That’s it. The last wedding before ours is over. The sixth or seventh, I’ve lost count.

Although nice and sometimes helpful (how selfish), it does get tiring going to weddings and sitting there analysing what you will and wont do.

Brad and Andy got married today outside on farm down infront of a river, a stunning spot. They were incredibly fortunate by the time 4pm came around, the rain that had persisted all day stopped. The whole afternoon was very them, good fun, and Andy’s dress was beautifully simple. Three bridesmaids and five groomsmen!

I’m still kicking myself that I forgot the camera.

Congratulations too to Gillian and Chris whose wedding we unfortunatley couldn’t make it to. Wish I was a time traveler for more reasons than one!

Wedding

pony.jpgThis morning things were much and frustrating. I went for a stint to get my eyes sorted only to be gobsmobbled by the dollar value an unavoidable somewhat heretical issue relating to the cost of lenses not frames. Fortunately, cost aside, my eyes have declined only ever so slightly and are coping marvelously with the contact lenses. I should have ‘the new look’ in a week or two with my pocket sorely narrower. They are nice frames. If you have an OPSM voucher to take any amount off the cost of lenses I would kill you for it. Please make it mine. I can promise you blog credit (or at least much thanks).

So my head is cleared momentarily while my eyes have lights shone into them and are stretching, stretching to make out minute H’s and P’s, then my head is bombed with the cost – which overshaddows the previous: oh there’s so much left to do before the wedding/uni enrollment is slightly different than it should be/Tabor’s chasing me for my certificate which has a number wrong on it and I can’t find it etc. etc. etc.

So I go home and I annoy my sister while looking for an OPSM voucher (that ‘might’ve’ come recently) and I tell her to tell me why she likes her boy and then I snooze on her bed and find a potato lunch.

Then I go to search for sanity.

So this cafe is no longer ‘right’ and that cafe is full, so I go up the mountain and keep going to that nice place and it’s not so full as it normally is on a beautiful day, and I order a big coffee while confusing the waitress and I go out and sit outside. In a short time I get up and move tables and enjoy the sun and then the latte and the copious lists, literal lists that keep streaming from my eyes and I am writing it out and sprewing the junk from my brain storing it elsewhere for later and I’m giving myself time to enjoy and to think and to stop and to bah expectations. I dictate an approach to life that resides with the idealistic possible.

I go for a wander in search of an illusive comb/clip. Drive and wander. Drive and wander and wander bang into an old friend and talk and leave and wander and buy some fun antique Christmas decorations for hardly anything at all. I don’t find the comb.

Then I drive off the mountain and fight cars for places and spend twenty minutes with the best ever Myers Store person ever while they sort how to ‘fly in’ something we’re after for the wedding. Victoria hasn’t any left. Brisbane does but you have to pay extra. Perth is shocking on the phone but finally successful. 17 left. She pulls strings for me and gets in extras to check sizes. I leave details, a smile and the promise of a call within 10 days. It sometimes pays to use the word wedding.

Geoff and I bash around in the kitchen and cook nice food then watch a crazy movie we’ve had stored up. Science of Sleep. It is brilliant. It’s totally whacked. We talk and think and talk and think and then I tell him to go to bed and now I’m home, here.

image from here 

Coffee Life Wedding Words

pork.jpgWho says I can’t cook.

Tonight I made a variation of the following recipe (Inspired only by the fact that I had to make something with pork because I’d decided to use it). Click here for the recipe.

I bypassed the marinade as I was hungry and it was dinner time and Geoff and Laura were waiting around, so I just dumped it on as I fried it (or seared or whatever the heck you do with pork… cooked in a pan?) to add more flavour…

Of course my other shortcuts include minced garlic over garlic cloves, and I didn’t manage to toast the pine nuts (Because I couldn’t buy them like that and I confess that didn’t think about it enough to put them in our oven).

It tasted great though. Smelt spectacular and I’d do it again.

Exactly the same way mind you, cooking should not take hours. (And yes it did look a lot like the picture).

Props to Google for procuring a very happy to my stomach search on ‘pork medallion recipe’. You’ve done it again!

Cooking

conversathhion.jpgGoogle has surprisingly little about the theory on ‘levels of conversation’.

If you happen to find anything – do share.

During a recent talk on journaling and its usefulness (for some) in engaging with God, these 5 levels of conversation were presented as part of the background information:

  • Swapping greetings
  • Giving information
  • Exchanging experiences/details
  • Sharing feelings
  • Baring your soul

I was amused when I reflected on a variety of application of these five levels.

The first that came to mind was that of Geoff and my relationship, especially in its early stages and the intriguing progression to five. Interestingly on the odd days where communication isn’t so great, we hit level three, perhaps four but it doesn’t extend beyond that. Sometimes it doesn’t need to extend beyond a four. As very much a ‘quality time’ person, I like conversations with those select friends to hit a 4-5 level although sometimes I think that my ‘fours’ are something of my own creation, thoughts over feelings.

Blogging falls into a three-four. Experiences and details. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that any good (personal) blogging has to get to this level for readers to stick around, along with some half reasonable writing. It’s also probably wiser to keep it at this kind of level with maybe a very rare five. Fives probably shouldn’t take the stage of the public arena.

I am positive that there would be some debate around where four hits five, for some a four is the equivalent of a five. I think it’s a positive thing to be confident enough in yourself to let others know what’s really going on. I like honesty. And I like how I’ve grown from being a close fisted three into someone who can definitely deal with fours, and now (selectively) with fives, I think I’m better off for it.

And then there is engaging with teenagers. Sometimes you’re lucky to hit three. I lead youth where one the kids sits at a level one and you have to push to get anything more. It’s a beautiful thing watching teenagers become more confident in who they are and in what they believe – or at least in their willingness to ask questions. I don’t need them to bare their souls with me, but I’d like to be the kind of leader where if they needed to, they could feel safe in doing that.

It has got to be worthwhile being intentional about swapping fours and fives with Geoff and with other close friends. My question is, is it worth striving in each conversation for further levels? Sure it’s not always appropriate, but I think I am a often quite hesitant where there is space for more. I dislike ‘small talk’ yet sometimes it has it’s place – it’s also easier, less effort but about a billion times less rewarding. And if you crawl out to that not so safe place, do you get people following you and some real talk happening or do you just wind up looking full of yourself?

Blogging Life Ministry Personality Relationships

Music