

Bigging up women's an essential thing to do in Christian community but we need to do it with the whole truth - recognising all the things we can do and allowing us to do as much or as little as we are called to. If more women felt encouraged in their gifts there'd be less fighting to hold their corner and position and a more confident, loving approach to their ministry, whatever that may be.

There's a place for everyone in The Kingdom!

If all members for the family believed they were valued for who they are, not what they do, there would be more time for creativity, fun, worship, fellowship, being fed…to stop feeling put upon, the weight of the world on your shoulders and to ask for help, lean on each other, work as a body instead of autonomous parts.

I recoil at the "I'm just being honest" brutality that thinly disguises hurts, judgements and pains.

Therefore I'm hoping that my insights are fuelled not from the hurts of the past but by the realistic hope for future relationships.

That, as I continue explore the whole 'truth' of my and other's worth as women, I can identify behaviours that prevent us all from fulfilling our potential (as loved, valued people) which will, in turn, better equip me to encourage others to rest easy in their place as equal Heirs to the Kingdom.

p.s. It's equally important to notice and applaud how much men and children bring to the table, beyond their DIY skills and their history of leadership or their ability to look pretty in best Sunday clothes respectively (!?)….I'll save that for another day.

Thank you so much for staying with me! Becca xx

Baby Shower - Stork with a blue bundle

2011-10-14T11:18:00.003Z

Hehe.

A boy baby is due to arrive in 5 weeks.

[edited for clarity - not my baby - a friends, but no less need for celebration]

Whoop whoop.

So, stealing from the Americans, we had a lil baby shower to celebrate and help mummy prepare.

The cake is a devil's food chocolate cake with a milk chocolate ganache (f every 100ml of double cream and 300g of chocolate - more for white). Milk chocolate ganache has a different consistency to plain, it's much stickier and doesn't set as hard. It's dangerously delicious but probably better as a filling than as a frosting base for sugar paste (watch the above ganache video by Inspired by Michelle and you'll see what I'm talking about).

The cake looked like it was going to be a disaster. Unlike the high density recipe I often use, devil's food is a much softer, moister cake (which is why I love it). So, don't do what I did and try and take it out of the tin and remove the greaseproof paper until it's cooled down! After all the sides had fallen off the second cake (I was going to do a tall cake with a lil' train running round it) R's suggested I cut it down to a six inch cake and turn it into a tiered cake.

Genius!

I've wanted to do cloud cakesicles for a while (was going to do it on the rainbow cake but decided it didn't need them). They were made using the offcuts (fall-offs) from the cake-of-eternal-disaster, mixing them with a melted bar of milk chocolate and some Baileys and then shaping them into clouds before popping them in the fridge (as with ganaching the cake, the fridge bit is very important!).

The blue bundle has another cake ball inside and was then wrapped with some sugar paste. The stalk did have wings......but I didn't make them in time for the to dry enough and so they just broke as soon as i tried to attach them.

I died the kebab sticks by mixing a bit of blue food colouring and water and leaving them to soak for a bit before letting them dry on a piece of kitchen roll.

Lessons learned:

Make delicate bits early and, if possible, out of flower paste.
Don't put top heavy cake balls into a soft cake at an angle....they don't like it.
Let a devil's food cake cool before messing with it.
Lustre spray makes life better.
I've really gotta get a better photo-taking set up going.

The terror of forgetting your place: Predator or prey - which are you?

2011-10-13T12:26:00.002Z

I couldn't work out why the following two sentences made my stomach flip over as I felt sick and recoiled:

The cream will always rise to the top and everyone else will fall into place according to their own drive/abilities. It's Darwinsim at its best.

You're giving the human race far to much credit.

At the end of the day, we're still animals and we can be broken down into two neat groups: prey and preditors.

Everything else is just sugar coating to make us feel like we're better than the rest of the animal kingdom.

Both views pounded violently into my gut instinct that people have immeasurable value.

In fact I've, uncharacteristically, mouthed soundlessly at the last statement for a whole day without response…my cursor sitting, blinking, as I sucked in air, desperate to 'speak' but breathless with shock.

Perhaps that pause is a prayer answered, for wisdom and the ability to channel righteous rage.

no words can show the amazingness of my minis

I feel that same sense of fear and sickness when my daughters smash (or scream) down a younger opponent - I'm, sometimes unpleasantly, intolerant, even though they're so young, of them not treating other people as having equal value and worth to them (the same feeling when they are, in turn, smashed down, dangerously mixed with the primal burn to leap to their defence).

Ooh…but I do so try to show them and tell them and wrap around them a sense of how much value and worth they have, how precious and wonderful and beautiful their mummy knows they are. That their creative, exuberant, generous, gentle, loving, affectionate, silly giggling natures have as much to teach me as I them. I know, as tears-spring, that sometimes I fail and crush them with my own strength of will and selfish inability to remember their worth as individual little people.

Fortunately there's the hope I am not alone in that knowledge and there are plenty of other people who love and encourage them, strengthening that frame with which to see others through. Out of necessity, as I acknowledge my own failings, I'm a big advocate of the whole 'it takes a community to raise a child' thing.

The reason I think it's important to appreciate your value and consequently other people's is because of the dangers to that, alternative, reductionist view:

In a world where there are two type of people, "prey" and "predator":

Only the strongest, often male, 'predators' decide the direction the community takes.

The values and principles expressed by 'prey' go unheard.

It condones and supports the leadership of society by an elite few.

All 'weaker', 'prey' type folks' freedom is dependant on He-who-growls-loudest-or-fights-longest

It creates 'weaker' and 'stronger' skills and values based on what makes the most impact or money - preventing thinkers, carers, educators and artists from fair participation in society/politics.

It allows no place for culture, music, art that doesn't have a monetary value.

It reduces the 'prey' to a commodity, only having value in what they can give to the predator.

Consequently, the predator has no intrinsic obligation or responsibility to the 'prey', the prey survives, under their own power, in whatever condition they're born into, until such a time as the predator destroys them.

Children are raised, expected to remain quiet and fit in with an imposed schedule, uninvolved in their own raising until such a time as their voice and strength are a match for those that would 'bring them up.'

People who are poor, uneducated or have special needs can be discarded as valueless.

Instinct, desire and passions have free reign while reason, logic and wisdom are obsolete.

This archaicness allowed slavery and oppression to be the foundation of 'Great' societies.

War and conflict are a necessary 'norm', a symbol of strength, rather than something morally unpalatable.

Peace becomes a fuzzy, 'sugar coated' idea that can never be attained and doesn't even get an invite to the negotiating tables.

It removes the need for debates about morality and ethics…war, euthanasia, abortion. The weaker are reduced to 'inconveniences' and shackles to individual progress. The woman is always going to be stronger.

The very, very first thing that followers of the Abrahamic faiths encounter about our humanity, in the story of Genesis, is that we were created, male and female, in the image of God.

I reckon, when things are mentioned first (unless when I'm rapidly typing out a list of despair) they often have a significance that's worth paying attention to.

Whether or not you are tied to the Greco-Roman narrative of the fall of humanity or not, that perfect image was not subsequently marred or destroyed by God. Instead, He told them to walk away from the Him, in Whose likeness they were made, in Whose presence they were most likely to be able to fulfil their created potential, by mimicry if nothing else. They were not made imperfect, though the distance gave them the space to grow that way. It's worth noticing how, the further the people of Israel got from that image and relationship, the more 'Top Dog' models of leadership they called out for.

I reject the idea that humans are no more than animals.

I reject it, reject it, reject it. [you may picture me stamping my foot if it helps]

By comparison, it is so grotesquely ugly and I hate it - I reject it because it's unnatural, just as I would any other perversion that so obviously damages a human being and their sense of self-worth.

So that unnatural ugliness was the cause of my physical recoil, that feeling of sickness, what I'm beginning to see as litmus test of real 'reality' (in a C.S.Lewis kinda world)…my "irrational", "over-emotional", "female" response to something which, on a screen, is presented as logical and my views, by comparison, 'sugar coated'.

It's just as I feel when I watch bloody, evil crime-thriller types (I watched The Body Farm this week…love it and hate it!). I did ask myself, 'why are we watching this?' and 'we' decided (!?) that we occasionally like that recoil, that reminder that there is a perfect way and what we're watching is the opposite. Multiple personalities aside, for me it tugs on the tail of that internal, perfect Image that bellows in rage at the screwing up of what it's all 'supposed' to be like.

The same tail get's tugged when people announce "God hates you". You want to define animalistic humanity? Tug again and see we'll what else happens after the bellow.

(…...hopefully a pregnant pause where the still, small voice is allowed to seep in and simply say "No, I don't"…or better yet, I am able to look at the person that so violates my gut and be filled with love for them in recognition of who they are, despite what they say.)

parenting unmasked

I've so much to pour out….about the New (yet original) Image we were giving to realign with, the adoption we're promised to make it official, the only model of leadership where the strong protect the weak and speak up for the oppressed…

As long as I know, at the central core of my being, we, collectively, were made in the image of God, my participation in society, politics and economy, even as 'just' a voice of protest or support or an act of kindness when sharing toys, is an essential contribution to the perfect, natural ordering of society in which we are all invited to be a part.

If I remembered this:

What would the contents of my bin look like?

Where would I shop?

How would I be of society?

How would I treat others?

What would I feel about myself?

What would my parenting look like?

The first thing God says is "I created you perfect, like me". Everything else is a 'how to' of growing into it.

It's terrifying when we don't know that.

See, reductionism has its place!

Thank you for staying with me, Bx

Naked Nestling Rant: "All you need is determination"!?

2011-10-09T18:55:00.000Z

If you read my Unexpected Company 'poem' t'other day you may remember the image of poor, naked little ideas, newly formed by all the reading I'm doing, plummeting to the ground because they got pushed out of the cosy nest that is my brain too soon.

This might be one of those skinny, fluffy nestlings...

I get completely narked off with assumptions, from within the dingy corners of political discussion boards that I lurk, that because I have liberally/socialistic leanings that 1. I must therefore be stupid and 2. I'm illogical and 'soft'.

*frowns* I may be pleasantly squishy...but soft is pushing it.

Her Wonderfulness, the inestimable Oprah, is often held up as an example of how determination is the only thing you need in order to rise above life's adversities and make a fortune.

Please don't get me wrong - I am all for positive mental attitude. I'm very interested in the progress and recognition of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) as a means to tackle what life and your brain throws at you and come out of it with some semblance of hope and positivity.

But...exactly how many Oprah's is there a market for? How many poor-to-rich, from single-parent-families, black female chat show hosts are there? How many A-list celebrities or chart-topping singers is there room for? ...Computer geniuses? Is a society where everyone is a CEO of a company possible? And, in comparison, what percentage of people are working hard at minimum wage jobs because that's their only 'choice'?

Oprah is amazing. She is incredibly determined and ambitious but she has also had good fortune on her side, getting notable acting roles and being the right person, with the right look and background, in the right place at the right time.

The vast majority of people do not have those opportunities or the self-belief to do that. Michael Sandel, in his lectures on Justice at Harvard, discovered, in a totally unscientific poll, that roughly 70% of each class are the first born of a family. He surmises that birth position alone is enough to show that determination, and therefore success?, is not 'fairly' distributed.

(...by birth position I mean in terms of 'first born' rather than 'mum on hands and knees screeching for drugs vs earth-mother in hammock gently swaying between the trees and a serene look of 'I-feel-no-pain-because-this-is-so-natural')

Simply telling someone they should be more positive is not an adequate contribution to the functioning of society. There also needs to be structures in place to enable people to seize opportunities, including a comprehensive education system that creatively steps outside the realm of mathematics and science, encouraging people to discover their gifts and talents enabling them to find fulfilment in a chosen occupation.

I am not promoting something for nothing! I don't think handing people money so they can choose to do nothing, dependant on the handouts of others promotes their liberty or offers them life in all its fulness. I want to see a just society where opportunities are made available to all, rather than a select, privileged or lucky few.

What is the statistical percentage of people who were abused as children go on to find fulfilment in their life? Forget that, how many children who have been over-criticised or, the new 'thing', over-praised (in the "all they need is focus and determination" model) are too screwed up, one way or another, to maintain any success either approach encourages. (Blog: Praise is the New Criticism; How Hyper Parenting is Backfiring)

Sir Ken Robinson

What percentage of young people born into illiterate homes go on to run their own business or go on to higher education or to an apprenticeship for skilled work? How many generations have people been locked in that oppressive cycle?

What percentage of people who suffer from a mental illness have to resign from ill health? What do you think should happen to them at that point, assuming the illness still has a grip on their wellbeing?

What happens to all those people that simply don't have the business acumen or the 'smarts' to be able to make a success of something alone?

My gut feeling (without even googling it cos i'm feeling lazy *ashamed*) is that Oprah is an exception, not the rule, to people escaping poor neighbourhoods which suggests that 1. determination is a trait that people are either born with or not and/or 2. that fortune or luck have a huge part to play in a person's ability to rise above obstacles and 'succeed' at whatever they choose to do.

[insert proper research and references here to support thinking and show my workings out]

In the meantime, until education systems stop trying to turn out mini-University professors (I *heart* Sir Ken) (I promise I won't do my references like this in my first assignment) there are plenty of people who suffer, from perceived 'failure' if nothing else, and many more would suffer more substantially if everyone had the attitude of "it's all up to you, no one else is gonna help you." If that was really the case the old boy networks, fraternity help-ups and paternalistic nepotism wouldn't be so prevalent within all areas of society.

Determination alone is not enough.

Look at all the young hopefuls desperate to catch their break on talent shows, believing if only someone would spot their potential and make them a star they'd be all set. No amount of determination will give them the singing/acting/intelligence to make their mark in a bloody-minded industry. Instead, aren't they're destined to live life frustrated that they didn't make it and work all the hours of the day to just about scrape by and maybe have enough time to watch reruns of Xfactor USA before crashing out and starting again the next day, hoping against hope that at least they'll win the lottery and therefore, in an individualistic society, be allowed to finally have a life?

(not that there's anything wrong with watching Xfactor in all it's glorious incarnations...........)

There is so more to life than work. When society doesn't accommodate free time, family life, other interests, a social life then there's something inherently wrong with the virtues it's promoting.

*breaths*

Philosophically I am....erm...post-liberal probably... give me another year and I'll be able to pinpoint it more accurately. (I'm usually post-something)

I am proud of my social/political heritage, both family and faith based. My philosophy, whatever that'll turn out to be, asks of any political system "does it serve the common or communal good of society, rich and poor, young and old, able bodied and not and give them a position within it as a human being who is valuable because of their humanity, whatever their own ability to contribute? It kind of asks "is it fair?" but, as I get older asks "is it just and therefore, is it loving?", it also asks "what is my role in making it happen?"

I do know that I will never ever be a believer in individualism. *shudders* (I do wonder if that's just the extrovert in me.......?)

Capitalism, which my bear-of-very-little-brain-brain thinks is completely summed up by "all you need is determination", in not, by the definition I would use, not a complete 'political' system.It is an economic system and and its failure to develop a holistic approach to the structure of society makes it an inadequate one.I believe we, as humans beings made for a heavenly life, should aspire to so much more than that.

My debating 'signature':

Authority exercised with humility, and obedience accepted with delight, are the very lines along which our spirits live. - C.S. Lewis

Sancte et Sapienter

Justice: What's the right thing to do?

2011-10-08T12:42:00.000Z

Am currently drafting a blog to regurgitate thinking and understanding from the past couple of weeks' reading and yesterday's lecture. In the meantime I discovered, after actually reading the pre-pre-reading "Justice: What's the right thing to do?" that all the lectures are on Youtube.

They're kinda good and I'm gonna watch them all, when I have a spare hour or two!?

Unexpected but welcome company

2011-10-04T15:17:00.000Z

The maelstrom of words tumble grubbily in a battle of wills,
Each demanding attention I can barely afford to give
As another comes along, needily seeking its fair share.

Panic.

Each new gem, lifted off the pages, squishing in insight, knowledge, wisdom -
Fledgling ideas pushed to the edge too ready to plummet, naked and weak...

Lurching anxiety that I'll never remember, never gain order;
That I will fail to fulfil that elusive sense of purpose that gnawed
Behind every nappy change or ironing session.
This time, through no retreat of my own.

Crying out..

Bursting in and pouring forth words into the ether,
That blissful space of divine, active silence.

Letting them fall and settle, forming ordered patterns
My erratic hands could never craft.

Peace.

Hope creeps in, unfolding her picture -
A heavy door, always open, no keyhole after all,
An open invitation to participate,
To see the victory of mini-harvests
In the sweet, sticky kisses,
The rainbow draped wardrobe,
Crisp new books...

The plea for Assurance met so swiftly, warmly embracing,
As though she had waited on bated breath,
Eager to be asked..

