Category Archives: General

Feb23

Pancakes, pancakes, I love the pancakes!

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Pancakes, pancakes, I love the pancakes!

One of my favourite days of the year is PANCAKE DAY. Nothing like bringing in a season of reflecting on Easter sacrifice by feasting on pancakes with lots of yummy toppings (standard lemon and sugar, not so standard banana & maple syrup) and of course the very important pancake tossing. Sadly the first of our pancakes got binned when my Mum got a little overzealous in her tossing – she was doing double and triple flips and then on her 3rd toss the pancake landed on our very dirty kitchen floor.

It’s now Lent. I would have liked to have given up eating out or something – however, we’re now beginning our ‘camping out’ stage of the building. Tonight I’m camped out in the living room as our dining room wall is mostly a big sheet – soon to become totally non-existent tomorrow morning. You need to go through the dining room to get to the attic conversion part of the house, and at the moment the dining room is sealed off with masking tape. To add to our ‘camp out’ fun, just after the builders left there was a power cut in our area, so we had no electricity for over 3 hours. So thankful my friends were kind enough to let me come over early as it began to get dark!

In a week or so we will be without a kitchen. You may see why giving up eating out is not really the best idea this Lent. However, I do plan to do Lent Sunday ‘Causes’ to give money and give a shout out to charities I’m a fan of, like I did last year. :)

Are you doing anything for Lent this year? (I’m curious!)

Feb20

About to be homeless

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About to be homeless

So I came home to be told I might need to find another home to live in over the next month.

Yep. it’s those pesky builders again!

Apparently in the coming week they are going to be knocking down walls, and since there is no door at the bottom of the stairs to the attic (my bit of the house) they are going to seal it off. We’re also going to be without a kitchen for at least 3 weeks soon.  This means I either have to

1) start climbing out the window and scaling the house to get out/get food

2) Set up camp in our living room (and face the horrors of Coronation Street, Eastenders, Emmerdale and things like X Factor every evening because that’s what my Mum does there every.single.night. of the week)

3) Move out the house for a while

Bearing in mind that I do a lot of work from home, work is really busy and I have a lot on over the coming months this is going to be a challenge.

Please pray for my sanity.

Feb18

The wall: to bring pleasure or pain?

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The wall: to bring pleasure or pain?

“It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world”

-John Steinbeck

2 years ago, I quoted those words reflecting on the death of Eva Markvoort, a blogger who had a huge impact on me and thousands of others across the world. I found myself deeply affected by her death, which came as a shock to me for two reasons. Firstly, even the people who I’m very close to that have died, I’ve rarely broken down in tears as a reaction to their death. Secondly, I had never met or even spoken to Eva.

I think Eva epitomised those words from Steinbeck. Eva knew her life would likely be shorter than most of her peers. She could have chosen a very different path of bitterness, anger, resentment. Instead, she chose to live a life of love. She chose to battle her CF and chronic rejection with everything she had. She chose to take risks. She chose to be vulnerable allowing a film crew into her and her family’s life at one of the toughest times of her life so that others might understand what life is like for someone waiting for a transplant and how it affects those around them. She found ways of living life and making a difference to those around her in very creative ways. When life said ‘no’ she’d fight for a ‘yes’.

Her death brought no pleasure on the world.

I was watching an episode of The Mentalist, where a guy was the intended target for a car bomb and everyone thinks he’s dead. The CBI decide to let people think this is the case in the hope it will help them find the murderer. During the investigation the guy gets to hear what people say and think about him. Let’s just say a lot of it wasn’t positive.

Quite the wake up call.

I really wouldn’t want people being relieved or glad that I’m dead – apart from the ‘LA is kicking it with Jesus now‘ factor wearing her heavenly pretty shoes that don’t give her blisters* singing songs to God that sound nothing like music made by Coldplay with lots of freaky creatures with wings and tons of eyes** doing the same thing. :)

The main thing is – we’re not going live here forever and at some point we’re going to die. So we have two possible courses – live to bring pain in the world or live to bring pleasure in the world.

I would like to choose the latter course.

*this is not mentioned in the bible, but I’m hoping in the new heaven & earth that there will be gorgeous shoes that don’t bring you pain to wear like the ones here on earth.
** Confused? See Revelation 4&5 for more details. Apparently heaven is not a peace and quiet kind of place. It sounds like it be quite the musical gig and the reserved religious types might be a little uncomfortable with the worship there.
Feb17

For all the nosy blog readers – a life of BK update!

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For all the nosy blog readers – a life of BK update!

