And another thought....

If ever you feel alone or invisible.... Psalm 139 is for you.

It's not so simple.

Life seems very crazy right now. Nothing seems to be working out, and yet, everything is. It's very confusing. I thought I was being led one way but now I'm being taken back the other way. Sometimes I wonder if, when I feel like I'm listening to God, I'm actually listening to myself. I wish I could hear him. I wish he could wrap his arms around me and make me feel safe and secure.

He does speak to me. And I do hear him. But I wish I could hear his voice loud and clear and feel his warmth. I don't like feeling far away.

^"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~ Jeremiah 29:11

I need to stop worrying and over-analyzing things. I need to be more patient, I think. And joyful. And loving. And have more self-control. I think I need to be more dedicated to the fruits of the spirit.





And I need to stop being so afraid.

I actually get it now....

You can't resist those cute, funny pink bunnies!

Duracell commercials are so cool.

Better Life ♥

I've been long in need of you in my life,
I've been looking through the open doors,
And heaven knows how we could turn the other way,

Can you tell me why you let go?
Can you tell me why you let go
When you know it's true?

There's a better life,
There's a better life
And I know it's true,
There's a better life,
There's a better life
And it makes me high,

I've been chasing things at everybody likes,
I've been hoping things will work out fine,
And I feel I'll never know,
How it feels to be alone,

Can you tell me why you let go?
Can you tell me why you let go?

There's a better life,
There's a better life
And I know it's true,
There's a better life,
There's a better life
And it makes me high

Can you tell me why you let go?
 

There's a better life,
And it wait for you.
There's a better life.

There's a better life.

Partners in Crime

After church today Katherine game over to my house to watch movies and play the Wii with me and Justin. I had to leave early for youth group because I'm in the band. Due to the freezing cold weather, the warm house and 30 minutes left of the movie we were watching, neither Justin nor Katherine wanted to accompany me, so I left them to it while I braved the cold youth room in my winter coat.

I was of half a mind to drag them with me, but they looked so cozy on the couch;  I decided against in the end, even though a little voice in my head was telling me they were sure to get up to some kind of mischief in my absence despite the brief amount of time there was.

Upon arriving at youth group our friend Daniel asked me where they were. He laughed when I told him and said, 'Have they trashed the house yet?' I shook my head, which prompted him to reply with, 'They're sure to trash something before they get here.'

Sure enough, the two of them bounced up the stairs together while the band was still practicing. When we finished I went to join them. 

They were whispering together; two guilty faces looked up and eyed me as I approached.

'Erin,' Justin began, 'we sort of - '

He didn't get to finish his sentence because Katherine threw her arms around me and blurted, 'We're sorry! We're sorry! It was just in fun! We feel so terrible!'

'What did you do?' I demanded. After she released her hold, they began to explain how the movie had finished with twenty minutes to spare before they had to leave, so they'd come up with the clever little plan of adorning my facebook status with the words 'I smell like a baboon's butt' and altering my profile picture to said baboon's butt. What amuses me most is that apparently Katherine would 'still love me' if this were a true fact.

I was laughing because they felt so bad about what they'd done. Apparently mum had discovered their mischief and made them feel incredibly guilty in the car on the way up. Hence their jumpy entrance.

I've deleted it now but you may have been one of the 'lucky' few who saw the baboon, such as Beth, who commented with 'I just vomited a little in my mouth.' My apologies, Beth. I know now not to leave them alone in the house together with my computer nearby! Needless to say, I still love them. :) 

SALT

Haha, success!

So yesterday I went to Gough Whitlam Park to do the stop-motion photography for my TAFE assignment. I'm making a 30 second promotional video for my youth group, SALT. The majority of this video is going to be taken up by a stop motion clip of some kiddies from Salt making a mural on a wall in the park.

It went quite well, considering only 5 people turned up in time for filming. It was a bit cold, so thank you to those who made an effort to help me out! And thank you Lord for the sun!

We chalked up the whole wall, but I'd forgotten to bring some cloths to clean it off at the end... ended up making a dozen trips to the toilet block to refill a water bottle to tip over the wall, and used Justin's socks to rub it off. Aren't we clever. We did a pretty okay job considering our lack of cleaning resources. Got a bit worried when a police car drove through the car park, slowed down, and finally kept going. It did look a little bit like we were doing daylight graffiti... luckily the police didn't think so, or at least weren't bothered to get out of their car and question us.

Here's a few quick snapshots of the 1,877 photographs I took! That's 4GB worth of photos, for you techy people ;)

I wish that I could work it out....

It's a long day with short hours.

I hate how crying can feel very relieving, but also so exhausting.

Hey!

"Do not be anxious about anything; but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understand, will guard your hearts and your minds in Chris Jesus." - Philippians 4:6-7

Thank you for reminding me lovely :)

"It's a blustery day, Piglet..."

As a matter of fact it was raining all over the Hundred Acre Wood. 

There was a thunderstorm on page 71, and on page 73 there was a bit of a cloudburst. 