Wisdom smiling wryly close behind,
A nod of acknowledgement
As she waits for further friendship.

(Currently reading "Theopolitical Imagination" by William Cavanaugh, "Christianity and Contemporary Politics" by Luke Bretherton and have just finished "Justice: What's the right thing to do" by Michael J. Sandel....it was all feeling a little overwhelming for a moment or two.)

Baking with Becca

2011-09-25T18:01:00.000Z

Dedication Cake

I've made quite a few cakes in the past year including Megamind's head, Mini Mouse's head and two completely different wedding cakes...

I now approach a cake confidently, rubbing my hands together asking "what can I do that's unexpected?"

Here are some of my most recent:

Barney's Thanksgiving Cake

Loved making this cake, it tickled me to do a simple, unimposing outside (out of character for most of my cakes) to contrast with the ridiculousness of the layers inside. For this one there were a couple of 'news'.

Firstly, the overall finish is not-so-white chocolate ganache, not sugarpaste (coloured with Sugarflair's Sky Blue). Secondly, I had never attempted coloured cake before (not even a red velvet). It adds absolutely nothing to the flavour, tons to the E number content but the look on people's faces was brilliant...therefore worth having to warn a parent as she left, "I wouldn't let your son eat it before bed!"

Rainbow Cake

As it was for the wonderful Barney's dedication the hand piped words (another first) on top read:

"No power in the sky above or the earth below - indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord"

I thought it fit with the symbol of the rainbow.

Tara and Tony's Wedding Cake

Drum Wedding Cake

Fimo Models

I love this cake.

It took me about a week to get over the trauma of making it before I could step back and stop focussing on every imperfection...but I now love it.

This one had a whole heap of firsts.

The models on the top are Fimo (inedible polymer clay which gets baked in the oven). After a couple of years modelling with sugarpaste I got to a point where I was thinking "these lil people are worth keeping". For a wedding cake especially, it's kinda nice to have something to keep of what is otherwise a very labour intensive but consumable gift. The little bunting is also fimo and matched the logo on all their stationary. *smug*

mini-elephant air compressor

The cake was a whole load of make-it-up-as-you go along drama, but I got there in the end, marriage and children in tact, and even used my lovely lil elephant airbrush.

Finally on 'Bake with Becca'...

Emily May's Baptism cake

Baptism Cake

The cake itself had no traumas at all. I didn't push any boundaries though I've never done vertical stripes before. I shall do those again!

Getting into Cambridge just to attend the ceremony however (R was bringing the cake after his morning service) proved to be beyond my abilities.

There was one major cheat on this cake.

I'm not gonna tell you what...but I think it's glaringly obvious and it was out of laziness and nothing else.

I feel the shame.

The words read "All this for you, before you knew it." Slightly fudged from the baptism service but one of my favourite bits.

I am asked why I don't charge for my time (I only ever charge for the cost of ingredients). I think perhaps I am now good enough to start charging with the right certificates to appease health and safety people. However, I won't.

I enjoy the process of expressing my own creativity and not the dictates of a paying customer.

I love being able to gift my friends and family with something I couldn't afford to pay someone else to do but am able and willing to do for them, because I love them.

Craft exchange wonderfulness

I don't see why everything should be turned into a commercial, make-loads-of-money-out-of-it enterprise. The best thing that's happened as a result of my little hobby, other than seeing the joy on the faces of the cake receivers, was doing a craft exchange with a talented cross-stitch making friend. I baked a Peppa Pig 2nd birthday cake for her niece and in exchange received a lovely picture of two cheeky, baking teddy bears that now adorn my kitchen wall.

[pause while i got to take a picture]

(smugly points out the jar of homemade granola and the pretty rosebud sugar bowl)

Other pictures of my cakes are somewhere up there ----------------------------------------------------->

I may well blog the journey of Megamind just cos he was fun and gory.

Millinery and Me

2011-09-25T12:45:00.000Z

I love hats.

I like wearing them, choosing them, looking at them...I've even hired one (it was large and very pink).

I like that they signify a different role, mood or occasion and serve different functions.

They complete an outfit, guild a hair-do and boost my confidence just when I need it.

I wear many hats, figuratively speaking and wish I had a huger collection of actual hats.

The hats I wear

I'm a mum, a teacher, a preacher, a cake decorator, a friend, a sister, a wife, a daughter, a Christian, a theologian, a student, I am anxious, hormonal and emotional...

Some of those hats I can wear simultaneously, blending between one roll and another, incorporating the skills and gifts across the different rolls I juggle. Some of them I have to choose and prioritise.

I hope, as I don each new hat, (the analogy's about to collapse) that it's not at the expense of another. That I remember to be creative, even as I'm thinking in theological political ways, that I remember to be loving and generous, even as deadlines loom or I'm 'getting into' whatever book it is I'm reading at the time.

Are you prioritising your 'hats'?
Do you identify what they are, when you wear them? Are you proud of them?
Looking after them?
Do they say something about you that you want to be saying?
Do you need to throw any away?

Getting your millinery choices just right requires thought, co-ordination, space for creativity, the ability to step back and look at the whole picture and organisation to keep it in best condition.

Floating atop the waves

2011-09-24T22:19:00.001Z

I don't know as much as I would like to.

There is a looming dread that perhaps I reached a maximum amount of information upload before children and having children have fried any remaining receptors that may have allowed me to assimilate more stuff.

However, I have opinion and passion and a willingness to change the first and focus the second.

I'm thinking about what I'm going to do with my blogging, if it's something useful and if it needs an overhaul. Not sure I ever thought through 'objectives' or 'audience' before but the thinking in itself might be a useful exercise.

It's kind of odd, knowing I've got so much buzzing in my head yet not fixing it in place with words. It's largely a jumble of hopeful, social, political theology...

I think I used to feel this sense of insecurity? ...erm...I can't even name it...when I didn't fancy any particular boy. My teen angst then floated, pondering life, the universe etc and occasional wonder if it meant I was gay.

I think, unlike the issue of my sexuality as a young teen, I'm quite content to not have a position, to know roughly what I think and feel about issues but not have any absolute answers.

It feels kinda good, for now, to float on the tide of other people's opinions...peaceful.

At least until a rolling wave hits me and drags me back into the debate.

Sap is rising

2011-09-14T20:19:00.001Z

It's autumn...yesterday I enthusiastically joined in with mini-E and ittyJo's early display of consumerism as we gathered as many conkers as we could on a blustery walk home.

Normally, in Autumn, I spend some amount of energy swallowing down that ache of mournfulness at the loss of summer. This year's no different but at the same time excitement's rising and I feel my brain coming alive.

I've started twittering as my main form of online communication. Thanks to TweetDeck I can simultaneously follow the (as I see it) domestic updates of Facebook and the...hmmm...I'm gonna go with "cerebral" and then google it....mmm, it'll do...the more cerebral updates of Twitter.

It's occurred to me that I've been online social networking since '98; emailing, chatrooming, discussion boarding since first discovering the library computers at uni. At each stage it has fulfilled a need for where I'm at and in turn I've sought to meet the needs of those I've networked with. At this stage, twitter is serving to remind me of my passions, interests and ability to communicate. I feel more connected, more on the ball and more mentally able than I have done post-baby brain and, what with exercising, schedule-following and pre-course reading, I feel optimistic for success and fulfilment in balancing domestic with academic.

so....is it wrong to wish with all my heart that God twittered?

Grown up office

2011-09-08T13:51:00.001Z

Ok...so it's more than a new pencil case

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So excited I could pee...or weep. S'gonna be moist either way.

2011-09-06T10:39:00.003Z

I'm printing off the course information and some reading while reading the blog by and information about Luke Bretherton.

Today excitement is overtaking scared, determination trumping insecurity.

Words like 'community', 'society', 'organisation', 'communion', 'hospitality', 'emerging' buzzing around my head...

This feels so right could weep God-tears.

Hmm...we need some storage!

I have a plan!

2011-09-04T23:21:00.000Z

For those that started on this journey with me because I mentioned babies or Monster Munch and have, as time has gone on, despaired at how often I decend (or rise) to new levels of theological ponderings or domestic despair things are about to take a further turn...for better or worse we'll soon find out.

One of the things I've descovered about me in the past year or so, away from the structure of education or occupation is that I need order and the more order the happier and more secure i am. One day i may share a photo of the laminated schedule i refer to daily that goes so far as to tell me when to eat breakfast or shower.

That being the case, I'm thinking through how my studies are going to fit onto a newly laminated schedule. The current plan is to aim to hit a word count of notes/writing per day, writing each morning (as Itty Jo will soon be starting 5 mornings of pre-school!?!) (I believe we're due a Mini-E and Itty-Jo update very soon!).

Anyway, within The Plan is the intention to attempt, to aid the assimilation of new information, with the hope that'll turn into knowledge and, in turn, contribute to the develpment of wisdom (!?!), to conclude each morning's work with a blog. (just googled for an appropriate image and apparently that's a recognised model of the steps of leanring, who knew!?). I hope it'll help to process the 'stuff' in a non-accademic arena...or, at the very least, be a journal to remind me that I should never attempt accademic endeavors ever again!

You've been warned!

Clear out to fill up

2011-09-02T14:01:00.001Z

I'm making space for all the new clutter that I'm assuming comes with renewed studies...I guess this is the HE equivalent of buying a new pencil case and school bag (of course, I'm intending to do that too and am frustratedly searching for an ethically sourced computer bag!)

I'm a bit excited...and not simply because I got a freshers week email today.

Home and Gearing up for Change...

2011-08-31T11:16:00.000Z

I've arrived home from Greenbelt with a sense of excited anticipation.

The girls will soon both be in full or part time school so I will have mornings to myself for the first time in five years.
I'm starting the Masters in Theology, Politics and Faith-based organisations at the end of September (and Greenbelt felt like a very elaborate and fun freshers week/taster course in preparation for it).
I'm contemplating ministry in a hope-filled, positive way with a small, growing belief that maybe the time is coming to stop running away from it...at some point...in the future.
I'm feeling good about my life, about the choices that I've made and the people that have helped me to make them.

So, as I sit, flag envy waining, writing up notes from Greenbelt - plans for next year, thoughts on this and google countless political terms that had my head spinning - I am, as always, grateful that Greenbelt is a home from home...

(while dampening down the deep wish that I could live in a similar set up with similar people 24/7 - with only improvements on hygiene facilities, cost of food and heating....hmm...and maybe the addition of co-operative small holdings and artisan craft workshops to provide food, clothing and income...)

Grumblings of a scared perpetual excuse finder

2011-03-16T23:37:00.001Z

Ok...so I'm pissed off.

I'm reading a book that inspires me and helps my faith grow a touch.

I have a degree in theology.

Yet...when it comes to explaining the good news and why it is not simply about "rules that'll guarantee you a place in heaven" I'm a complete failure.

I don't remember names, song titles, books I've read, authors or artists I like. I don't remember quotes from famous people.

I don't remember Bible passages to back things up even though I know them as part of my faith, they echo the truth of what I believe whenever I read the Bible.

But...what use is that if when asked "how can I get a place in heaven?" I can't answer it helpfully.

The calling question keeps popping up. So the doubts about ability and suitability creep in.

I don't have a good enough memory to lead a church!

So there.

[Ducks]

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Lent Day 1: Chapter 11 - Where is God when it hurts?

2011-03-09T14:47:00.000Z

i was reprimanded once for a badly worded comment to the effect that i was envious of people living in developing countries...i was theorising that the removal of all our western trappings of wealth and the comfort of proper health care and education might enable me to rely more wholly on God. i really do understand why i was misunderstood...that fear alone can be crippling and the world is unjustly imbalanced in the distribution of wealth and resources...but i also hold to what i was meaning...the following is a list, originally written by a Catholic nun named Monica Hellwig from the 11th Chapter of Where is God when it hurts, by Philip Yancey...9 more chapters and i shall move on to my second book for Lent.

Suffering, the great equalizer, brings us to a point where we may realize our urgent need for redemption.
Those Who suffer know not only their dependence on God and on healthy people but also their interdependence on one another.
Those who suffer rest their security not on things, which often cannot be enjoyed and may soon be taken away, but rather on people.
Those who suffer have no exaggerated sense of their own importance, and no exaggerated need of privacy. Suffering humbles the proud.
Those who suffer expect little from competition and much from cooperation.
Suffering helps us distinguish between necessities and luxuries.
Suffering teaches patience, often a kind of dogged patience born of acknowledge dependence.
Suffering teaches the difference between valid fears and exaggerated fears.
To suffering people, the gospel sounds like good news and not like a threat or scolding. It offers hope and comfort.
Those who suffer can respond to the call of the gospel with a certain abandoment and uncomplicated totality because they have so little to lose and are ready for anything.

Having typed it all out it does feel overly generalised but then what generalising list doesn't?...it does, however, kinda help to put the Beatitudes in a new light...

anyway....gotta take achy knees and a short-legged small person to pick up the longer, currently school-hating mini-E....

there'll be enough suffering in the experience to develop a little patience....!? maybe.....

Pre-lent nerves

2011-03-08T23:30:00.000Z

...i had a conversation the other day that left me shell shocked.

basically...the 'Big Challenge' was given before lent had even begun...rather than right at the end when i expect it...look for it...often on the second May bank holiday weekend at Cliff.

but it's ok...i've just gotta ride through lent, following the plan and watching the pieces fall...discerning what's 'meant to be'....and sinking deeper into my relationship with God.

i'm a bit anxious that i'll struggle to find time to read an adequate amount of book each day...

but i have a source of strength and focus from elsewhere...so i guess the challenge will be to remember to tap into that...

The barrier of "what if?" and other questions...

2011-03-07T13:45:00.001Z

how do i become braver? face all the "what ifs" head on with confidence and self-belief

how do i control fear and overcome it?

how do i find out what i'm good at and what i'm called to do?

how will i know what i'm probably best not doing and to let go of ideas that simply won't work?

how do i become wiser? more loving? more compassionate?

how do i find work/life balance and find joy and fun and excitement in down-time as well as work?

how do i instil in my children a love of themselves and their abilities...and encourage them to pursue dreams and goals and ambition?

how do i let go of my expectations of people and instead seek to serve their needs?

at what point do you know to stop questioning and just....

jump?

Tuning in to Lent

2011-03-06T00:41:00.002Z

I get a kick out of a good discussion.

No...more than that...

I feel alive in that moment...when the words are flowing back and forth and people are agreeing or countering with reasoned opinions and suddenly I feel so right and connected and better for being there.

I miss it when i don't find that in my conversations with God...

To feel that aliveness, that connectedness...

and i miss it cos i'm not talking....or listening...i forget that i can get there in the dialogue i just gotta make the effort just as i'd drive an hour to see friends for wine and conversation.

i forget to tune in.

So, my lentern discipline this year is gonna be to read a book a week, to blog as i go and to talk with whoever out there's up for the debate. I'm gonna get my brain going, that burn to immerse myself in godliness, to look for that presence and essence that is the source of life and love. Cos when the brains on and it's feeding the soul...then i just can't help but start up the conversation and realise that one half of its been there all along!

Sometimes there'll only be you here and God....

I was worried earlier, thinking about it, that I'd end up writing long entries. But i'd decided - so what! You either read it or you don't...for me, this is my side of the dialogue....i'll get something back....i always do....i've just gotta tune in right and that starts with looking in the right direction. (and knowing that, by being here, this extreme extrovert isn't alone and that by throwing it out into blogland gives me the boost i need to stay motivated)

So....the plan is that I'm gonna finish reading "Where is God when it hurts" Philip Yancey and "A New Kind of Christianity" and start reading "Naked Spirituality" by Brian McLaren, "Love Wins" by Rob Bell (if it gets delivered in time!) and "The Radical Disciple" John Stott's final book.

It's ambitious...cos i read books that inspire and the just wanna stop reading and talk them through before i forget what's got me so fired up....but the second part of the discipline's gonna be to blog each day....to try and blurb out some of the stuff i'm getting and hearing.....so we'll see how that goes.

Roll on Wednesday!

erm....so....i finish writing this....post....browse Facebook a bit...head over to twitter and there, as the first post is:

RickWarren LIVE NOW - I'm teaching on HOW TO HEAR GOD' SPEAK TO YOU http://bit.ly/6sWeNW 13 minutes ago via web

so i click the link and the first thing he's saying is - "you need to tune into God" "it's a relationship with someone when they call you back"......

!?!

Sermon Outline Notes (Sermon shown 12 more times over the weekend)

notes as i half fall asleep but am compelled to stay up and listen....

John 10:27 My sheep recognise my voice and follow me

You don't have to be 'one of God's good kids to hear him speak'. God talks to all of his kids, mature or immature.

