Amanda’s Musings

In the last few days I’ve had three separate orders so I’ve been busy. Its so nice to have a custom order and get back into claying again, even if I’m juggling things between two kids. The exciting thing is that these sales will be enough to train two Malawi pastor’s in AIDS and HIV knowledge.

On top of this, I feel as if I’m back in the saddle as far as creativity with Keziah. She sat at the table for a bit and played with her playdough today while I polyclayed. That was fun!

So, here’s my bit of creativity for this week so far:

I wasn’t the only one being creative in our house today. Michael got very clever with Kezi’s lunch and she quite enjoyed eating it too!

Awwwww, isn’t she cute up there on Daddy’s shoulder! Two weeks old at 9.46am tomorrow morning.

I finally changed my picture, well its only been 11 days since Lucinda was born so I suppose thats reasonably quick! I like this casual shot we took today. Here’s a colour version of it:

On Friday we did our pre settlement inspection of our new house. All is as it should be and we got the full tour of the backyard this time. We knew we had a few fruit trees out there but weren’t sure what sorts so we were keen to find out more. I can’t believe the list of fruit trees that we will own as of Thursday (settlement). They include:

5 Grape vines
2 Olive Trees
Mandarin
Orange
Pink Lady Apple
Fig
Apricot
Nectarine
Peach
Banana
Mango

The whole garden is native Aussie except for the fruit trees and we will have gorgeous natives including a white gum, wisteria and wattle plus a lot of others. We also inherit two chickens that are Australorp’s, an Aussie breed.

Michael will be busy painting two of the rooms (equals almost half the house!!!) as of Friday afternoon so he’ll be a busy boy. The main living area is a dark reddish brown colour which we will be lightening up (but leaving some of the dark colour). The room we are going to use for Keziah is currently a bright blue, we have decided on the colours called Eaves and Feather Boa Half. Eaves is a pale vintage green and feather boa is a pale pink. Should look gorgeous!

Anyway, we’re on that downhill run now to moving in, just 7 days from tomorrow till we move properly!

Our house has not been in a daily routine for the last four weeks. I didn’t want to say anything on here until we were all back to normal and you’ll see why. For the last week and a half the three of us have been in Sydney, we got back last night to a boiling hot Perth (42 here yesterday). For the three weeks prior to that Michael was away in Peru and Keziah and I were home alone.

Those three weeks were very very long weeks. I tried to book myself up for things as much as I could and in the weeks leading up to his departure I was overwhelmed with thoughts of how am I going to handle just me and Kezi alone for that long. I thought I just wouldn’t handle doing everything for Kezi as Michael always does the mornings for me by getting her up and giving her breakfast. Being pregnant meant that I was probably more emotional but also more weary.

In the end, the hardest part of each day wasn’t the work, in fact I coped fine with that. I went to bed around 9pm each night and had naps when she had hers in the day so I was ok with doing everything. What really got to me was lonliness. I had no one coming home at night and chatting to me and no one to say goodnight to. That was the hardest part.

I was counting down the days until Keziah and I would fly to Sydney to meet up with him and it was a great reunion. For the whole three weeks Kezi told me ‘Daddy’s on plane’ so when we went on one she was surprised he wasn’t there. He was at the airport though and she ran and gave him a big hug.

Our time in Sydney was for our annual SIM State Ministry Director’s get together. It was a great time to catch up with our team and spend quality time sharing. The second half of our time in Sydney was spent at a private house for our meetings and Kezi had a wonderful backyard to play in. She tends to throw herself around a fair bit and has the bruises on her legs to prove it! She fell down the three outside steps head first twice but each time got up and just said ‘oh dear’. She’s tough.

All three of us (actually four) are home again now and back into our routine. Apart from the fact that it was raining with a big thunderstorm in Sydney and we had to fly to a very hot Perth, I’m glad to be home. I wish we could have brought the rain with us!

Here are some shots from our time away, you can see some of Michael’s Peru trip photos on his Flickr page here. Oh and he went to Peru with SIM to vist the work there. He got to visit Camp La Joya which I posted about a few weeks ago and to visit Machu Pichu!

Its very very good to be home altogether.

The last two are Kezi in her own hat from Peru and then Michael’s hat from Peru. The last shot is a favourite!

I’ve got more to say about our time in Sydney but I thought this would be a quick update summary.

