Gradually getting there...

It's been good during the last few weeks to get a few things crossed off the "Wedding To-Do List"... today I got a couple more done, getting our rings engraved and buying ribbon for the cars, (so that Dad can experiment and work out what the best way is before the big day).

I've also been frantically tidying up all the loose ends and helping FGYO to get up and running for the new year, so that I can leave with a clear conscience. :) This week has seen the last of filing of music for me, which is a relief. Today I helped two other members of the committee to organise everything to do with sending out 'start of year' letters (which tell members when their auditions are, when we start back, the overview of the year, etc), so I'm sure they'll be right with that next time. Now I just have to fix up the 'Information for Members' booklet (for the last time!), co-ordinate Audition Day, and help them for the first couple of rehearsals, and I'm done. I'll really miss FGYO... it's been such a big part of my life for so long, and I've really enjoyed it. I need to let go of it, as it's impractical to stay, but it will leave a bit of a hole. I'm just not good at change. Never have been. That said, I suppose that it will be nice to be free on Friday afternoons for once, and I'm sure God has other plans for me... :)

Last night, we met with our minister (Richard) again, and we talked more particulars about the wording for the ceremony. I've started to make the Order of Service - and I'd love it if it was all finalised soon so that I can get them folded and everything before school goes back. It would just be one big job that would be completely sorted and out of the way. Mum and Dad came to meet Richard too, and they like him, so that's all good. :)

Today is Mum and Dad's 31st wedding anniversary, and tomorrow is Mum's birthday - so I'm off to cook a birthday cake! :)

More time being sick...

I have spent the last 10 days feeling very sick, sore and sorry for myself, and even landed myself in hospital for a night with an acute case of tonsilitis during that time. Not fun.

And it means that I have lost more time being sick, and I have a stack of stuff to catch up on.

Before I got sick last Monday 31st August, I was feeling fine. My student recital the day before went off without a hitch, and I really got great pleasure seeing a lot of my kids perform... many of the little ones for the first time ever.

Last Sunday was Father's Day, and my 25th birthday. I still wasn't feeling 100%, so we just had a fairly quiet day. I felt very loved though, and will hopefully upload a photo or two soon.

Dragging myself through these low times is hard work. Today I felt like a human being again, which was great, so I started working out all this budgeting stuff for our wedding... but of course budgeting often brings with it a sober realisation and a dull thud in the tummy as the reality of saving every penny really sinks in. Weddings really are very expensive things, and so now I'm looking at ways of cutting costs.

And I'm very tired, so I'm heading to bed.

Wow, it's been nearly a month...

My goodness... I knew it had been a long time, but I didn't realise just how long! Our weekends have been enormous, and our weekdays filled with trying to stay afloat with all the usual things... So in an effort to catch up on a billion and one things that has happened, this is going to be a rambly, newsy post without much direction - cos that's the way I think and it makes it easier. :P

The weekend after I last wrote, Alastair and I went up to Coffs Harbour, so stay with some of his closest friends... Richard and Suzanne are lovely lovely people and their children are gorgeous. :) I feel blessed to count them among my friends now - and add to that: Richard is going to marry us. :) I think that's really special. So anyway, we went up there so that I could meet these people that Alastair kept telling me about - and I certainly wasn't disappointed. They made me feel so welcome, and we spent the weekend sharing over cups of tea, doing a jigsaw (750 piece, with 5 extra pieces and no edges at all!), resting, fishing (ew!), cuddles with the little ones, a movie at the quaint Sawtell cinema, lunch by the beach, and other fun things. It was truly a blessing to get away for a bit of a break.

During that next week, I tried on wedding dresses for the first time! Oh. My. Goodness. How awesome is it, to put a dress on, look in the mirror, and go "Wow. I look like a real bride." It was amazing, and I really like the ladies in a shop only 15mins away. We did look further away, but I have a really good feeling about this place in Leumeah. :) Mum and Megs came with me the first time, and I took Dad and Lachlan back another time to see if they liked the two dresses that I liked... and this weekend, it's worked out that I can get the opinions of my other two bridesmaids - yay! It's an amazing feeling to be in a wedding dress... kind of makes it all real.