If you listen to God, He will guide you and you will be protected from mistakes.

How to Hear God...

erm....ok,...this is just scary.......Parable of the Sower Luke 8:4-15

1.i must cultivate an open-mind (see yesterday's blog)...first thing to stop this is 'resistance'...'hardened soil' = closed mind...

2. I must take time to listen...when you walk through a country you see waaaay more than if you're in a plane flying over it.

well hello daily quiet time!! and yeay small group starting again on Monday!!

3. Eliminate the distractions (the weeds)....what did i do this week? stop drinking caffeinne and eating fat....? why? Cos caffeinne makes me anxious and fat just makes me feel sick...and....well.....fat.

i love Lent....it seems to be my season of growth every year....s'amazing!

Weeds are a sign of neglect....worry, riches and pleasures.....a preoccupied mind....the circuits are busy.

4. i must cooperate with God with advanced decision...a willing mind....even if it's scary...

hear, retain, obey and persist until i bear fruit....live a fruitful life....with physical, financial, relational, emotional, spiritual, mental health.....successful....life in all its fullness....and pass it on....teach someone else...

Recap (thanks to live feed chatroom host)

WHY IS IT ESSENTIAL TO HEAR GOD?
1. It proves I'm in God's family.
2. It protects me from mistakes
3. It produces success in life.

HOW TO HEAR GOD
1. I must cultivate an open mind.
2. I must take time to listen
3. I must eliminate the distractions
4. I must cooperate with what He says!

THE SOILS
Hardened soil = closed mind
Rocky/Shallow Soil =superficial mind
Soil with weeds = a preoccupied mind
The good soil = a willing mind

THE BARRIERS TO HEARING GOD
First barrier = resistence
Second barrier = hurry
Third barrier = busyness

ok...i'm off to bed...

somethings brewing for Lent....can feel it in m'roots....

How do you walk that mile?

2011-03-04T23:56:00.002Z

I chat a lot online.

I heard that sarcastic 'nooooo?'!

About politics, lifestyle, God...

It occurred to me, in the midst of yet another Side A hammering Side B's opinion (and Side B getting defensive and 'mortally offended') discussion where neither one really heard anything new but instead using wild, hurtful examples to make their point (sledgehammers to kill a flies), that i might not yet be as good and perceptive a person as I'm meant to be.

OK, i hope that I'm able to give a balanced opinion, showing that i have considered more than one point of view (that's GCSE stuff!)....and in that particular discussion my only real question was 'is the sledgehammer actually necessary? and 'won't it scare off the people you're trying to reeducate?'....

how do you walk that mile?

but, when it comes to getting to know people i had to ask, "am i really as open-minded and accepting as i need to be, what with all the cognitive processes of association and memory and judgement that go on in my easily confused brain?" and if, sadly, i am not...."how exactly do you become more open-minded and accepting?"

...cos people keep saying on discussion boards, in society, in church that this is a helpful thing to aim to be ....but I'm not sure what the disciplines are to achieve that mindset....

as often happens when I stumble across an obstacle to my own growth...my attention was drawn to the following video. Lesley Hazleton comes across as not closed minded, but open....and seems to work bloody hard at being so.........she also has a wonderfully rich voice that makes me want to wear quirky hats and live on a house boat too!

is that what it takes?

hard work? (not quirky hats)

to continue to discover and explore and find out...never settling with one assessment of a person when there's always more sides, more things to discover?

Bouncing Becca Bits Bubble.......!?

2011-03-01T10:39:00.000Z

This week i wrote emails.

You may have noticed, if you've read my blog before, that i am capable of talking incessantly about an array of issues.

Now, add this freedom of speech, a fiery, passionate nature and a long car journey and my poor R is bombarded with any frustrations that may have been bubbling beneath the surface but kept from overflowing by the routine of daily life. [breath]

So....after an outburst where, probably rightfully, his introvert, reflective 'i prefer to talk about this quietly at a pre-arranged time' face had tightened up and he'd got defensive and I'd got bewildered that any of my carefully blurted out words could ever be taken in the wrong way....

i stopped.

Lesson 1: Sometimes you've just gotta stop...and breath. i am still learning to stop, after 7 years of marriage, and not hold so preciously onto whatever anger/frustration/passion has got me bursting with the need to talk in the first place. Initially I'd stop in the belief that my silence would shame him into realizing that i was hurt by his incorrect response to whatever the blurt had been. Slowly I've realised that that's not how he thinks and passive-aggressive silence is little better, and no more effective, than loud, incessant blurting.

So, what could i do? i have a lot to say and sometimes, and i admit sometimes and not all the time, it's good things. We had another 3 hours ahead of us in the car and i was beginning to fume that i wasn't listened to or understood and i never would be and it'd all gone horribly wrong and why couldn't i be in the car with someone that would just respond back just as passionately as me? [breath...slower]

Lesson 2: continue to choose the choices you've made. How could i find peace and contentment at the same time as allowing R to also find it when we prefer to process information so very differently.

I'd used up my mobile data for the month on journeys up and across so had no access to any one of the social networking apps or chat sites that i frequent and i couldn't just go and use up my word count there....and then i remembered....email!

So, i spent the next hour tapping away, initially all the blurb and frustrations i was feeling (cos, if we're honest, in an email you can)...and then i spent a long time deleting and honing and working out what was helpful to read rather than what was intended to hurt or lash out.

I sound like a horrible person now...but passive aggression is blummin everywhere isn't it?

....in those quick emails that people don't bother to read and manage to make a jab in one's gut even if the author wasn't consciously meaning to maim, it's in those silences intended to shun...

Lesson 3: Know how you hurt. I hope that at least by acknowledging that I'm capable of hurting with words and that i know of one helpful way, very careful, considered and loving emailing, that can enable me to express what i would prefer to happen with the wonderful gift of hindsight beforehand as i read how some of my beautifully articulate (!?) sentences could be read by a reflector-type bombarded by a barrage of words.

The email was received well...in case you were wondering.

(in case you're still wondering - no...he has yet to finish processing it and has therefore not replied)

It's interesting....i came on to blog about the couch to 5K running thing that i started yesterday....but the bubble of this tiny step to a more harmonious domestic life just popped into the blog box instead.

Lesson 4: Make space to pop. I think, perhaps, in any relationship there needs to be that space for considered 'popping' ...be it email, blog (I'm reading this to him as I type and it's got his permission to be released into the cyber ether), or a set aside time during busy week...a space where both parties can, and are expected, to reflect on life, relationships, worries etc...some find it harder than others.

But without it...the bubbling either bubbles over and gets messy and painful and hurtful......or the bubbling stops..... and that strange mix of emotions and thoughts that were once an important ingredient to the relationship just.....kinda.....stagnate.

Now I've tried the emailing thing before...in my marriage....to friends...

i've written long emails that weren't intended to hurt but poured out bitter frustrations and they just weren't helpful in anyway.

Other people don't need to know about my frustrations, they are not their responsibility, especially when I think they are!

What is helpful is me working out what I would prefer to happen in any given situation and then working out whether that's a reasonable thing to ask of another person and then working out whether it's my place to ask it of them in the first place.

Lesson 5: believe you're worth adding. This pot of messy emotions and passionate thoughts is worth dipping into. I know it is. I'm worth adding to the mix. I just need to continue to find ways to make it palatable for general consumption so it enriches and doesn't.....to dramatically end the analogy....poison.

A couple of kinda good things

2011-02-25T16:33:00.001Z

I've challenged a friend to start a new blog to help her see that life is as much structured by the words we use to remember it as it is about what actually happens. An example I gave was either Pollyanna's Glad Game or the 1000 Awesome Things blog

So, I figured, as I'm a inclined to paint life with a poo stick all too often (I know...ew!) that I better start applying the discipline of playing the Glad Game too...especially as I ranted about it for our 2 mile circuit of the park...it did improve our pace though!!

So... introducing the first instalment of a brand new section of bloginess:

Becca's bouncy bits

Lol...sorry...I wasn't going to...but the thought made me laugh so much, and Team Byass is stuck in traffic on the M62 so that in itself was pretty glad making, that I couldn't resist. I promise there won't be a new 'bits' picture every time i slip in this segment!

So, to the bounce of the day:

I'm in the car with 3 of the loveliest people I could ever be tied to for life!

I have access to all the people I love in my life through this clever gadget in my hand.

I have all I need and much of what I want in life

I know at home my house is clean and tidy and ready for our return.

I have a hope for the future and feel content with my lot in life.

I can say all this and still know I'm not 'finished' but be happy with who I am even though I'm hormonal and wearing totally the wrong pants for this dress!

*bounces and happy claps*

Bx

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Sugar mimacry

2011-02-05T20:17:00.001Z

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Vintage fur

2011-02-05T15:02:00.001Z

All the warmth and none of the sacrifice (on my behalf anyway)

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Wedding party roadtrip

2011-02-04T11:29:00.001Z

Winds may slow the journey, rain may wear us down but the signs bode well for what's ahead!

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Location:The Hause,,United Kingdom

Dental inspired musings

2011-02-03T09:49:00.001Z

I need to learn to see the positive...to look for the silver lining...play the glad game. Life would be a more content place to dwell if I sought to find the good, even in hard times...I'd find it easier to think kindly about others and therefore act upon it if I first learnt to be kind to myself, love myself. The second commandment is pretty clever for that..."love others as yourself"....the unsaid directive in that - love yourself!!

Happy, playing times with R and Itty, sitting on our bed and what did I see in this picture? 1 tooth slightly out of line....!?!

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The best things improve with age

2011-02-03T09:36:00.001Z

Happy 90th birthday Great Grandad!!!!

Sweet meditations

2011-02-02T22:00:00.001Z

I've been sugarcrafting two gorgeous friends the past few days. They're going to stand in all their painstaking glory on top of the 3 tier M&S Rose chocolate wedding cake.

I love sugarcraft...it takes ages and is fiddly...I sit quietly for hours on end making individual eyelashes or hands. I know...me! Quiet!

And while I do I think and think...about Jenni and Steve...their future together...our friendship. It's good to focus or meditate...I feel so at peace doing it (except when their head falls off) and so hopeful and thankful for having them in my life.

It's not prayer as you know it...no words or shouts (and for me that's kinda out of character) but it has a touch of holiness...bringing thoughts of my friends to a thin space between heaven and Earth.

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Bleating

2011-02-01T23:56:00.001Z

I guess blogging and tweeting could be called bleating...I kinda like it. I've noticed that if I don't bleat though ...in the miserable, whiney sense of the word that my perception of the world and how I feel about it is much greater.

Today was my birthday and actually...the main thing different, because i'm fortunate enough to see and speak to friends and family often and other than copious amounts of love posts on Facebook, was how I talked about, praised and thanked R for his efforts and enthused over the girls contributions.

In fact the goodwill was so warm n fuzzy over dinner I spent the time R took to prepare dessert exchanging hi-fived kisses with the girls, kissing our fingertips and passing it back and forth along the table. (to be honest, not only was that preferable to lip kissing thanks to the sticky, though delicious, BBQ sauce still residing around their mouths but it also seemed more hygienic after 3 months of cold clearing up fro me, ending on the high of pleurisy, just as they both start gouging and oozing goo again).

The "price of parenthood"? I'd pay it a hundred times over!

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Iblogging

2011-02-01T17:18:00.001Z

So, here I am... Laptop
on lap, iPhone in hand and cordless phone handed to me as I redirect the girls towards a more amenable tone of play.

And yet...

With all this I wonder who I've ignored today as I delighted in my new toy...did I reeeally overlook apple's record for human rights cos I wanted the new shiney too badly?

Hmmm...we'll see...y'never know...this could be a start to regular communication...or I could fulfill bets that'll the phone'll be misplaced or batteryless within a week...!

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post-Greenbelt thinking 2010

2010-08-31T08:15:00.000Z

Home from Greenbelt suitably knackered, sun burnt and reawakened to the wonderful world of rough and rainbow coloured clothing and eclectic world fast food.

The Methodist Church has become partners and were suitably represented with a stand and a sponsored venue under the logo; "think, talk, be". There was a distinct lack of free tee shirts being handed down from the powers that be to those they love most. *sulks in an endearing and attractive manner*

As is our current pattern of attending large events, R and I couldn't fully engage with what was going on half the time for, at any one point, either of the girls could be screaming, demanding or running in the opposite direction to where we wanted to be. The joy of Greenbelt, however, is that it doesn't really matter...you soak up the arty, passionate, faithful spirit of the venue and talk to people along the journey between one meal and the next. My thinking about 'Discipleship' and 'The Discipleship Movement' that is The Methodist Church did get a boost despite the beautiful, feisty and lovely distractions that are Mini-E and Ittyjo.

Martyn Atkins spoke about 'not teaching your great great great.. grandparents to suck eggs', talking about how the church pre-Roman conversion, and therefore pre-Christianisation, could teach us a thing or two when being church in post-Christendom.

I'm thinking lots about what I'm going to do when the girls go into full time education. I've got an idea what I want to do...and it's along the lines of being an adult trainer/facilitator for an organisation...the question is...in what will i train/facilitate and how do I get the experience to do it. I've thought about being a life coach, or a counsellor.... but they're not things I have experience in nor are they things I'm willing to get further training in.

I'm thinking I'll go and volunteer for a charity, maybe at Methodist Church headquarters (if they'll have me)...relearn the skills of following projects through and then apply for jobs that seems to need my particular skills set. I have in my mind also that I want to do something that develops training and development....perhaps...just perhaps...in the area of Discipleship...

soooo...in light of this...I need to work out what I'm doing to develop and improve my own discipleship...to notice the things that help me, to be intentional in finding new ways to grown and improve and to fill gaps as they seem to emerge.

Thinking about this...there seem to be so many gaps that I don't know where to start...but I mean to ...so that would appear to be the start i need.

New shoes heal battered confidence

2010-06-14T22:08:00.000Z

So... i have HUGE boobs. Rediculously large. Stick em in a tight tshirt, decent bra and pair it with some bum lifting jeans and i'm a happy girl. However, try and buy a pretty dress and suddenly i look like the inn keepers wife in Les Mis. It's not gorgeous and it's not blummin edifying.

So...the aim in my shopping expedition today was to buy a dress that i could wear to many different functions...that isn't noticeable in its own right and then WOW-it-up with some choice accessories. After 100s of shops i was losing hope until i found the dress that no one would notice. Disheartened, after the long search and the sight of my curves looking more like the Michelin Man than Scarlette Johansson and 'cos secretly you want the dress that everyone is jealous of, i half heartedly began the search for some accessories which were, after all, the whole point of buying the more discreet dress (downside of life on Facebook - everyone sees your wedding outfits so it's tricky wearing them twice!).

Anyway...the fairy tale ending to this overly dramatised story is that i walked into Dune to find the nicest salesman and the cutest, brightest shoes and matching cigarette clutch that i could have wished for. Win! On top of that, lovely hubby let me have both (the shoes and bag...not the salesman...alas)!

Can you think too much?

2010-06-11T21:22:00.000Z

It might not surprise you, if you've ever visited my head before, that I've been told, often enough for it to have echoed in the recesses of my brain, that i think too much.

I've always been totally bewildered by people, particularly boys (haha, how old do i sound!), who don't seem to think at all. Is this just a difference of the sexes or are there people in the world who have discovered the secret of switching off the thoughts that echo incessantly around my head?

I wish i could...i wish when someone says something flippantly to me that may or may not be taken one way, that it didn't echo in my head and cause my heart to sink...i wish i didn't always over analyse everything...i wish i didn't use hyperbole to such effect all of the time. 'Cos, even writing this, i know that i have periods when i don't feel anxiety and the need to pull things apart 'till their meaning is a far cry from how i reconstruct it. More often than not i am fairly laid back...even if i do have the tendency to flair up and react. I guess today is just not one of those periods.

This morning I got up an hour and fifteen minutes after i meant to. I shall, for this one-off occasion, blame the anti-histamine tablets I'm taking for the bites that would create a dot-to-dot picture of a flying kite should my Dick be so brave as to join them together. I'm not going to beat myself up about it but i shall get up tomorrow, Saturday, and get some things done that i might have been tempted to leave...as it's Saturday.

Love is....unfathomable.

2010-06-10T22:09:00.002Z

...and unfathomable is quite tricky to spell! (and one of those words I'd write but never say out loud!)

New regime update: I turned my snooze off with 3 minutes left on the first round of snoozes this morning, did sit ups, walked mini-E to school, went to a toddler group for the first time in months, finished doing the laundry and made the garden look groomed.

I also had an email conversation with an old friend.

Love is totally outside my understanding. I sometimes think 'yes, i know what love is'...and then something happens or someone comes along and refocuses my eyes to see it in a fresh way.

