Well, I promised Burkie I think, that I’d let him know when various sermons I mentioned made it online. They are up finally and so if you are so short of other stuff to do, you can dowload/listen to them. The two I can recommend are:

Who in the World Cares
Evangelism

(Don’t bother so much with the others). I like Rob Carter’s preaching, Peter Downes not so much, hrm yes he is the pastor at Vineyard.

Go here.

Oh the kindness of universtities.

Last night I get home and find ‘when’ enrollement information for Deakin. So much for their promise of mid-January?

A lot seems to be based online. All of which needs your student ID. Which I don’t have (possibly because I confirmed by email). How thoughtful, how well organised. They get an email today. And I wait another week probably to hear from them to email someone else no doubt.

Enrollment is on Jan 20th.
Let see what I’ve gotten myself in for.

Spent from 11:00-8:00 working. Long shift. I intended to spend a lot of it thinking about something but Christmas people are crazy, didn’t have the time or the room. Everyone should shop early and so prevent the rush. Bookstores seem to especially get a lot of customers (far more than clothing shops) around this time of year. Books make good presents. You don’t need a size to fit them, just a rough estimation of readability and genre, and away you go. If all else fails take a gift return card. Simple. I looked up everything from extreme sports to Amelia Bedelia to obsure biography’s. I love people that bring in a list: author and title – they are beyond human. Had a ripper of a headache by the time I left.

Much thanks to Dave, who dropped by to say hello, and to Jess C also (not that she’ll read this) – met (rather than just saw) Travis (um, worshipinallnations on gush) and another guy who’s name I didn’t get, they were off to some 21’st or something and happened to drop by just before I left.

Spent a good part of the evening thinking and such, also randomly reading bits from a book I have on third-culture-kids.

We are a different breed. No one really gets the whole missionary kid thing unless they’ve experienced it (well no one has ever really tried to understand that part of me). I find it really strange when I come across things I’ve forgotten. The fact that we had a housegirl (Elizabeth) and that we had cold showers mostly all the time (as there was no hot water tap, except for certain houses), couldn’t drink water out of the tap…

In many ways I entirely understand why people don’t ask. They don’t know what to ask. And it’s not as if the conversation is very reciporical – I mean you ask about their ‘childhood’ and you get the ‘same house, same school’ or maybe a few moves or significant events. I have an entirely different lifestyle (that I miss sorely from time to time) behind me.

Part of me doesn’t just want any old person to ask, to pretend to understand what it’s like, the majority of people say, “Oh, that’s really interesting” like they know what you’re talking about, which is ‘gag’ material, false or just sickeningly bad.

I think if I began perhaps to talk about stuff… that it would have to be with someone fairly significant and would take a long time to eventuate. The rest needs to be left to the people I can properly reminicse with.

“ But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”- Luke 1:30-33

Ah
funny how God puts stuff under my nose sometimes.

Rather than the blog bug, I think I have the blog leech tonight. What post number am I up to? Shows what a day off work can do to me, (be thankful I have this job).

I spent the morning (and into the afternoon) about 3hrs straight reading this Elisabeth Elliot book (3 in one) I found in my sisters room while I was looking for a Pijin New Testament. It was unbelievably nice to sit/lie on the couch in the sun with no one disturbing me for hours and hours. I was going to do the week 3 of Advent thing (that Laura’s left on the coffee table) but somehow I didn’t get around to it.

After lunch of some psuedo curry (pumpkin and potato – half of which ended up as my dog’s extremely late breakfast), I sat online distracted and doing random quiz things (thanks Katie :P) – which are now a few posts down). Walked up the road and went to the hairdressers up there, got a fringe cut (nothing drastic, just on the side, only cost me $5). Had a guy cut my hair again. Posted something to someone (one of you perhaps). Came home.

Mum has left a lot of books on the table. I don’t know how many of you I’ve told about her selling secondhand books on ebay (that she picks up from oppshops and garage sales and who knows where else) and on a homeschooling webiste, but the whole thing has gone slightly out of hand. She buys (very cheaply, but still) at a lot faster rate than she sells.

Dad comes out, looks at it, makes a non-subtle comment about wondering how many she has and if a number might wake her up a little. Laura swallows the bait and enthuses me into counting them.

There are over 200 books sitting (temporarily) on our dining room table because of a lady who came to look earlier in the day.

NB: hobby, not business (she doesn’t keep any records hardly, aside from emails. Lack of organisation is scary).

So we count.
It takes us a long time.

We have 3,642 sellable books in our house. Not our books. Ones to sell. We’d have that many again (maybe more) between the six of us. Laura’s estimate is 7000-8000.

That’s excessive.

The majority are young adults type novels or kids picture books.

Mum was annoyed and not shocked when we told her what we’d done, “I don’t need numbers to know I have a lot.”

I have possibly mentioned before the collecting gene I half inherited (and have seemed to mostly grow out of). This is evidence of that. I’d seriously consider buying her stock or ‘partnering’ with her if it would get more done and I had the time. Hannah helps a bit to earn a few dollars. Not too hard to keep track of profits, I mean really, the most basic thing you need is a spreadsheet or access or something.

Credit to Mum, because she definitely knows what is sellable. If only she’d do something about it – then we could reclaim the laundry and the hall and all the other corners they make their way into.

Need a copy of a certain book, in the aforementioned categories? Please ask, I take them to my room randomly and decide to keep them if they are good, she wont even notice one gone ;)and would gladly give it away anyway.