The next Saturday was Dad's birthday, and we had a family picnic out at Warragamba. It was just lovely... the six of us having a barbecue and just hanging out together, in a way we haven't been able to very much. So we had marshmallow throwing competitions, kicked the footy (and Alastair split his pants! hehehe...), ate birthday cake, and just generally enjoyed our time together. It was nice and relaxed, and a very special time. I love my family. :) The next day we got up early and drove to Canberra with Ashley and Carly, because the Swans were playing Melbourne (Carly's team)... it got to a maximum of about 6 degrees and it was miserable and rainy and yucky. But at least I was with my wonderful fiance - that makes anything worthwhile. :)

The last week in July for me was full of trying to get 14 students enrolled for AMEB flute exams... filling out all the forms, getting fees from parents (which is still happening... grrr), organising a student recital as performance opportunity for them, as well as all the normal teaching and stuff that fills my life. Like being the best fiancee I can possibly be. :)

So then we hit August running... it started with me driving down to Donna's after orchestra on the Friday, and we had a 5th and 2nd birthday party (brother and sister) to go to the next day. It was fun... and even had a jumping castle! Do you know how long it has been since I got to be a kid on a jumping castle?? Too long. Liana handed me her 18month old son, and said "There you go Carla, an excuse to get on!" hehehehehe - yay! So I got on... and when all the kids got off to play Pass the Parcel, I stayed on... and did some flips and just generally got rid of some energy. :P That afternoon we drove up to my home. Alastair took my Dad to the footy (which he REALLY enjoyed, of course!) and Megs, Lachy and I went to an ABO concert (Alastair's mum is the receptionist, and had given us three free tickets in the dress circle!). It was a good night... except that when we got home late, Alastair and I had to spend time sorting out a little problem we had with each other on the way in........ such is life. :) My church the next morning, Alastair's in the evening... this is why we are so tired - trying to live two lives!

Last week was full with a whole bunch of general stuff, sorting out a heap of music for orchestra, getting up to date with all the filing here for Dad, contacting students' parents over and over... and stuff. On the weekend, we went down to Minnamurra for our "Growing Together In Christian Marriage" course, which ran from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. There were six young engaged couples, and the older couple who were running it, and we were staying in a retreat house... it was just the right number of people to be cosy, and we all got on well. Alastair and I got on particularly well with Stephen and Rochelle... and we've purposed to keep in contact and become better friends. :) What was really cool, was that it's the first time we've met new people as a couple. Up until now, all the "meeting" has been us meeting each other's friends... which has to happen, but the lopsidedness can be tiring. But we were both starting from scratch, and that was a pleasant experience. We learned a LOT... I came away feeling rather overwhelmed, but as we've "unpacked" bits and pieces and talked more about it, I'm feeling better. :) It was excellent (run by Anglicare), and I would highly recommend it. It's given us lots of food for thought, and skills to help our marriage run smoothly - at least, that's the idea. :)

This week has been the usual... which I won't go over again :P and we're gearing up for another enormous weekend. Today is Lachlan's 20th birthday, so that's exciting! Alastair and Michael are coming for our family dinner, cos they're part of the family. :) Yesterday I took Lachy out for coffee, and it was great to spend time with him... I've been busy, and he's been quite sick a lot of the time, so it was nice to chat about all sorts of things, do some shopping, and then I gave him a driving lesson in the manual... which he found rather exhausting... hehe. :) I do love my brother very much, and will miss him again when he flies back to the States on Saturday week......

So... that about brings you up to date. I will endeavour to not leave it as long between posts from now on! I'll have a heap to write about after this weekend anyway, I'm sure..... 

I love you all very much! (But especially my gorgeous fiance! xo)

And it was very good!

I was going to post last night, but I was too tired. :)

Yesterday I had a really lovely day! Good company, good food, good fun - what more could one ask for? Let me elaborate a little...

Good Company ~ I love people. Really, when you think about it, people are what life is all about. God creates and loves people, Jesus came to earth and died for people, and our lives are about how we interact with people on a daily basis. Last night, we had fourteen very special people here to celebrate Meaghan's birthday. Fourteen people who are very much a part of our lives, who know us back to front... each and every one is such a blessing to me.