Today love hurts. It hurts because someone i love is in pain and i can't do anything to help. It hurts because their hope for love with a person has been damaged yet through it all they remain faithful to the one who is Love.

I often wonder, if I was faced with real adversity, would I remain faithful to Love...would i still believe in its (in God's) ability to overcome all obstacles? I guess I did when mini-E was small&puny-E...when her name was considerably too big for her body. Then, though i raged against the situation and against God for not magicking (?!) it away, i believed in the power of love, through family, through God, through prayer (at times through magic) that it'd be ok...that my E would get strong and grow big.

My heart hurts and i don't like it...but i'd far rather it hurt alongside someone because they shared...than be without.

In the beginning was...optimism.

2010-06-09T22:54:00.003Z

Day 2 of attempting to change one hour of my day...

Well...sleep button was pressed 4 times...so got up at 7.15...(that's good!) It meant that i was showered, dressed, dressed and fed the girls, did some sit ups and got the laundry in all in time to walk Mini-E to nursery.

The knock on effect was that not only did i get in a total of 60 minutes walking (though at times slow thanks to mini-legs exploring the world and every puddle on the walk through the park) but i was also able to get most of post-holiday laundry done. On top of that, having finally remembered that it was actually Wednesday and not Tuesday, getting ready to go to the cinema with The Girls to see Sex in the City 2 (beautiful but will be put on mute for much of the dialogue when i watch it again) happened in the 5 minute turn around between plant nursery shop and very late dash to Cambridge...rather than the hour that having to have a shower and slap on make-up would have taken.

That's good...that's very good...progress is happening.

In the post are two books, one recommended by motivational friend First Things First by Steven Covey in the hope that it'll continue thread of self-motivation and Cool Spaces for Kids in the hope that with more time thanks to slightly more ordered life my creative juices will kick in and be inspired to get making...

:)

hopefully optimistic.

What ONE thing would you change?

2010-06-08T19:31:00.001Z

I was asked by a friend 'if you were to change one thing in your day that would benefit your life, what would it be?' I've been thinking about this for over a week now. I thought of loads of things that i put off, avoid doing cos they're hard or scary or just plain ol' boring...i find myself doing less and less for fear that doing something I enjoy will make the contrast of the procrastination even worse.

So...the one thing i'm gonna change is the first hour of my day. It's gonna be moved earlier...and i'm gonna have set tasks in it that i can achieve. I figure if i do the thing i hate most (waking and getting up) and face that head on...that can only have a positive knock on effect on how i approach tasks over the rest of the day.

Today i got up ten minutes later than i intended to and got both girls up, dressed and fed. Not quite all i intended to achieve but tomorrow will be better.

The other thing i'm thinking about it becoming a Street Pastor. I figure with Itty having another 2 years before she's in regular school i've gotta have something that'll get me thinking about work and training...and being a Street Pastor'll be something i'll do well having been a barmaid, liking people and being inclined to be a night owl...

...we'll see...i'm gonna go on an observation trip with the to see 'if it's for me'.

Typical writer...can't write when i'm happy...

2010-05-26T18:30:00.001Z

I've just added a link from our new church website to my blog. At some point we might actually create a church blog...but until that time...mine, and the President's, will have to do.

Naturally I came to check what i would be exposing myself and the church to...to be reminded how terribly remiss i am when it comes to updating my blog.

I am happy. Happy and content...busy being a mummy and a wife and a friend and a steward. I like where i am and who i am. I sure of my faith and know that even when i'm getting it wrong the gentle hands, that have always been there, guide me back to not being a total idiot.

Yeay.

Not a pretty sight.

2010-03-15T22:51:00.000Z

Am totally crushed this evening.

Led home group, it was all going swimmingly until we started talking about practical applications of "Risk-taking mission and service". I asked the questions "how do you want the church to be known in the community?" and someone answered "welcoming".

Now obviously it would be fab to tell you that we went on to explore ways and means of being welcoming and to what purpose being welcoming would serve.

However...

.,...I promptly burst into tears....

...big, wet, snotty tears...

...sobs even...

...loud, wet sobs.

A friend of mine, who i met via the internet, went, on my suggestion, to the toddler group at Church. It's a good toddler group, lots of space for more active children to play in with big cars and trampolines or little craft tables for the more quiet children. On arriving with her 3 year old and her beautiful premmie daughter she was told that, as she was not a member of the toddler group, and there was a waiting list to become one, she was not allowed in. I can't imagine the embarrassment she felt, nor the anger at having to ask her son to put his coat back on, he wasn't allowed to go and play with the cars.

I shared this with the group, through sobs and tissues, even though it happened months ago I still feel it as though it happened to me and i was the one turned away by a group under the management of the church, of my church. Now, it was no ones fault; the policies were in place for safety and membership was to help that to happen.

Yet I still sobbed like a wounded baby in front of my friends.

As it happens, things have changed, there is still a membership list but there is now flexible that says if 10 someones turn up on the day they will not be turned away. So by little steps we are becoming more intentional in our actions to be loving, thoughtful and compassionate...is it risk-taking though...and I wish it wasn't at the expense of my composure.

Reading: A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren

2010-03-13T19:57:00.000Z

So, i'm reading a section a night....and instead, as with some books that totally inspire me and fire me up, i'm going to sleep calm and contented, with a warm fuzzy feeling, believing that there is hope for the disciples of Jesus, even if the Church as we know it is on the precipice of change. I feel safe and looked after and i've only read the introduction so far (it has several sections). So...i'm going to move on from trying to update on the Faithworks conference though i will tell you what i've done since:

i have applied to be a parent govenor at my daughter's school
I have contacted the council to promote The Big Lunch and Landshare as a means to enriching the community spirit
met with our house group for the 3rd time and now seem to be part of a 10am worship session with contempory, multicultural music and expressions of worship.

Now i'm gonna go and read the first part of book 1 of A New Kind of Christianity and see where that takes me.

Winning the battle over despair!

2010-03-09T20:44:00.002Z

I had not been on our Wii Fit for 163 days (since before our move in August).

According to wii fit my weight gain has been on a very steady, though shallow, line for the last year...dating from a month after i had my gallbladder out. hmmmmm....

So what could have been a blessing (the dramatic weight loss of 3 stone over a year) actually stopped me from challenging my eating habits and has resulted in a very miserable me after weighing myself today.

So, tears shed but back into the saddle I go. The brisk 20 minute school run twice a day shall now be the blessing, i shall remember the lessons i learnt about fat and sugar last year and about portion sizes during pregnancy (it's amazing how little you actually need to eat to be happy and to grow a baby - especially when they're squishing your stomach into nothing), embrace Weightwatchers like the friend it is and confidently set out again to lose weight, get fit and be an example to my girls of positive body image and healthy attitude to food and excercise.

Feel free to cheerlead (i'm not as confident as i write...though i'm willing myself to be!)

Intentional Faith Development

2010-03-07T22:40:00.002Z

Contemplating subject for tomorrow night's home group. There's so much to say i'm not sure how i'm going to condense and delete 'babies'...on that note, i'm going to bed....update tomorrow once i've worked out what we're studying and how.

...5 minutes later...

Haha...having just done a very limp entry and scrolled down to see if anyone had commented on other posts i found 1 comment (other than a spam one)and it's from the author of 5 Practices of Fruitful Congregations, Robert Schnase...how exciting and edifying is that!!? :D Going to bed to bounce R with joyfullness...lucky boy! hehe

Choosing Frustration

2010-03-04T10:28:00.000Z

It occurred to me, while washing up as it happens, that it’s hard to switch off the desire for change...and that isn’t just about getting a lovely, shiny new phone every 18 months which means it’s so very hard to end the contract in order to go to a cheaper, pay as you go option.

This weekend we learnt about the relationship between Movements and Institutions. (From my notes) An institution is the organisation that preserves the gains made by past movements. The best practices of a movement get embedded into an instution (which means intitutions are always potentially good!). A Movement is the organisation that propose new gains to current institutions. Instituions therefore prevent slipping backwards and movements prevent stagnation. The tension comes in instituions saying 'no' to new movements and movements therefore creating new institutions.

Wouldn't it be better if institutions expected change so that they grew and matured and schisms didn't occur?

If one is an activist and wants to actively right the imperfections in the world, and in the institutions that you are a part, it’s very difficult to know where to stop the righting. It’s all very well campaigning again Nestle using slave labour on the Ivory Coast to produce 2-fingered kitkats but what if your friend is a bully or your local government is incompetent (which mine, I’d like to say, doesn’t appear to be…nor, for that matter, are any of my friends bullies!)?

How do you offer your support and friendship if your inclination is to fix perceived wrongs?

One of my favourite lines this weekend was “’Vision’ is the short way of spelling ‘Frustration’”. If you do long for the world to progress and continue to evolve and, in my view, become the place God intended, where everyone finds contentment and fulfillment, I guess you are destined, for now, to be blummin’ frustrated most of the time.

A memory stirs that perhaps this is about choice. One of the wisest things I’ve been taught is to pick my battles. That’s working out well with my girls where my desire for them to feel loved and approved of is greater than my desire for me to ‘fix’ their behaviour. That doesn’t mean I am relaxed on the discipline front but it does me I remember to build them up at least twice as much as I introduce discipline into their lives. I have made mistakes in past relationships where I’ve seen it as my ‘right’ to act our my activistic tendencies (and ease my own frustrations) and try and ‘correct’ other people’s behaviour. I’m still very ready in my own marriage to anger quickly where a perceived wrong has occurred.

So…choice…what can I choose to do that both accepts I’m an activist but enables me to embrace differences in other people?   ‘Cos that is also hard, not simply seeing fault (whether it’s there or not) but accepting that everyone is not the same as me and that their differences are essential to a functioning society.

In the classroom you spend a heck of a lot of time trying to differentiate work and teaching for the different type of learner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles (we were taught the VAK model - visual, audio and kinaesthetic) and current scientific view is that our testing of intelligence has been very limiting and that there are in fact Multiple Intelligences. http://homeworktips.about.com/od/learningstyles/ss/multiple.htm   I wonder how much time is actively spent trying to account for these differences in Church? See…there I go, instantly trying to find ways to fix an outdated model of service….

Right…cos it appears I could go on all day…my choices are:

I choose to love people in ways that they find helpful rather than how I think they should be loved
I choose to continue to try and empathise with people’s differences, understanding that I will probably never understand them
I choose to be frustrated because I long for a beautiful world but not let the anger that accompanies that become a barrier to the relationships that are part of creating it.

These choices are really hard to choose and harder to follow through on. However, i don't believe it's my own motivation that'll produce the changes in me necessary, that there is a greater power, always waiting, for these moments of willingness.

Movie Night

2010-03-03T23:42:00.001Z

I may have mentioned this but i'll share again. Every week we have movie night. We are very fortunate to have our good friends live 10 minutes away so, alongside daytime activities with the kiddlies, we watch movies on a regular basis. This has led to a spread sheet being created (largely because we're all indecisive and needed a way to choose without squabbling!) We have 6 genres to choose from and these are allocated to the four of us in order. There's classic (which must have been nominated or have received an award - not the raspberry one), cult (a film that has a specific group of followers), non-America, guilty pleasure (didn't receive critical aclaim but did receive public) and wild card (we each choose 3 movies and one extra - chosen by whoever's turn it is - and then by a process of eliminating ones we don't want to watch arrive at one movie).

Tonight we watched The Departed. It scored highly, our score slightly higher than IMDB's. We then had a discussion about whether watching violent films with lots of swearing does actually effect your behaviour and attitude towards others. Having recently watch Jo Frost in her new series Extreme Parenting i did wonder when we'll get a decent study done on the effect of violence (and exposure to sex, swearing, shouting, abuse etc etc) on our own behaviour towards others. There was a clear corrolation between boys playing violent video games and their empathetic response compared to boys playing a football game. However, as many angry gamer seems to have latched onto, correlation is not validation. I'm in the 'it can't be good for you camp' but until there's a decent, long term, larger numbers study done i guess movie night and Friday morning gaming will more often than not involve the death of others for entertainment.

Morning after the night before edit:

In the light of a new day one of my lovely friends sent me this link to an article on the departed from a faith perspective. While it doesn't comment on the effect exposure to violence, in whatever form, may have on our psyche, it does highlight that violence is, currently, an unavoidable part of life in our world. Is it therefore (as one of the arguments was put last night), if i am to be willing and able to engage with the whole of humanity, necessary to be aware of the struggles that others face outside of domestic duties and the tempermental nature of pre-schoolers?

Self Indulgent Reflections of a Contemplating Mind (360° feedback continues)

2010-03-03T00:03:00.000Z

I left Cliff College (2000-2003) with the conviction that being in relationship with God and consequently living a life that was testiment to that relationship was so much more than going door to door grilling people or standing on street corners preaching hell and damnation.

I have spent (some) of the past 7 years battling to gain moral control over as many areas of my life as I can

I use freecycle
I buy my children’s clothes from eBay
I have tried to buy organic/locally produced/fairtrade products
I used cloth nappies for baby #1
I have campaigned for worthy causes and sent emails/postcards and letters to important people over important issues
I have had 2 children and become more attuned to my creator.
I have found a church family, chosen for what I could offer them rather than what they could offer me.
I have taken a back seat to allow my husband to develop confidence and identity within his ordained ministry, even though I am the talker and activist within our relationship.
I have made friends wherever I have met people with no motivation other than to be the best friend I can be to.
I have talked to Muslims, Sikhs, agnostics and atheists about a variety of God-topics trying never to judge their position but to find common ground from which to communicate and understand.
In that time I felt God’s spirit plant a teeny tiny seed in my heart, so small I can forget I’d prayed for it for years, yet by it’s nature of being a living thing I have been slowly changed from the inside.
I pray for God’s wisdom and compassion to take dominate my words and thoughts.
I do not have a credit card of any sort. The only debt I have is my student loan.

I I I I!!!

But none of this feels enough…all my good intentions are hit and miss as i try and walk against society’s tide. I'm not sure what the tangible evidence would actually be. The cheapest brands sneak their way into the shopping trolley rather than the holiest (wouldn’t life be easier if there was a ‘Holy’ brand, clearly marked in the supermarket…it’d save so much time!) A 360° approach to life means that there is no area that we can ignore….but I don’t even use my compost bin all the time.

Currently I feel that I am in a transitional stage, a period of growth and change; there is yet more to come, so much room to grow. I am ready to take up more responsibility for leadership and possibly preaching again, even though it scares me and I’m afraid of neglecting or not having time for my children and friends. Will I come through a little closer to God? A little wiser? Will I develop the ability to be organised and maintain just one routine that helps us keep on top of things and therefore more likely to recycle, compost, use reusable nappies, feed our friends, find funding for community projects??

Before going to the Faithworks conference my 360° intentions of 7 years ago had slipped and I’ve been reminded of all the things I’d left convicted about. I prayed beforehand that I’d be changed. I forgot, however, that change usually hurts and is often difficult.

This is a very me, me, me blog today…(or I, I, I as the case appears to be). I shall, at some point, actually summarise the contents of the conference rather than the musings of a delegate.

Maybe.

Faithworks reflections continued...

2010-03-01T23:54:00.000Z

Tonight i barraged our homegroup with bursts of enthusiam from the weekend. It kept bubbling out of me and i couldn't hold it in. After they left i wept with frustration and embarrassment that i might just be a total looney (R assures me that i'm not). Our theme tonight was 'Passionate Worship' - during lent we're following the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations book written by Robert Schnase. We ended hopefully...talking about where we want to be and who we want to become as a diverse, multicultural, all-age worshipping community; knowing that it'll be frustrating and will take time but that we are on a journey together going in God's direction. Not bad for our second homegroup!

I'm still not ready to conclude what i've learnt from the weekend cos it kind of feels like i'm still learning - like food cooked in a microwave, it gets zapped and even though the zapping bit's stopped...the cooking still goes on.

One thing that i am reflecting on is an anology for the Christian journey that came to me following the phrase 'just start again'. It can be applied to any habit or behaviour that needs changing but resonates with my own journey of descovery about my relationship with God.

In Romans Paul talks about 'running the race' and by doing so we can develop the idea that should we fall that is the end of the race, that there's no 'second chance' or that the fall somehow ruins the journey. I'm wondering how seeing the journey in terms of an American football game would effect our ability to not simply pick ourselves up when we stumble and fall but embrace those moments where we don't appear to move forward as essential to the journey (i'm mixing images here...you can see how i'm just not processing anything properly).    I've only seen a bit of a game in 'real' time and most of my understanding comes from seeing it in't movies so i profess to no small amount of ignorance before i carry on.

