The ultimate sacrifice.

I always get very emotional when I think about what our Lord did for us. This weekend I will be thinking about the sacrifice that  our Lord Jesus made for us, and our Father in heaven who sent His one and only Son to save us. This is much more important to me than the Easter eggs that will be eaten. As much as I love chocolate I love my Lord more.

Praying that you all have a blessed weekend. I'll be praising the Lord.

Here is a little video that will get you emotional. I cry every time I watch it.

Lifted up.

I don't think I shared about my very encouraging moment a few weeks ago. I was doing some shopping in Perth and I could here this music playing. So I started to walk in the direction it was coming from. I walked down a very creepy alleyway (even in daylight!) and there it was. The little shining light. There was a choir from one of the Churches singing worship songs. I am so moved by worship music. I wanted to join in with them, dancing and singing. I kinda did actually. It was definitely a wee gift from God. He knows what we need and exactly when we need it. It was beautiful. I was moved to tears. So I am going to post a little video of the song they were singing. Enjoy. I hope this encourages you as much as it encouraged me. Just imagine you are wandering around the shops and you hear this.

On a roll.

I am totally on a roll with posts! But this is what I always do. Post, no post...post post. Anyway, back to it. This is just quick. I had a fun day out shopping with the ma today. I a little bit of money money from some relatives for my birrrrthday so I had an excuse to spend it. I am on major, major save just now. More on that soon. I managed to find some super duper bargains for summer. We have been fortunate enough to have lots of sunshiney days of late and I am so enjoying it.

The sun was shining today, I was smiling. I wore sunglasses! I like this alot.

Ok. I am going to share a little music with you. Have you heard of Adele? Say yes, even if you haven't. Of course you have. She is great. I totally wore out her first album, like to the point where I couldn't listen to it for ages because I was like "blah blah blah..I know all the words, neeext!" So you can imagine how excited I was when her 2nd album came out. Ah. I love it. She has an amazing voice, such a beautiful tone to her voice. Listen to her. Now.

I will leave you singing along to Miss Adele. Enjoy.

p.s. I am back to work tomorrow. Mixed feelings about this. It will be nice to see everyone. But when my alarm goes off at 5:55am tomorrow morning I will not be thinking about how nice it will be to see anyone.

Was I really there?

On Monday we celebrated my 22nd Birthday. Wow. Don't think I really thought about that one. That really crept up and bit me in the butt. Yikes. Right now, I love getting old. I love being a year older. I love being 22. In 10 or 20 years we will see if I am still so excited about getting older. I had a lovely day with the brother and mother. The day before my sister and I went for a picnic in the town we went to school. It was so fun and very chilled out. Just what we needed. We were reminiscing about old school days. It was lovely.

Lucy, Fin and I also went to the movies on Monday night. We went to see The Lincoln Lawyer. I enjoyed it. But I really want to read the book. But you should definitely go and see it. We enjoyed it.

So here is my little problem, something that I am upset about. I have no pictures of all this. I had a special day out with my sister. No photos. I had a lovely day with my brother and mum. No photos. Birthday cake. No photos. Presents and cards. No photos. So I think it is time to do something about this. I want to have photos of these special memories and not just take pretty photos of flowers. When I spent 4 months in Australia with my family I had so many photos. Photos of the different places we went, and my family. But not lots of photos with me and those places and my family. I basically have a flipbook of the Californian countryside from my first trip over there, but not many of all the amazing people that I met. So from now on I am going to always carry my camera with me. I am going to take it to work with me, when I go into town to do shopping, when I go for a walk, when I am watching a movie with my sister, when I am making dinner, when I am sewing something cute, when I am making people laugh, when people are making me laugh...I am going to have all these things in photos.

You should check out this lady. I know that I am always linking to her blog, but really you need to listen to this lady. She says it really well right here. Ok, so she is talking about getting in the photo with your kiddies but there is a little bit at the bottom where she is speaking to me!!

So I am going to leave you with a little photo of me and my peroxide blonde, curly hair! (so I got my hair done a few weeks ago, it was SO blonde when I left. She said to me "it looks so natural, just the natural sun-kissed look." I looked outside, it was pouring with rain. But really, I love it now that I am used to it.)

Are you having a HAM sandwich?

So here I go again. I get into a groove of posting lots, then I don't...then I do...then I don't! Ah. This has something to do with me leaving the house at 7am and not getting home til 9PM! I really don't like this, at all. But that pretty much sums up my week last week. All my days filled with hours like this. When I have weeks like this I eat really bad, like baaaad. I maybe manage to grab a bowl of cereal before I go to work, but usually it is a banana. Then sometimes while I am at work I manage to steal some toast with banana (my faaaave!) And seriously, that is about it. Until the end of my day when there are left over desserts and we all have a little bit and sit down and chill out together. It is my favourite part of the day at work. We get to enjoy each other's company. I do love the people I work with. Sometimes it is really hard, but aren't we all hard to love sometimes? So there is my big excuse for no posts. I think it is a pretty good one, right?