Waiting for Michael to pick us up yesterday from the shops I was saying to Kezi, Where’s Daddy? In her cute two year old way of speaking she sat there watching out for him and said over and over ‘Daddy, Where are you?’ (which actually comes out more like Duddy, Whereahou). All of sudden she got very excited and spotted a red car driving towards us at the front of a long line of cars, she yelled ‘There he is!!’ (which comes out more like ‘Dare e is’). I saw that it wasn’t our red car and said ‘no, Kez, thats not Daddy, not yet’ but she continued to clap her hands in excitement and say ‘There he is!’. Well, sure enough, as the red car in front turned away I could see that three cars behind it was in fact Micahel in OUR red car. That was the car she was excited to see! She has better eyes than I do!

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!!

So, the small handful of people who read my blog may be wondering where I’ve been as I haven’t blogged all week.

Last Wednesday Keziah and I flew over to Geelong in Victoria as my sister in law is due to have their second baby any day now. Michael had to stay in Perth until later due to his commitments at church and with SIM.

Flying with a 2 year old is hard enough with two people but on my own it was a whole new realm of hard. Kez did pretty good really, she’s starting to get old enough to be more aware of her surroundings and was of course interested in all the buttons on her seat. Praise God though, she fell asleep within an hour of the flight taking off and woke up half an hour before landing.

We are anxiously awaiting the birth of Johnathan and Candy’s new baby. Could happen any day!

Hopefully I’ll get to post a few times over the next few weeks.

Here’s a meme from Rodney Olsen over at the Journey in which I was tagged to do. From his blog:

1. Write down five things that you’re thankful for.

2. Tag five friends who you’d like to see participate in this meme.

3. (Optional) Include a link to the original meme post and encourage others to place a link to their completed meme in the comments section of this post so we can keep track of the thankfulness running around the blogosphere.

1. I am thankful for my family - parents in PNG, brother and sister in law and nephew in Geelong and my in-laws here in Armadale. For Michael - he’s a great hubby and does his best in everything.

2. I am thankful for Keziah - she’s so sunny and happy most of the time. She’s great company during the day and I love her a lot.

3. I am thankful for our church - we have settled in well there and I feel part of the family.

4. I am thankful that God loves me. I am in awe of how much he cares for us and how much he does for us no matter how much I do or don’t do for him.

5. I am thankful for creativity - I would go completely insane if my thing was maths or accounting or anything like that. I’m soooooo glad I enjoy drawing and colour and using my hands!

There ya go Rodney, I tag –Duncan!!

5. I am thankful for creativity

Duncan over at Beyond the Black Stump has tagged me so here goes:

1. What time is it? 9.48am
2. What is your full name? I’m not putting that on the web!
3. What are you most afraid of? driving/spiders
4. Place of birth? Newcastle, NSW, Australia
5. Favourite food? mangos, white chocolate, corn, licorice bullets
6. Your natural hair colour? brown
7. Have you travelled? Yes, USA, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, England, Scotland, Niger, Benin, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, around Australia (every state and territory!). Yes, I love travel.
8. Do you scrunch or fold toilet paper? its a secret
9. Love someone so much it made you cry? Yes
10. Been in a car accident? No

11. BMW or Mercedes Benz? Neither - give me a VW anyday (see above)
12. Favourite day of the week? Friday
13. Favourite Restaurant? Nothing really, HUNGRY JACKS! (does that count)
14. Favourite Flower? Rose
15. Favourite sport to watch? Cricket/Tennis
16. Favourite Drink? Hot White Chocolate, Spearmint Milk
17. Favourite ice cream? Spearmint Chip
18. Disney or Warner Brothers? No opinion there
19. Favourite fast food restaurant? HUNGRY JACKS
20. What colour is your bedroom carpet? blue
21. How many times you failed your driver’s test? Failed once, got it second go
22. From whom did you get your last e-mail? Hester
23. Hobbies? Creativity
24. Bedtime? between 10 and 12
25. Who of your readers will answer this questionnaire? No one I reckon.
26. Who is the person you are most curious to see their answers? Candy and Simon
27. What means the most to you? God, Family, Honesty
28. Favourite TV shows? The Amazing Race, Survivor, House, Prison Break
29. Dating males or females? Married!
30. Tall or short? I’m short
31. What is your favourite colour? green
32. How many pets do you have? One rabbit (Alphie), three wiero’s and a lone budgie
33. Age? As of this Sunday I’ll be 33
34. What would you like to accomplish/do before you die? To bring up our child (ren) as kind, caring and godly people, to go overseas again, to be able to sell my wares in such a way that I can support a SIM project.

There ya go, I tag anyone who wants to have a go! Let me know in the comments if you are going to have a go.