Love

All around me, people are falling in love. Quite seriously, I think they could write a Charmed episode about me, I think some misguided fairy has bewitched me, so that all around me find and fall in love. Unfortunately, the spell means that I will be forever incapable of finding true romance.

I doubt very much that this is true, but it's a storyline which matches how I feel some of the time.

Mostly I am so happy for my friends. Whether they are in the early stages of a friendship, and you can see that special sparkle, or whether they have been married for years, but still show the world they love each other, it's so sweet to watch. But every now and then, this little tiny part of me feels jealous. Occasionally, I cry just a little bit. Sometimes, I get worried that it'll never happen to me. I fear being single for life almost more than anything else in the world.

People say you should wait patiently, and that you should treasure your single years. I know in my head that that is true, but convincing my heart is another thing all together.

I'm sure one day it'll happen. It just seems impossible now.

So, I'll just continue teasing, and pretending that love doesn't exist. I'll continue to refuse to watch sappy romantic movies. It's my coping mechanism, and it's how I can continue this whole Happy Rosalie facade.

just thinking out loud...

Does it make me a bad person that I just texted youth groupians, really hoping that they are all naughty kids and have their phones on them at school? Maybe a little bit...

Summer is just around the corner...

I just love summer. I love mangoes and the beach and dresses and Christmas and everything about it.
I'm very excited about my 4 whole weeks of holiday. don't know exactly what I'm doing yet, but it's going to be beautiful. And hopefully free :P I wanna go camping. But camping in summer would be crap. Can you go camping at the beach? I'd like that. I think. I haven't been proper camping in a while. A long while. But whatever.
Then there is Port Vincent Family Mission, which is going to be amazing. Very excited about that. Probably mostly excited about getting to spend that time with my family, but also the telling families about Jesus part...
And I love summer fruit. Mangoes, strawberries, apricots, peaches, nectarines...yum yum yum. Oh, and plums!
Such good fun :D

Kids Club is Amazing

...just putting it out there :D

We have a team of the most incredible junior leaders and Kids Club assistants. Seriously, this Kids Club has been very little stress for everyone, and these guys are the ones to thank. I'm always amazed to see young people use their initiative, and pitch in and make something incredible happen! We only have like 6 adults, and it all works out, I just can't get over it. I can't think of an adjective that sums it up. Marvelous, amazing, incredible, fabulous etc etc. 

And the kids have been beautiful. Seriously, I've barely had to raise my voice at all. Well I did in the drama today yelling "Fire fire" :P Amazing kids.

Everything's gone so smoothly, we've been really fortunate. 

And I had an amazing night's sleep yesterday, so I feel great. Have to organise a couple of things for tomorrow, but that's cool. Just having a few minutes of break first lol. Might go check my frontierville or something...coz yes, I like to waste my time. Ah well. 

Jesus is so great. Things like Kids Club don't just happen, they happen with his support and guidance, and I'm just so grateful.

And yes, I know this sounds overly cheerful, but that's just how I feel right now. :P

You want a negative? Well, I smell all chloriney :P That's about as bad as it gets today. And i still have a headache from where I hit it the other day, but even that has a positive side, coz it reminds me of the doughnuts I was watching which caused me to hit it, and the doughnuts were yum and remind me of my sister, so really cool silver lining there :D

Love Jesus, Love life, Love everything and everyone. :)

In other news...

Wow it's been a blog since I've monthed. That's literally the first attempt at the start for this, a possible indication that I'm over tired? yes, probably...
Life has been interesting to say the least. I've had some great moments, like my brother's 2nd birthday. We had a "Very Hungry Caterpillar" party, which was amazing. We had all the foods from the book, it was so cute. He loved the strawberries even more than the chocolates and stuff, so adorable.
Then a friend I thought I'd lost turned out to still love me, so I was like insanely happy for a full 24 hours. Like singing and dancing in the street happy. :)
Speaking of singing and dancing in the street, I was home one night and heard the fireworks from the show, so i ran down the street in my pajamas to try and get a good look at them. My pants had lost their elastic, so I was trying to hold them up the whole time, I must have looked ridiculous. But it was so much fun.
I've started trying to be honest with people when I feel crap, and I'm trying to get help before I slide all the way to the bottom of the hill. the previous sentence is my amazing segue from positive to not so great life events...:P
Work is incredibly insane. I love my job, but it is so wearing! I've been here for 13 hours today, and not got even half of what I should have done. I'm going home when I finish this though, coz I'm trying to be sensible and stuff.
My lips are still sick. It seems so trivial, but since my 2 favourite things are eating and talking, it sucks so much to have so much pain when doing them. And i miss coffee so much. I think I should cut out spicy foods next, but I don't know how i'll cope. I love my curries :(
So we've covered the good and the bad, now for the interesting.
I've been researching evolution vs creation for a youth group devotion. It hasn't really answered any of my questions so far, in fact it has been really challenging. I don't want to believe in evolution. For one thing, the whole concept repulses me. Probably just coz of how I was brought up, the idea that we evolved from monkeys makes me feel physically sick. Then, I don't really want to change my beliefs about this. I don't know why I am being so stubborn, I'm pretty open to new ideas normally. Well I think I am anyway.
And I don't even have anyone to talk to about it. Books are great, but the ones I have are so liberal, and I know people who aren't that liberal and who believe in evolution, but most people don't really care. I never used to.
It just seems to make a difference. If the definition of humanity changes, and the definition of sin changes, then wouldn't it follow that salvation would change? Maybe how I understand the world is all wrong.
I've never gotten so worked up about beliefs before. It's really horrible.
All I know is that Jesus loves me, and none of this changes that at least.

