Caught up in Grace

Like an Avalanche

by Hillsong United with Brooke Fraser

Beautiful God
Laying Your majesty aside
You reached out in love to show me life
Lifted from darkness into light

King for a slave
Trading Your righteousness for shame
Despite all my pride and foolish ways
Caught in Your infinite embrace

And I find myself here on my knees again
Caught up in grace like an avalanche
Nothing compares to this love love love
Burning in my heart

Saviour and Friend
Breathing Your life into my heart
Your word is the lamp unto my path
Forever I'm humbled by Your love

Take my life
Take all that I am
With all that I am I will love You
Take my heart
Take all that I have
Jesus how I adore You

And I find myself here on my knees again
Caught up in grace like an avalanche
Nothing compare to this love love love

Sometimes someone else puts into words and music what your heart is saying. My heart is saying all sorts of things right now. Or maybe I am just more tuned to it than usual.

I feel change happening. You've seen that it has happened physically but it's also happening in other ways. I can't put my finger on it yet but there's a shift - in my thinking, in my emotional stability, in my energy, in my focus. Maybe it's that I'm 29 and I'm finally 'settling down'... but it feels more like being stirred up than settling down. I don't know. And I'm ok with that. Really ok with not knowing. Even excited by it - so much can happen!

What I know is that this song speaks my heart. Christ has reached out in love and shown me Life. Amazing life that is mine when I'm on my knees in prayer, ready and willing to be swept away. I'm on my knees, caught up in Grace like an avalanche. It is sweeping me away to somewhere. Somewhere that I can't see right now so I'm pondering, talking to people and exploring but not worrying because nothing compares to the Love that is sweeping me along.

Come along with me.

Stitch & Swap

Dear Loz is so, so good at joining in on things. Me, not so much. But this one thing she's doing looks super fun and totally possible for me so I'm going in too:

The idea is to stitch a postcard of sometime under the theme 'Bloom' and send it of to someone who is assigned to you. Sounds fun. Sounds doable. Sounds like I'm in!

Maybe you should join in too?

{Click the image to take you to the information page and be sure to check out the rest of Beth's fabulous site}

Kylie & Ramen

When you're reading novels and they start talking about food do you just want to dive into the book and eat what they're eating?

I do. All the time. Mind you, I've had a fixation with food my entire life so this isn't really a surprise to me. I'm just putting it out there to see if I'm the only one who desperately wants to eat the food in the books.

In this awesome trilogy the little girl is always asking for ramen. I was pretty sure I'd never had any before so I bought a few packets to eat while reading. Talk about transporting myself into the novel. Kind of like 2 minute noodles I suppose. I've been eating them with soy sauce. Yummy. But being wheat I think I might have to stop at the 2 packets I've already eaten and leave it at the for the experience.

Anyways, these Kylie Chan books start of with The White Tiger, then there's The Red Phoenix and finally this one. But I believe there are 2 more trilogies to follow this set. I'm very glad about that as these books are such incredible, action packed, interesting, funny, all consuming stories that I'm half way through the third one and I only started last week. So knowing there are more is exciting.

I love these books. I'm not the biggest fan of Asian history but the huge dose of action, lots of magic and the fabulous story turn something I was previously not interested in into something I can't get enough of. Plus, she's an Australian author and I love to support our locals.

They even made me eat ramen noodles.

Hair

My fringe (bangs if you're not an Aussie) was driving me crazy. So I cut it off. Then I cut a bit more. And all of a sudden I realised I had a different fringe than the one that I set out to cut for myself. It's so different from how I normally wear it. Very Zooey Deschanel inspired. Check out my Pinterest board to see where more inspiration for this style came from.

Fringe cut by my (tidied by my hairdresser who was very impressed with how well I'd cut it. Yay!)

Jacket from Jeans West

Hair & make up by me

Photography by Joel

And those jeans? They're a size 10! (US size 6). That's a fair miracle. If you've been following along the size 10 jeans are possible because I've now lost 17.5 kg's (38.5 pounds). Really. And that'w why I'm not scared to put pictures of myself on the internet any more. (See the big puffy version of me here. And high fives to the person who know what movie I'm ripping off there.)

Finally - If you want to see what other cute outfits are being worn around the world this week check out The Pleated Poppy.

Harry

{I can't find the original source for this image but I found it here}

In the past few months I have read all the books.

In the past 2 weeks I have watched all the movies.

All the movies.

Even the very last one on the very day it was released.

I don't even know what to say about how much I love these characters and their stories. I think that most people who have read them will know what I mean. They are... wonderful, alive, passionate, courageous and... truly magical.

Harry, Ron, Hermione and crew - you were not part of my childhood like you were for so many but you are part of my imagination forever. Thank you.

Thank you. I will miss you and I will visit with you again soon I 'm sure.

