Published February 9, 2008 by Rebecca Matheson

Peace and Pratchett

“Writing is but thinking on paper; and if you have any thoughts at all, you may commit them to writing” (Harvey Newcomb)

This is about the state of life, Terry Pratchett, music, WordPress and a theory.

I do not think I have experienced being this settled for a very long time. Life feels really good on a whole number of levels and on okay levels. Settled isn’t always good but this kind I think it is.

There has got to be something distinctly wrong with the levels of stress that happen in preparation for a wedding/marriage. Infact the whole boyfriend-girlfriend, near-fiance, fiance thing isn’t really the greatest. Despite sitting on a high for good parts of it and it being really, really fun – a spot of massive learning. There’s all this unspoken emphasis and pressure on self, sexuality, time, friendships and more.

Farewell oh carefree days of being too-young-a-teenager to care. Suddenly, I may have a marriage and a husband to think about and that’s not no work, but pffffffffh all this planning, stress, unrecognised pressure is gone. I have my head back, my brain back, and a good lot of self freedom along with someone who makes me incredibly happy by just existing.

I’ve always thought I was a pragmatic person. Our friends Beth and Brian have this theory where when two people become married the one-ness contributes in a few amusing ways. Things even out. Such as, Bec is more funny now she’s married to Geoff. Which of course is the compliment to Geoff, and not to me. The sideswipe compliment. We use it on just about anything regardless. Geoff is more attractive, I am taller. On the pragmatic thing though. I really like how Geoff has a way of looking at things especially regarding people, his observations and understandings of situations go far beyond where I would ever even arrive. It’s shocked into me this realisation that I miss an awful lot. I hope it wears off onto me.

The other things I’m really enjoying at the moment are simple;

Terry Pratchet books – which I always avoided in the past because his fans are fanatical and I wasn’t sure. Sure the volume of characters means that you cannot go near the books when you’ve got much else on, but my they’re funny. My delight was only extended while sitting on the train reading, a girl sat down next me and pulled one out. Spread the amusement. It’s somewhat global.

Lately I’ve been discovering a whole lot more about coding through the need to butcher and expand WordPress templates. Sure it means you’re up to your elbows in a mash of CSS, HTML and the dreaded PHP, but it’s beautifully satisfying when you get something to work. I like to expand my repertoire where it’s useful. It’s fun, it spits out something visual and when that visual matches what you’re after it is fantastic.

On Thursday night Jess and I went to a Justin Grounds gig. I bought the tickets for Geoff who loves his stuff, however work was a moron and kept him there. It was really good to spend time with Jess. We got to Northcote (across the city) on time. The supporting act started a bit later than we realised and Grounds later still. We found a chocolate/coffee/restaurant place. Cocoinc. Ordered tentatively. Enjoyed ourselves and were ready to be hit by the cost when it rounded out to a $2.50 coffee and a $4.00 gourmet hot-chocolate. I enjoyed that coffee oh-so much more, and it was good coffee. Perhaps I should move to Northcote? It’s too a strange part of Melbourne really.

At about 8:40pm we walked back to the venue and caught the tail end of the supporting act Osh-10. I’m kind of glad we weren’t there earlier as conversation seemed more important. They were okay. Jazz and ethereal based, just vocals and bass but their songs sounded fairly uniform. Perhaps it’s just not my thing. The girl’s face looked strikingly like my cousin-in-law.

Justin Grounds was fantastic as ever. His recordings do work for his music – but he is still better live. I have seen him play at informal gigs before, it’s still somewhat magical when you have a whole room of people sitting silent because it’s just so beautiful. I confess at one I nearly cried. There is something when music brings to the surface the gut of who Jesus is without even mentioning him by name.

Coffee Culture Design General Humor Life Music Relationships Technology

justin grounds Life love marriage terry pratchett wordpress

Published February 5, 2008 by Rebecca Matheson

Starred Posts: late Jan- early Feb

The list was getting far too big, so to inundate you with yet another blog post, check out some or even all of the links below.

These are things that over the past month have inspired me, made the think, laugh, made me go ‘Ah ha!’ and all other whatevers that have given a somewhat slightly stronger response than the other posts I’ve been reading. ie. They wound up in Google Starred section.

By some fluke it seems the girls have won this time, with some nice familiar regular ‘starred’ faces showing up, along with some new ones.

