Amanda’s Musings

Hi again, I think thats the longest I’ve ever gone without posting on my blog, hopefully I’ll be back to normal now. Not sure how creative I’ll be over the next few weeks as we have a lot to do. Michael goes off to Peru in three weeks time so we are busy with a lot of things before he goes.

The three of us arrived back from Melbourne on Friday night after a late flight. Kez did sleep on the flight eventually which was good. Its taken her a few days to get over the 2 hr time difference but she’s getting there.

The first week and a half I was on my own with Keziah in Geelong and Michael joined us on December 24. That was the same day that my sister in law came home from hospital with our little nephew Ty. Christmas day was a bit of a blurr but we all did our best and enjoyed a cooked lunch (thank you Michael) and opening presents. New Years Eve was a non occasion for all of us considering how tired we all were by then! We didn’t mind a bit though. (oh, happy new year by the way!).

Towards the end of our trip we all headed off to Sovereign Hill for the day which is a Pioneer Town in Ballarat Victoria setup to represent Australia in the gold rush of 1850. It was a lot of fun and we all had a great time watching the street performers and acts as well as demonstrations of things such as candlemaking and gold panning. Keziah loved it because there were so many ‘neighs’ (horses). In fact it was the same two groups of horses going round and round the town giving people rides on an old coach and wagon.

Anyway, I thought I’d do a big update and put a heap of photos here so be prepared for lots of photos below. There are none of Sovereign Hill as yet as they are all on Michael’s phone and we’re yet to download them. I’ll do a post about that later I think.

Johnathan and Candy, Malachi and little Ty are off to Papua New Guinea very soon and its likely that we won’t see them for at least two years so this time was special with them. We will miss them a lot but thanks to Skype we can chat to them every day.

The main reason for us going over (if you hadn’t already guessed) was to help them out while they were waiting on the birth of Ty and also afterwards. Of course it was also to spend Christmas and New Years with them before they leave.

Ok, so firstly, here are some great pics of Keziah and her cousin Malachi playing together. They are six months apart in age and had a great time. Every night they gave each other a hug and kiss goodnight and when we went out they held hands, some people asked if they were twins!!

Playing with Lego

Playing with Uncle Johnathan

Hide and Seek

Painting

Basket Cases

Ta Da!

Christmas Day

New Baby Ty Elijah Burns

Me with little Ty

Michael and Keziah at the Geelong Pier

Inside the National Wool Museum, I guess you’d call that a rocking ram

For our last 24 hours the three of us spent a night in Melbourne and got to do a few things. We went on the city circle free tram and did a tour, walked up to the Queen Victoria Markets, saw the Art Gallery of Victoria (I loved that!!) and spent and afternoon in the Melbourne Museum. We also got to see what Federation Square was as I’d only seen it on TV. Here are some photos from that time:

Federation Square

Outside the Racing Museum (Keziah with more neighs)

Michael and Kez with Phar Lap

Michael and Australia’s first computer. Apparently his phone has more power than it did (with which he took a photo).

So thats blog post one for 2008 and the first one with photos from our trip. There are quite a few more lovely shots on my brother’s camera and on Michael’s phone so I’ll post some different ones later on. Happy New Year everyone and thanks for reading!!

We have just returned from 4 days away at Esperance. For those of you who aren’t locals, Esperance is 8 hrs drive away from Perth in a relatively straight line. Its a beautiful spot in WA that I usually enjoy visiting to relax and sightsee, this time was a little different for a few reasons;

1. It wasn’t for a holiday but for a SIM event.
2. This was our first long car trip with a 2 yr old.
3. Both Kezi and I got sick.

We broke the trip down there up into two parts, a 4 hr trip to Nyabing and then stayed overnight with friends (thank you Cameron and Ruth). We then set off the next day for Esperance which was about 5 hrs by road. Keziah decided not to sleep a whole lot on the trip down which made for an interesting time. Here are some pics from that part of our journey, as you can see, its wildflower season here in Western Australia:

We stayed for three nights in Esperance at a friend’s house which was wonderful! They had a fantastic dog who Kez loved to play with:

We also had the opportunity to go on a catamaran (moored) for a few hrs which was fun. Here’s some shots of that:

We did get a little time to drive along the coast for a few hours on Monday afternoon, the Esperance coast is really breathtaking so I’m glad we didn’t miss out:

and we got to have a little time at the tea rooms:

Then yesterday we made the long trek home. We left Esperance at 8am and got home at 4pm which was pretty good timing. Keziah was the best she’d been all weekend, she didn’t throw any tantrums and slept for over 3 hrs in the afternoon. That was good because I’ve been quite sick from thos canola fields (see pic 1) since getting home.

I did enjoy some of the weekend. It was great to see some old friends again and a lot of our countryside in spring. Sometime I’ll put up some more pics of our great wildflowers here. I have lots of inspiration for my polyclay. Overall, God’s array always surprises me, he’s just so amazing, what I create in my art and polyclay are no comparison!

This morning my friend Karen, Keziah and I went off to Sonshine FM in Morley to share in a free morning tea they were having during their yearly Radiothon. The Radiothon is a fantastic event where they raise funds to keep the radio station going.

You can contribute to this great community radio station by donating online here.

We had a great time listening to them broadcast live in the same room as we were sitting and watching the shenanigans of Todd Johnston who was their guest this morning. He was a lot of fun. Half way through Rick Ardon from Channel 7 came along and enjoyed being hassled out by Todd as he made him sing the Telethon Song with us all on air. Monika Kos from Today Tonight came shortly after that so it was a lot of fun.

Some of you out in blogland might know Rodney Olsen from his blog The Journey, he was one of the hosts today alongside Arthur Muhl.

