It was a lovely afternoon, even though we couldn’t stay for long. I got my fix of Vi cuddles, and Dani chats, and meet the lovely Lisa! It was Suzie‘s first meetup, so that was exciting as well!

With seven people the meetup was a fair bit smaller then the ones I’ve been to before, and you know what? I really, really liked that. It was just like hanging out with some friends, instead of meeting all these new people. And because I’d met most of these people before (Lisa was the only one I didn’t know), it was really relaxed and just… fun! I definitely wish we could have stuck around for longer, but alas, Rachel’s birthday dinner at South Bank was waiting!

Photo Credit: Zoe from Little Harp Photography

Photo Credit: Zoe from Little Harp Photography

See more photos of the Sunshine Coast blog meetup here!

I’m a pretty proud wife right about now.

It’s lucky I have these pretty flowers Luke bought me to look at:

What pretty things are you looking at this weekend?

The neighbours have had to listen this baby blasting through the trees for the last week or so!

I learnt the saxaphone from year 3 to year 7, but if I think about it, that was just over a decade ago! Luke has always pretty keen for me to play msuic with him, even though I don’t know an instrument, so I finally sucummed tore-learning the saxaphone. My brother Amon has been playing it, which is good, because it’s all in working order etc.

Luke and I jammed a little bit over the weekend, and basically, I suck! I can never remember what notes come next in the little jammy things we do. I seriously just need to read the music (and remember where all the fingering is)!

One thing that’s really interesting though is how quickly it all comes back to you. I did a bit of a refresher on the weekend and I remembered pretty easily the fingering for the different notes. Don’t tell Luke, but I am reasonably excited about playing this instrument again. For me (it’s always been like this) practicing is my weakness, but maybe with Luke it will be different?

Do you have anything yellow at your place so that you can play along?

Do you play an instrument? Tell me your story!

My childhood: here I learnt to be creative, enjoy life, the importance of family…

Married life (current season): Here I’ve learnt, and am still learning, about patience, love, forgiveness, responsibility, joy.

Pepper (current season): Here I’m learning about responsibility, helplessness, unconditional love, happy tears.

Uni (the first time round): Here I learnt about resilience, teaching, passion, eLearning, adaptability, friendship.

The feedback for this blog is still open… if you haven’t left any yet, I’d appreciate you stopping by to fill it out.

My heart is a little bit sad right now. My FAVOURITE subject at Uni is the one I’m struggling most with… I don’t know why it is. I’ve had to re-do every task I’ve been given so far, because it hasn’t been up to scratch.

Take a deep breath, and breath…

In one of my other subjects, my core subject, I’ve been writing my assignment. Today I re-read it and it doesn’t even make proper scense. It’s due midnight Thursday. So I’m feeling a bit stressed.

***** UPDATE******

I stared writing this on Wednesday, but it’s Friday now! Gah- time has gotten away with me! I handed in that core assignment… I posted a ‘help me!’ message on twitter, and Carly replied! So I got it all checked over by her and Luke before I handed it in. So it does actually make sense. And it turns out I had just read it a few too many times, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought…

I am SO glad that we have 4 days off. I am planning on re-doing the drawings I’ve been struggling with, and also get some extra work done  for eLA. My parents are coming over tonight (and possibly Hayden) for a (nother) Passover meal. It should be nice. We don’t have them over very often. We should probably do that more…

Quick question, how often do you have your parents over for dinner? My parents live seriously close- like on the same property, and Luke’s live about 15 minutes away, but we never seem to have any of them over. We definitely see them a fair bit- my dad at work, mum at weight watchers, and everyone briefly every afternoon when we pick up Pepper. Luke’s mum we see at church, and we go over there sometimes for dinner, and we see Luke’s dad every couple of weeks, either for dinner or just in the afternoon after work…

SO it’s not like we don’t ever see them… but I still feel like we should invite them round more?

Sometimes I just need to buy something (anything). Does anyone else feel this way?

Luckily when I got the urge on Monday I had some Uni supplies I needed to get. *phew*. I also took the opportunity to get some things that I just liked. But that’s what spending money is FOR! Mind you, I bought two magazines on Monday, and haven’t actually looked through either one yet! I just have no time.