However, it seems to me that a large part of the game is about falling down, about seeming to 'fail'. The game stops and starts and in doing so gives the players time to breath, time to talk and share strategy. It is a contact sport where instead of being in competion with everyone around you you share strength and get closer to hold each other up. Throughout the game there is the tension of an opposing team that tests your strength and challenges your intent to move forward. Sometimes those tensions snap and you collapse to the floor, sometimes it means you move backwards. The speed i saw this game played wasn't totally disimilar to watching a lazy, summer's day cricket match (only with more hugging and bottom smacking). The stops and starts merely allowed the men to talk and bond and laugh. They were still moving forward and one of the teams got some points at some point (please don't ask me how or what - i'll do some more research before i attempt to share this from a pulpit).

It occurs to me that if you believe yourself to be in a race then you are competing against others and the aim is to complete it quickly - the end of the race is your goal. In a game it's a process, the aim is to play and score not to finish and its a partnership amongst team mates. That feels a much more hopfilled analogy that allows "now", the game, to be just as important and potentially fun as the aftergame party.

This was one of the main themes of the weekend. Someone said "we've got to stop being vampire Christians, wanting Jesus only for his blood". We need to stop talking about our faith in terms of being 'saved' in order to get to heaven but instead to realise the Kingdom of God in here amongst us, to see it in the life Jesus led and to look forward to it being realised fully in the future.

It's still coming but i'm not there yet...

Oasis Faithworks 360 Conference

2010-02-28T19:52:00.000Z

Oh my...

i have said this (in my head...in reality i don't actually say it outloud) several times this weekend. I have been well and truely enthused and inspired and vindicated and gifted with hope and vision and reality and the godliness of what we could be if only we chose to get on with all this loving that is so often talked about but too often fails to become a successful reality.

Brian McLaren is a total superstar, not only because he uses language that caresses you into feeling you've been thinking the same all along and if only Brian could always speak your mind you'd never be misunderstood again, but also because of what he's up against every time he suggests we need to be continually growing and thinking and loving as the Church. I can't do justice to what i've learnt tonight...i'm too elated to be able to put it into words. Needless to say, my spiritual gift found my face streaming unbecomingly with God tears of joy and hope, not a good things when concealer is an essential for disguising winter-cold purple circles in the hope that Methodists will be represented by the un-'odd' (as i believe they were).

Steve Chalk was his usual passionate, bouncy (despite injured ankle), informed, compassionate self drawing you in with all the enthusiasm of a 3year old who's painted you a picture while he transforms how people see and think and be church and be love.

I've written pages and pages of notes to help remind me of all the teaching that was poured over us this weekend. Once i've digested it and, hopefully, read the books that are behind much of it, i shall regurgetate it here to help me understand it better. in the meantime here are my renewed hopes for where i am:

that i will continue to grow in Christian maturity and wisdom, descovering each day how little i know about the awesome love that is God.
that i can be a part of pulling together a community of people, united only by their humaness and love for one another
that i can find new and creative ways to demonstrate and communicate all i know and believe and trust about God
that i can serve God through the Methodist church i attend, bouncing and passionate where appropriate and helping people to divine a godly vision for their role within the community.
that alongside all of this i can be the very best mum, wife, friend, sister, daughter, grandaughter, neice that i possibly can be...serving my family and friends as though they each had a scar in both hands.

What a weekend...

Christmas is coming...

2009-12-11T21:14:00.000Z

As a child i was warned not to get to excited about Christmas...in fact, just last week i was told to be careful! However, in my growing maturity i am beginning to see the journey, the preparation through advent, as the important bit. The love is not simply because i have a particular affection for Christmas tree baubles (though I do), it's the preparation, that anticipation of the quieter time of Christmas week, the look on mini-E's face as she beheld her first (incredibly tacky) 3/4 size singing Santa, Ittyjo gleefully removing all the lower baubles from the tree and legging it down the hallway. I love seeing the magic of the story of the tiny baby so far away and so long ago being unraveled for my girls, even if the reality is washing over their heads the sweetest and the most mysterious moments are absorbed, enjoyed and questioned.

I love Christmas time as much as i love Christmas day! Whoop!

Today I did not...

2009-12-04T00:26:00.000Z

...having written the title i realise there are many things i did not do today. I did not weep. I did not kill or damage anyone. I did not tidy the bedroom floor.

However...I actively did not watch King Kong. I don't know quite what has my heart aching when i think of the film...but roughly knowing the story line and catches snippets of the more actiony bits (cos it's really difficult to ignore Dinosaurs succumbing to the domino effect) I just couldn't quite face the pain of unrequited, impossible love. There's something hopeless about it that goes against my understanding and hope for love. I couldn't, having looked at the Gorilla's sad eyes journey with him through to the inevitable loss at the end. I didn't watch with 3 people who were actively watching it. Who are able to say "it's just an ape" or "it's only special effects"...I can't do that...if a film wants an emotional response it gets it, full force, from me. It's why i don't watch slasher movies or tragedies...and...i have decided, i like it that way. I like being sensitive to the plight of others. I like to be able to empathise with other people's pain, even if it has me turning the news over when it all gets too much. Funnily enough, I really enjoy CSI (when Channel 5 works!)...because the person i'm supposed to be empathising with is not the victim but the investigator...

Team Byass is a wonderful thing. I'm loving my boy very much. He is wonderful even when i don't blog it. The girls are particularly gorgeous today...even though i've been desperately trying to get a church magazine finished (before the end of December though it's the December/January edition!) they've played so nicely together. Flis gets more gorgeous by the day, her personality shining through her activeness. E's sense of humour and cheekiness is brilliant and she's always got a come back (which is fine as long as it's not rude or cheeky...she is learning the difference...'cos i tell her)

Order for Creativity's sake...

2009-12-03T14:12:00.000Z

Last night i sat with two of my favourite friends and we didn't do anything. We sat and chatted about this and that without the usual background noise of TV or movies. As is often the way, silliness prevailed and we found ourselves, almost against our will, measuring ourselves against the french windows with a large Usborne cookery book and a white board marker. It was interesting to see the different proportions between head, shoulders and hips. My legs, incidently, are as rediculously long as my body is short.

We so rarely, as a group of friends or as a family, have empty time wherein creativity (or silliness) has room to reign. When that is the case and chaos seep into all areas of my life my thinking juices dry up and it seems as if life is one long list of things i haven't done but really should if only i had some time. So, today, as I'm in a super place mentally, I have tackled the issue of our lack of order with my beloved. We have created an analy retentive morning, lunch and bedtime routine (via a beautiflly crafted windows table) with clearly defined blank spaces for le groom's work obligations and my time with the girls. It involves some sacrifice on our part...the lazy mornings where we gentle lowered our sleep-deprived selves into the day have been replaced by an hour of quick changes and non-luxurious showers. No longer will the snooze button (should either of us have needed it, heavy sleepers that we are) be pressed quite so many times. However, the hope is that by consolidating the mornings into a neater package of daily jobs and chores, it leaves considerably more time for fun-filled activities and whatever-it-is-that-methodist-ministers-find-to-fill-their-time-with stuff.

And so starts the pattern of the perpetual optimistic reformer, ever seeking new ways to improve and move forward while trying desperately not to look over her shoulder for the looming gloom of depression.

Grumpiness breed grumpiness

2009-11-29T22:59:00.000Z

We are all cross in our house at the moment.

The girls both have hacking coughs and slimey colds. R and I are recovering from sickness bug that wiped us out at the beginning of the week. It's raining and its cold.

The problem when you're cross is that every escalates it. It's all too easy to snap over trivial things (like burnt gravy...oh the loss of beautifully crafted amber nectar) and to stomp and slam door and hold grudges. It's easier to hold onto the grump and 'not care' when someone else snaps at you because it's easier to remain in your miserable little hole than reach out the hand of friendship and make yourself vulnerable.

Grumpiness breeds grumpiness...just as violence breeds violence. You'd think, as i've taken the non-violent stance as a parent, that i'd be mature enough to take the same stance in regard to being a grumpy cow and stop it at once....

I shall. I choose to do so. Here is why blogging's so super (for me)...to be accountable to my 12 regular readers (whoever you may be) means i continue to reflect and hope to be better. So...i'm going to go and make friends with my grumpy husband.

First i shall tell you some cheery things about my woooonderful girls:

Ittyjo is growing in stature and personality this week...despite her cold she is smiling and chuckling more and likes to be growled at. She plays chase with unabandoned glee...especially when wet and naked after the bath. She's teething and getting some big, mean looking molars coming down (at 13months).

Mini-E visited nursary this week, she'll start every morning after January. She was upset to only be visiting! Her speech is sounding more mature and the anxiety gene that had her cowering from men seems to be receeding and the confident little girl that she is is more in evidence with other people.

I would put some recent pictures on...but someone has broken the memory card...on the same day someone else plunged my (new) phone into a full cup of tea...the same someones smeared the white walls of our loo with bright blue handwash....!? "i was making it pretty" was the reason...Itty's consequence was that all her food tasted a little of soap as i hadn't been as thorough with the hand wiping as i'd thought...yum.

Today I feel: sad.

2009-11-26T02:28:00.000Z

Today a friend has been sentenced to 3 years in prison. She has 2 teenage daughters who will be adults by the time she is released.

There's no question that what she did was wrong (sex with a 15 year old student). She will never teach again and will be on the sex offenders register indefinately.

I feel sad because she has lost 3 years of her life, 3 years of her daughter's lives and 3 years of her nephews' lives who have recently lost their mum (who, incidently, was suffering from terminal cancer at the time of the affair).

I feel sad because she was a bubbly, intelligent, thoughtful and excellent teacher and woman and I wonder what 3 years in prison will do to that. She was grieving the loss of her close sister and working through the end of her marriage. She chose the wrong person to lean on and find comfort in. It doesn't justify the relationship and it was an abuse of a powerful position. I don't believe she is a predator or a paedofile however. As the judge said to her,

"This is a very sad story for all concerned, not least yourself. It is clear your life had come to a very low ebb. You started to abuse your position of trust. Eventually you lured him into intercourse which should never have happened."

Councelling or therapy would have been a good way to go but i can't see how separation from her children and loss of freedom is going to help her or the boy. What is the purpose of the punishment? She is already all too aware of the wrongness of her actions, admitted them and is ashamed of them. She admitted to the fault being hers "at the earliest opportunity".

I wonder how differently i would feel if it were a male friend and a 15 year old girl. Or if it were one of her daughters, or mine, and a male teacher. To be honest it makes me a little queazy thinking about it...

Today i have lost a friend on facebook. Her profile no longer exists. She is someone i have admired as a brilliant mum and as a teacher who made a terrible mistake for which she will suffer way beyond the 3 year prison sentence.

Whether the sentence was right or wrong, harsh or not, today i feel sad.

Dear Reader,

2009-11-20T20:12:00.001Z

I wonder, if you blog, how often you think about your readers. Who's reading? Who's making snap judgements based on what you write? Who's shed a tear in response to your own happiness or sadnesses(?)...?

I wonder what relationship you create in your head between yourself and your reader...if any...

Sometimes i write because i want to clarify thoughts i've had.. Sometime i write because moments with my girls are so precious that i don't want to forget them. However I can never remember them clearly enough by the time i've experienced them, made tea, done bedtime and sat down inelegantly on the sofa. I write because my motivation for writing a diary which would otherwise hold these memories waxes and wanes as it feels such a lonely occupation.

Today i'm worried about my dad and write to my friend the reader who worries with me. I'm worried because he's so far away in a strange place and strange hospital. I'm worried that my mum's on her own in a travel lodge having driven up to be with him. I'm worried that they won't find out what's wrong...or they do find out what's wrong and it does turn out to be the micro-alien invasion I initially suspected. I'm battling with worst-case scenarios that have no basis in the reality of the situation which currently sounds ok they're just waiting for some test results to come back. So, i've shared my worries today because it helps and because worries outside my head are far more managable than the ones that mutate and echo inside.

And now for something completely different (well not so different as it happens):

Hope for Perfection

2009-11-17T22:37:00.000Z

R has been away since yesterday, home tomorrow.

It's interesting that, in his abscence, jobs around the house i wouldn't otherwise automatically do have been done without complaint. The kitchen is tidy, the laudry on, the children's stuff put away and clothes are waiting to be folded. However, when he's home it's always a battle of wills as to who can outlast the other as squalour steals over every surface until either we have a guest coming (in which case we go into our emergency blitz routine), I get cross and shout and stomp and do it all anyway....or i get cross and shout and stomp and demand that R does it, "for a change because you never, ever do it and i am not the house keeper, if i knew i was supposed to be the house keeper i'd have kept on in my rather well paid job and hired someone to do the housekeeping because i don't have the energy or inclination to do both the childcare and the housekeeping...."....(i'm a great believer in hyperbolie as a literary tool)

How horrible i can be...and i write this not to seek support in my argument but to hold myself accountable to others in the hope that the reflection back will enable me to change. For, this has been our 'routine' for the past 6 years of marriage. The pattern has not changed, routines have been dreamt of, agreed to and a day later disgarded as unfollowable.

I have various patterns of behaviour that I long to change and that hold me back from leading a full and rich life. I am inclined to be lazy which allows anxieties to take over rather than be battled with and faced. If I don't take care of what i'm eating i find that my perception of what i 'should' be allowed to eat and what i have a 'right' to eat becomes skewed and i feel that i'm missing out if my diet is not full of high fat, highly processed food. I find myself being incredibly judgemental and critical of situations and people which hinders how i can interact with both in a healthy way.

However, I hope for change. I hope that I can grow and develop and be the kind of person that other people want to be. Not for my own ego but as testimony to the power of God to transform and mould me. I wish it to happen, i long to gain the wisdom i pray for and the gentleness of spirit that stills souls in turmoil and resonates with the Holy. I hope that in hoping and praying for it that i therefore give the permission for the transformation to take place, to continue to take place.

"The Guest" and "Pieta" by Rosemary Wakelin

2009-11-16T20:52:00.000Z

The Guest

The pain being over
now I feel the sense of loss.
To see, to touch

caress and kiss

can never be the same

as when my body

was your home.

Then you were mine

and yet not mine.

For when you stirred

(although that was our secret)

I knew

the life contained within me

was not me.

You were my guest.

My body housed your need

until it grew too great.

and though

for a little while

I can sustain you yet,

the first painful parting’s done;

from now it is all partings.

From me you learn

to walk,

that you can be

the way that

I may learn to tread.

From me you learn

the words,

that you can speak

the truth

that I may comprehend.

From me you suck

the life,

that you can be

the living bread

that I may feed upon

and live.

From me you learn

the love

which is the sword

that pierces my heart through

and nails you to the cross.

In your necessity

my dearest dear

you were the guest

I entertained

Now you’re the host

and at your table

I shall be sustained.

Rosemary Wakelin

Pieta

Your work accomplished,

Now I know the sharpness of the sword

That pierces my heart through.

Again I hold in you in my arms,

Caress and kiss

That dearest form

Which carried all my love.

But as I watched you grow

I knew

The life in you I nurtured

Had a purpose I found hard to bear –

For you were mine and yet not mine,

For, though you love me

As my dearest son,

I knew your being drew

Its inner life

From the mysterious One

You called your Father:

And as you taught and healed

And blessed,

His love in you

Embraced all humankind.

I touch your wounded feet

Which walked the way

That led you to the cross.

I kiss your silent lips

Which spoke the truth

The powerful still reject.

I feel the stillness

Of you lifeless heart and know

The light of life itself has died

The piercing grief

And weight of total loss

Are now commensurate

With the joy I knew

In this my dearest love.

Now others wrap you round

And lay you

In your waiting tomb –

And waiting

Night and day

And night

Until I feel the stirring

In that earthy womb,

And pain and grief

And loss and death,

Which laboured in you

For your victory

Give birth

To Life and Truth,

You living Way,

And break out in the glory

Of your Easter day.

Rosemary Wakelin

To a dear one (author unknown)

2009-11-16T20:43:00.000Z

Letting Go

To a dear one,

I behold the Christ in you.

I place you lovingly in the care of the Father.

I release you from my anxiety and concern.

I let go of my possessive hold on you.

I am willing to free you to follow the dictates of your indwelling Lord.

I am willing to free you to live your life according to your best light and understanding.

Husband, wife, child, friend –

I no longer try to force my ideas on you,

my ways on you.

I lift my thoughts above you, above the personal level

I see you as God sees you, a spiritual being,
Created in His image,

and endowed with qualities and abilities
that make you needed, and important – not only to me

but to God and His larger plan.

I do not bind you. I no longer believe that you

do not have the understanding you need

in order to meet life.
I bless you,
I have faith in you,
I behold Jesus in you.

lots of love, Becca x

Author unknown

Writing the good

2009-11-15T23:03:00.000Z

I find it harder to write in the good times.

