Some Thoughts Before New Year

I was browsing some of my previous posts when I came across the one celebrating my half birthday in blogging. In it, I listed three things to achieve over the next six months. It's occurred to me that none of them are real goals, and I need some purpose (a bit like the guy in Avenue Q... by the way, I will have achieved the second ambition on my list by January- for those of you who care). Anyway, here are one or two New Year's resolutions that I am hoping to stick to in 2008:

- STOP PROCRASTINATING

“Don't wait. The time will never be just right.”- Napoleon Hill

Procrastination is a serious problem with me. I will do anything to avoid what should be done, no matter how important or trivial. I'm gonna sort that out.

- Do something once a week that scares me

“Too often we are scared, scared of what we might not be able to do, scared of what people might think if we tried, we let our fears stand in the way of our hopes. Why? There's really no time to be afraid. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Everything!”- Unknown

I'm very much one for staying in my comfort zone. There's a 'Compare People' application on Facebook, where you rank your friends in certain categories. I came out as 56th Most Adventurous. Enough said.

This next quote pretty much sums up my other New Year's Resolutions:

“Do not worry; eat three square meals a day; say your prayers; keep your digestion good; exercise; go slow and easy. Maybe there are other things your special case requires to make you happy; but, my friend, these I recommend”- Abraham Lincoln

I like that one a lot. So that's pretty much it! Actually, there's one more quote that I came across which I could completely relate to, which I'll share with you now. Sometimes (just sometimes) I can be a bit of a drama queen. If something remotely out of the ordinary happens to me, I will dramatise it until it becomes a scene out of Hollyoaks. Yesterday, there was a power cut at the house I'm looking after, and I was on my own and it was pitch black and I couldn't find any candles. This quote summed me up:

“I have a huge, active imagination, and I think I'm really scared when I'm alone; because if I'm left to my own devices, I just turn into a madwoman.”- Clare Danes

Seriously, at one point I genuinely thought someone had snuck (is that a word?) into the house in the darkness and was hiding upstairs. So my final resolution is to stop making trivial things into such massive deals. Although it does make life more exciting...


Other stuff:

- The guys from Uni are coming to visit me today... I haven't seen them for a while and am very excited about it. I set myself a goal of catching up with as many old friends as possible this holiday, and so far I'm doing pretty well. Here is a photo of us from the summer (to balance out the scary candle man photo):

- We lost the traditional Boxing Day Chelmsford Vs. Hadleigh football match 1-0. But that's ok, because everybody knows we should have won. Again, it was really nice to catch up with people!

- The sleep paralysis has come back. I hadn't had an 'episode' since I posted about it on my blog, but today I couldn't wake up. I can't decide if I'm being a drama queen here or whether it's justified, so I'll leave it at that.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas...

Now that my car is back in my driveway (albeit only for a week as its MOT is due... gulp) I have been able to once more enter into the spirit of Christmas. It left me for a couple of days, but is back now... partly because this whole weekend has been spent singing carols and spending time with old friends, and I know that tomorrow will be exactly the same. Some of us went to the Wickford Christmas Ball on Friday, and as you can see we had a lovely time:

However, one or two of us got a little bit over-excited when we found out that there was White Chocolate Dip...

Anyway, this second picture gave me inspiration for a final Christmas video. It was difficult to decide who to put in it, so in the end I figured I'd do one featuring guys from The Hadleigh Posse (yeh, we really are too cool for school). Everyone has just been round for Youth Fellowship and it's been really nice to catch up with people I don't get to spend as much time with as I'd like. It's one of my favourite things about this time of year! Right, enough babbling... this one is for Ben and Charlotte Still, Rich Wright and Chris Carter. Drumroll please...

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Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

ARGH!

This is my car:

Well, it's not actually a photo of my car (I couldn't find the cable to link the camera to the computer) but it illustrates the post nicely. And bears a rather striking resemblance to my car (it's a black KA... although not quite as shiny as this one...)

Anyway, the reason I'm posting is because I'm a little bit angry. I've had my car for over a year and a half and in that time it has had nothing wrong with it, bar a rather strange incident involving loads of grey fluff coming out the exhaust (that's a story for another time). A week or so ago, though, I noticed that one of my headlights was a little dimmer than the other. 'Never mind' I thought, 'I can still see where I'm going'. Then a few days ago, John helpfully/nervously pointed out that neither light was on, and I should probably get it sorted out.

So yesterday I went to the Castle Motor Company.

And there was my mistake.

I took my car in, the car mechanic fixed the headlights (which cost £50) and gave it a pre-MOT, and called me up to say it was ready. Just before I left the garage, he said 'Have you had any trouble with the clutch? Getting the car into reverse?' And I hadn't really. So he said 'It's fine, but it might start going soon...'