And by nosy, I mean curious and wondering just like I am about the bloggers whose blogs I follow! ;)

Tee hee.

Well, first of all. The builders. A few people have been asking why we have builders (having read some tweets or facebook statuses which have occurred – like when one of them came and started banging, I assume to demolish something at 7.15 a.m. when it was still pitch dark; or the day off I had where they were drilling all day long and I wished I’d been at work instead!). Actually our builders are pretty decent blokes, and we get on fine with them. They also think it’s funny that I teach sex ed classes in high schools and when they found that out would point to some of the younger guys and say ‘You need to tell him about all that stuff, aye, he needs those lessons. He needs some of your pregnancy counselling too!‘

They also tried to wind me up (after I pulled them up about the 7.15 a.m. start!) saying they were coming on a Saturday morning to get a delivery of cement at 5 a.m.

They just laughed when I raised my eyebrows and said ‘Aye right!‘ (which is a Scots sarcastic version of ‘Oh no you won’t!’ or ‘I don’t believe you’). Anyway, we’re almost a month in and this is the view from my old bedroom:

I’m now in the other attic bedroom (which used to be for my brothers). The room my brothers now stay in has our freezer, tumble dryer, and a shower door, sink and toilet waiting to be installed at some point during the build. The contents of our dining room and hall are in my old room, and our fridges are in the hall.

Confused? Me too.

I got a fringe. Already it’s doing strange things. I have a ‘cow’s lick’ which means my hair does part very well and curls on one side.

Work is crazy busy at the moment. At the beginning of the week I was feeling more stressed than I have done for a very long time. I wasn’t sleeping, I was waking up feeling panicked and I felt completely on edge 100% of the time. Despite having loads to do, I took the whole of yesterday off (having done my hours for the week) and feel much better for it. I’m also considering creating some kind of ‘Don’t drink and have sex‘ campaign for next Christmas. Seriously, alcohol really does up the chances of contraception failure.

Powerpoint was awesome. My new earphones worked a treat. I kept having to push my right ear back in so it wouldn’t fall out and get tangled in my hair though. I was most amused when I got tagged in this photo from the event…caught in the act! I also got asked to join the worship team at my new church this past weekend. It was very different from I was used to, and knew hardly any of the songs so it made it a bit challenging, but the folks in the band were really friendly. I’m finally getting to know people a bit better now, and it’s a lot more like my church in Aberdeen apart from Sunday services are very different from what I’m used to.

With Valentine’s Day having been this week, we’d been working on a fundraising project with the Guides called ‘Bake A Little Love‘ to raise funds for Scottish Love in Action. Our Guides have spent the last month making Valentine’s Cards, making yoghurt pots into baskets filled with chocolates and decorating jars to fill with sweets, decorating biscuits and us leaders made some Valentine cupcakes. We had a few stalls after the morning service at our local church (where we meet) and raised £100 in an hour. Amazing! We pretty much sold out all our stalls!

I can’t remember if I mentioned before but on 16th January, I received my application form to join the GirlGuiding Association as an official member so I can start my leadership training to become a qualified Guider. Thought that was quite funny given what the blog post I had written on that day. :)

I had a few social things planned this week and one by one they seemed to go to pot as people got sick. However, I’m glad that one social event was able to happen as my lovely friend Ruth was up in the beautiful burgh and so we had a wee tweet up with our friend Lynn. After a meal, we went to the Dome (a very posh venue in Edinburgh) for a drink, I tried to take a pic of us all on Lynn’s phone and this was the result:

Not showing the best of my photography skills there, but oh well. We had a lovely night catching up. The only sad thing was that we didn’t spot any celebrities this time. It is hard to top meeting Alf though.

And so there we have it. Attempt number 3 at going to see The Descendants shall be made next week. I also really want to see the Muppets Movie. I think sadly I’ve missed my chance to see J.Edgar.

I’m also happy that NCIS has FINALLY made a return to Channel 5, wondering where The Mentalist has gone (it was on for 4 weeks, and then disappeared) and while waiting for those bought the first season of White Collar on DVD after a recommendation by my friend Anthony. I’m now waiting for season 2 to make it on to DVD here (sigh).

So that my bloggy friends is what has been going on in the life of the brunette koala. :)

What has been going on in your life?

Feb15

The Updated Bucket List

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The Updated Bucket List

So a while ago I was looking back at journals from many years ago, and found a ‘Bucket List’ I’d written. Some stuff I’d written on my bucket list I no longer care about, but I thought I’d share the updated version – including some of the stuff I’ve ticked off. :)

1. to have a home that is welcoming (I hope had this from 2004-07 & wish to again)

2. to get a good education and a good degree at university (Class of 2006!)

