Beautiful, beautiful, Helen is beautiful!

Happy birthday to the most wonderful,


fantastically super duper, amazingly beautifully


caring cousin in all the whole wide world!!!!



I love you so so so so so so so so so much!!!!!!!!!!

Skip, skip, skip to the Lou....

I know Lou has already posted our special day out together on her blog, but I WANT TO TOO!


Now just have a little look at this picture....



Is anyone slighly worried that these two people were allowed out, unaccompanied, and armed with a motor vehicle?!!!? Have you ever seen two people better suited? We are the subconsiously oppressed art students of Thorpe, though you can't get a full picture of that as we are wearing coats because it was cold cold cold. If you would like to follow our adventures further you may visit my dearest Lou's blog http://www.everythingtonoone.blogspot.com/

Job

Right I fear this is gonna be another longish one.
First off, what I didn't mention before was that I started thinking all these 'crazy next year' thoughts after I'd started reading my bible again. I hadn't mentioned this before because it seemed really unrelated. I prayed beforehand that God would show me what he wanted me to read etc and ended up reading a bit from Job. I was really confused afterwards because it seemed so irrelevant and so I just put it out of my head. At the end of last week I was getting really pissed off because everyone was telling me just to ask God what he wanted me to do and all that and I was. I went to and evening service at our church Sunday evening and I was just sitting there getting so angry with God because he wouldn't speak to me. It wasn't fair! He was speaking to everyone else but not me! I could work out what I was doing wrong. The I suddenly remembered some random bits I read in Job. It said this

How can anyone be right in the presence of God? Someone might argue with God but no-one could answer God, not even one out of a thousand. God's wisdom is deep, and his power is great; no one can fight him without getting hurt. Job 9 verses 2-4

He does wonders that cannot be understood; he does so many miracles that cannot be counted. When he passes by me I cannot see him; when he goes by me, I do not recognise him. If he snatches something away, no one can stop him or say to him 'What are you doing?' Job 9 verses 10-12

So how can I argue with God or even find words to argue with him? Even if I were right, I could not answer him; I could only beg God, my judge, for mercy. Job 9 verses 14-15

So I was there getting seriously angry with God because he wasn't talking to me or giving me any signs or even letting me know he was there and this all came into my head. Pretty cool huh? (And I am the worlds worst person at remembering bible verses!) But I just realised, who on earth am I to question God? Its not like I have a right to know what's going on or deserve even him to have him speak to me. Although this might sound depressing it actually really encouraged me bizzarrely.

A little thought

Ok so I'm having a little thought, well quite a big thought actually, more like a 'change the whole rest of my life' kinda thought if I'm honest but for the benefit of me not freaking out we'll call it a little thought. Ok so I realised a week ago that I don't actually want to go to Bath to do Music and Psychology. What I really want to do is to go and work somewhere where I could really be useful, like with Tearfund or something. Then I went on in my thinking and realised that theres not much point going out somewhere like that if you have no skillls to offer. So I thought maybe I'll go and train to be a nurse next year instead. Nursing has much more prospects than the randomness of music and psychology. Plus I know that if I can't see a purpose in doing things then I don't do them. I know everyone just thinks I'm lazy when it comes to school work (and that might be part of it) but the reason I did so bad at sixth form is that I just couldn't see a point to most of what I was doing. With something like nursing I can totally see the point in doing it. So anyway, I only decided this last night and unfortunately i think it's too late to do UCAS stuff now. BUT then I thought well maybe I should try to do one of these year long mission things in septmeber. That gives me enough time to raise the money and find out about stuff. My main problem in life is that I don't know what I want. I can't guarantee that in a weeks time I'll think this was a crap idea and want to do something totally different. BUT (again) this does kinda feel really right to me. And I haven't read my bible or anything for longer than I care to admit, but I tried to get back into the habit again last week. And right after I started thinking all this stuff. I would really really apprieciate peoples thoughts and prayers on this. I really do want to do what God wants me to do, I'm just really not sure what that is.

Forwarders BEWARE!!!!

This made me laugh so much I just had to share it. Thankyou Nat.

