Its my birthday!! 23 today.

My wonderful husband organised a some friends to come over last night, I thought we were going to have bible study with some extra people, it was a nice surprise. We shared a lovely meal then Ian gave me my present, a board game called Ticket to Ride-Marklin, it is a lot of fun. A bit confusing at first because you need to know all the rules up font but after a bit the game moves fast. We managed to get a game in and even our friends baby was good so they could stay the whole time. Wow, 23, 3yrs of marriage and 2 kids. Not at all what I would have thought my life would be now. Just shows that what you dream is not always what God has planned for you and God’s plans are always better It will be good to look back in a year and see what else has happened. This year we have had another baby, moved house, discovered lots to do with toddlers (doesn’t sound like much, but it is),grown in my relationship with Jesus (though not as much as I should have), changed church services, had good friends move away, made some new friends, no one in our family has died (we had 4 family members plus 3 of my parent’s dogs die last year), spent wonderful days with my family, discovered Notebook Magazine (no silly celeb gossip or irrelevant rubbish), read some good books, started a blog…. lots and lots, although actually writing it down does not seem like much but I spend my time with Matty and Jesse and this fills my life and brings me so much happiness.

Jesse started solids today. Well, it was really just a teaspoon of runny rice cereal. He had it twice and seemed to go OK with it. He has been so hungry lately, so I think that it was time try him with some “real” food. He has been around for five months and to me it seems like hardly any time at all. I feel like I am missing him grow up a bit. I suppose that is because we also have Matty. Jesse is so easy going and content, he is happy just to watch the world go by. Matty, being a toddler, is very in your face all the time. I don’t want to miss out on Jesse. I love them both so much. Already I can see that they will be very different people. I hope that they will be good friends when they grow older. My littlest boy is growing up.

I am very annoyed!

Stupid people doing stupid things to wreck enjoyment for no one but little kids! Some idiots have wrecked two of the best parks in the mid mountains for little kids! Gloria Park, only a short walk away has been completely destroyed. Some brainless drunks set a big fire in the middle of it, so now it is all melted and with nothing for the kids to play on. After Matty’s excitement at going to the park was dashed, I decided to take him for a drive up to Wentworthfalls Lake, only to find that one of the areas with play equipment was so badly burnt it has already been taken away and the large slide on the other equipment has also been burnt and destroyed. IDIOTS!! All they managed to do in a night of drunken or drug induced idiocy has been to disappoint hundreds of small kids for whom a trip to the park is the highlight of their week. People like that make me so upset. We live in a beautiful area, people choose to live here because it is safe, it is clean and it is a great place for kids to grow up. Well it only takes a few to ruin that. It will probably be ages until these once great parks are fixed and in the mean time what are all the kids supposed to do?

I know I am being judgemental, but seriously, what goes through someones head when they do something like that? Not much I am guessing!

Update: I rang council and they said that it was not only these two parks. The same people(they think) also destroyed some other parks in different areas of the mountains. This has blown the councils vandalism budget for the whole year in a few nights. So it will be a VERY LONG TIME before anything is able to be fixed. This is a very sad situation and those people responsible should have to foot the bill. If they ever find out who it was.

I was asked the other day if I am enjoy “blogging”, well I suppose that I do. At first I thought that I wouldn’t, but after a little while I have found that I am. I would not mind if I did not write again, but I am enjoying it while I can. I will try to keep it up (for you Ian ) I am starting to see why people enjoy it. A way to air your feelings, opinions and rants where others can choose whether or not they wish to read or comment on them. You can use it how you want. Not quite as personal as a diary as you never know who will read it, but its kind of the same. A bit weird as I don’t know who is actually reading what, but I suppose if you don’t like it you don’t have to read it.

Totally amazing!!

Nine months lost at sea

Could you survive this?

The flowers are in bud, the first blossoms opening, the new green leaves are unfolding as the rays of the sun coaxes the garden back to life. Sunshine and warm weather are on the wind. It is so beautiful outside today, we have just come in from playing in the garden(not that there is much to play with at the moment, we need to fill the sandpit and fix the trampoline), and I feel great!! When I am cooped up inside because of the cold, the sun on my skin gives me such a lift and the soft breeze refreshes me. If you are feeling down please go out in the sunshine and walk through a garden, you will feel a whole lot better.

I am reading Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. The book is different from the movie based on it and a lot better. It is about a Frances Mayes and her partner(now her husband) who buy and renovate a Tuscan villa, Bramasole, during about five summers. They eventually end up living there permanently. Every time I open the well read pages again, I feel transported to the beautiful Italian countryside. Experiencing all the sights, flavours and smells that Cortona offers. Its almost like reading a painting. The book is about travel, it is about food and it is about community. I was slightly skeptical about reading a book about a woman who starts a new life in a new country( a bit too romantic for me), this story with all its loves, disappointments and plain hard work convinced me otherwise. It is now a book that I read often when I want to fly away from here and touch on a culture very different from ours.