2033590_f329b4dde8.jpgI’ve been bashing around in my little house on my own these past few days and shall continue doing so until the weekend where I’m heading off to Tasmania with work for a few days.

A close friend of my housemate’s died unexceptedly a few days ago – it’d be good if you could pray for her and for the girl’s family.

Tonight I’ve had a crack at making some homemade baked beans. We used to eat them now and then in the Solomons (influence of friends from the US). I didn’t have access to the recipe I know works, nor the time to soak pinto (etc) beans for over a day. So I scoured the internet and found this recipe.

I have added celery, used crushed tomatoes instead of tomato sauce, used brown sugar instead of molasses (only because I know other b-beans used brown sugar), minced garlic not cloved garlic a four-bean mix instead of pinto beans. Creativity….

It’s cooking now and smells rather good.

Unfortunately I pulled the glass cover off of my opshop casserole dish and put it in the sink and it decided to crack quite spectacularly on me because of the temperature change. Oh well…

Cooking

Yesterday I took my small group – year seven girls, out for afternoon tea, and I had a blast.

Today I found out that one of them blogs. No, not just Myspace, but WordPress. How savvy is that! It even looks good.

I am proud.

A LL E K X SS

Blogging Church Ministry

02.jpgWith a holiday to have, an engagement party to throw, a wedding to plan, a house to find (none of this on my own of course…) I still find a lot of satisfaction in being organised.

Theoretically this could play out in several ways.

As much as I love computers there is nothing quite like good old fashioned paper for making to-do lists. So there is paper. I strongly advocate its use. It is recyclable, cross-offable, portable, not dependant upon technology or an internet connection.

When it does come to technology and being organised I have discovered the following tools.

8apps Orchestrate – An online task list. I think use is by invitation only (let me know if you’re interested)

Google Calendar – You need a gmail account (also by invite – ask), you can set it up to msg (phone) you reminders, or email reminders and you get a fantastic month-by-month or however you choose to customise it overview. Quite ideal for setting ‘reoccuring’ appointments. The other appealing thing is that it can all be categorised by colour.

I spent hours during my final year catergorising things by colour. This is something that seems to work well for my visual memory. It must travel the same lanes as: remembering that a CD is a certain colour but have no idea of the name and so on.

All Consuming – I use this to track the books I’m reading. Thats as far as I take it, the place is much more an online community but I haven’t bothered to delve in and ‘get it’. All Consuming stems off of 43 Things (which I don’t use) but that’s a life-goal setting etc. tool.

Something I came across recently is the PocketMod.  I haven’t used it yet as my printer spat the chips and after I’d gone and bought a new cartridge, I was to busy printing assignments to bother. This little paper thing that has evolved from a technological standpoint is fully customisable (think Google Calendar), retains the to-do list as needed (think 8apps) and can supposedly fit whatever your individualistic requirements require.

I am about to investigate online gift registries and I am familiar with things like amazon wishlists.

What other useful organisation tools do you know of? Online or offline. What’s the best out there?

Now to share my hypocracy – I am sitting at my computer with The Cat Empire playing still in my pajamas, it is nearly lunch time and I haven’t even eaten breakfast.

Life

If I, a third person do this thing, does it become a meme?

Idea credit to Geoffrey and extra thievery off of Paul.

Reading:

Eyes Wide Open by Michael Frost. I haven’t actually touched it for a week – it is about seeing God in the ordinary and I am loving it and getting heaps out of it. He is much easier to read than Hirsch. The stuff is also very applicable as to where I kind of think God wants me to direct my year seven girls small group.

I am also reading Luke. I seem to be forever stuck in Luke. I was going very slowly through it by myself then Vocare happened and I seem to be still there. I have occasional deviations into Romans and Psalms etc… but when the Bible reading happens (never as much as it should) it generally pivots towards Luke.

I am also reading way too many blogs than is healthy.

Listening to:

Well, I borrowed a, “Me Without You’ CD from my friend Analise and confess I don’t really like it, I heard one other song and absolutely loved it apparently each CD is very different and she happened to lose it just before I could get my hands on it. Also a little bit of Pony Up (Analise again – some of which I like), a random selection from my Ipod with a current ‘often listened to’ by Ben Lee  of all people (He really can’t sing that well), Lior (again) and I found out tonight that the Shins are playing at Rubys in August!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But it’s $60 and I so want to go!

Watching:

Nothing much. I caught a tiny bit of the news tonight. Saw an online video (Getaway segment) of a place I’m eyeing off for um… honeymoon.

Loving:

Geoff and the interesting things that come out of his mouth (words and such – don’t get too obscure!). Being engaged, because looking at wedding stuff is really a lot more fun than I’ll ever admit and heading towards marriage is beyond cool.  That by tomorrow 4:00pm all my assignments will be handed in and I’ll be officially on holidays for 9 sweet weeks.

That was an easy post to write – but definitely not one of the more interesting ones. Prepare yourselves, soon I will have more time than I know what to do with!

Just to be annoying and start a meme, I tag: Anne Jackson (when her website starts working again) and Analise.

Blogging Life