Scarves For Sale

Here are some scarves that I have knitted for sale. They are $10 as is, but if you want pockets put on, they are $15. Just email me at samismad@hotmail.com and tell me which one you want, and whether or not you want pockets.

This only applies to Melbournians - sorry if you live overseas or interstate.

WFMW - Umbrella

It's heading to winter now in Australia, and winter in Melbourne means RAIN. And in Melbourne that rain is often soaking and cold, and comes complete with a nice chilly wind.

So I keep an umbrella in my back-pack. Wherever I go I have an umbrella. I keep it wrapped in a plastic bag, just a normal shopping one, so that when I use it and then go inside a library etc I can put away my umbrella without getting all of my belongings wet.

It definitely Works For Me.

Mother's Day - Waverley

So, here are some of my photos from the Waverley Mother's Day event. Instead of a sit down dinner like at Frankston (where we have far fewer members) we had a concert, the messege and lunch with the mothers getting served by their family members.

The kids perform.


Chiann and Joab



Back Row: Yi Mei, Fiona, Echo, Swee, Me
Front: Jason, Yi Peng, Chiann, Joab.
Taking the photo because she doesn't like being in photographs: Rebecca!

Mother's Day - Frankston

Yes, I know Mother's Day was a little while ago. But here are the photos from our Frankston event.

Our beautiful decorations. I helped with these.

They are still beautiful. I still helped.

My table decorations. Done in about 5 minutes using the plants that were outside the school. Turns out you're not supposed to pick the leaves etc of a school plant. We returned all the plants back to the garden when we finished though.

Another of my scrumscious centre pieces.


The Kitchen


Isn't my hair pretty?


Elaine gives a testimony.


Ps Ian shares the messege.


Sam Mok and Elaine.

Tired

I am TIRED. Sam needs more sleep. Spent half of yesterday feeling miserable for myself and the other half feeling miserable AND throwing up.

Sam not in a good mood.

Sam will lie down to rest.

Photos I've Taken

WFMW - 2 Pens For Church

My WFMW tip is very simple. I bring two pens with me to church, a red one and a blue one. I take most of my notes in blue, but scripture references in red. That way, when I want to go over the notes later (which I don't do anything like enough) it makes it really easy to find the Bible passages. Before, I kept on losing my spot in my notes, finding my spot, forgetting the verse, looking for it again, etc.

No more! With two colours of pens it's easy to find my spot, see verses, and makes studying the sermon after much more effective.

It definitely Works For Me

Photos I've Taken

Life in General

So I got home last night, after being away since Thursday. Here is a rundown of these days.

Thursday:

• Started making clown costumes for Born to Fly (BTF)
• Sewing machine broke
• I thought I could sew 2 clown costumes by hand
• I realised I couldn't, and went down to the shops for some adult sized onesies (also called jumpsuits) to paint
  
• Realised that no one sells adult sized onesises
• Bought some tracksuit pants and bottoms and fabric paint
  
• Went home and painted them
• Realised that they look nothing like clown costumes (that's not entirely true. One of them was all right. The other one does indeed suck)
• Gave up on costumes and packed for 4 days
• Walked down to the train station, only to discover that the trains are not going
• Trains start, and get us as far as Moorabin, where we have to catch a bus to Caulfield, where we can catch another bus to the city
• I learn that the reason why the trains are not working is that there is a jumper at Glen Huntly station
• I get into the city, late to meet my friends
• I scoff down a cheese and potato pancake, a lemon tart and a hot chocolate
• We go to see Pirates of Penzance
• Pirates is good. Not my favourite Gilbert and Sullivan, but good
• Steph and I go back to her house
• I realise (at Steph's house) that I have left my bag in the cloakroom at the opera. As it is now 10:45PM, I decide to leave it there overnight
• I read before going to bed

Friday:

• I get up. Steph insists that I eat breakfast
• I leave to pick up my bag and clean Katrina's place
• My bag is still there. The security remark that I have a lot of stuff in my bag.
• I get to Katrina's ridiculously early
• I go to Gloria Jeans and read (Gloria Jeans is the Aussie equivilent of Starbucks, only they are a Christian company)
• I realise I am running late, so I walk very quickly to Katrina's
• I gush over Ethan (Katrina's 2 year old)
• I clean
• I gush over William (Katrina's newborn)
• I go to my parent's house
• I go Scottish Dancing
• I realise that one of the three books I have brought with me is awful
• I go to sleep at about 1.