Working from late Jan through to Feb:

Handling Offenses – Lori Boucher, Confessions of a Pastors Wife
The Abbey – Christina Aitken, Sojourn
My Search for the Perfect Cafe [And what it taught me about blogging] – Darren Rowse, ProBlogger
Chip Kidd on Graphic Design – Poppy, Poppy Talk
Anti-foundationism – Joe Thorn, Pastor Joe Thorn
An Open Letter to Fred Phelps and Westbro Church – Katherine Coble, Just Another Pretty Farce
Friendship: The other side – Makeesha Fisher, Swinging From the Vine
Kuler Color Tool – Jessica, No Accounting for Taste
Purify your WordPress Experience – Heather, Oh My Stinkin Heck
Mettes Pottery {Home} – Holly Becker, Decor8
Prophetic Voices – Makeesha Fisher, Swinging From the Vine
Are we unbalanced? – Jessica Hagy, Indexed
Field Notes Set – Poppy, Poppy Talk
On Love & Risk – Joshua Longbrake, Love in the Key of Longbrake
Happiness – Samantha, Blonde Musings
Little Zoo – Jordan Ferney, Oh Happy Day
Television Q & A – Heather, Oh My Stinkin Heck
West Elm Newbies – Jordan Ferney, Oh Happy Day
The Bible – Katherine Coble, Just Another Pretty Farce
The Work of God’s Kingdom – Fred, Of First Importance
Kill Plastic Bags with Taxes, Look to Ireland – Emily, Inhabitat
Yes we can – Makeesha Fisher, Swinging From the Vine

Blogging Christianity Church Create Design Humor Life Ministry News Relationships Social Justice Technology Words

Blogging Design great posts Life starred posts

Published January 18, 2008 by Rebecca Matheson

With recommendation

Bec and Geoff are married

Hello. A two week hiatus is about the longest All Said and Done has ever seen. I did forget to wish myself/blog a happy 3rd birthday on December the 12th. So happy 3 years.

My mind can now muse wedding without being at all stressfully consumed. It is a strange thing, there is a whole side of my brain that has returned cleanspun. I have yet to wade through every single photo (Although I’m giving it a good shot – hurry up people if you haven’t posted them yet!) and present unwrapping will happen tonight.

We arrived back late last night… a good four hours later than intended as our car blew up on the way home. This was really the most major drama, bar the Spamalot tickets that were booked for the wrong date but that turned our stupendously and ended happily with far better seats than we started with. The car is probably very very dead and is sitting in a little town four hours away. Thanks to kind friends and parents we did arrive home, but somewhat more tired than you should be after a two week honeymoon.

As details are treacherous, especially when talking about your honeymoon, I shall outline the weeks away in a series of links. Where and what: the stay, entertainment and food highlights. No you’ll never know the whole story even if you tap into my brain, I’ve probably sub foldered everything. It’s safer you know.

After all that. I am very, very happy to be Mrs. Matheson and it sure is nice to be home.

Blogging Coffee Cooking Culture Holidays Life Relationships Wedding

Published December 10, 2007 by Rebecca Matheson

Five levels of conversation

Google 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

Published November 20, 2007 by Rebecca Matheson

Starred: October-November

I’ve starred a mass of 61 posts this time – so they might not all make it up here. I have a funny feeling quite a few of them are design related i.e. I’ve gone ‘oooh that’s nice/inspirational’, I will warn accordingly. Some may have also been linked to specificially throughout the month, this is basically me clearing out my ‘google reader starred posts yet again’ – all for the record.

some thoughts/responses to gender stuff – Makeesha/Swinging from the Vine

Hermenutic – Joshua/Love in the Key of Longbrake

Creativity should not be controlled – Naked Pastor

Complexity described – Mark/Anecdote (I love Ursula LeGuin)

Still loving gallery style photo walls – Abbey Goes Design Scouting (design)

Julia Rothman – Decor8 (design)

A lesson in typography – Poppytalk (youtube clip)

sew green – cool blog of the week – Poppytalk

lifedance – notafigment/Anna (art work)

we are not master builders – we are not messiahs – Makeesha/Swinging from the Vine

Judging a book by it’s vastly more interesting cover – Kat Coble/Just another pretty farce

The Emerging Church loves darkness (or what I stand for) Part II – Be the Revolution/David