Good Food ~ Meaghan is our resident cook, but since it was her birthday, we didn't want her having to do it, so I took it on. Anyone who knows me at all well knows that over the years I've certainly had my share of calamities in the kitchen... well, I am pleased to report, that I escaped catastrophe yesterday. Out of my oven came a chocolate cake, and a pavlova (which worked!)... and I also made some rocky road. Oh, and we had fruit salad and ice-cream, and marshmallows too. I'll see if I can share a picture of the cake. One of our stand-in brothers came over early to help decorate it, and his creative side came out in full force - it was actually really fun to watch. :) Do you like my butterfly?

Ooooh! It worked - I'm such a geek. :P

and...

Good fun ~ Since it had been a hot day, we knew it was going to be warm enough to play with waterbombs. I love waterbombs. We filled a whole bunch up before everyone arrived (and tested a few out!) and everyone seemed to enjoy the game we played... before randomly pegging the rest. We also had the table tennis table set up, and a game of badminton happening in the backyard at the same time. After dessert, we all played Jenga (which was our other adopted brother's birthday present to Megs), Take Two and more table tennis. It really was a lot of fun.

And here's a picture of Meaghan which I took yesterday. Isn't she cute?

And now I really must go and hang out the washing and get some other stuff done... I have four students this afternoon too, so definitely getting back into the swing of all that... and I got the FGYO first term repertoire list yesterday, so I hope to get some of that organised while I'm at school this afternoon, before I start teaching. So that's it for now...

A little bit of this, and a little bit of that...

...and you shake it all around (clap clap clap)... Yay! I love the chicken dance. Seriously.

Okay, so that was a weird way to start My First Real Post... aside from My Obligatory First Post.

This blog scares me a little. And for several reasons. I won't go into them all, but my main fear is that I am "copying". I used to dislike it so much when my sister copied me! Now I know that imitation is one of the highest forms of flattery, but between the ages of about 7 and 17 I totally couldn't think of anything I found less flattering. Anyhow, my dear friend Danielle, who told me today that she wants to convert the world to blogism, said that if I had a blog, whe would read it. So she helped me to set one up... she held my hand (figuratively speaking) each step of the way (as I asked an astronomical amount of silly questions). And so today begins a new chapter in the life of Carla.

So... what does one write in one's blog? How do you all know how to write such interesting posts, which are so much fun to read? Does one get better at it, as one goes along? I'm feeling slightly intimdated, in case you hadn't guessed.

Perhaps I shall start by telling you that it is my sister's birthday tomorrow. I love birthdays! Although, truth be told, these days birthdays in our house are a little different, since my little brother is on the other side of the world. Oh hey, maybe I should tell him that I have a blog now, and that he can read it if he likes! Actually, that sounds like a good plan to me. I just miss him so very much! But you know what? Since Lachlan left, I now have two extra little brothers (well, as far as age goes... one is little, and the other might as well be my twin) ~ but they are friends of ours (and Lachy's) who have stepped in to try to fill the void he left. And I must say, they're doing a pretty awesome job.

Anyhow, back to my sister's birthday! Tomorrow, she will turn 23 - I can't believe she's that old! I can't believe I'm as old as I am either, but that's beside the point. After dinner, we are having some special local friends over for dessert and games.... we've planned the menu, want to know what it is? The birthday cake will be a chocolate cake, then we're having pavlova with cream and ice cream, fruit salad, and rocky road. Being the fantastic big sister that I am (haha), I already have the pavlova in the oven. My organisations skills rock. Haha again. Dear me, I am such a strange person. What I think is the best thing about tomorrow though, is that it's all about Meaghan. Not about me. Not about anyone else. Just her. And I want to make sure that she knows that.

Tonight in church my mind started wandering. Does that happen to anyone else? And do you hate it as much as I do? It was very warm inside, I was rostered on for playing piano (which tends to stress me out a bit), and I had a sore neck. It makes me cross when I don't take in the sermon like I should. Anyhow, I started to wonder what I will look like when I grow old...

I think this must be The Most Random Post Ever.