In Which I Humbly apologize / Sunday, May 30, 2004
Sorry, I've been a bit lazy of late. I've been trying to study for this insurance licence exam, it's not going too well. There's only a 50% pass rate, and I'm really crap at studying. I just don't have the discipline.
I've been helping Joe out in the garden quite a bit over the last few days we've been planting trees and moving soil. Not very much fun when it's scarily hot and extremely humid. Summer hasn't even started yet, at least there's been a bit of a breeze. That'll disappear completely in the next couple of months.
We've actually rented a house in Florida! It's got a tower, a private pool, and the beach is only 100 yards away. Excellent! I'm very excited about this whole Florida thing, I just can't wait! It seems that my friends that "are going" aren't excited at all. They can't be bothered to reply to a simple email. For that matter none of my friends have sent me a proper email (by proper I mean without the dreaded Fw: in the title) for a good while. I actually after about 20 emails to each of them managed to get a reply from Ben and Ian, but it seems like I have to go through the whole process again to get another one. At least I got to chat to Dave, Tim, Rich, and James on MSN Messenger. That was great. I wish more people would do that. I guess if I can't even get them to email then there isn't going to be any chance of that.
Not that I'm pissed off or anything, I mean the best I could manage to Dave was a trimonthly (if he was lucky) email. It just upsets me, I'm afraid that you've all forgotten about me. You know this is a great place to come for a holiday, plenty of bars, live music, great food, a beach half a days drive away, crazy swampy scenery, and New Orleans just down the road. All you have to do is say "Can I come and stay?" and the answer would be "Of course!" If anyone wants to come to Florida and think they've missed it, they are more than welcome. I think we can squeeze another couple of people in! If a whole bunch of people want to come then there's always another house somewhere nearby that we can rent out.
Anyhow enough of this complaining,I'm off to church to pray that more of my friends will try to keep in touch.
Because I've been having problems with that side of things here's a little pressie. So you don't have to get those stupid forwards anymore!
Craig's Joke Images Page
/Hopped!
9:33 AM
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In Which I Do a Short Bit Because I'm On The Annoying Computer / Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Annoying because it's really high up and somehow I keep on pressing something that does things that I don't want it to. Here goes... I'll just do a list of things that have happened:
1. Cresta is here, she's doing alright.
2. It may have seemed luxurious having a swimming pool, but really it's only good if it's not storming, like it has been for the last fortnight. Pretty much non-stop, apart from the one day when there was a couple of hours free for me to swim in.
3. Church was a bit bad this week, there was no ceiling (they're refubishing it right now)so the already bad acoustics were made worse by the volume of the rain. The sound system was playing up, so the vocals and piano were fading in and out all the time. The guitars were alright though, they're running through their own amps.
4. I'm doing fine.
5. I've been having problems getting people to communicate with me about this Florida trip I'm trying to organize. It's all a bit overwhelming when I have to guess what people are thinking. It seems no matter how many emails I send I seem to get one reply from someone if I'm lucky. Oh well. Dave said "I'm going to be online tonight" which really isn't that helpful. When tonight? Doesn't he realize that we're in completely different timezones and his tonight is a little (like 6 hours) different from mine? Tsk! Oh well. I guess I'll have to write back asking him to try and be a little more specific. Anyone who wants to talk to me can you know, you just have to tell me which messenger (AIM,MSM, or Yahoo are the ones I've got, although as long as it's free I can download another one, I don't mind. Yahoo is the most fun) and when.
6. Oops! I forgot about the list a brevity thing!
7. Cheerio!
/Hopped!
12:40 PM
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In which I lounge for a bit / Thursday, May 13, 2004
Well I'm not going to do my training in New Orleans, I'm going to do it here in Baton Rouge, this means I have to wait a bit longer before I can actually start working. If I was going to N.O. I would have to get up at about 5:30 and I wouldn't be back until 6:30. I'm not the best student at most times, and definitely not when I'm knackered!