Schnitzel for your thoughts?

Just came into church to do a couple of things, and then the front office lady wanted to leave early, so I said I'd answer the phones, coz I have nothing better to do. So I figured I'd write a blog.

I haven't written one in ages because I've either been busy, too grumpy or too happy to write. Yes, my life is an emotional rollercoaster...feel sorry for my future hubby :P

So...last couple of weeks...

The Good:
- I got my 2011 diary. My friends keep paying me out, but it makes me happy and that's all that counts. I really wanted a filofax, but they are like $60 which is ridiculous. So I got an $11 one, which is perfectly sufficient, and is purple! And I've used it on several occasions already, so pfft to the scornful.
- A dress I really loved at target went from $35 to $7, so I bought it. I love it a lot :)
- I got a stripey wool hat which I call my adventure hat, because it looks like it needs to go on an adventure. I haven't decided where yet.
- Just had a few days off work at church, which was fun. Had the chance to clean up a lot of my house which was good. Lesley came down, and we did a few fun things. Watched many movies and visited the Adelaide Gaol.
- Planning for kids club is going really well. Our theme is "the great treasure hunt" and it's just been really easy to put stuff together for it.
- Got to see my little adopted nephew baby! In unfortunate circumstances, but it was nice to have a cuddle.
- We're starting a new bible study series at church tomorrow night, and I'm really looking forward to it. It's called Gospel in Life, and it's been done by Timothy Kellar. I've had a bit of a look at the workbook and it looks really good.

The Bad
- My depression is still making life pretty hard. It's just really hard to try and deal with stressful situations when it's already been a struggle to get out of bed and face the day that morning. God is with me, but it's still really hard.
- Having so much social stuff over the weekend was great, but now I'm heaps lonely. Tonight will be my first evening home alone in a week, and I'm not looking forward to it.
- I'm realising that it sucks to be a grown up :P especially when you have to be way more mature than your friends for whatever reason. I sometimes wish I had the freedom to just be a uni student and not really have that much responsibility, but I know I'm where God wants me, so I guess I'll cope!
- I've been sick, and on top of that my lip infection came back. So no caffeine, OJ, alcohol, etc 'til i get better, and I'm back on antibiotics. It's like the no fun disease, I can't eat, can't drink anything yummy, can't make out with ppl...:P 

The Interesting
- The election is coming up and I'm still not sure who to vote for.
- Last Saturday was my first time of not attending youth group this year. it went well, which I knew it would, but I still feel like I left my baby lol!
- I have been thinking a lot about pride and humility over the last few weeks. Troubling thoughts. But also somewhat positive.
- I locked myself out of my house the other night. Hilarious, because after spending half an hour breaking in, I realised the key was in my pocket all along. Not so funny coz I got really mad at my best friend :(

So, that's my life at the moment. On average, it is pretty good really :)

Small Change For Change

My church has just started a charity. It's very exciting. You can find out more about it here.
We have 2 400 empty bottles just waiting to be filled with small change, the 'shrapnel' that collects in the ashtray of your car, the bottom of your handbag, and down the back of the couch. Money we don't even notice we have. Then this money is going to be used to dig clean water wells in Africa. 100% of the profits go towards the well, our church has paid for things like the bottles and stuff.

Anyway, enough about that. Most of you know about Small Change For Change anyway.

I have been noticing over the last week, that my attitude towards the project has been changing. When I first heard about the idea, I thought it sounded great. It seemed logical, and achievable. But it was all in my head. I felt no connection to the people, no real sympathy for them.

But God has been working in my heart, and that has changed. Seeing photos and watching video footage of evidence of the dirty water crisis has broken my heart. I am praying for change, and trying to start to live for change. I don't know how that's going to go. I just know that I can't sit back anymore and think that I'm not a part of the problem, and that I can't be a part of the solution.

I'm blogging this because I want it to be somewhat public. I want to be kept accountable.

For me, Small Change For Change isn't just about change in the 2 or 3 communities that will get wells as a result of this year's efforts. It's about change in my community as well.