green star

This small green star is from my fairy lights that a good friend bought me, I love them! This particular friend was round today for a spot of Dr. Who watching and dinner. We also made some pirate lego which was almost my other ‘something green’ but I went with this in the end as I preferred the picture.

clouds outside my front door

Sorry for the delay of these pictures going up, I’m having issues uploading from my ipod.

what I wore

Combination of kickboxing, and one25 started off with an amazing brunch from Luke Carter and a guitar lesson.

Busy Friday, finished my day at 2am hence why the post is a day late!

Self Portrait

So, I have decided that I do not blog enough or take enough photos, so I have therefore decided to, for the month of Sept do a 30day photo challenge.

Today is a self portrait. I have some of the things that make me up in here, sunflowers (an important word God said to me once was about sunflowers so I have them round my mirror to remind me of that) books. Pirates (this little pirate fellow has brought me much amusement over the years!
And of course me.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s photo….

This is from http://www.postsecret.com

Sums up a verse I was given over the weekend. 1 corinthians 16v14 look it up if you’re interested!

more blogging later…promise

...extremes

So, I consider myself a reasonably eclectic person, and I think this little collection of shoes in my week about sums it up. From my walking boots, bought me by my Grandma who I miss dearly (<3) to my beautiful red shoes that I bought for the now Mrs. Rachel Feirn’s wedding.

...training

The next pair of my shoes, is my running trainers that I got off my old housemate Claire. These have seen me through one half marathon and will see me through the next one that I’ve just started training for. They’re not particularly fashionable or stylish, but they look after my feet and back when I’m running and that’s important.

...wonder shoes

These are my new gold shoes, well, I bought them before Christmas but I forgot I had them and so found them in boot the other week just in time for the nice weather! These beauties are versatile for whatever should come my way, i can even manage long walks round vassals in them!

Pirate shoes of confidence

The last shoes I’ll showcase are my pirate boots of confidence. These are what I wear when I need to get things done. They represent my going out, efficient, be the change you want to see side of who I am.

Obviously there are also my battered converse that are falling apart and probably plenty of others as well, but all these shoes leave a mark on my feet. in some way or another. I was reminded last night that these marks are important, they make up who I am. But God asks us to have shoes of peace. peaceful shoes, shoes of shalom, wholeness, completeness. How does that work then? Obviously in no way that earthly shoes would, but the good news of what God has done in my life should and does most of the time, give me the confidence to walk into places more confidence than even more pirate shoes do. This good news should mean more to me than the sentimentality of the shoes my Grandma bought me, should keep me stable and sure footed more so than my walking boots that sometimes slip. the truth of what God has done in my life should give me the support to run fast and long in whichever direction God is calling me. They should also give me the freedom to live life to the full.

Good job this comes from God because I could spend all my life looking for something that does all of this.

I love this clip

This was one of my favourite films growing up and now that I’m older I still love it. This scene shows the way in which the devil can trick us into thinking that he is more powerful than God and how easily he lies and manipulates us.

Thank you God that you say: In this world we will have trouble but take heart, for I have defeated the world. (john 16v33)

Recently myself and m house mate Fran have taken to climbing this mountain (technically it is not actually a mouton as it only reigns in at 885m instead of the needed 1000m) however, it is definitely a challenge. We went last month for Fran’s birthday and we couldn’t do the whole walk as it was too icy and windy at the top and I decided the most sensible plan was to get back down again before we injured ourselves.

This time I was still a hard climb in places but actually we could see a lot more in places than we could last time, and could see the view around us, though sadly not from the top.

We got to the top of Pen-y-fan and it was too windy to eat our sandwiches so we decided to move on to the next mountain, corn du. We then had to follow the path to get to the glacier ridge. I knew that down one side was a sheer drop and another angle took another route away from the car park, and another one was the right way. In the fog though we couldn’t see which way was which and Fran asked me if this was the right way and I didn’t know, I was suddenly very aware of how cold I was and that legs were complaining for having to work as hard as they just had and felt very nervous as I really didn’t know which way to go. All I could see was the fog, I couldn’t get my bearings.

The fog suddenly moved though, quite dramatically and only for a brief moment, enough though that enabled us to see which way to go. Then the fog came back down again, but we’d already had this glimpse of the path ahead.

Often when we hear from God it is that glimpse of the bigger picture, we see what else is around us, what else God is doing and sometimes even which direction God is taking us in. These moments are really precious though and ought not to be forgotten. They give us vital clues to what it is that God is doing in our lives and the lives of those around us.

I gain understanding from your precepts;

therefore I hate every wrong path.

Your word is a lamp to my feet

and a light for my path. (psalm119:104-5)

I hope I keep hold of the things God has told me even when I’ve lost my bearings to be able to keep following the right path.

Here a couple of photos recently, first is my newly tidied wardrobe. It’s been a bit of a busy few weeks where lots of things things have been goin through my head and I had often heard this concept of ‘clear room is a clear mind’. That combined with spring arriving (confirmed by the amount of dafs outside) has made me get organised and out of hibernation mode.

Spring is a fun time of year filled with lots of hope and potential and potential always excites me. There has to be more than what the world shows us – well I know there is – but it’s easy to forget when the snows on the ground and the temperature is so cold. (both metaphorically and literally)

The other picture is of the 65 scones I made for a youth away day this weekend. The yp I work with are so inspiring in the way that they are wanting to go to with God. The way they are so caring and want to see justice happen in this world. If they all truly get hold of what it means to be a Christian, how much God loves us and what he’s done for us, then they’ll be unstoppable in this world!

Anyway, enough for now!

Ta ta

Though when I was asked my own question, I felt that I had entered into a new phase of ‘favourite’. I saw David Tennant’s portrayal of Hamlet last year and my heart went out to the complexities of the character. This young man in his late teens is thrown into adulthood after his father dies, he finds out that his uncle murdered him and now has married Hamlet’s mum. Hamlet feels obliged to avenge his father’s death and so in order to hide his true motives he feighns madness for the reason for his strange mood.

The question is, is his madness real? He is obviously struggling with the grief of his father’s death and the new family situation he finds himself in. The way David Tennant plays the role as well there are moments when you really feel that Hamlet is desperate for someone to understand his pain and turmoil without him having to explain emotions that he himself does not wholly understand or have that many appropriate people to support him through that. That combined with the way he is flung from adolesence to adulthood in a matter of days, David Tennant almost gives the impression of the ‘boy’ Hamlet shouting, see underneath the facade the real pain I’m feeling and please help me!

Working with young people I see this pattern again and again, young people who’ve had to grow up too quick and don’t have the emotional intelligence to back up those changes, through to the general mindfield of school, forming one’s identity and the more extreme end of genuine mental health problems that require more help and therapy. For me Hamlet looks at the scale between the general frustration and confusion of growing up through to more difficult and complex situations and the scale between the too that is numerous shades of grey.

This is where my life is more focused now in comparison to the Macbeth days when I myself was somewhere on that scale trying to scream and sort my way through the hand that life had dealt me. The more I studied L.Macbeth I saw her despising of her feminity to be a weakness, she tried to be something she was not to suceed in life and went mad as a consequence. She didn’t make the most of her skills and gifts as a woman but saw them as weakness and something to be renounced. I have come a long way in my attitude to feminity and therefore no longer akin myself to her character anymore.

I feel this is a healthy progression, though do wonder what my next ‘tragic phase will be’ I hope it is not Othello!