5 years ago today...

... a fellow member of the Easter Camp music team phoned and invited me to meet him for coffee.


I'm glad I said yes.

Wanted

Wanted: Gifted volunteers for difficult service in the local expression of the kingdom of God. 
Motivation to serve should be obedience to God, gratitude, gladness, forgiveness, humility and love.
Service will rarely be glorious.
Temptation to quit place of service will sometimes be strong.
Volunteers must be faithful in spite of long hours, little or no visible results, and possibly no recognition except from God in eternity.  

Donald Whitney, 'Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life'

Thank you to all those who serve our church in this way. It's not easy, but it's worth it. 

It's finished!

A long time ago (4 and a half years can feel really long sometimes) in a land far, far away (metaphorically at least, since I was single and childless at the time) a noble young squire took on a daring quest....

Fast forward through mountains of application forms, piles of text books, the odd bit of red ink spilt here and there, animated discussions over the correct placement of commas, and two embarrassing mistakes by a book binder (first they couldn't spell synthesiser, then they gave me the wrong name!)...

And yesterday afternoon I lodged the final copy of my masters thesis at uni! It's somewhat surreal - doing it part time means that it's not the same weight on my mind as a full-time degree would have been, but there's still a great sense of relief that it's over. And a good sense of accomplishment too.

The one question that keeps coming up is when will I do my PhD? Well, not any time soon, that's for sure. Unless I wanted to go from industry to academia, it wouldn't be particularly useful, and right now I have enough other things on that adding further postgrad study is not a really bright idea.

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful (oh, so thankful!) that SP slept from 6:30 to 4:00 (and I slept from 7:30 to 4:00) on Tuesday night. Two nights of camp, two nights of terrible sleeping, then hopefully back on track :)

Note: I write these posts on Wednesday night and schedule them for Thursday, so I can't say yet what Wednesday night was like, but if anybody comments and asks I'll tell you...

Two Photos

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Thankful Thursday

I am thankful that being busy means I have many people to love, many belongings to care for and many ideas to occupy my mind.

This photo makes me smile

SP loves playing UNDER his cot. Well, it sure looks like a fun place to be.

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Things I Love: Minimum Maintenance

I have a whole lot of things waiting to be part of an ongoing 'Things I Love' series. Haven't been so good at actually writing the posts though.

Until today. When one of the 'Things I Love' was the subject of this post on one of my favourite blogs, Home Sanctuary.

I love Minimum Maintenance. Basically, it involves going through the house each morning & spending a maximum of 5 minutes in each room (15 for the kitchen) picking up, straightening & putting away. I've learnt that a lot can be accomplished in 5 minutes, and when I'm consistent with it most rooms take much less than 5. Especially when I have my trusty timer by my side for some extra motivation. But I'll keep that for another post.

For more info on Minimum Maintenance, head over to Rachel Anne's blog.

Let me know if you're inspired to give it a go.

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful that Dave's masters thesis is written, marked, corrected and at the printers for its official hard copy. I'm so proud of you, honey.

How many blogs is too many?

I've culled and reorganised the blogs in my reader today. 68 down to 37, and a good half of those remaining are family & friends who don't update very often. I have a vague feeling that I'll miss out on something important, but I suspect that the opposite will be true: rather than skimming too many posts too quickly, I'll be able to properly read the few(er) that should be more important to me.
And hopefully save a little time as well.

Sleep, Glorious Sleep

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SP and Blueberry enjoying some well-earned rest.

Last most of you probably heard, SP was a great night sleeper. And he was. I'm not sure exactly when he first 'slept through the night', but it was early. It was great. We got very cocky.

Then when he was about 5 1/2 months old, things started going downhill. The descent was very gradual, so we didn't jump on things straight away. But fast forward another 6 weeks and we were doing 2 night feeds and up to 3 resettles every night. Arg!

About a week ago, I decided that something had to give, but wasn't exactly sure how to go about it. Then SP got a cold. Then I got a cold. Then on Thursday I was wandering around the federal government's Raising Children website** and happened upon their recipe for controlled comforting.*** There wasn't anything there that I hadn't heard before, but the step-by-step approach really hit the nail on the head for me. So on Friday morning, we got started.

I won't bore you with the minutae, but last night SP was put to bed at 6:15pm, was resettled very briefly at 3:30am, and got up for the day at 5:50am (we're early risers, so this is fine).

Woohoo!



*For those who may be wondering: yes, we do follow SIDS guidelines and put his feet at the bottom of the cot with the sheet tucked securely. He just doesn't stay that way. 
** Highly recommended. This is one government initiative that I'm more than happy to fund with our tax dollars. 
*** Perhaps 'controlled crying' isn't PC enough for them?

Thankful Thursday

I am thankful that SP seems to have gotten a much lighter dose of this cold than I have.
I am thankful that last night Dave came home from a full day at work and spent the evening doing the household things that I had no energy for.
I am thankful that our mountain of washing got dry today.
I am thankful for Mum coming over to clean and help deal with said mountain of washing.
I am thankful that I am on the mend.