I am of the opinion that there's little point having good health and a comfortable lifestyle if you can't take it for granted. For, if you spent your time worrying about everything, it'd be pointless having the ingredients of contentment in the first place. The flip side of that is that I end up being unreflective and cease to strive to be better....though less so of late in my contemplation of Christian Perfection (i'll leave that for another day).

In addition, when all is well with my world i am a little hesitant to write eloquent epistles in testimony to it for fear of causing 'my brother to sin'...should that be through jealousy/envy or outright hatred. Though I admit i'm less worried about my brother than i am about being hated!! I fear this stems, in part, from my own jealousy of other people's happiness. Someone always has a more perfect relationship, better figure, more expendable cash, greater intelligence or even children that say grace in latin (as happened at lunch the other day...a beautiful, auburn-haired 3 year old boy was asked to say grace and he sang, without prompting, laudate omnes gentes...brilliant).

I don't believe i'm alone in this, i suspect this is a common attitude, one that gives the Brits a reputation for resenting others' success; you only have to read a gossip mag to see this. Oh how I have piously lectured my long-suffering and beautiful friend on the inherent wrongness of those magazines but still I am drawn to the front page pictures of scandalous celebrities and their sorry stories.

So, i hesitate and almost feel relief when i have something to bemoan.

However...

Good things that happened this weekend:

We had all-age worship at Church today which catered for *gasp* all ages. The children stayed in for the service and were given a couple of ways to engage with the songs and message. The rest of the congregation did not get up and leave at the use of 3 CDs and a laptop displaying images.

We had a lovely family over for lunch, which did not burn in the oven while we were at Church

I cooked the most perfect Yorkshire puddings i have cooked in ages and even successfully experimented using a mini-donut pan

The girls have been a delight all day, waking to Cbeebies on the radio at 7 on radio7. Mini-E and Ittyjo introduced our teenage male guests to the delight of their dolls and plastic play food.

The weather has been beautiful, crisp and sunny...almost an apology for the wind and rain yesterday

Our lovely friend MrsL and babyA stayed over and chillaxed with us all day yesterday defying the weather to spoil good times spent with friends

Rev’dR and I went out for a meal at the vicar’s house and had a lovely time and i didn’t feel anxious or worried that i’d talked too much or made any outrageous statements.

Ittyjo is just unbelievably cute and cuddly. Admittedly she kept insisting on having some boobie milk while we had our teenage guests and their mum and dad. She did not do this subtly, instead she pulled down my top repeatedly, asking, as if she didn’t know “os is? Os is?”. She’s been jumping today which she does with great enthusiasm though she doesn’t actually leave the ground...so when I say jump i may actually mean bounce. Bathtime was spent with both girls taking it in turns to scream at each other and then giggle uproariously. MiniE is increasingly caring with her dolls, sticking them up her top to feed them and tucking them in, insisting they accompany her to bed.

Victory is mine...

2009-11-14T00:07:00.001Z

I feel like I've just won a battle.

I woke up yesterday morning with a sense that the cloud had passed and life was as it should be. Perhaps because i perservered with thinking out loud (or thinking in blog) and 'fighting' (though admittedly i have spent an extra hour...or two...wallowing in the depths of my lovely feather douvet and goose down pillows...mmm....).

I've bounced back yet just 2 days ago i thought this was it for the rest of my life, destined to wallow in the depths of anxiety and depression (ok...so i err on the side of the dramatic but it helps me express my feelings using the literary tool of hyperbolie). I truely believed that, having had my ration of 2 children (according to their father) and nursed them through the first year of their lives, the hormones that, prior to having children, had dragged me down on a monthly basis had gathered themselves and returned stronger in force to impair my enjoyment of life.

However, i'm happy again...more importantly...i'm feeling again. I even put on makeup today. I might find my contact lenses tomorrow.

One thing i hang onto when feeling 'poorly' (as my lovely friend describes it) is to anchor a good feeling onto something you can draw on when you become aware of the darkness closing in. As a teenager i cottoned onto this idea and adopted jelly as my 'happy' word. It is not magic word and doesn't stop the depression. However, it does remind me that i have and will feel something other than nothing again, which, for a melodramatic occasional wallower in depression, is suprisingly reassuring.

As part of my fight I have tried to do something fun and creative with the girls thoughout the day. One of those things was making "wibbly wobbly jelly", said E. The resulting activity showed me that i was finally out of the slump as i can be heard giggling over the obscene noises that resulted. Enjoy!

A facebook group dedicated to Jelly (jello for US readers) as my happy word: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2228356333&ref=ts

Musing Motherhood

2009-11-12T12:55:00.001Z

I initially started writing a blog to while away the time until i had mini-E and to record my thoughts about it all. Occasionally it slips into theology or campaigning ...but I will regret forever if i don't write enough about my girls. So...this might be a long one...that rambles and waffles...for which i apologise...but as i have descovered with vidoes of the girls as babies...they can never be too long because i'll never get those moments back...even if it's just the snuffles and sighs of a baby not doing much.

They are growing so quickly...i think that is what's prompted today's reflection. The past year went too quickly for me to even think to blog. I wrote 2 entries in the whole year. I have been so happy, so content with my lot in life. I have an amazing, blessed life. I am surrounded by people who love me and think well of me. I have my freedom to think and express myself. I don't live in fear of being unable to pay bills, buy food or provide healthcare or education for my children. I live with a man who is my best friend, who doesn't beat me or put me down, who encourages me, listens to me and respects me. My children are healthy and happy and show signs of being bright and funny.

I wrote a list of all the things i want for my children before i had mini-E. I'll find it again one day and share. I do know though...that all i could ask for, I have. I am so fortunate.

My girls are so different and so the same. Ittyjo shows affection through pats and kisses and toddles so gleefully towards you whenever she sees you. She bestows generously her company but is so interested in everything around her she's off again, having reminded you of her love, from day one she's been a bundle of energy and fidgets even when feeding, her little, biteable legs constantly twitching and kicking. Mini-E is also a fidget, especially when she comes in your bed in the middle of the night. She's a cuddler and, as she is able to, informs you how much she loves you. She still says "I love you biiiig much" (or, if contrariness takes her, "I love you leeeetle tiny much" while holding her fingers barely apart....ok...so maybe someone taught her to say that behind daddy's back.........).

Together they play very nicely on the whole. Itty has a real, deep chuckle that she saves for when she is particulary amused. It's usually mini-E that causes this whether she's splashing in the bath or diving on top of her. E can be so tender/patronising/condescening...it's lovely to see...especially as her 'babies' are now benefitting from it.

We've just entered a new stage with E. She's never had a particular favourite with toys or blankets. She's always needed to have a muzzi and dumble (muslin square and dummy)...but now she wants particular cuddlies and particular dolls. The other day she left her doll at Granny's house which did not make for a happy journey home once she'd realised. Fortunately she's a logical enough girl to know that Granny will be both happy and able enough to look after her baby, even if she (the baby) a bit poorly at the moment. It was also ok as the twin (which is actually Itty's) was at home with a poorly ear (at least, that was the explanation for why the doll had nipple cream all over its ear and face) so we were able to say that the baby was much better and could sleep in E's bed until Granny had finished with her baby.

I do worry...i worry that the control i had over E's environment, with time to stimulate and love her, is less with having Itty...i worry that i can't give Itty the same time i've given to E. I worry that E is going to be knocked back because she's so eager to make friends. I worry that E's going to be the very youngest in the year...I worry that F's going to be one of the oldest and tallest in the year.

All i can do (and i say this as a mantra and a prayer) is love them, encourage them and help them develop positive, confident identities...

The most painful thing is that, in the end, it's their life and they have to live it. I am only a temporary guardian who's job is to let them go.

However...before i get too morose...the relationship i now have with my parents is so positive and lovely that i can but hope that once they have adequately found their independance they will want our relationship to develop into a grown up one.

I admit...this is all a long way off...and for now i shall enjoy the middle of the night, icy feet cuddles and feeds and the need for mummy when they fall.

[pictures are of R and Mini-E waltzing in the lounge and the girls wearing their Norwich City outfits on the day we won 7-0]

Friends: a staple or a treat?

2009-11-11T15:45:00.007Z

Mini-E has successfully been learning the difference between staple food (or ‘superfood’) and treat food. This consisted of getting all her plastic food and dividing it into two bowls. I was impressed. Conveniently, she regularly manages to ‘forget’ the difference and insists that chocolate is a superfood.

Sometimes i think (hope?) she might be right...

For me, friends are a staple! I have always loved having friends. Most of my earliest memories are the making and playing with friends; my new identical twin neighbours informing me that they were going to kill me (we were four...and later became the best of friends), our oldest friends being seen to run away and hide as our car pulled into the drive, countless birthday parties with gross games involving the squishing of jelly and ice cream between your teeth.

Its fun watching mini-E desperate for friends and approaching every new boy and girl as a potential new favourite friend. In fact, when we first went to toddler group here, she walked in, clapped her hands together and said, in a sing-song voice, “I can hear new friends” (I may have already written that in an earlier blog).

As a total extrovert not only do i need friends to function but i have needed friends to create my identity. For a few years now i have not had a specific group of friend who i’ve regularly been able to spend time with and as a consequence my musical tastes dwindled to nothing, i started wearing clothes that are scarily similar to R’s and my down-time has been dominated by online social pages.

In some ways this has been no bad thing. I have slowly and painfully been discovering who i am, stripped down to just me. I have, in our isolation, relied on God as my focus to emulate. I have realised what true friends are, those that are loyal and stick around and who we click with even if we only see them once a year. I’ve chosen clothes based on what appeals to me at the time and music for it’s ability to lift or sooth.

I’m not always convinced i make a good friend. I’m too critical of others, too jealous of their achievements or gifts and condemnatory if they get things wrong. Consequently i’m always battling with myself and my anxieties after visits which means i’m often uncomfortable or distant at the time....which in turn means i feel more anxious afterwards: a vicious circle.

A few years ago, in a distant land, I had a very close friend who argued with me (and I with her) constantly. Sometimes it would become hurtful and I would question the benefit of our relationship. However, she reminded me in her greater wisdom of Proverbs 27:17

“Iron sharpens iron; so one friend sharpens another.”

Ever since then i’ve looked at the purpose of friendship in a different way, balancing the fine line of loving and edifying my friends with my annoying inclination to challenge and improve people. Too often i have got it wrong and hurt people, other times i’ve just lost or alienated those friends.
In order to keep the friends I’ve got and to not totally rule out making new friends, my most regular supplication to God is for wisdom; wisdom to know when to shut up more often than not, to hear what God wants to say to someone rather than my own critical judgement. I pray for the wisdom to stop judging and criticising other people and, perhaps most importantly, stop judging and criticising myself. Life is hard and we don't always get it right. I reckon that’s a good development.

Holding firm to my foundations

2009-11-10T15:37:00.008Z

Just had a marvelous waltzing session with the girls which followed a rather sticky period with gloopy glue, sequins and peg people (thank you Aunty Spanner). We were waltzing (in a very elegant, if slightly dizzy, manner) to the Matt Redman's song on the compilation Wow Worship Aqua (listen):

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

From having a 12 week early baby, to bronchiolitis, to car crashes, to swine flu, to anxiety and depression this is what i have always sung...either as a prayer that it's how I'll feel or as an act of praise to a God who has never let me fall beyond his reach.

might have put this one on before but its on the same CD and came on just after I'd finished writing. Casting Crowns, 'Who am I?':

Coldness Permeates

2009-11-09T20:55:00.006Z

It's amazing how cold permeates everything. How little things you take for granted during balmy summer days are crushed beneath the heavy hand of chilly air. We are trying to limit the amount of time we turn the heating on for. Lying in bed with heavy covers on is, admittedly, delicious. However, today i found myself sitting, huddled beneath the laptop, unable to move to do something more productive. My poor girls keep finding themselves suddenly scooped into my arms and icy hands placed on their backs (as is family tradition)...

I was talking to a friend today about marriage. It's not easy. We're bombarded by the Hollywood/Mills&Boon ideal of romantic relationships with smooth talking, sensitive men who listen and bring you ice cream but also know the exact right point of your hormonal cycle to sweep you off your feet and have their wicked way with you.

My marriage isn't like that and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. It's hard to share life with someone....to compromise...share space...interior decor plans. It's hard to stop being 'the eldest child'...especially when I'm married to one. It's hard loving someone and doing stuff for them when their expressions of love are not the expressions you ordered and you'd much rather they read your mind rather than going ahead and being all intuitive and stuff...

....so...this kind of plays on my mind a bit...afterall who doesn't want what Hollywood tells us to want? but i figure, in my great wisdom of being very nearly 30, that if i continue to want a hollywood relationship i'm destined to spend my life disappointed ...and..though i have recoiled at the idea (being an opinionated and strong-willed woman) I'm coming round to the idea of submission.

Submission to the marriage...to the fact that it is not my life I'm living but ours. Submission to my husband in trusting him to love me as I love him, even if it's that doesn't involve doing my wishes as and when i wish them. I keep asking God to give me the wisdom so that each day i don't fight to win battles whether it's who drives or who last loaded the dishwasher.

The whole point i guess is that it's not supposed to be a battle. I'm not sure if this is the idea of submission the Bible talks about, however, I do know that if I were to cease to be the person that i am and squash the gifts I've been given it would end up being detrimental to our relationship and be rude to God who gave me them in the first place. I also know that as long as love in the meaty-difficult-effortful sense is kept at the centre of it all then marriage should work out quite nicely.

Oppressive Cabin Fever

2009-11-07T22:02:00.011Z

I must get out the house...

I found myself sinking into the depths of anxiety and depression this week. I've had a flood of hormones for the first time since conceiving IttyJo (ok...not for the first time...obviously during pregnancy i was a bundle of raging hormones...but this week it's been different, non-pregnancy hormones), i've put on weight and am feeling heavy and i didn't go out anywhere this week cos I was trying to get the house sorted after having guests and going away.

So...i am going to go out to the Toddler groups this week. I am going to Church tomorrow and I am back on Weightwatchers.

I can choose, not necessarily how depression grabs hold of my ankles and drags me down beneath the murky waters through which no light can reach...no...but i can choose life, choose to do something, to counter the oppressive moods. If it got worse i could chose to go to the doctors.

My life is worth the effort, even though it's harder when i'm down or if i'm battered after seeing people by the mean voices of anxiety that tell me i'm an idiot who talks too much and listen too little. I have to believe the immortal words, "you're worth it".

"For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is The Spirit Himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him." Romans 8:15

I can choose because I believe there is a power greater than my hormones, greater than anxiety or depression. That same power loves me even when I don't love myself and for that period...that is enough...enough to help me chose to intervene before it gets unbearable.

That's a good place to be.