But back onto the subject of NEEDING to buy things…  for a while there it was pretty bad, and when I was younger (read: 12-20) it was more serious then it is now. ALL my money left my hands every week on movies, mostly on  CDs and food. This would have been okay if my pocket money was like $5, but it wasn’t, it was quite a bit more then that, and I was meant to spend it on new clothes and anything else I might actually NEED. You can imagine that during some of that time I was working full time, so yeah, that’s a fair amount of spending money! BUT I learnt my lesson, and felt a lot of buyer’s remorse.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I have been pretty crap with money always, and it only really stopped because I got married and Luke would get angry if I spent the money that was OURS. He’s never actually GOT angry at me (though I’ll tell you, it has been the other way ’round before!), I’m just pretty certain in my head that he WOULD get angry at me if I did.

I have been in trouble with my husband before. He has this crazy way of looking at you and not saying anything that makes you feel so quilty for what you’ve done. And he only brings it out on VERY special occasions, like when you’ve done something really stupidly selfish and wrong, so that kinda makes it worse, because it doesn’t just happen for anything, only the really bad things you did…

I’ve sort of made him sound like a bit of a bully, but he’s not. OBVIOUSLY you know that, because I already tell you all the super amazing things he does. And this is actually whole ‘getting angry at me ‘ thing is a positive thing too- because sometimes, we just have to face the facts, and the facts are that I am crap with money. There I said it. I imagine this is the feeling one has when they admit their problem at a support group. Without Luke I would have so many scrapbooking and craft supplies that I would have no money for food or to pay the gas bill… And I wouldn’t be going to EUROPE in October either!

I haven’t told you that exciting news officially yet, have I?! Our flights and tour are booked, and we’re leaving after Carmen‘s wedding (on the Monday). I shall let you know more details closer to the date!

So yeah, I still get the urge to spend things, and sometimes I do, but I make sure it’s with my personal finances, not the joint moneys… I would really love to hear from you in the comments if you suffer the same types of urges! Do you let them run free, free to be wild, or do you keep them under tight control with systems and rules, and restrictions? OR are you just super with money -what is your secret!?!

Happy Birthday Luke, I hope you enjoyed your day. xox

Saturday 6/3/10. We went and saw Alice in wonderland in the morning, after opening some presents. We had a coffee and wandered around the shops, and then went up to Montville to Poet’s cafe for lunch. Can you guess what we had from the pictures?!

Dinner was with friends at a Korean resturaunt in the Valley in Brisbane. So good. Pool afterwards.

The Tuesday before we’d gone out to dinner with Luke’s family, and on the Sunday night we went to Lefty’s at Maroochydore with my family to have a joint celebration for my mum and Luke (mum’s b’day is Tuesday). Sunday after church we also popped ’round to his mum’s for some cake- the only cake we had with all those celebrations!! He didn’t want a big deal of it, and I can’t really eat cake, so I just didn’t make any this year!

I’ll take you on a little photo journey…



Do you like my headband?!

1. What is something your wife always says to you?

“No”

2. What makes your wife happy?

Unexpected suprises as opposed to expected suprises, which she probably gets a lot of.

3. What makes your wife sad?

Sad movies.

4. How does your wife make you laugh?

By being really mean to me.

5. What was your wife like as a child?

Messy.

6. What is her favourite thing to do?

Scrapbook.

7. What does your wife do when you’re not around?

House work.

8. If your wife becomes famous, what will it be for?

Art or blogging.

9. What is your wife really good at?

Painting, scrapbooking and analogies.

10. What is your wife not very good at?

The morning.

11. What does your wife do for her job?

Read blogs/Twitter. <- This is not true!

12. What is your wife’s favourite food?

Garlic.

13. What makes you proud of your wife?

Her relationship with God.

14. If your wife were a cartoon character, who would she be?

Wonder Woman.

15. What do you and your wife do together?

Watch TV shows on our Media PC.

16. How are you and your wife the same?

…

17. How are you and your wife different?

How are we not different?

18. How do you know your wife loves you?

She cooks for me.

19. Where is your wife’s favourite place to go?

Home. <- or anwhere Luke and Pepper are together.

Love...