3. to have lots of good friends (but more are welcome)

4. to visit South Africa, to work in South Africa (visited Durban in 2009)

5. to visit Ghana

6. to road trip across the USA & visit Wilmington, NC.

7. to visit Australia, to live in Australia (visited in 2007)

8. to hug a koala (Anzac Day 2007)

9. to learn to surf (2007 – though I’m sure I’ve already forgotten how to now!)

10. to get a tattoo

11. to get my navel pierced (done at New Year 2001, taken out the day of my abortion, and it’s not getting redone!)

12. to get a good job that helps other people & I enjoy doing (I’ve been lucky enough to have more than one!)

13. to dance en pointe (sponsored by animal wool & Boots Plaster strips)

14. to be able to do the splits

15. to find a 4-leaf clover

16. to see the artistic gymnastics competition live at an Olympic games

17. to visit Munich, Berlin & the Black Forest in Germany (visited Summer 2001)

18. to visit Paris, Verseilles & Lyon in France (visted Paris & Lyon in Summer 2001)

19. to visit Athens and other parts of Greece

20. to tour around Italy

21. to write a book

22. to visit New Zealand

23. to learn to ski & snowboard

24. to learn how to rock climb

25. to do something sporty for charity

26. to go to Barcelona, Madrid, Seville in Spain (visited Barcelona in April 2005)

27.to backpack around Europe (Summer 2001)

28. To camp out & drive a VW Camper van

29. To be on Top Gear (or better yet drive Top Gear test track!)

30. to learn how to play guitar or piano (or was learning until I damaged the tendons in my left wrist!)

31. to foster babies until they can be restored to their mothers.

32. to be on the set of Home & Away

33. to meet Ray Meagher (met November 2011)

34. To have a big party with bouncy castle, jelly and ice cream with all my friends young and older. Online friends included. :)

35. To give an inspirational talk at an event of some sort.

36. To cartwheel on as many beaches as possible.

37. To go on a spa day

38. To be in the Edinburgh Festival

39. To do a postgraduate qualification.

40. To make the world a better and more fun place to be in.

What’s on your bucket list? Is there anything you think I should add to mine?

Feb11

Curiosity may get me in trouble from my friends…

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Curiosity may get me in trouble from my friends…

One thing is for sure, I think I’m discovering why there are so many ‘Mommy bloggers’ out there in the blogosphere. Kids sure provide you with much to write and think about. Sorry to say that not much to blog from last weekend when Mr Teapot turned 2 – but check out my friend’s creation for the event (totally homebaked from scratch!). The best part was the fact that it was chocolate cake inside.

The only downside – my jeans got literally ‘caked’ with Thomas. And I didn’t notice until I went to put my jeans on to go to church on Sunday morning. Ha ha!

However, last night was one of those nights that I had one of those potentially corrupting children moments. Several of them in fact, complete with a classic BK style malteser moment. It all began as me & Miss Sweetroot were watching a DVD of her dance show from a couple of years ago. We’re talking about the dances, and the dance teachers we’ve had. Then out of the blue she just asks:

“Do you have a job?”

I of course answer “Yes“

This is of course followed up by the key question: ”What do you do for your job?”

Panic sets in. This is my friend’s only just turned 7 year old daughter. I’m pretty sure they have not had ‘the talk’ with her at this point in her life. I’m definitely sure the subject of people getting pregnant when they don’t want to be pregnant has never been talked about because she has only known pregnancy as something to be celebrated and excited about. I’m now wishing I’d become a teacher. Teacher would be an acceptable self explanatory answer to this question that my friend’s daughter would already know about. Pregnancy counsellor and teacher of sex education? Even amongst adults in the pub this answer can be quite the conversation shocker.

I think my answer was quite honest (and hopefully not going to get me killed by her parents!)

“Well, I help people who are pregnant, and some Mummies whose babies went to heaven while they were still in their Mummy’s tummy before they got to be born“.

At this point I’m praying that this will be acceptable answer for her.

It seems to be.

She tells me of someone she knows whose baby went to heaven while it was in their tummy. But then she asks me the toughest question of all:

“Why does God let the babies go to heaven before they get to be born?“

Thankfully my truthful answer of “I don’t know” is acceptable. (Phew. Because I really don’t know.)