Johnny Farnham

The Greatest Hits. Flashback to my childhood. Greatest way to cure an overcast, crampy day.

And for $9.95 for a double disc set at JB Hi-Fi it's smiles all around.

What cures your crummy days?

Morgan Update

Remember how little he was?

2 and a bit years later he lies down next to this window sill and props his head up onto it to watch the world. No more stretching to see.

Now he's a little bigger (bigger than we thought he'd get!) but still thinks he's little enough to sit on our laps or squish into tiny places.

We let him.

He thinks he owns our 3 seater couch and sits all over it it all day.

Brown moustache!

Regal boy keeping an eye on the world from his throne.

Carries his toys everywhere with him. Just incase someone might be ready to play. He'll often have more than one between his paws like he's a penguin hatching eggs.

Things he knows the word and hand sign for:

Sit

Stay

Down (used for laying down and getting off something)

Off

Up

Rollover

Crawl (an army crawl)

Wait (We use this a lot. He waits for his food, waits at the door, waits behind us...)

Bang Bang (drops down and plays dead when he gets 'shot'. Thanks Rach & Daniel for that idea! He almost does it every time!)

Here

No

Enough

Shake (hands)

High five

Where's your ball?

Where's your food? (He goes to the cupboard where we keep it)

Good boy

He can do/respond to each of these with the words or just the hand signs. My favourite is signing "good boy" to him and watching him lick his lips and run to his treat jar at my desk. Cute.

Things he knows that don't have hand signs:

The sounds of the treat jar!

Washing (When I tell him it's time to do the washing he runs to the laundry and the back door)

Water (If I'm holding the water jug he goes to the laundry and looks at the water filter. If I ask him if he needs water he goes to his bowl)

Rubbish (or just the sound of empty jars and tins or the sight of the rubbish bags sends him to the back door)

Outside (he goes to the front door)

Inside

If you bark again you'll go outside by yourself. (He stops barking and sits on the couch. Outside by yourself isn't fun)

The sound of the Star Gate credits. Because that means you can go outside now. (we don't have to turn it off for him to know it's over)

The sound of the TV turning off. Same reason.

Walk/ing. Even in a full sentence not directed at him.

Heel (mostly)

Stop

Go

Ok

He knows where the blankets are kept and that if we carry one outside of the lounge room we might be going outside for a picnic.

That when we brush our teeth or put on our shoes he has to go out the back.

Bedtime/in your bed

And he knows you sit still when the camera comes out.

I'm sure there are other that I can't think of right now. He's a very smart character. And very quirky, dramatic little personality. You should see the dramatics that happen when you 'shoot' him! Definitely a member of our family.

He loves to snuggle with us. You only need to walk toward a seat and he'll be there ready to curl up on you. He will even sit behind me on my computer chair (regular dining chair) if he hasn't been getting enough cuddle time. He doesn't mind if you're not patting him - he just has to be touching you or as much on you as he can get. Luckily it's cold a lot here and he's very warm.

He likes to play hide and seek. We tell him to sit and stay then go and hide. We each call him once and listen to him run around sniffing until he finds us. When he finds us he sits of lays down and gets his treat. Then we get him stay and hide again.

He loves to eat vegetables and waits very patiently by my feet while I'm preparing food but will nearly always carry it onto the rug in the lounge room to eat it if I'm not watching.

He loves to play fetch as long has he can chew his toy for a bit every now and then.

He hates to be bathed but tolerates it without too much drama and loves having his hair blow dried and brushed.

And just lately he things it's very exciting when we pull out the wii fit board.

He loves to drive in the car...

But mostly he loves cushions. He sits on top of the cushions like a little raja because that's where it's the comfiest.

We call him Morgan, Gordon (courtesy of Ruby, our godsons sister), Nelson (courtesy of a lady from church), Mellon, Moo Moo, Pogo, Muppet, Stinky, Fluff ball, Mad dog Morgan, Morgie, Morgsie, Milly, Puppy and a whole host of other 'just popped into my head' kind of things.

I think we'll keep him for another 2 years!

One of those days

You know those days? When everything goes just a little bit wrong? Not earth shatteringly terrible, just ... not right.

Today, praise God, is not one of those days for me. So I'm remembering to be grateful for things that go right.

Because 2 weeks ago it didn't go right at all. Just about everything I did for the day went a little bit pear shaped. And it all started with forgetting to put the lid back on the blender before re-whizzing it.

You've seen it in the movies and now you've seen it here. This is what happens for real:

What you can't see in this picture is that it is also dripping of my clothes, down the cupboards below and also hang in stalactites from the cupboards above. All I could do was laugh.

No. Actually. I laughed, called Joel to come and see, took photos on my camera and my phone, sent the picture to my mum and then cleaned up. Which involved a load a of washing and a shower.

So I guess that even when things don't go right they can be entertaining.

I hope things go right for you today and that if they don't you can see the funny side of it.