Guacamole Girl

Normal Service will be resumed......

I'm getting a bit of stick for not blogging for a while.....My excuse is - it's the holidays. So, to recap on the last couple of months:

We had an excellent family holiday in Spain, including two day-trips to Barcelona. But the best bit was definately being in a hotel rather than self-catering. Every day we sat down to eat food that we hadn't had to buy or cook - and no dishes to wash! What a treat for hard-working parents! Here we are enjoying a seat in Parc Guell, Barcelona.

 

After the holiday, Guacamole Guy took Chilli-boy & Chilli-girl to England for 10 days & left me on my own - working hard & spending time with friends.

When they got back, it was all systems go getting ready for the church holiday club. We were using the Pyramid Rock matierial from Scripture Union, which follows the story of Joseph. It was brilliant the way the story drew out issues so relevant to children today, like forgiveness and God's plans for their lives. Lynn led our team with a perfect blend of forward planning & reliance on God. It was, as always, a privelege to learn from her & be part of such a united team.

After that, it was back to work & school - trying to get back into the routine. It'll get easier! I had a chance to meet up with Biz for coffee this week. It was nice to meet her IRL (as they say) after commenting on each others blogs & Bebo sites for the last few months.

Today, we had a lovely pot-luck style lunch with our homegroup - it's always great to sit round the table with such good friends.. We always say "we must do this more often" - next time anyone says that, we'd better get a date in the diary - planning is paramount in these things!

Well, that's you up-to-speed if you were wondering why there's been no guacamole. Normal service will be resumed (as they say).......

 

Bueller....Bueller...

Since I had a good reaction to quoting Ferris Bueller a wee while ago, here's a wee treat for Ferris fans.

Expectation Management

Is the glass half-empty, half-full, or twice as big as it needs to be?

I'll leave you to ponder that one......

Pokemon: A Retraction

I have been told to take back what I said about Pokemon. Chilli-boy says: "Although the whole point is for Pokemons to beat each other up, it's the reboant mutagenesis when they evolve from one form to the next which is the fun part about these little dudes."

I stand corrected.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, ask the nearest 11-year old!

yellow turns to orange - that's mutagenesis!

Clustr'd

I'm glad I got the Clustr Map for my blog. I'm afraid I cheated at first by asking my sister in Sweden & my cousin in the US to log on, but now I see I've had visitors from Germany, Canada & Australia as well. So the internet really is world-wide after all!

If you're visiting this blog from outside the UK, it would be great to hear from you. Please leave a comment & let me know where you are & what's happening there.

I've been tagged!

Brodie has tagged me in one of these pass-it-on's. I have to share 7 bits of information about myself under 7 different headings so....

1. Me as a baby: can't remember much about it. I am a child of the 60's, but I only made it by 9 days (so now you can work out my date of birth!)

2. Beer: Yes please! Especially if it's a Sol. I really like Sol with a slice of lime in it. except when I lived in Derbyshire, when I once ordered this, and got it served in a glass with lime cordial! When I complained, the landlord said he thought it was nicer for a lady to drink out of a glass! I was speechless!!!

3. Boys: Hmmm..not much to say about that, except I had a whirlwind romance at the age of 22. It's still whirling (i.e. we got married!)

4. Time: never enough of it. There are so many things I would like to do, but work and (to a much lesser extent) housework eat up a lot of time. I used to wish I could clone myself (like Michael Keaton in Multiplicity) but now I just need to keep reminding myself I'll be happier if I do one thing at a time. I'm leaarning......slowly

5. Dislikes: 1. meat - I am vegetarian for several reasons, but the main one is I really don't like meat. 2. Pokemon - out of all the things my children are into, Pokemon is the one I just can't get interested in. They look stupid & make no sense - can't see the point - sorry! 3. computers that don't work properly - there is nothing more frustrating. I am needing a new mouse because the right-click is broken - really annoying.

6. Hobbies: see item 4.

7. Tomorrow: work. But if I'd written this yesterday, tomorrow would be.......a fantastic all-age service followed by lunch at church, then my Mum & Dad visiting for Father's Day tea, a spot of blogging & crash out on the sofa. A good use of time I think!

So that's me. Now I have no one left to tag except Biz. All the other bloggers I know have already been tagged.  So, if you read this & don't have a blog, why not add some stuff as a comment.

An Inconvenient Truth

Last night, I had a really good evening with some friends from our church, mostly from the environment group called "Earth Matters". We watched Al Gore's "slideshow": An Inconvenient Truth. It was a fascinating documentary, mostly of Gore showing evidence of climate change, interspersed with snippets of him talking about his own life.

What came across most strongly to me was the lack of doubt in the scientific community that climate change is a reality - and a dangerous one at that. Every timeline he showed had a sudden change, starting around 1970 and shooting off the scale. Whether it's air temperature, sea temperature, CO2 levels - all increasing exponentially. This is not "natural variation".

The effects of this could be catastrophic. Areas of the world that will disappear under the sea - like Holland for example, and other areas where there once was fresh water - Lake Chad once sustained many people with water & fish. Now it's just not there any more.

However, the bottom line was that IT'S NOT TOO LATE. We have a chance (maybe a last chance) to reverse it by reducing our emissions now. We have the technology, it's just the will to do what's difficult.

I am conscious that I haven't brought much of this into the blog so far. However, I hope to change that & bring you, over the next few months, some join the dots (I.e. why this is part of my worship to my Father God) and some wee things to help reverse a terrible trend. Stay tuned - please - I promise not to rant any more!

Busy, Busy

Looks like I'm not the only one with a busy life - check this guy out....

My children love this song - can't think why!!

Thanks to Biz for the techy hints!

Busy weekend

I'm just getting to grips with this week after a very eventful weekend - and it's nearly the weekend again - Hurrah!

On Friday, our little treasures went to stay with my Mum & Dad at their splendid B&B, then we made a sharp exit & went to stay in a hotel near Stirling called Broomhall Castle. We were the only people in the hotel (I think they're just finishing a refurbishment) so we were very well looked-after, and of course well-fed.

We climbed a bit up this hill (even though I was totally wearing the wrong shoes) & had a lovely view of the Forth Valley.

Saturday evening, we  went to see Pirates of the Caribbean, which, as predicted was too long and too too silly. However, if you give up wondering who's chasing who (and why) and just enjoy the jokes, it's still worth seeing. And of course, there's lots of Johnny Depp.

On Sunday, my brother-in-law & his family came to stay. We went to Pollok Park, but unfortunately, we were rained off.

Even though they say in Scotland: "If you don't like the weather, hang on for 20 minutes", we had to wait till Monday to get a bit of sunshine.

After all that, I was back at work on Tuesday, leaving Guacamole Guy to clear up the tornado zone. He even did the ironing on Tuesday evening - bless him!

As Ferris Bueller used to say: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it."

 

Proverb of the Day

"The world of the generous gets larger and larger,

The world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller"

Proverbs 11 v 24 (Message)

I have found this to be true in so many ways, both in my own life and looking at the way other people live. Hope you are inspired to more generosity today.