Later I take her up to bed and I read her a bible story (Jonah and the big fish), and she reads me a story (Chip & Wilf’s Arctic Adventure). We’ll skip the part where I had to climb up to her bunk bed and in the process caught my scarf with my leg, almost knocked myself out and fell in ungracefully into a pile of stuffed toys. We chat to God together for friends we know on holiday (prompting a question about whether they have sharks in Morocco in case our friend gets his arm bitten off while surfing like Bethany Hamilton).

I’ve no sooner gone downstairs, when I hear little creaks and footsteps outside the living room. I’m reading ‘Father Fiction‘ by Donald Miller.

“What is that book about?“

“It’s about people who grew up without having Daddies” I say.

“How does that happen?” she asks.

And let’s just say that for the next 20 minutes we have lots of chats about half-siblings, step siblings, step parents, how some people’s Daddys might go away by choice and others don’t, and whether the Mummy of mine she’s met before is my ‘real Mummy’ and how I have lots of brothers and a sister but we don’t have the same parents.

Thankfully, when my friends came home and I told them these stories, they did laugh. And they told me that when she starts asking how babies are made, they are going to tell her to ask me instead.

I really hope my friends are joking. (You are kidding, right?!)

Anyway. All this to say that I’m back in the business of corrupting children. Or trying not to corrupt them. These conversations are definitely up there with the time when Miss S asked me about why I had two earrings in each of my ears.

And I now realise I’m officially getting too old to try and climb onto bunk beds.

:)

 

Feb10

The wall: Love is respect and devotion…

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The wall: Love is respect and devotion…

“Father you saved me and showed me that life was much more than being some foolish man’s wife, showed me that love was respect and devotion, greater than planets, deeper than oceans.”

from I used to love him -Lauryn Hill

When I was in high school, I loved Lauryn Hill. I listened to her album ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill‘ many times. I didn’t really pay much attention to the lyrics of her songs though until the summer when I was stuck in bed with post-viral fatigue syndrome. It was then I discovered how much of her own story was in her songs – as I guess is the case with the majority of songwriters.

I do not have a good history with guys, and when I became a Christian I felt a huge pressure and expectation that to be a successful person I needed to be married. Preferably soon after graduating from university. I met several girls in the Christian Union who told me that the main reason they were at university was to meet their future husband. I remember a conversation with one friend about what we hoped to do after graduating and she said ‘Well, I plan to be married’. As if that was a definite and that was her full identity.

I began to wonder if maybe my independent ways were wrong. I never really sought out relationships, but they seemed to find me. I remember going out with a guy soon after I became a Christian just because he was interested in me and I thought ‘oh well, this must be God bringing my husband to be into my life’.

Yes. I was nuts.

I soon realised that it was indeed crazy.

But as I entered my last couple of years of uni, I let guys treat me really poorly.

I still remember going to a retreat with my church and our pastor’s wife praying for me. She told me that God was saying that I had been disobeying Him and I needed to do what God was saying I should do. I knew exactly what she meant – I knew God had been telling me to walk away from a relationship I was in. My faith and self-esteem were taking a beating and I think the only one who noticed was one of my friends (and I think she’ll know who she is). I went back and this person said it was like I had life back in my eyes again. I felt after that weekend that I had been brought back to life. We needed to talk I said. He said to me ‘God told you to break up with me, didn’t He? I was really scared you’d come back from that weekend and break up with me‘

It made me feel guilty. And so I didn’t do it.

I was a fool.

Eventually things escalated and he told me he didn’t want to be with me.

I felt such peace.

Did I bawl my eyes out later that day? Yes. As soon as I was at work alone I locked myself in an office and burst into tears calling several people. I got home that night and called my friend who came round with a box of tissues and let me sob into her shoulder for the longest time. I came down with flu that night and was off for a week. It was a horrible time.

But there was still peace deep down underneath the fear of being alone, the anxiety of the next phase of life.

I feel like I was saved though, I realised how much I had not been with someone who knew what love, respect or devotion really was.

And now I know.

Life is so much more than being a foolish man’s wife.

It’s not that I’m against being married, if a wise man came along who loved me and who I loved, who I believed shared my core beliefs and values, who I could see a compatible future with…then yes. I would be happy to become his wife.

But life does not depend on that.

And I’m not alone, because I have friends and people around me who know that love is respect and devotion, greater than planets and deeper than oceans. 

Those are the wise people I choose to have be a big part in my life.

The foolish ones are no longer allowed into my inner circle.

:)

Feb7

All about anger

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All about anger

So these last few weeks I’ve been reading all about Anger.

