Finally!

Image by hljavery@verizon.net via Flickr

Finally, after 4 looooong years, we got a very important letter from the first presidency! We'd like to thank everyone who knew about this process and offered us support and love. Curious? haha!

The Shack

Cover of The Shack

A friend loaned me a book on Tuesday night after our Bible study. It was a book called 'The Shack'. I don't know if you've heard of it. I hadn't.

I finished it last night. It's not a particularly long book, but it's subject matter is quite heavy. It talks about redemption, forgiveness and our relationship with God in a fictional setting.

While I found that I disagreed on a doctrinal level with some of the ideas, I was able to enjoy it for what it was - a novel. It also provided me with some things to think about. Like, how my view of the world would change if my relationship with God was all it should be and He was at the centre of my life.

All in all, a very thought-provoking little book.

Old people and nervous breakdowns

Image by cobalt123 via Flickr

Sometimes I love my job. Sometimes I hate it! For quite a small salary I have quite a responsible job which I certainly don't do for the money!
In addition to making sure all the tenants are ok and have what they need, I am responsible for the buildings and grounds. You know, making sure they're kept clean, tidy and in decent repair.
What I didn't know that I had signed up for was keeping my tenants sanity intact around our wee hunter - Sparky the cat! Bless, he is a very good hunter of our other furry visitors. He would catch them, play with them, kill them and bring them back to his owner like a wee trophy! Of course, his owner doesn't see the good side of this because she is terrified of any wee furry creature that's smaller than a cat!
So, this morning, I had to go and pick up my fourth dead rat. Oh the joys! This one was the biggest of them all and you could have heard my freaked out murmurings a mile off!
Thankfully, though, I got there before Sparky's owner or I'd be dealing with a nervous breakdown by now!

Why does it always rain on me?

You know that in Ireland it rains 300 days a year, right? Perhaps that will explain why none of our BBQs are ever dry!

We went with family and friends to the Antrim coast last week and stopped along the way to have a bbq. We had everything you'd ever need - burgers, sausages, mushrooms, onions, ribs, potatoes, crisps, chocolate, cake........Everything, except dry weather! It was dry until we tried to light the bbq and then it rained! Picture the scene - 4 people with umbrellas up trying to protect the bbq from the rain and of course the sea breeze! 1 box of matches and a lot of laughter later, we had fire!!

This reminded me of another time where we ended up having our bbq in a lay-by of a main road. In the rain. As we were merrily munching on soggy burgers the drivers passing by were beeping their horns and laughing at us. Of course, we were laughing at us as well!

Or the time we went up to Scrabo tower in October. Stormy night and the beans and sausages were actually blown off our forks! I can still see the ribbon of kitchen paper as it was blown off the tower and onto the golf course next door!

Or, the New Year's Eve when we went to near Newcastle for a campfire. Hubby got out of the car and announced that it was "a bit breezy!". We got out of the car and straight back in again before the doors were ripped off by the near hurricane winds! We ended up at Helen's Bay with our wee fire!

Memories are made of this.....

Wonderfully supported, but by more than a bra!

I haven't written in a while, but that is mainly because so many wee things are happening it's difficult to know what to write about!

Things have been rather busy - but I suppose that's a good thing! The weeks, and more importantly, weekends are flying by and it's all a bit scary. I met a woman, once, who said that time is like a roll of toilet paper - the closer you got to the end the quicker it seems to go!

I've been thinking about the tail-end of my teenage years. I worked 7 evenings a week, but Fridays were the best. A couple of friends would come out to work with me (I was a care assistant in the community and had to drive to the client's homes). Inevitably the album in the car would be REM's 'Automatic for the People'. After driving all over North Down to do my job, we'd then head up to another friend's house for our weekly Friday night sleep-over. This would involve watching really, really bad films, playing poker (badly) with monopoly money and occasionally trying to play a joke on one another! Great times!

Lately, things have been good for us, if a little more serious. We've been having to rely on our leadership at church, and I just wanted to acknowledge them for all the help and support they've given us lately, and always. Hopefully things'll turn out the way we wish them to, but if not, it won't be for lack of trying on everyone's part!!!

So, it's safe to say that we feel very loved and supported. The first person to make a wise-crack about supportive bras gets a diggin'!!!!

Pandering to my oddity

I couldn't think of anything to write, but being on entry 21 was driving me nuts so here is no. 22! Refer to last entry!!

My weirdnesses

I have many oddities, weirdnesses or personality quirks. You choose which description suits best. Personally, I know I'm weird, I accepted it many years ago and now I fully embrace it.

Weirdness number one is this - I despise odd numbers. Seriously. The volume on the tv has to be an even number, the temperature in the car must be even as with the stereo volume. As a child, I even divided the days of the week into odd and even, with Sunday being neither because it was the Lord's day!!

So, you can imagine the pressure I put on myself to think of something to write in this blog when it's left at an uneven number, as it will be by the time I've finished today! Perhaps I'll let out some more of my......foibles!!

Happy Friday!