Saturday:

• Went out to a cafe in Glen Waverley with friends (Steph, Claire and Winnie)
• I go to script rehersals (BTF)
  
• I go back to my parent's house, under the illusion that we are having a family party
• I learn there is no family party. I think, I could have been at my home, cleaning it up because it is a mess
• I ask mum if we happen to have any adult sized clown costumes
• She says of ocurse
• I ask ADULT sized clown costumes
• She says, In the attic
• I go up to the attic. I cannot find any costumes (other than a few hats, one of which I take for the poacher's costume) and ask mum where they are, because the attic is a mess
• Mum finds the clown costumes. They are indeed adult sized
• I do some homework for my Vetamorphus course, then go to bed

Sunday:

• I pack not only my 2 bags, but a box with costumes, a blender and a few books in it to go to church and then home
• Keith picks me up
• We stop off at Krispy Kreme and order doughnuts for the church
  
• I eat one doughnut
• I realise that I have left my church notebook at my parent's house.
• PS Mark (from the City Centre) takes the service
• I sell chocolates during lunch. Some I sell sell, others are arranged for people to pick up boxes for them to sell at work (this is fundraising for BTF)
  
• The kids all want to go about selling chocolate
• I write my name on four boxes, give three of them to the kids, and they go about selling the chocolates. The fourth one I keep on the table
• I learn that Time Outs are the most popular of the different chocolates
• I learn that everyone wants to buy one choclate with a $20 note
• I tell Jiashen that girlfriends like chocolate, and that he should buy some for Carolyn
• Carolyn agrees with me
• Jiashen buys chocolate
  
• I sell about 2 boxes worth of chocolates at church alone
• Rebecca drives me home. No sheparding, because I have to help my ex-boyfriend find his tax stuff (and convince him to take as much of his stuff as is humanly possible, and sell him chocolates)
• He takes nearly all of his stuff. I can use the cupboards now.
• He buys $10 worth of chocolates, and gives me $8 worth of them
• I clean up my house
• I watch Compass, which has a two part doco by Richard Dawkins. Tennesse is reading his book The God Delusion, so I thougth I'd watch this so that I can talk to him about it without spending valuable chunks of my time reading it
• I notice just how much editing Dawkins has done (there is a fade out of an athetist who teaches biology saying (about kids bringing up critisms of the theory of evolution) that he 'doesn't tolerate it'. Dawkins didn't quite cut it off in time).
• Dawkins argument - you can't prove it so it must be false; some people who are religious are intolerent, so they all are. My thought - you can't argue with someone like that. He's every bit as much a fundamentalist as the people he made fun of
• I read some more, then go to sleep

Hannah and Angela, helping to sell the chocolates.

The Notion of Readiness

There is a great article at Small Things about when you are 'ready' to have a child. As Sherrin says, you're never 'ready' to have a child! If you plan to wait you're likely to be sitting in the nursing home listening to me blabbering about my 10 children and not being able to cut in with any stories of your own because you won't have any.

You can also read all the comments over at Biblical Womanhood.

Question

Is The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Bible a Complete Guide, or is it for Complete Idiots?

Teaching and Other Stuff

I'm beginning to get a bit of teaching work, which is great. I also need to start paying more money for my homeloan, which is less great - it's going to eat up a large chunk of what I earn for the next 6 months. Which means I have to further put off buying a few things I would particularly find useful (teaching books, etc).