Anger is an emotion I’m very familiar with. I’m pretty good at borderline passive-aggressive/aggressive anger. I say borderline because it comes with all the qualities of passive aggressive anger (rebelling, deliberately doing things to annoy said person I’m angry at without actually saying I’m angry at them) but usually comes with much stomping, ranting and ‘grrr-ing’. And swearing.

A few years ago now, when I was invited to lunch by a couple from the church I had just started attending (Hi John & Esther!) they introduced to me to the NOOMA DVDs. A new one had just come out that they’d bought and we all watched it after lunch called Store. I felt pretty convicted watching it. It showed a guy and his passive aggressive rage with all the irritating things that happened during his supermarket shop. I could relate. At the end though he does something constructive with his anger.

A couple of weeks later I entered my local 24 hr Tesco. I felt the rage. But I remembered the DVD. This was the result.

Last night, while doing a training session on Anger, we watched the DVD with our trainees (and yes, I fully confessed about my own supermarket rage incident).

I’ve learned a lot about anger over the last few weeks. What it does in our bodies chemically. Thinking about what we’ve been taught directly or indirectly about anger as children, and how that affects us today as adults. How destructive suppressing anger can be. And how we can express our anger constructively.

In our recovery programme, we talk about positive anger, and suggest a formula of expressing it…

‘When you did ….. it made me feel ….. ‘

This week I read about an extra part, which I think is really important.

‘When you did …. it made me feel …. and what I would like is …‘

The reason I think it’s important is that even when we manage to pinpoint the cause of the anger – the action rather than the person and tell them how it made us feel, that’s all well and good. But we’re not mind readers to know how to prevent the bad feelings from rising again.

Unless we work out what the alternative action should be.

Now what I need to do is put ‘assertive communication’ into practice, to express my anger positively and constructively.

In the meantime, I’m off to read about Grief.

:)

 

Feb4

The Wall: Don’t wait to live…live now

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The Wall: Don’t wait to live…live now

“When I grow up I’ll…”

I’m beginning to realise these days that I am already ‘grown up’. It feels like it snuck up on me. So many things that I put on hold for a year.

And then another.

And then another.

And then time ran out.

How many of us are holding back from doing something we’d love to do because we’re waiting to be more sorted, wiser, older, more ready?

The things, we never know how long we have here on earth. As I’m forever saying ‘I could get runover by a bus tomorrow’. It’s so easy to think we have all the time in the world.

Maybe we do.

Maybe we don’t.

I just know that I don’t want to die with my music still in me.

It’s why I don’t what to live fearing failure. Or fearing rejection for that matter. Waiting for me to get just that ‘bit more sorted’ before I step out and do something.

What are you waiting for? The world wants to hear the music that’s inside you…

Feb2

Thankful Thursday

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Thankful Thursday

So for a while there my lovely friend Ruth was doing a thing called ‘Thankful Thursdays‘. Today is Thursday, which is weird because yesterday felt like a Thursday all day and I had to keep reminding myself that it was in fact WEDNESDAY. And I’m very thankful today.

Music is a huge part of my life. I love to listen to it, I love to dance to it, I love to sing to it, and I used to love to create it. The door jamb of my car is still filled with mixtapes (redundant since an iPod tape adaptor got stuck in Cassie’s tape machine a couple of years ago). When the (evil) tramworks began on Leith Walk, I used to drown out the noise and destruction of the suburb that I love with my iPod when I walked to my work. When I housesat for my eco warrior surfing jesus loving friends, I’d pop my iPod into their massive dock and rock out in the kitchen as I made my tea or listen to worship music on Sunday mornings before church as I ate breakfast. My iPod earphones helped combat earache from the wind tunnel walk to the medical school. Music energised me through exam revision. It calmed me or helped me express my anger. It kept me alert as I drove my car up and down the UK.

And then my poor little iPod began to die.

My laptop became my iPod on train rides to London.

Silence or talking got me through gym sessions – not so productive without my ‘Gym Playlist’.

Journeys became more tedious in silence or with background noise.

Somehow, I managed to save money over Christmas. I’m still unsure how because there’s no miraculous donation in my bank statements. With that, plus the money returned for a gift my Mum bought me that never arrived on our doorstep I was able to purchase a refurbished iPod nano this week. I just know that I really, really appreciate the privilege of having an iPod again. I look forward to cooking to music, having a soundtrack for my journeying and some encouragement and inspiration for the treadmill/rowing machine/bike/cross trainer.

:)

I know that I loved my old iPod, and I’m sad that it ‘died’. It was frustrating not to be able to just replace it. Now that I’ve been able to, I know that this is a luxurious gift.

One that I truly appreciate.