Then I left. Soon after, there I was on the London Road, trying to change gear. But the car wouldn't let me... it refused to go into any gear and the car was jumping about all over the place. Now, I'd just like to reiterate that I have never had any problems with my car before. So today Dad drove it back to the garage (we had to drive along the A13 in second gear, and even then it was touch and go) and the man was like 'Yep, you need a new clutch slave. It's all leaking' (at this point my dad wanted to turn to me and say 'Really? What did your last slave die of?' but fortunately restrained himself). Anyway, it turns out that it costs £350 to replace. And I couldn't take it anywhere else as... well, it wouldn'tve made the journey. I do think I've been had... but it would be very difficult to prove it!

So now I'm carless and penniless. It's a very sad situation to be in. And I'm sorry that this has been quite a boring post in comparison with recent ones, but I'm looking for sympathy.

Does anybody out there know anything about cars by the way?

10 Sleeps To Go...

I decided that the people kind enough to comment on the last couple of posts deserve a small reward. So, with a little digging (the wonder of Facebook never ceases to amaze me) here is a Christmas present for Andy, Glyn, John and Anna. Unfortunately I couldn't find a happy photo of Andy, so it's his turn to look miserable. Bah Humbug.

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Christmas starts properly for me this weekend. There are two main reasons for this:

1) End of term has arrived (the last day is always great, I get lots of cool presents and we throw a Christmas party... you can always rely on 6 and 7 year olds to get into the Christmas spirit).

2) It's SEEVIC weekend. For those of you who don't know, every year Hadleigh Temple put on a Christmas Weekend Spectacular (that's my name for it, I think it's actually called 'Christmas Unwrapped' this year... Boring). There are 4 performances taking place over the weekend, and we have it at a nearby lecture theatre in the round. It's basically a show with lots of arena items, children's sketches, timbrels, singing and (of course) the traditional Christmas story. I love it! I think I might've mentioned it before on my blog, but it won't hurt to mention it again. And my angel costume is pretty awesome this year. So if you've nothing better to do, come along...

A Christmas Greeting From Me To You...

I had a lot of work to do tonight. So naturally, I had to find new levels of procrastination... I apologise to Ben, John, Stacey and Heather for stealing photos without permission! Although I think you'll agree it was worth it. I'll probably be posting a few of these in the run up to Christmas, so be warned if you're not in this one!

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Things I have learned from Yoga.... and other news

Tonight, I went to my first ever Yoga session. It was quite enjoyable and I'll probably go again. Especially as Yoga can apparently cure all illnesses. Not many people know that (which is unfortunate, as a lot of money could be saved on research), so I thought I'd better share them with you.

Did you know, if you:

- Rub your hands together and cup them over your eyes, and blink really fast, any impaired vision can be improved.

- Stretch your arms out in front of you on a regular basis, you will become immune to breast cancer.

- Stand on your head once a day, your skin will remain youthful.

- Sit on the floor with your feet touching and flap your knees up and down ('like a beautiful butterfly'), then any infertility problem will be cured.

- Spin round and round really fast regularly, you will become immune to all illnesses and live longer.

The Yoga Man told us all the above information was true, because he knew at least four people it had happened to in every circumstance. Stacey and I did very well not to fall about laughing for most of it (although I couldn't make eye contact with her for the whole hour and a half). He also singled us out and said we would be good at 'acrobatic yoga', which added to my suspicion that every sentence that came out of his mouth was a lie. The exercise was good though, if you tuned him out.

Update on other stuff:

- The Christmas production starts tomorrow. It's all a little bit crazy, especially first thing in the morning when I'm running round getting children dressed/looking for lost sheep/dealing with the hundreds of questions that various parents have decided to store up over the weeks and ask me at that specific moment. Then, once I've finally restored order, peeled the excited children off the ceiling and settled them down with some work, someone will burst in shouting 'YOU'RE ON, GO GO GO!!!' and the madness starts up again.

- John and I went to Bratislava on Saturday on one of our random days abroad. It was really, really cool... all cold and christmassy. Imagine the opportunity for christmas shopping and all the original presents we could've brought back. Sadly, I came home with nothing but a cuddly elephant called Wilbur (who I'm pretty certain had nothing to do with Slovakia, and could be bought from any reputable toy store in the UK). But we did have fun seeing the sights, eating food constantly and going to the Christmas market. Here are one or two photos, just to brighten up the post:





















The first photo shows the busy Christmas market at sunset, and hopefully conveys some of the some of the great atmosphere that was there that afternoon. The second picture was taken after we caught our first glimpse of Bratislava Castle as we walked into the city. All very picturesque!