My Tweeting Career to Date

2009-11-04T21:16:00.004Z

not that it's very interesting...just that it's not a bad historical record of several months worth of statuses and i've often wish i could do this with facebook ones because they would be very telling...except for when i'm just plain ol' obscure!
had me second first 'mama' this morning24 minutes ago from web

bulbs safely tucked in for the winterabout 9 hours ago from web

would never want to bite an octopus's head!about 24 hours ago from web

has a gas bill for £1300 in addition to the ones we'd already paid for a property we've not lived in for 3 months at the end of the quarter5:03 PM Nov 3rd from web

had a perfectly splendid weekend with lovely friends!7:22 PM Nov 2nd from web

repleat after american style pancakes with streaky bacon and syrup...i fear to log into Weightwatchers in case the computer overloads...12:23 PM Oct 28th from web

repleat after american style pancakes with streaky bacon and syrup...i fear to log in to to Weightwatchers in case the computer overloads...12:23 PM Oct 28th from web

is off to bedfordshire11:41 PM Oct 27th from web

is kind of looking forward to January for some Ittyjo and mummy time when mini-E starts nursery...9:57 PM Oct 27th from web

gets too attached to her photos and finds it difficult deleting even the blurry ones...9:06 PM Oct 27th from web

is sad to realise that not only has she not blogged for a year...but no one missed it.8:00 PM Oct 27th from web

and the clouds have burst and dispelled their wealth...9:59 PM Oct 26th from web

enjoying the calm before the storm8:00 PM Oct 26th from web

mmm...hot, fresh bread and butter...nearly good enough to dispel dingy day blues3:00 PM Oct 26th from web

's bread is risen and cooking...2:04 PM Oct 26th from web

the big knit is back on (sadly not joined in with by me): http://innocentdrinks.typepad.com/thebigknit/1:00 PM Oct 26th from web

sad to see that half her friends blogs, like hers, have been neglected this past year...shame on you Facebook11:01 AM Oct 26th from web

is thinking about tidying for guests but using the laptop for warmth...10:19 AM Oct 26th from web

...favourite quote of teeny film..."you're like the swiss - you're neutered"10:19 PM Oct 25th from web

aah splendid...Emma time.9:06 PM Oct 25th from web

had lovely birthday tea with much missed friends and is making very exciting weekend plans. Whoop Whoop8:31 PM Oct 25th from web

looking forward to 1st Birthday Tea with Team Byass and The Lewises4:42 PM Oct 25th from web

returns to twittering and blogging in one fell swoop.3:11 PM Oct 25th from web

I uploaded a YouTube video -- hello aunty sally http://bit.ly/3cChM9 5:44 PM Oct 8th from Google

thinks Jennifer Hudson is quite good (Michael Jacksons memorial service, not Methodist Conference)7:25 PM Jul 7th from web

listening to Methodist Conference over t'internet...i have the mostest fun!7:03 PM Jul 7th from web

loves how uplifting in-season strawberries are....9:01 PM Jun 26th from web

is overwhelmed by thoughts of goodbye events, packing, christening, holiday club & prep moving house...feels a bit like a looming dealine9:31 PM Jun 22nd from web

is unnaturally delighted with her 3 tiered cakestand with its aesthetically pleasing balance of Sunday tea treats, bread and cheese7:39 PM Jun 21st from web

can't keep the over-dramatic sense of lurking doom from invading her otherwise blissful state of domesticity...8:30 PM May 5th from web

ignoring The Transporter 3, catching up on Facebook correspondance, avoiding the Bog of Eternal Stench that is the kitchen/hallway/rest ...10:11 PM May 4th from web

*sobs unbecomingly* with Mr Fry re: Norwich relegation...6:49 PM May 3rd from web

is downloading podcasts for new ipod from Mars Hill, Soul Survivor and HTB...Austin Powers has already been uploaded!12:13 PM Apr 28th from web

is enjoying Velvet Elvis9:22 PM Apr 27th from web

loves sunny sunday evenings and a mini-game of crocket on the lawn.12:15 AM Apr 27th from web

has finished decorating Birthday Cake for R and is now (avoiding) getting ready to go to hospital for routine eye test for premmie Elizabeth2:49 PM Apr 22nd from web

hopes that the chest infection that arrived with BBQ quests doesn't find a home in the Byass household!10:22 PM Apr 20th from web

is prepping for the glorious bbq, in the glorious sunshine, with some glorious friends...glory glory glorry...4:25 PM Apr 20th from web

is feeling gloriously Christian...yeay for Jesus, Spring Harvest, Mini-E, good friends and The Shack...2:50 PM Apr 20th from web

is avoiding going to bed 'cause that'll mark the 'end' of her holiday (not that it's much of a holiday when it comes to being a SAHM).12:50 AM Apr 20th from web

procrastinating11:50 AM Jan 30th from web

Gotta love pre-schooler logic!

2009-11-04T11:33:00.010Z

Today's funny episode: Mini-E was being empowered in her desire for independence and instructed in how to put a DVD on with the sound going through the stereo (admittedly this could also be interpreted as Mini-E's parents are lazy swines intent on exploiting their daughter's eagerness to help). The difficulty came after the DVD had been put in the playstation and the stereo turned on. The input dial was turned to CD rather than AV and needed to be turned one click to the right. However...a very frustrated E, having turned it left and right too many times repeatedly declared "I can't turn it one time, I'm THREE!!"

In an ideal world we would not have cackled with delight but would instead have assured her that her declaration of age was correct but did not need to effect all areas of her life.

I have finished the flowerbed today and planted 5 types of bulb around the garden. I'm not sure if they'll successfully grow as my estimation of 15cm deep and 20cm apart is not necessarily accurate...but there you go. It all looks fairly neat, the compost bin bought three weeks ago is full and not too stinky (thanks to effective layering of unwanted turf, leaves and gardenwaste over the unsorted kitchen waste haphazardly thrown in)...we'll see if it remains so over the winter. The lettuces and leeks seem fairly happy under their plastic sleeping bag and look marginally larger than when mini-E and I planted them a couple of weeks ago.

Ittyjo is being particularly affectionate today in a knicking-mummy's-glasses-and-demanding bobbie-milk kind of a way... A good thing as I have been mourning the loss of her infancy since she turned 1 and miss the cuddliness of having a needy baby (not that she every stayed still long enough to actually cuddle). I think I will be able to move beyond this mourning period, especially as she gets more independant and personable every day, but it has been a necessary period as our current thinking is that 2 beautiful, strong-willed, affectionate little girls gives a complete, rounded feel to our family.

Today I had my second first "Mama"...and it was no less exciting or special. I love my girls!

And to end, as it's currently on the TV...

Cold rooms mean more fun...

2009-11-03T17:19:00.003Z

We've had a good day today.

This morning mini-E and I baked choc chip cupcakes, we made Welsh Rarebit (sp?) for lunch and made a house wall and bunk-bed in her play room. We've read books together, played music together and looked at photos on Facebook. Lovely.

It is cold in our house...which may be the key to our activity. We received a gas and electric bill on top of the direct debits we pay monthly for £1300. Ouch. Therefore i have not put the heating on...but wrapped everyone up and made sure we've been using the oven so at least one room in the house doesn't have a distinct chill.

Felicity is getting more and more adept at standing from the floor. She did it for the first time last Friday using a bottle in her hand to push herself up and since then has been going straight up from the floor. Clever girl. She's also been pointing at various family members in the pics in our hallway.

"Friends, friends, you and me..."

2009-11-02T19:31:00.005Z

'Friends, friends, you and me,
We're as happy as we could be.
We stick together like a frog in a tree
I'm so glad we're friends"

(Barely The At All, The Land of Pleasant Dreams)

We've just got home from a rare weekend away. Being closer to family and seeing them regularly means that we were free to go and visit friends.

It was lovely to see mini-E play and refresh her friendship with a lovely little girl we stayed with over the weekend. It seems to be that as a parent it's much more important that the values you hold are similar the people you hang out with, especially if they have children, and our friends mesh so nicely with what we hope for for our children. I find it so reassuring to be able to discuss how I'm parenting and talk strategy and explain my reasons for doing what we do.

What do you do with a three year old that screams 'no no no go away' repeatedly when Daddy's getting her ready for her bath? That's our issue at the moment...we threaten, cajol, entreat...but evey bedtime is a battle at the moment...

Ittyjo adds to the dynamic with her deep chuckle as her naked bum whips around the doorframe and away down the corridor...enjoying the chase that ensues and giggling as only a one year old can.

We drove home from our friends, stopping at some more friends to see their beautiful and 'coot' (as E said) four week old twin boys. Felicity condescendingly patted them both on their head and inserted her finger into their mouths. I am so proud of my brave friends to be handling two so well and calmly and breastfeedin both!!

In the car mini-E was muttering to herself and then triumphantly shouted "small, i'm practicing saying small". She was successful and we were appropriately pleased and congratulatory. Until now it has been pronounced 'fmall'...

happy times...and...on Friday we had a treasure hunt with another set of friends through our park. The two 3 year olds kept finding hidden treasure (acorns, leaves and chocolate coins) that were discretely placed as we walked (the coins...the acorns were already there!). It was very exciting and made use of a beautiful wooden toy cart as our mobile treasure chest.

Setting out on our treasure hunt

min-E making use of an empty

'treasure chest'

Where does my time go?

2009-10-27T20:00:00.010Z

I seem to spend half my time thinking about the things I'd like to do and all the time doing things that stop me doing it.

I spent exactly 5 intentional minutes with mini-E today. I have spent the day with her in the house or out at Just Deserts (a rather fabulous ice cream parlour)...but most of the time i was doing chores or...well...eating. We do have guests...and it's nice to be able to get on with things without feeling guilty that I'm neglecting my children....but 5 minutes seems so little when being a mum, at the moment, is what i feel i do best and am at my best when I'm being a mum.

Mini-E was been incredibly willful at bedtime and, for the first time ever, i wished i wasn't so against corporal punishment. At bedtime it's worse because the consequences available for bad behaviour only serve to disrupt bedtime further (e.g. taking away a favourite teddy or removing her flying angel's lamp) After wishing (just wishing!) i could just administer a jolly good smack to her peachy cheeks to remind her who's supposed to be boss and magically sort it all out I remembered that actually she is a lovely, obedient, funny girl the majority of the time. So i thanked her. I thanked her for tidying her toys away and for playing so nicely and for the lovely day we've had today. Almost instantly she melted into daddy's arms and smiled and became that lovely girl once more, ready to put her pink all-in-one pajamas on and clamber into her snuggly bed with flowery douvet and pink checked quilt.

I gave mini-E a memory of how lovely she is...and that's who she wanted to be.

I didn't intend to talk about God today (i wasn't even intending to be sanctimoniously smug)...but i can't help it...the God stuff (and the smugness) just comes bubbling out. This is what comes to mind...the most important verse in the Bible (for me) is in the first chapter of the whole thing:

Genesis 1:27. It says, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

For this reason, Jesus came...to remind us of this perfect image...to live a life that was so reminiscent of God, who is all things that are good... who is love, that we would see it and remember the creator in whose image we were made and are capable of being again. (This period of time and act of God says far more and is more complex than this point but I'll save it for another blog)

I've been to several Christian events recently when the whole focus and emphasis was on our inherently sinful nature. Well i say poo to that. My inheritance is God's World...for i am a daughter of God (Romans 8)...not because of what Jesus did...though that very act reminds me of who i could be...but because at my very heart (even when it's hidden by all the rubbish i chose to hide it behind) is the image of the Creator and He longs for me to be the very best I can possibly be, all that is good and loving and holy.

Next blog i am going to talk about food...and maybe Ittyjo...promise.

this little guy was sitting on my front door step when i went out to get my camera so that i could share my favourite picture of Ittyjo from today...

The Joy of Smearing things on Stuff...!?

2009-10-26T20:01:00.007Z

Mini-E September 2008

Just after we moved into new flat!

Mini-E has a strange pattern of behaviour when she feels she is being neglected (as in mummy's asleep in the morning or cooking tea) and consequently "feels miserable and grumpy".

She smears things...onto...well...things. For example, in the past 2 weeks i have lost 2 tubes of foundation to this art, a concealer stick, sudocrem, toothpaste, hair gel, a mascara and a highlighter. They're not even things in easy reach. She spreads them on pillows, curtains, books, our footboard...She has also used toilet cleaner (over and around the loo) after which i promptly phoned the company to ask if they are aware that their 'safety' cap can be opened by, at the time, 2 year olds. Today's masterpiece was a fusion of both kitchen and music room combining palm warmed handfuls of butter with her favourite toy - the electronic keyboard. Oh how we delight in our daughter's creative flair.

...we are currently trying to be calmer in our parenting approach. Our home was beginning to sound like a mix of torture chamber and zoo...consequently we refrained from yelling our heads off...as was the desire...and, having placed said artist on the bottom step, calmly phoned Granny instead to see if she could winkle out the hidden meaning behind today's art..."grumpy and miserable" was a result of that conversation...so i guess mini-E's motivation is not very different from a large majority of artists.

Felicity has been wondering around the house "oss is"-ing everything she wants to get her hands on. If it is not immediately handed to her she either growls, screams or shakes her head. The latter response may be down to the fringe that, due to lack of hairtistic decision on my part, is constantly in her pretty grey eyes.

We have made bread today...and lamb curry. Elizabeth helped with both, i hasten to add having documented her declaration of misery.

Autumn/winter is so blummin cold. I did decide not to put the heating on today both for weight loss and ecological reasons. I feel a little nobler though it meant i have spent far too long sitting with the laptop on my knees just so a small part of me is warm.

Happy Birthday Felicity!

2009-10-25T12:01:00.004Z

It’s been nearly a whole year since I’ve written anything here, a year that has gone too quickly and makes me heart ache just a little at all the gems of memory that’ll slowly fade with time. So much has happened, we’ve moved house, again, I’ve had my gallbladder removed.

Mini-E is an articulate, passionate, affectionate little girl of 3. She struggles saying ‘small’ (comes out as ‘fmall’) but otherwise is capable of expressing emotions, desires, feelings all in a tumble of appropriately (and inappropriately “bloody stairgate”) beautiful joined words. She loves to dance and run and never stays still except to watch her favourites on Cbeebies...loves to help in the kitchen. She’s very confident and strong willed though the anxiety genes sometimes take over in the presence of men and then she tumbles into tears all too readily. She’s long and slender and very pretty with her blond curls and her ever-changing eyes. She prays readily and often reminds us to say grace and to “shut your eyes”. She sings beautiful and has been heard singing the lines of a hymn over and over again in bed.

Felicity is 1 today. She’s walking already and says “oss is?” (what’s this) and “Esbeth” and “hiya hi hiya hi hi”. She’s tall and starting to slim out the more active she’s able to be. We had our nights back shortly after moving down south which has been woooonderful! Currently she’s bopping up and down to Cbeebies Boogie Beebies.

I’ve been so happy this year. Constantly content....hence the lack of writing...have been far too busy enjoying life to sit down and write about it.

We are so right where we live. God reveals a little more of his plan each week. We are close to old friends who we can play with and rely on and pray with. We’re making new friends who challenge our vision and seem perfectly placed for us to build a united, effective Church.

I will write more. I’ve got so much going on in my head it might be useful to use this pensieve to sort them out into a more orderly form to effectively share the gospel which is inherently whirled within them.

2008-11-05T20:34:00.002Z

I can't put into words how very, very, very special having my two girls is. How much i love and adore them. At the moment i'm so flooded with lovely hormones that my brain is a little...damp. But i want to record it all...i don't want to forget how lovely it feels to feed my own baby. (and, though i promise i won't keep refering back to SCBU, how lovely it is to do it at home, without expressing...)

IttyJo is already, at 11 days old, showing signs of a smile...

Mini-E now jumps, dances, runs (precariously), she loves playing 'happy choo choo' on the keyboard (God bless freecycle), for some reason she's calling R and I Mummy-Daddy a lot...so our functionality seems to be the same in her head...E has yet to fully embrace the joy that is potty training, as a family we have celebrated several wee-wees but have yet to have the carnival that would follow a wee-wee and poo poo. E look us in the eye and very earnestly tells us when her nappy has "no poo poo, jus' wee"...her favourite game is "nick nicking" people's seats and being told she is in "biiiig trouble" which she repeats back as "biiiiig bouble"...it's not to be confused with a telling off which involves a warning and a "if you do that again you will have to sit on the spot" (it is a round red rug that is a very good 'time out' spot)...(not a naughty spot...a thinking spot).

I'll be back...i need to figure out a way of recording this more efficiently...i forget to remember at the time ...Itty is reminding me a lot about Mini-E...but if she's the last baby then i won't have the reminders in the same way...

2008-11-03T15:07:00.005Z

Back to stick around for a bit...

I love my girls, despite the mini-pink-clothes explosion! I have 2 girlies now. The second was born last Saturday at 3.45 after a 2.5hr labour. She weighed a healthy 10lb6oz most of it in her length and cheeks! She is beautiful and 'Team Byass' feels complete (for now...maybe...).

I feel I've missed so much by not writing regularly. I struggle to process stuff when i'm sad or down and it feels like i've been a little sad or down since E got bronchiolitus last October...so that's a whole year...including morning sickness and R's horrible accident at Christmas.

Anyway...the birth of little Itty-Jo has symbolically ended all that...i have hope for the next year that it'll be gloriously wonderful...and if it's not.....we've survived and enjoyed large parts of this year so we can survive another.

I'm intending to simplify my blog. I want to record stuff about my girls and my life within Team Byass...if that overflows into theological musings, that's fine...but I don't want to lose the memory of how good they smell or how i want to cry when i see them sleeping or laugh when they're awake. I'm so dosed up on pheremones and endorphines it's hard not to be all slushy...but i don't care. I am blessed.

I love having Itty-Jo home within hours of being born. I love how much Mini-E loves her and wants to touch and cuddle her all the time. I love the dynamic of our family and the way R and I work together to make sure our girls are happy, safe and well. I have missed breastfeeding having had a 9 month break and other than the first few days of lit-match-against-the-nipple type pain it is now as easy as it was with E...we're getting decent sleep as Itty-Jo wakes every 4-5 hours at night - long may it continue.

It is day 9 (i think) of post-labour recovery and i am doing ok depite the total lack of concession Itty's head made for her exit-plan...stitches are healing, boobs have ceased to resemble immovable boulders, i now weight 4lbs less than before i got pregnant(!?)....the only thing left to catch onto this healing malarky is my skin (closely resembling a draped curtain of flesh) and the two parts of my pelvis which, having found their independance, are reluctant to rejoin and become stable again!

General Observations
Itty-Jo is a snorter whereas Mini-E would make noises in the back of her throat, similar to a growl.

They were both born with dark hair, Itty has looooads (which apparently correlates with the amount of heartburn i had...why i've no idea!) and we will wait to see if it all falls out as it did with E...