Dear Friends

I'd like to extend my heart felt appreciation to all of you who have taken the time and trouble to send me "forwards" during 2005. Thank you for making me feel safe, secure, blessed and healthy. Extra thanks to whoever sent me the email about rat crap in the glueon envelopes - because I now have to go get a wet towel every time I need to seal an envelope.

Also, I scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

Because of your genuine concern, I no longer drink Coca Cola because it I know it can remove toilet stains, which is not exactly an appealing characteristic.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

I no longer go to shopping centres because someone might drug me with a cologne sample and rob me.

I no longer eat KFC because their "chickens" are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

I no longer worry about my soul because at last count, I have 363,214 angels looking out for me.

Thanks to you, I have learned that God only answers my prayers if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl on the internet who is about to die in the hospital (for the 1,387,258th time).

I no longer have any money at all in fact - but that will change once I receive the £15,000 that Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special on-line email program.

Yes, I want to thank you all so much for looking out for me that I will now return the favour!!

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 7 minutes, a large pigeon with a wicked case of diarrhoea will land on your head at 5:00PM today. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbour's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician.

warning, writing and wet trousers

I know I'm posting less and less at the moment but its all in your best interests, trust me. Other than moaning about various idiots at work/home/world or writing obscurely about sensitive things but being so indirect about it so even I will begin to wonder what I'm talking about, I don't really have much to say. And I don't want this to become a dull and monotonous blog that says the same dull and monotous things over and over and over and over again. So there we go.

Oooh my writing is coming on quite well. I now have 3 completely finished chapters, one in the making, one which seems to have hit a brick wall (i am trying to break though though) and one short piece which was meant to be the beginning but now seems completely unrelated to anything else I've written. Unfortunately there are so many holes in the plot and the characters that at some point the whole thing is going to fall apart. You know when you look at the sky on a clear night and think there are no stars? Then you suddenly see one, then another, then there's like millions and millions? Well thats seems to be how it is with planning this book. At the start I thought "piece of cake, have a vague idea for a story, a few characters, couple of pages planning." Then I realised I might need to do abit more. And now the more I do, the more things I seem to have remaining to complete!

Agh heres something fuuny. Know what I did today? Well I left my bike out last night because, well just because I couldn't be arsed to put it away really. And last night it rained. When I went out this morning to get my bike to cycle to work I noticed it was abit wet so sensibly dried the seat with a towel, as you do. As I cycled down the road I thought to myself 'hmmm the seat feels cold today, must be cause i left it outside' and didn't think anymore of it. When I got to work I realised that my wonderful bike seat which is as comfy as a sponge is in fact a sponge. And all the water it had soaked up last night was now on my trousers going from the top right down to the back of my knees! (don't ask me how i didn't notice) I didn't even have anyway of hiding it. It couldn't have looked more incriminating if I actually had wet myself. So I just made a mad dash through the store to the staff room and bolted up the stairs. I don't even want to think about what I must have looked like, my oh my.

Camp America!

My interview for Camp America was last Sunday and had to go to London, near tower bridge. Dad reckoned it would be a good chance for me to drive on motorways and in scary scary London traffic. Ooooh. So we left about 10am and set off on our London mission, armed only with a packet of sherbert lemons and a flask of not very hot coffee. Yay.

We arrived about an hour early which was nice as we went and got lunch at this little bar and resturant. Nice little father/daughter bonding session. Then at about ten to two we walked down to the apartment and I went up to the flat. I had to take my shoes off before even entering the flat! It was really strange. Then in every corner there was a candle burning scented oils so that the whole place stank - nicely, but strong all the same! The first thing he said to me (after take your shoes off) was "I love your necklace! I love dolphins!" I knew then that we were gonna get on fine. So we chatted for abit while I filled in about my third CRB form and he read through my aplication form. Then he asked me a few questions. It was clear from my application form that I was a christian and so the first question he asked me was "Ok, pretend I'm a ten year old boy. 'My next door neighbour's a muslim, does that mean he's going to hell?" Aaagh. Well normaly I would just say "well yeah unfortuantely." But thats not really the right thing to say in an interview. I considered giving a very political answer and not actually saying anything but when I see people doing that on TV it annoys me so much. Plus I like to be myself in interviews as theres not point pretending to be someone you're not. I want to get a job because of who i am, not who I can pretend to be. Also if I do get the placement, I'm not sure I could keep up the pretence very long! So i thing i just said "Well in my opinion if they don't believe that God is the one and only God and that Jesus died to save us and have asked Jesus to save them then unfortunately they probably are." It was alot less eloquent than that though (if thats possible!) Should have added that its not for us to judge aswell. Its so hard to think on the spot though.