It rained, and it rained, and it rained.  

The rain rain rain came down down down in rushing rising rivlets  

Till the river crept out of its bed, and crept right into Piglet's 
For Piglet he was frightened with quite a rightful fright 
And so in desperation a message he did write 
 

Help! 
P-P-Piglet 
Me! 
 

He placed it in a bottle and it floated out of sight 
And the rain rain rain came down down down  

So Piglet started bailing 
He was unaware atop his chair While bailing he was sailing

And the rain rain rain came down down down 
and the flood rose up-up-upper 
Pooh too was caught and so he thought 
I must rescue my supper 
Ten honey pots he rescued enough to see him through 
But as he sopped up his supper 
The river sopped up Pooh 
And the water twirled and tossed him 
In a honey pot 
... rain rain rain came down down down 
when the rain rain rain came down down down ... 

So the Hundred Acre Wood got floodier and floodier, but the water couldn't come up to Christopher Robin's house, 

so that's where everyone was gathering. 

It was a time of great excitement. 

But in the midst of all excitement Eeyore stubbornly stuck to his task of house hunting for Owl.  

Eeyore: There's one. Cozy cottage. Nice location. Bit damp for Owl though.

 
Meanwhile little Roo made an important discovery.  

Roo: Look! I've rescued a bottle! And it's got something in it too!  

Christopher Robin: It's a message! And it says: "Help! P-P-Piglet. ME!" Owl, you fly over to Piglet's house, 

and tell him we'll make a rescue. 
Owl: A rescue ! Yes, yes, of course, of course. 

 
So Owl flew out over the flood and he soon spotted two tiny objects below him. 

One was little Piglet caught in the whirlpool and the other was Pooh trying to get the last bit of honey from the pot. 

 Pooh: Yum, yum. 
Piglet: Oh, Owl, I don't need ... but I'm afraid, I'm scared. 
Owl: Now, now Piglet, chin up and all that sort of thing. 

A rescue is being thought of. Be brave, little Piglet ! 
Piglet: It's awfully hard to be brave when you're such a small animal. 
Owl: Then to divert your small mind from your unfortunate predicament I should tell you an amusing antidote. 

It concerns a distant cousin of mine who became so frightened during a flood that he... 
Piglet: I beg your pardon Owl, but I t-t-think we're coming to a very big waterfall. 
Owl: Please, no interruptions. Ah, there you are, Pooh Bear. Now, to continue my story. 
Christopher Robin: Look! There's Pooh ! Over here Pooh! 
Pooh: Oh, hello Christopher Robin. 
Christopher Robin: Pooh, thank goodness you're safe. Have you seen Piglet? 
Piglet: Excuse me, I'm here. What I mean is, here I am. 
Christopher Robin: Pooh ! You rescued Piglet! 
Pooh: I did ? 
Christopher Robin: Yes. And it was a very brave thing to do. 
Pooh: It was? 
Christopher Robin: You're our hero! 
Pooh: I am? 
Christopher Robin: And as soon as the flood is over I shall give you a hero party! 

Love.

The most amazing thing about the following images is that I feel like I could have written every single word myself. Or maybe I couldn't have. But either way, the following words are exactly how I feel. So best friends, this is for you. I love you. So take these words to heart and know that I'm thanking God for you right now, how beautiful you are and how amazed I am that you care. Thank you thank you thank you.

18 ♥

So yesterday was Bethie's 18th birthday. I got her The Young Victoria on dvd, because the silly girl hasn't seen it! If anyone knows Beth, it is her kind of movie. So we're going to watch it together on Friday, and she will love it. I love it. It's such a perfect movie. And so beautiful.

Gorgeous. I love Albert.


On another note, I've been counting down for a while til our USA trip, but I haven't yet mentioned it on my blog.... 9 weeks to go! Super excited!

I missed the good part; then I realized I started looking for excuses.

I try to justify how I feel by saying to myself that what you're doing isn't good for you...

But for some reason I'm jealous. And I hate that.

tickets

So I'm cleaning my room. It's one of those throw-everything-out kind of room cleanings, so I'm going through all the junky drawers and tossing things away/discovering things I forgot I had.

Such as many of the tickets I possess. I subconsciously collect them; they end up in my room and then I keep them. But I've come to notice that tickets are a good thing to collect, as some of mine hold some good memories:

Such as the Ignite Film Festival Awards Night ticket, dated September 6th, 2008. This is where I was when my youth leader's first daughter Evie was born.

The train ticket from my first Youth Surge. I wish I could rewind and experience that night again, or maybe just watch over what happened.

WICKED

The Importance of Being Earnest! Which I saw at NIDA with my babies Bethie and Kristy. And Mom :)

A Hawaiian Airlines boarding pass - Honolulu to Sydney, the trip home in 2005

Disneyland passes :D

Coldplay concert... over a year ago now... 

A Caesar's Palace keycard. Yup I've been there. Just like in Ocean's Eleven and Iron Man!