We had fun and so did Keziah who ran a riot the whole time. I think all the balloons in the room, and the fact that some were within her reach was the culprit!

I thought I’d show you some shots from our morning so here they are:

Me and Kezi watching the fun (this was one of the rare times she sat still this morning)

Todd Johnston singing a song live on air.

And being a nut.

Rick Ardon being hassled by Todd Johnston

A blurry shot of the two presenters, Rodney Olsen and Arthur Muhl

My friend Karen with Monkia Kos and Todd Johnston

PS. If you go to this page on their website, see if you can find Keziah and I in one of the photos of the crowd, its not too hard.

So, in reading that title, what images came to mind? (feel free to say so in the comments). Perhaps the image of a well dressed person who can cook, feed a hundred people at the drop of a hat and play the organ. Hmmmmmm. I don’t really fit that image at all! As far as cooking goes, its usually a miracle when my many attempts work out and if there were a hundred people coming over I think I’d go and hide up in my room (after cleaning the house)! Oh, and I can’t read music for the life of me.

This month my hubby Michael officially became the part-time Associate Pastor at Melville Baptist Church alongside Pastor Mike Fischer. This makes me a Pastor’s wife and it makes Keziah a ‘PK’ (Pastor’s Kid). I don’t know about cooking but I’m happy to try although Michael is more likely to cook if people come over. Its just nice to be part of a church again and to have other women to talk to. Kezi gets to go to creche each Sunday morning and for the first time in ages I get to sit through a service!

Congratulations Michael on your new role, I know you are going to enjoy it and, as long as I don’t have to play the organ, so will I.

I have been in a few more Etsy treasuries lately as well as grabbing a few of my own to do. You can find out what a treasury is in this previous post. So, here they are;

My daisy rings

Retro Stripes Necklace

Surfy Chick Bookmark

Under The Ocean Necklace

Undertow Necklace

Miniature Chopping Board

I wonder if theres a reason that the more oceanic blue items are those featured?

Lastly, I’ve put together a few treasuries myself lately and have one going right now but this one made it to the #4 spot out of around 250 treasuries at the time!

Can you guess who found (and tasted) the last orange on our tree?

While visiting Michael’s Mum at an apartment she was staying in (while his Dad was in hospital) we found this great mirror. There were two mirrors opposite each other (eternal mirrors) and Keziah just loved them!! How cool are these shots!

I’m enjoying playing around with this mosaic maker from flickr’s big huge labs. I thought I’d share this one that I did. Its a mosaic of some photos taken while we were in Niger with SIM in 2001. There were a few pics of some paintings I did in the flickr folder I used too so they are here as well!

1. Amanda and Fulani Lady, 2. African boy, 3. Michael and Fulani baby, 4. Fulani lady with baby and Amanda, 5. Fulani2, 6. Hadiza, 7. African lady beauty, 8. Lonely child, 9. AMANDA UP ON CAMEL, 10. Schoolkids close up, 11. Nigerien classroom - Maradi, 12. Michael with schoolkids, 13. Galmi gate

I have been posting a lot about my polymer clay creations here this year and just wanted to take a minute to summarize a few things completely outside of that. I suppose to be honest, creating and being creative is an integral part of my everyday and this year I have been trying to get my Etsy and Wahmania (and now Mintd) stores up and running.

There are however other facets of my life that I would like to share. I’m sure that you’ve probably figured out what they are by now but here’s a summary of the things that I’m passionate about besides Etsy and selling my polymer clay.

1. God. Underlying all my decisions, behaviour, attitudes and reactions is God who reminds me gently when I’m off kilter or acting selfishly. No matter how undisciplined I might get as far as reading my Bible, its ingrained firmly in me that I need to pull myself back into line.

2. Family. My hubby, daughter, parents, brother, sister-in-law, nephew, in-laws and extended family are all very important to me. Our family is very close and yet most of us live very far apart. This is very hard but something I have accepted as I believe my parents and brother and sister-in-law are following what God has laid on their hearts to do (they are all missionaries in Papua New Guinea). Yay for Skype!

3. Missions. I have always been passionate about seeing others around the world hear the good news that they are not alone in this world. When I say always I mean since I was a little kid. Whether its SIM or another mission doesn’t matter to me. I also believe strongly in a holistic approach to this. There is no point in preaching at someone that Christ died for them and loves them if they have no food, water, education, skills or shelter. In order to really tell someone that Christ loves them you must first display this love GENUINELY. If someone chooses not to accept that Christ died for them then that is their choice. It makes me sad though.

4. Some General and Less Serious Passions. Op (thrift) shopping, Moleskine doodling, painting, drawing, playing with Keziah, white chocolate, malted milk, jam donuts, patterns, damask, being tidy, journaling, traveling, Africa, watching Survivor, watching the amazing race.

Ok, so if you didn’t really know me, now you’re getting a little closer. I may sound as if all I talk about is my Etsy shop but the truth is, that would be number five on the list of true passions, it just so happens that I find it easier to blog about it!

One thing I enjoy doing whenever we’re interstate is visiting shops that we don’t have over here in Perth. I don’t mean shopping centres but the unique little shops that have unique items in them. Most of the time I can’t afford these finds but sometimes I come across things for a few dollars. Here’s a pic of the things I managed to pick up during our time in New South Wales (Laurieton and Sydney). Some are gifts and some are for me to keep!

Beads from Bijou Beads and Design - Penshurst NSW
Damask-like tea light holders, beaded jewellery holder, wood shaving scented flowers - from Simply Gorgeous - North Haven NSW
Bamboo mat, papers and chopsticks from Japan House - Hurstville NSW
Jug from Timbertown - Wauchope NSW
Spoons and bookmark from Santina’s - Penshurst NSW
Pewter gumnut card holder - from The Rocks Markets, Sydney NSW