Well the rest of the interview went ok, I actually really enjoyed it. At the end he asked me if I wanted to know how I'd done. Of course I did and he said "Well at the end off an interview I ask myself two questions. Could I work with this person? Yes definately. I've really enjoyed meeting you! And would I trust my children with this person? Yes definately, I'd even trust my cats with you!" So needless to say I was very happy and promised to send him I postcard if i get through the next stages! Altogether a very positive experience which was just what I needed as I failed my grade eight.

Happy Christmas and New Year

Happy Christmas, New Year and all that. It's been a while I know. Christmas got in the way! It has been a pretty cool christmas and new year actually. I'll just give you a brief summery.
I got the Disney Princess Christmas Album which is awesome, definately recommended (cheers Ray) and Charlie and the chocolate factory which is incredible. Totally love it! We got up at 7 to open stockings. Then church at 10:30. Gran came for dinner and presents and stuff. We had the coolest crackers. Inside each one was a whistle with a number on it. In the box was a conductors baton and some music. Then the conductor could like point to each person to make a tune. It was hilarious, trust me.


Boxing was great as usual. Off to Lowerstoft we all went. I think there must have been about thirty off us, scarily all related! Ah here we all are. There's a few people all taking pictures as well! Just as we arrived it chucked it down and we all got soaked. I paddled as usual and got my jeans soaked as usual. Hehe, gotta keep up the tradition.



Then it was back to work on Tuesday. Crapness.
The rest of the week must have been pretty rubbish (or really really good) because I can't remember any of it.



And then New Years Eve. Well first off Alice fell off her bike on the way to her paper round and hit her head and arm. She couldn't see for a bit but then just carried on with her paper round. Mum took her to casualty at about 9am and they found she'd gone and fractured her elbow, bless her. And who should they meet there but my nana who had also slipped over and fractured her arm.

I went in the city to work because my boss had told me there was a football match on saturday only to find there was no match. About 10 minutes later I got a phone call from her saying she'd just realised she'd told me saturday instead of monday. Fortunately it wasn't a wasted trip as I went and spent far too much money in the sales. Man the city is lethal at the moment. It's like kill or be killed at some of those sale racks. I found it pretty hilarious just to stand back and watch some people. It's amazing what people will do just to save a couple of pounds.

I then forced myself to go to a New Years eve party, saying I would thank myself later. And you know I really am. For the first time in a while I enjoyed being with other people. Maybe it's not entirely me, and actually the people I keep going out with. Well I had a really good night anyway. We eventually went to sleep at about 4am. Then at 5am someone threw up what sounded like the entire contents of the Pacific Ocean and after that not many of us felt like sleeping...

Totally overdosed on coffee the next morning and drove home at about 11:30 for a family meal at Helen's. The caffine hit me all at once because I think stopped blinking at about midday til I had to play at church at 2pm. The practise was fine but once the service started I was totally gone. Fortuately church is probably one of the only places that I could have got away with it. Every time I drifted off while playing (which was quite frequently) they just presumed I was doing serious business with God. It doesn't help that aot of christian songs are really relaxing and repetitive. I think people quite enjoyed the new acoustic version of songs though, but maybe next time I'll gradually stop and start playing rather than dozing off and just holding the same chord for 10 bars till it dies away. Then waking up and suddenly realising that yes I am meant to be playing this keyboard in front of me and just whacking my hands down hoping that they know whats going on even if my brain doesn't. Lol whatever possessed me to agree to play on New Years Day? Seriously.


Anyway, in an overall summary of my life at the moment it is good. I am feeling quite encouraged that I might still be capable of interacting with other and enjoying other people's company. Oh yeah and pictures may follow of various events mentioned.