We have had some fun time rounds here lately though. The baby brother is home for 2 WHOLE WEEKS!! He arrived home on Friday, late. I saw him after work on Saturday. Honestly I nearly cried when I saw him. I miss that boy a lot. I got a big bear hug from him, and made the most of it because I knew that I wouldn't be seeing many of those for these 2 weeks! I have taken a few days off work so that I actually get to see him. I know these 2 weeks will go quickly, so I am trying to make the most of it. I am the emotional sister. I cry a lot. When I'm happy, sad, scared...you name the occasion and I'll be crying. We were all out to lunch one day having a lovely time. A lady was sat opposite us, on her own, having lunch. I started crying. Yup. Everyone thought this was hilarious, and embarassing. I obviously thought it was pretty sad though. Anywaaay.

So. The other day we were out to lunch and I just new that I was going to be disappointed. I just had this feeling that whatever I wanted was NOT going to be on the menu today. And sure enough, I still haven't had a lemon chicken, mango chutney and rocket toasted ciabatta. Boo. So I ordered a ham sandwich. Sounds quite ordinary, right? Well my mother thought this was SO exciting. "a haaam sandwich? Did you hear that, Fin?" "yeah, whatever" - Fin has no interest at all. So wanna know why this was soooo exciting? Because for nearly 12 years I didn't eat red meat. Wanna know why? Well...we grew up on a farm (THE BEST!) and for a while there was a butcher shop down there. This didn't bother me. Until it did. I was looking out my window one day, and there was a delivery lorry outside. Then I saw it. Something that would change my meals for 12 years. I saw a little piggy over someone's shoulder...dead...skinned....still looking like a pig...but dead. I can still picture it and might be off meat again soon if I keep on thinking about it! So off I took my little 8 year old self downstairs to tell mum that I was going to be a vegetarian. She was not happy. So we had a little discussion and came to a compromise. I was going to stop eating red meat and just eat white meat. This meant I would still be eating chicken, turkey and fish. Fine by me. Because chicken was (and still is) my favourite. And this is the way it stayed for all those years. THEN early last year I was over at some friends and we went to lunch with more friends from Church. On the menu was roast beef. And I was being too shy to say no and felt that it would be too rude to not eat anything. So...I had some beef. I was terrified that I would throw up or something. But it was gooooood. And that was that. I am a meat eating girl again. And really, I knew that I would one day. After all, the Lord did intend for us to eat all these lovely things. Everytime I have been to California I haven't been eating red meat, well until last year. I was trying all sorts of yummy things!

I am going to leave you with a wee photo.



Photo from Google images.

There could be worse things to be surrounded by all day, everyday! It truely is beautiful.

I've got sunshine, on a cloudy day.

I said that I would fill you in on how the Lord has been blessing me these past few days, so I thought I had better do that! I have a habbit of saying I am going to write about something on here and never actually getting round to it (btw...I am actually still planning on writing a lengthy post of my baby brother's passing out parade...we will see when that happens!)

Anyway, back to this. I have seriously had such a mixed up week with lots of mixed emotions. There were many times I got back from work last week and just cried. Now, I do enjoy working there but there are a few (when I say a few I mean LOTS) of things that happen there that make angry and upset, well both bounce of each other really. I'm not going to go into it, partly because I will get myself upset and who wants to do that? And also because I don't want you to have to even hear or know some of things I have to put up with from my colleagues. So you can just pray for me, please. Sometimes it is a struggle to get through the day there.

But a couple of days ago I had just a lovely day at work. I had a breakfast shift, ok wait. I work at a Hotel, waitressing for those that don't know. This might help make more sense of what I am talking about, probably won't help you though. So yes, I was working a breakfast shift and then I was helping my lovely friend in the laundry. I was scheduled to work with her but I usually try and help her when I can anyway. We had the day planned out. I made some delicious banana and choc chip muffins the night before (at like 10:45pm...and I wonder why I am always so tired?) so first off we had a nice cup of tea and a muffin. They were yummy. Such and easy recipe, so tasty. mmmm. We both share a love for Motown music so I brought my little iPod down to join in the fun. And oh what fun we have. We definitely cheered each other up. We were singing, and dancing when we could. Other people were walking in and out and couldn't help but smile. We were contagious that day. Then our boss came in and I'm pretty sure he was trying not to laugh at us...by this time I think we were onto Disney's greatest...or something like that. Then it was time for Hairspray. Oh my goodness, we laughed with this one. I came home from work feeling great after spending some time with my friend and knowing that she was happier too. We had so much fun.

I then came home to find an e-mail from a friend of mine in California. She encouraged me about my waiting game (more on that this week) and told me how SHE was looking forward to getting me over there. It was just what I needed, and the Lord knew that. Then I got another email from a family member in Australia. She encouraged me by guiding me in my prayers for her, and asking me how she can pray for me. I am pretty sure she only ever thinks of other people. She is so good at asking about specific prayer points for you. So lovely, and again, the Lord knew what He was doing.

This whole story has been an encouragement to me too. I shared in my last post a link to a special blog, and I'm going to do it again today. Go HERE and read about their new daughter finally getting home. I cried. What a blessing. A great reminder the God is in control and His timing is perfect.

So there is a little insight into how God gives me great friends to get through not-so-great days! I am blessed. Thanking God for throwing things my way that aren't always easy, and surrounding me with friends to build me up.

 "Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing."

1 Thessalonians 5:11

Who have you encouraged today? Who are you going to encourage tomorrow?

This is my Desire.

Have a listen to this song by Hillsong. It is one of my favourites. This is my prayer today.

I have had such an ecouraging day. I will share more on how God blessed my day, tomorrow. ♥