And yeah now I'm gonna go finish cleaning my room.... :)

Come now, don't you want to see what a difference you've made in me?

Hello fellow bloggers!

Well this morning I left the house wearing three layers and a beanie. So I've brought my laptop from the depths of my bedroom out in to the sunlight in an attempt to regain a little energy and generally enjoy the weather. I've already shed my hoody and feel much more comfortable. In my defense when I left this morning there was still fog in the air, the sun was yet to climb over the city buildings and the TAFE classrooms are hideously chilly; you would be a warmer if you stripped naked in the snow and sculled a Slurpee. Not to mention that would be much more thrilling than sitting for two and a half hours in Flash class. Today the teacher wrote a website link up on the whiteboard and instructed us to spend the lesson going through the tutorial on the site, while he went down for coffee and came back to check the rugby scores on his computer. Joy.

Anyway, yesterday was Mother's Day and I got my mother some flowers. She'll probably read this blog about me giving away my spectacularly awesome scheme to bring her said flowers, but I'd like to share it with the rest of you as well, so...

*SPOILER ALERT FOLLOWING*

I was contemplating for a long time how I would bring mom flowers with her juice and little presents in bed on Sunday morning without her previously knowing of their existence. There aren't really any flowers shops in short walking distance; the nearest one is on King Street and it would've taken me at least 40 minutes to go there and back, and I didn't even know when they opened. So I was thinking about this as I was walking up to catch the bus into Newtown on Saturday afternoon, and as I rounded to corner onto Enmore Road I nearly smashed my shins into a massive flower pot with some magnificent lilies in it. 

I looked up and it just so happened that a flower shop had opened that day, literally 5 minutes from where I live! So was I overjoyed and skipped inside immedaitely to enquire about their opening time the next morning. 

I woke my brother at 6:45 am to make mum orange juice, and at 7 I raced down to the shop (still half-dressed in my pyjamas) and bought her a bouquet of those beautiful lilies I'd seen yesterday. They look and smell absolutely gorgeous. Here's a picture. Don't you love them? 

When I got back we went into her room together and gave her her presents. She was splendidly surprised, and I must say it's probably the best job we've ever done keeping secret about what we had planned for her. We also got her a little book of Sudoku, called A Sudoku of One's Own, and I made her a voucher for Yolanda's Mexican cafe in Ventura, so we shall take her out there when we go on our trip in a couple months.

Went out for breakfast before church. Had bacon and eggs, and it was nice. Played guitar at church as usual; came home and watched Dead Poets Society (*tear*) while mum and dad went for a walk to the beach, or somewhere. Went to youth group that night and played guitar again. Sat in the back row at Salt for like, the first time ever. It was odd. At the end the Dicker family came to visit us; as I forgot to mention, our youth minister and his wife just had their second daughter, Josie. So now Evie, who is not yet 2, has a little sister. They are such darlings. :) 

And yeah.

A few other things worth mentioning: I saw Iron Man 2 on Thursday night with Katherine. I didn't get around to reviewing it but I definitely recommend it. Also, we really need another Earnest meeting, darlings. You know who you are.

And yeah, I think we won.

Here it is. Probably the most spectacular video you will ever see. Made by me, starring my wonderful friends. Enjoy!

Well why don't we?

So my fellow blogger and good friend Kristen wrote what she has penned as a 'Bucket Statement' on her blog Cool Is What You Make It and challenged the rest of us to write one too. So here is my Bucket Statement of the things I want to do in the future, in no particular order:

- Read the whole bible

- Write and film a movie

- Get paid for photography

- Go overseas with a friend (or two)

- Write a book and get it published

- Ballroom dance

- Become a youth leader

- See the Pyramids

- Move out of home

- Fall in love

- Learn to drive

- Do Year 13

- Take the Orient Express from Venice to London

- Take a road trip with friends

- Buy my parents something with the money I make from writing (preferably a house in Hawaii)

- Drive a motorbike

- Learn parkour

- Go white-water rafting

- Get a job

- Learn another language

- Learn to play a John Mayer song

- Sponsor a child by myself

- Memorize a whole book of the bible (probably one of Paul's letters)

- See U2 live

- See performances of Macbeth, Othello, and The Mousetrap

- Perform in a Shakespeare play

- Play a huge game of 'Monster in the Dark' with my friends

- Be a better listener

- Learn to think before I speak

- Trust God fully with the unknown

it's better to say too much... than never to say what you need to say

"Shoot until you can't stand up. Then shoot some more."

So for video class today we just watched Youtube videos the whole time, to get ideas for our assignment. How amazing (and time consuming!) are these? 






parkour motion reel from saggyarmpit on Vimeo.

Wishful thinking :)

Just for fun. I wish for....
Cinnamon rolls. I have a craving.

Strawberry ice cream. I saw this picture and wanted some.

A canon video camera.

A leather computer chair.

These shoes. Like. Oh. My. Gosh. I don't think they actually exist. But words cannot describe how badly I want a pair of these. *loves*