More photos from Christmas!

True, that...
Scary... my baby sis... DRIVING!!

"I love you, Car!"

Aaawww...

Yeah, so it's Tuesday. I generally like Tuesdays (boy, it took me about 4 tries to correctly type 'generally'! That time took 2 tries!) ...sheesh...
This week I'm in a sort of frenzy of studying for my theology course. Next week I'm editing the new Nav Bible studies... The week after that (week of the 10th) I actually am taking a week off, and Tim has it off as well b/c he's doing 7 nightshifts next week! Sooo looking forward to it. I was talking to my friend Louise, saying "What in the world will I do with myself?!" And she suggested doing something creative... so I think I may go for walks in the hills on a couple of the days, and then also may try some painting. I just found an art shop up the road and am thinking about water colour, or perhaps painting some kind of fabric belts as gifts for friends... got a few ideas.

Cool story... for Sunday lunch I was planning on serving Mexican beans and rice, and invited Tim's sister Ellie over, and was going to invite several more people... well I soaked the beans all night Saturday, and got up on Sunday at 6:30am to get them cooking before church (cos dry beans take FOREVER)... and then went back to bed (big mistake) waking a few hours later to some lovely smoke... and incinerated, ashen beans. So we had to uninvite Ellie. But we had no food in the house for ourselves even (end of the week) and the grocery store is shut (refurbishments). So I prayed that God would provide us lunch (but half didn't think He would, that we'd be having a bowl of plain rice for our meal)... after church, we hear a "yoo hoo!" out in the back yard, and there's our minister, Karl, standing on his trampoline, asking us if we wanted to join them for lunch - and he'd had no idea about the beans! So in the end we all got lunch, even Ellie, and the Martins got blessed by knowing God used them to feed us. :-) Pretty fun.

Current Mood: hungry! (It's lunch time)
Current Music: Nothing but the Blood - Chris Tomlin

Sunny days...

I just had the best smoothy ever. It was called "The Punctual Penguin" and it had yummy stuff like bananas, oranges, and coconut milk in it... yummmmm. It was from Black Medicine, one of my fav coffee joints, in Marchmont.

This is the final Navs week until Easter holidays. I'm shot... or as Neil says, "I'm cream-crackered!" and ready for a holiday. May have to take a few days off in the next 3 weeks of uni hols. On Sunday Tim and I realised that we were TOO tired... in a bad way.
So now we've decided to definitely have one official sabbath day per week (which isn't Sunday, cos that's generally not restful seeing as how we usually have folks at our house most of the day). Because of Tim's schedule we decided it'll be alternately Friday and Saturday. Now we have to think up a list of "helpful activities" which are rest-conducive and "unhelpful" ones. I've got a few items in mind already... We are also going to do our devotions together (read through Galatians slowly and pray) on the days when Tim is off work. I'm excited.

Reading "The Blind Assassin" by Margaret Atwood. Strange, strange book. Any Atwood fans out there? My friend Lorna aptly said, "She doesn't write about nice things, but does it in a very gripping way." I'm not exactly sure what it's about yet.

Well, recently I've been cooking fish once a week because I heard it was healthy... well, last week our fish dish made me SICK so I am going on a fish strike this week and sticking with NORMAL food! Last night I made Chicken Florentine (and it was amasing... it tasted JUST like I remember from the Olive Garden... or even better!) and tonight I'm making Tim's favourite dish in the whole entire universe... lasagne! Yummm.

I just realised that I spend an inordinate amount of time talking about food, in general. Sometimes when I go to bed at night I dream about how yummy breakfast will be... :-)

Current Mood: Content
Current Music: Home - Sheryl Crowe

Come on, Lord!
(No, this isn't mine... just wishin...)

What a mess.

Me with Bethany and Evie (Tim's cousins)

Sarah's moved :-(

So. Pictures.

I spent this morning with Jude, and we walked her new dog, Toni, which everyone thinks is a ridiculous name for a female dog, but Jeremy loves it because he can call her Tory, which is the name of his political party (which Jude hates!). Sandwiched in between that and other work, in the afternoon I made cupcakes with Gracie (my friend's 2 year old). We put a candle in one and took some pictures, and she said "Happy cake!" thinking it was a happy birthday cake. :-) I'm very tired right now- I think all that's happenned in the last few weeks is catching up with me. No matter how much sleep I get, I wake up feeling like I just pulled an all-nighter. It was nice to spend the day with Gracie, a lovely, simple person with very few "issues" except for the fact that she really really wanted to wash the dishes herself, I job which I happily reliquished... and mopped up later.