It also means I will have less spare time. Which as I never seem to have any spare time as it is, might prove to be a bit of a problem. (Everyone says how much less time you have once you have kids. So I'm putting on all the pressure to have about a million books read and to have done everything else ASAP so that I won't need to spend that time later. I know, I'm a bit weird).

I have more photos from our Mother's Day Dinner at the Frankston centre. I'll tell you all more about what happened once I put them all up. I also have lots of photos for the Mother's Day Service at the Waverley centre.

That's it for now - I've got to leave in 15 minutes!

Ideas for Presents

Hi All,

I've had a few requests as to what I would like for my birthday. So I'm sending out a general list of things. Feel free to get me something not on the list. And don't feel obligied to get me a present. I do like presents, but that doesn't mean you have to get me one.

- Shirley Temple movies. I already have Curly Top, Heidi, A Little Princess, Since You Went Away and I'll Be Seeing You.
- A subscription to Biblical Archaeology Review
- Mathematics 6 by Enn R. Nurk and Aksel E. Telgmaa, translated and adapted by Will Harte (only available over the internet at present)
- Fairest. By Gail Carson Levine
- The People of Sparks by Jeanne Duprau

Failing all that, book vouchers are always a safe bet!

Love Sam!

I expect that most of you who read this will have received an email from me saying the same, but just in case I've missed anyone, here it is again!

WFMW - Library Book Piles

Yes, I know that over here it is not Wednesday anymore. But I'm posting this Works For Me Wednesday anyway.

I am a member of over 9 different library systems. While I don't think I've ever had items out from every single library, I will regularly have items from 3 or four different ones. Keep ing track of them is not the easiest thing in the world.

So I keep organised. Books are arranged in piles on two shelves. Books I haven't read go on the bottom of the two shelves I'm using. When I hae read them, they go IN THE SAME PLACE but ON THE TOP SHELF. Receipts are kept with the books that need to go back, and I always keep track of what I have returned. More than once I have had to phone or email a library because I've returned something and it has either been put back on the shelf without being checked off, or has slipped behind the chute. They won't check unless you contact them, so records are essential.

Hey, this definitely Work For Me.

So, Camp

Camp was okay. It was a Vetamorphus camp, and was near Arthur's Seat, which is actually near where I live, but I went to Glen Waverley to be picked up. We got there on Saturday, not the traditional Friday night.

The material that we learnt varied. We all learnt our Myers-Briggs personality type (I'm an ISTJ which means Introvert (seriously - I'm just loud and confident) Sensor (means I like to see things for myself) Thinking and Judgement (meaning I like LISTS! Yay for lists! I was 19 out of 20 for this one!)) This was interesting, but it wasn't really anything I couldn't have done at home from a book.

The Word session was good - it was on how we are made in God's image (Genesis 1 & 2). I found it particularly interesting that Adam means 'human' and doesn't really distinguish as to gender.

The biggest problem was that some of the people on the camp were very YOUNG. (Says the incredibly ancient 22 year old). Mostly 17 years old. And some of them were a bit immature. But I had a good time.

I don't really have many photos, as there was only me and Hannah from our church, so I've got only about 3 or 4, mostly with her trying to hide from the camera. She says here hair looks good from the back (commenting on one of the photos).

So, that was camp.

Yay!

Am teaching today. For the first time this year. Preppies. Sam love preppies (Sam thinks).

Sam must stop talking about herself in the third person (Crazy Sam!).

Going on Camp

I got phoned at 10PM last night to let me know that there is a Vetamorphus camp on this weekend. I'm still trying to find out details, but I won't be posting over the weekend. I will however have photos and stories for Monday when I get back.

Clearly My Cat Is Evil

This is Wolfie. He is the biggest cat in our neighbourhood, and has been since he was about 6 months old. Around that time he killed and ate a possum that was bigger than him. (Took him a day or two to eat it!) He wrestles with our dog (who is a rig heeler - and therefore not a small dog) for fun. I think he's lovely. My parents (and neighbours - it's the only thing they agree on) think he is a menace. But all of us kids adore him.

Aint he sweet!