Ity has the same (but proportionally larger) hands, feet and nose as E had...currently their heads are completely different shapes but their faces seem to be the same shape (hard to tell with Itty's chubby cheeks plus dimple on left)

[E has just walked inwith a teddy bear slung around her neck via medal! Not that long ago she left the room with my bra in the same place...]

E is now talking in full, almost always comprehensible, sentences. She says "please", "'ank you" and "'ove you much" with great abandon and only shouts 'NO' when truely wound up! I wish i'd written as her language developed to this point but i shall endevour to try to make a record of her development in the future. Her first words were Mama, apple, cracker and Dada...mama wasn't really my name but a term she used for anyone who she wanted to love/help/feed her...I am now mummy...R has been daddy for quite a while...

2007-11-10T22:47:00.000Z

The 'Fuzz' has lifted

So...I've preached...twice...first time in two years, more or less. As so happens when preaching my anxiety forced me heart to heart with God...all the irrational fears that God'll make me give up my favourite DVD, or will see my domesticated bliss and steal it away, vanished (for the time being). And so...i'm floating on a little cloud of fluffy 'everything's pretty good with me and God'...

...despite the fact that our church is in pain cos of a breakdown in a relationship, that Mini-E was hospitalized on Monday with Bronchilitus, that we are counting our coppers in order to buy food (s'what you get if you decide to buy a car at the beginning of the quarter on one income!), that my DH is poorly and has been for weeks and weeks, drained, overworked and underappreciated...

so anyway...beyond all that...or possibly because of all that...life's good and God is good. As usual...the closer i am to God, to the seed of the spirit that grows, tentitively, within me, the more my heart burns with the need to be greener...and with this refreshed relationship has come the idea of 'opting out'...of buying only essentials...of not buying DVDs, CDs...

but it's so hard!! I read http://www.nonewshoes.blogspot.com/ ...they found it hard just for the period of lent...buying things makes me happy...just like eating high-calorie food makes me happy (you'd hope with my generous curvature that i would feel happy more often...alas...). I'm constantly fed from the TV the opinion that if i wear the right underwear, the right clothes for my shape and have the right hair cut and colour then i wil be much happier and people will trust/respect/like/envy me more...

s'funny...the Bible doesn't say anything like that...i pretty much get the impression we were supposed to leave off all earthy possessions and follow Christ...am I wrong? Can i buy bargain clothes without thought of why they're so cheap? Can i buy beautifully curred meat from Italy regardless of how the animals were treated or how far it's had to travel? Is it ok that, as usual, i'm slacking on my recycling, rubbish at composting and overly generous with my household lighting? Kind people would say, 'it's ok once in a while' or 'we've gotta have treats'...and inclined to leap on the sentiment and shout a joyful 'yeeeeeay'....but it isn't just once in a while...it's habbitual....

I have enough garden to be self sufficient from a vegetable point of view...maybe...i've not done enough research...i just want someone to come along, wearing beautiful fairtrade clothing and immaculately touselled blond-bleached hair and heartily tell me what's what whilst whipping out their spade and digging in...but i know me....if i'm on my own i won't do it...i don't have the motivation...If I'm in a team i'll work hard with the best of them...I don't know how to overcome this...i don't know if it's possible to overcome it...but people are my batteries....without them i have no inclination to do anything...

It's just excuses.

I know it's just excuses.

Reasons justifying my heavy investment into earthly wealth...into the worst evil that is consumerism...

*sigh*

But it's so hard to escape it...

Ideally...I'd live within a community complex...that aims to be self-sustaining whilst enabling members of the community to work 'in the world'...(going to work on their bikes, obviously)...

And all of it's easier to imagine and hope and pray for at the end of the quarter when money's really tight than at the beginning of the quarter when we suddenly feel really wealthy and the habitual treating starts once more...

For those that read for Mini-E updates:

Last Sunday

Today

As you can see she's pretty much back to normal. She was miserable last weekend, flopping on daddy for cuddles and making little, miserable, wimpering noises...took her to out of hours Dr who recommended Calpol and then the local surgery Dr the following day referred her straight to the Paediatrician...it was quite nice returning to Macc hospital...it was only 2 weeks ago that it had been a year since E came home...she now has 2 inhalers and will be monitored by the lovely ladies from Hospital at Home for the next few weeks to keep an eye on her Oxygen sats levels...but she's happy, crawling scarily fast, can climb the stairs, open doors and clamber onto and off the sofa...very high energy but really lovely!! She's just started to do the biggest 6-toothed grin when we do something she likes...such as give her a biscuit...

More pics of October and November on Facebook!

** Love Wastefully**

2007-11-04T17:02:00.000Z

Tools of the Trade

As human beings we come supplied with all the equipment to be perfect in the eyes of God. Ways to remove the log from our own eyes, to love with all our heart, mind and soul. The Gospels and Paul’s letters give us ample direction and encouragement to enable us to leave behind all worldly sins and strive for perfection, to be earnest disciples of Jesus Christ.

Hebrew 12:1 “Therefore since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw of everything which hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perserverance the race marked out for us.

The good news is that God continually seeks to perfect us by refining us in his fire, to help us win the race. The gift of freewill comes with the tools with which we enable him to hone who we are.

This brings me to my main illustration. In Come as You Are, the Bible study course that some of our Church have been following, the focus this week was tools with which we strive to live a Christian life, and through that, strive for perfection. My brain automatically leaped to flat-pack furniture.

Richard and I spend a lot of time trawling the hallowed isles of Ikea, largely in the name of fellowship. Unfortunately the friends we met there have moved 7 hours away so part of this sermon is a lament of fellowship lost.

Wouldn’t the Welcome activity [fyi blog-fans: building the tallest tower out of 3 pieces of paper and nothing else) have been easier if there were some kind of instructions on how to make it both tall and strong. If there we better tools such as tape or glue…if there had been a picture of what it was supposed to look like in the end.

God, and Ikea, have done just that. In no particular order, I present 5 aids for our journey as Christians and flat-pack makers; Instructions, Diagrams, Help, Kit, Perfect Picture

Instructions always seem to be in a language I don’t understand immediately. For Ikea it seems to be in any language but English (until you finally find it on the very last page in the smallest print)…in the Bible it’s similes and metaphors, Hebrew or Greek, stories of cultures long unrecognisable.

The Bible is a tool set in itself, providing us with stories of God’s people of faith, with prayers and songs of worship, with stories to guide and teach. The Bible is inexhaustible for its power to reach us is supernatural, the full meanings only given to us when we read it with faith.

There is no limit to the amount we can study it, nor a quota that we must meet. The only certainty I have is that the more we explore it, challenge it, dip into it and pray with it, the greater influence it’ll be able to have on our lives.

Like a rock which falls to the bottom of a river bed, the constant force of water gushing over it, grit and other rocks bashing against it, when it is lifted out it is no longer an ugly rough rock, it is a beautifully polished pebble.

Diagrams
Having taught for 2 years I’ve learnt a lot about how I learn. As you can tell – I like pictures, it’s important to me how things look and what I can see. That being the case the lives of other Christians has been essential to my own spiritual journey. God recognised this need in his people when he spoke to the Israelites, he announced his credibility through his affiliation with his followers because their lives pointed to him – “I am the God of your father Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” For this reason, I like the Catholic reverence of the Saints, the assumption that the work of God did not stop with the people within the Bible but has continued for the past 2,000 years.

My studies ledt me, possibily too often (if every essay I wrote is anything to go on), to a theologian called Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was a German Lutheran pastor, participant in the German Resistance movement against Nazism, and a founding member of the Confessing Church. He was involved in plots planned to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He was arrested in March 1943, imprisoned, and eventually hanged, rumour has it, with Hitler there in person, just before the end of the World War II in Europe. (Yes, i did lift most of that from Wikipedia)

The reason he is so important to me is that despite his struggles, despite his fears and worries, he continued to be faithful to God, writing some of the most beautiful theology and understanding of Discipleship.

An except from The Cost of Discipleship (because he says it better than i ever could)- "We can only achieve perfect liberty and enjoy fellowship with Jesus when his command, his call to absolute discipleship, is appreciated in its entirely. Only the man who follows the command of Jesus single-mindedly, and unresistingly lets his yoke rest upon him, finds his burden easy, and under its gentle pressure receives the power to persevere in the right way. The command of Jesus is hard, unutterably hard, for those who try to resist it. But for those who willingly submit, the yoke is easy, and the burden is light. "His commandments are not grievous" (1 John 5:3). . . . Jesus asks nothing of us without giving us the strength to perform it. His commandment never seeks to destroy life, but to foster, strengthen and heal it.

"And if we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us? What decisions and partings will it demand? To answer this question we shall have to go to him, for only he knows the answer. Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow him, knows the journey's end. But we do know that it will be a road to boundless mercy. Discipleship means joy.

"May God grant us joy as we strive earnestly to follow the way of discipleship. May we be enabled to say "No" to sin and "Yes" to the sinner. May we withstand our foes and yet hold out to them the Word of the gospel which woos and wins the souls of men."

Sister Anne Marie Farrel is my favourite nun (I don’t know very many nuns but I think she’d remain up there with the best of them even if I did). Her humour, her cuddliness, her openess to love and be loved remind me whenever I meet her that God’s grace is ever present. She does wonderful things overseas, she does clever things, coordinating other nuns, she’s worked in an ecumenical setting in North London with my Dad. But most of the details of her life and work are shamefully hazy in my mind. Wikipedia just isn’t up to spead. What I do know is that she welcomes me with open arms, has dedicated her life to God and really likes chocolate.

I could talk about any number of people who have shaped my faith, my parents are central fingures within that, the rocks on which my faith was first built, but my point is that the people of faith who have influenced our journey with Christ don’t have to be martyrs or heroes (even if in our eyes they are). They are usually people who are honest and good, who live life as Jesus guides them, not faultlessly but faithfully. That is enough and it makes me think – who am I a diagram of Discipleship for?

Help – It's inevitable when i'm making something that i get to a certain point and need to ask for help, maybe it's a deep seated insecurity in my own judgement, who knows. In my Christian discipleship I have to ask for help pretty much all of the time, obviously when I’m making flat-pack I ask for help purely to boost my DH's ego!

Condensed, help comes in 2 forms:

Prayer: My testimony in regards to prayer consists of transitions of understanding through the trinity: Big, scary God far away, Best buddy Jesus next to me and Holy Spirit as a fragile seed growing within me...I won't go into detail now (but I did during the sermon this morning).

Fellowship: AEMC has some good things going for it, the main thing is fellowship. Whether it’s dressing up as cowgirls, making pancakes or sharing each other’s pain, through fellowship we are able to test our callings, we’re able to get reassurance that we’re doing OK or where we’re going wrong. Christianity is an accountable faith, God asks the impossible when he asks for our discipleship and yet through fellowship, through communinion with God in prayer the impossible becomes possible. Therefore we cannot practise it alone, we cannot finish the race without support, nor expect to be able to survive the perfecting process without asking for help.

Kit
There are so many resources out there to enable us to be better disciples, better neighbours… It might be something as simple as a candle to help focus our prayer time, it might be an internet site that challenges where we are, there are study guides, the Methodist prayer booklet, labrynths to walk around, pilgrimages to go on, conferences to attend. Sometimes we just need to go to a different Church service to experience a different style of worship to re-fire our desire for God.

http://www.nonewshoes.blogspot.com/ http://www.sacredspace.ie/ http://www.methodist.org.uk/

The perfect picture
Richard and I were very tempted to buy a jigsaw recently, very out of character. However, the point of the jigsaw was that the picture on the box was not what the actual jigsaw was of. The jigsaw would show what happened next in the scene. It amused us that anyone would be so crazy as to attempt a jigsaw without any idea of what it’s supposed to look like. In the same way, the first thing I check when making something is what the end result is supposed to be, even in cooking it would be helpful if they showed you whether the curdled stage is good or not.

It is through Jesus we have an image of the perfect lifestyle. His life and times are mapped out for us through the gospels. Through his life and death we have what we are aiming for, a template for our words and actions. He is the image of the invisible God. From my testimony you’ll know that I believe I have a living, active relationship with Christ today. That he is able to influence my thoughts still. It is through that relationship with a God I know to have lived and breath the same, if cleaner, air, that I can surrender to his will on my life. I’m not going to say anything more about Jesus this morning. Even when choosing the pictures it is difficult to get across what Jesus means to so many people. Some say for our journey we must keep our eyes on heaven or on the cross. But I think Jesus’ life did something much more practical for us than that. So I’ll end with this ; Keep referring to the perfect picture, to compare what you’re building of your life, to what it’s supposed to be.

Questions/homework:

Instructions: How and when do you read the Bible?

Diagram: Who has shaped and helped your discipleship?

Help: How do you pray and who do you ask for help, who are you accountable to?

Kit: What aids your worship and faith day-to-day?

Perfect Picture: In what way does Jesus shape your discipleship?

(As preached at Alderley Edge Methodist Church, this morning...)

2007-08-01T17:30:00.000Z

Happy August

I wonder what it means when we don’t have anything particular to say to anyone; when life is simply a long list of tasks that need to be done and the weather is capable of lifting or crushing our mood…ok…maybe it doesn’t have a meaning…that’s not quite what I mean…I guess I’m wondering whether it matters. I know to some people it matters if I don’t blog…(partly because it signifies that I’m not in a bloggy, or any, mood) Does it matter that I’ve not got any deep insights about life, the universe and God? Does it matter that I’ve not really got any wittily, whimsical yet inherently loving snippets about life with Mini-E? (Although she did eat soil today which was a joy!) (and she has 2 teeth, can walk using her brick cart or around a solidly placed object and she can also blow the largest snot bubbles I’ve ever seen).

It is ok that life is mundane, normal and dare I say…superficial? I’m hoping not because, when I examine my belly button (a phrase Paul Robinson used in Neighbours yesterday which tickled me a little), my life normally is…normal. The vast majority of my time is spent playing with the babe, cleaning, winging to R that I’m doing all the cleaning, cooking and facebooking (if you’ve not done it you’re missing out on a whole new world). My big ideas and my dreams of changing the world get absorbed into my inclination to do as little as possible, including thinking…I watch Neighbours and read Mills and Boon for pities sake (I know, I know…I judge myself and am ashamed).

I can’t answer my questions. If I look really hard at my life I’m sure there’s huge, intellectual gaps (there’re huge exercise gaps but that’s another day’s blog)…

…on the other hand …I’m sure all those people who have been flooded at some point during this summer…or people who are starving or under an evil government (or both as the case may be) would really like to be able to, just occasionally, take it for granted that they don’t have to worry about things beyond the mundane day to day…and I’m hoping that God doesn’t mind either…so long as we step out of the mundane to be in his glory (which after being immersed in monotony is like stepping into a cold shower…in a good way) and simply say thanks.

2007-06-14T21:06:00.000Z

Sometimes you just gotta have some Gospel...

The colour purple - God is trying to tell you something

Sister Act 2 - O Happy Day

Fighting Temptations - He Still Loves Me

Sister Act 2 - Joyful Joyful

2007-06-04T21:21:00.000Z

Lovely Early June Videos

Some pics to look at while it's streaming...

2007-05-17T11:26:00.000Z

Play with me?

There is a phrase for weather like this - it begins with 'b' and ends with 'loody rain'...on occasions such as this (once i have realised that i've been down and upon acknowledging it, begin the rapid decent back to the surface of normal human emotions), that i like to play The Glad Game. I read Polyanna a fair bit as a younger person (as I did "All that Katy Did" and "Anne of Green Gables" etc)...it was a pleasant escape into the world of other young girls who always found a way of being sickeningly cheerful and imaginative without getting poked in the eye by annoyed cynacists...(not sure that's a word...but i like it!) (Richard informs me that the word is cynics...but i like mine better)

Anyway...the game that young Anne plays (started when she wanted a doll but instead got a pair of crutches in the missionary charity barrel) is "The Glad Game"...so I invite anyone who came to look at pictures of E, but was drawn in by the tasteful colour of my text, to play "The Glad Game"...the aim is to find something positive out of the negative...so as it is raining I can be glad that my garden is getting beautifully greener and happier...

...a weak gladness but nevertheless i feel it and rejoice in each little, miserable, grey-sky fallen droplet that splashes onto my rather clayey garden!

E's still my, only, little beam of sunshine joyfully waves arms, legs and whatever solid and potentially leathal object she's holding with abandoned gladness which gives me great hope that maybe it's contageous! (Richard is my solid rock...and therefore can't be compared to the weather)

(She just lifted her legs high in the air and then wiggled her barebottom - it's such a shame society would frown on that behaviour at any other time in our lives...it's such a gleeful little act!)

May 2007 November 2006