Current Mood: Bed. I want it.
Current Music: Wedding Dress - Derek Webb

Wow.

Thanks guys for your encouragements to pray. One good thing for the meantime is that I have been given a Scottish Psalter with the sheet music. In my old church, St. Columba's, we sang praise music (the Psalms) a capella only. So until the some day arrival of a piano, I can worship that way. :-) I was at Tim's sister's flat the other day (which has a piano) and played for a while... and loved it! :-(

Hmmm... do I know anything else interesting. Not particularly. On Thursday we're having dinner with our pastor, Karl Martin, and his family. He's got a lovely wife, 4 blonde girls, and a cat named Gandalf the Grey. :-) He said sometimes when the cat escapes, before he goes to bed at night he has to go hunting in the bushes around his house saying, "Gandalf?! Gandalf?!" and he keeps expecting a voice to come back saying, "Yes, Frodo?"

Current Mood: blah... the sky is grey...
Current Music: Love Unknown - Scottish Psalm tune

Myriad Thoughts.

Today I was walking to the usual Friday morning team meeting and saw a V of geese flying north! The crocuses have been up for a while and it's not long now til the daffodils light up the nasty, soggy Edinburgh landscape. I've even convinced myself to think that the cherry trees in the meadows are on the verge of blooming. But anyway it's pretty much inevitable now. Summer's on it's way.

I'm being a little ambitious in saying that because we actually have to go through spring first before summer will ever think about getting out of bed. I can't say I'm all that big a fan of spring, because by the time the omnipresent Scottish winter is over, who the heck cares about spring, bring on the hot sun and afternoons reading in the meadows! Maybe I'm being disrespectful.

It's been an extremely hard week - in terms of work, relationships, emotions... I'm glad to be getting to the end of it. Tomorrow I have nothing planned except maybe some running and hanging out with Tim, and in the evening, Neil and Emmie have invited us over for a curry! Neil said, "hey do you guys want to stay over at our house that night, and then we can just stay up chatting til all hours?!" I said "you mean, a sleep-over?" and he said "yes!! wouldn't it be brilliant?" Just as I was offering to bring some glow-sticks and cookies he remembered they have a guest in town so their spare room is full.
THAT would have been hilarious.

I'm now also reading the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis... at the end of nearly every paragraph I think to myself (or say out loud) "NO!!" because I realize that I've fallen in to the very trap that Screwtape is telling his nephew Wormwood to employ to deter his young Christian 'patient'. Very interesting.

Tonight I'm going to Alison's (navs girl) along with Sarah Ross, Lindsay and Isla to have dinner and watch one of the Glad You Asked sessions ("why does God allow suffering"... very pertinent at the moment). I'm excited that, though they missed the week when we discussed this already, they're keen to take an evening out of their weekend to go over it. Sometimes I think "what if I'm just pushing this on them and they only come to Navs out of guilt?" but I don't think that's true in reality...
Got a letter from Sarah Rowe! She's up in Orkney now, and will marry Matthew in less than a month (6 May). I love writing letters. I think it's "fabby-do" (as Jude says). There's something about pouring your heart out on to a page, the pen and stationery you choose, handwriting, that communicates a bit more than e-mail. Or blogs.

I'm praying (sporadically) that God will give us a piano. Recently I've really really missed having one - both as a way to relax, express myself and worship. But I don't think it'll happen unless God works a miracle. The reason I keep praying sporadically is because sometimes I wonder "Am I allowed to pray this? I mean, I don't NEED it to survive..." Any thoughts? Can you pray with me? And I'll let you know what happens. :-)

Current Music: And - Waterdeep
Current Mood: Slightly industrious

What I'm Reading.

So I just finished Alice in Wonderland (which, I was shocked to discover, was written while Lewis Carroll was trippin' on LSD! I thought there was something slightly too clever or insane about it) and now I've started another book.

It's about a fatherless farm boy Jim, in 1930's U.S. He's just turned 10 and thinks he's all that and a bag of chips... not off to such a smart start. But I suppose he'll grow up. My favourite sentance in the book so far was this description: "In the low places near the river, stray ghosts of fog still hunted among the trees." I love that! He could have said "the remains of fog still hung among the trees" or something usual. I love that the hunting ghosts though...

Gotta go write an article now about Bethany Christian Trust, which aids the homeless and vulnerable in Edinburgh... writing for their newsletter about the area of their ministry that collects and gives furniture to people who need it. Check this out: http://www.bethanychristiantrust.com/sevenlevels/level6.php

Current music: Whatever scary Star Wars music is on Skylar's xanga...
Current mood: HUUUNGRY!