I cooked some steaks on the grill last night, they came out alright, med. well instead of medium, but we live and learn! I think Ash appreciated me cooking her dinner for her, I guess I'll do the same tonight been as I'm not working and she is.
I've just gone for a bit of a swim, Max was in the pool just as soon as I was. She's not very much of a social swimmer. Or maybe a bit too much of a social swimmer. Well she's always getting in my lane, in fact she won't let me swim at all. She just tries to swim straight into me, and she has claws. I have the choice of drowning or getting scratched all over. I went for the latter. I've got scratches all over my shoulders and back. The only possible way to actually swim in the swimming pool is to make sure that Max is in the house and all the doors are shut. I guess I could try that a bit later on.
Well there you go. All up to date. You might even get another entry today if anything interesting happens. I don't think it will though. Cheerio for now!
/Hopped!
11:44 AM
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Ash Speaks Again / Wednesday, May 12, 2004
No, I don't have Pete locked up in a basement anywhere and I didn't send him on a never-ending mission to find pickle-flavored peanut butter (although I may if I ever get pregnant). He's just super-busy with training for his new job. The training has been in New Orleans so we have to leave early in order for him to drop me off at work and get down to N.O., then pick me up from work, and head to the chiropractor.
Last night we began house-sitting for a couple from our church, Jo and Loyd. They have a very nice and big house with a swimming pool and Golden Retriever named Maxie. Maxie loves to swim, play, chase her tail, steal your socks, lick you, and wake you up at 4:30am with a cold wet nose in your face. We just love her and one of our first goals once we ever find ourselves on our own with a backyard, is to get a Golden Retriever.
They also have a pet turtle who is smaller than the palm of my hand who likes to be hand-fed. Constantly. He'll see you come into the room and crawl to the top of his aquarium on a rock and put his little hands up, stick his head out of the water and ask for food. Jo got him one day when she found him in the swimming pool. She had a fish living with him but the fish jumped out of the tank and committed suicide. Now it's a lonely turtle.
Actually seeing a family with a golden retriever and a turtle reminds me of a book I read when I was about 6 years old. A little boy who had a little brother named Fudge. Does anybody remember this book? I think Judy Blume might have written it.
Back to our sweet darlin' dewdrop Pete - He begins his licensing class on Thursday in New Orleans, so I don't think we'll hear from him soon. I'll try to keep y'all updated if I remember. It's easy to forget about this blog b/c those few of you who read it hardly ever comment so it's easy to think that nobody looks at it until Pete gets a complaint from somebody. We're fine, we're very poor at the moment and are learning how to live off of pasta and whatever we find in the house. We didn't have enough money for petrol for Pete to go to work today, but today was a good day to miss anyway. It was raining so hard and so quickly that we were having flash floods and it was hard enough for me to get to work. We had to change direction once b/c of flooded streets.
I have to get back to work now, Cheerio everyone and x x x x x to the family.
/Hopped!
2:25 PM
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In Which I Actually do Two Days in a Row / Sunday, May 09, 2004
Ooooh! You weren't expecting this were you?!
Ash and I went to Church of the Holy Spirit today. It's the place where we did our Alpha course. It was nice, it's good for a change. We met up with some friends we haven't seen in a while. It's a bit weird really, I've heard 5 Sermons this weekend, and all but one were about using the gifts that God has given me. Maybe He's trying to tell me something. I've just got to find out what they are! I guess music is one of them, I've got to start using that one a bit more. I've been trying to write praise songs, which to be honest is that hard. The idea being that people can sing along and meditate on the words means that you really only need one or two verses and a chorus. A chorus like this one I just made up:
I'm blessed today,
just like yesterday,
He'll bless me tomorrow,
I'm blessed everyday!
That's kind of complicated. There's one song that goes
Oh Draw me Lord (x3)
And I'll run after You.
I really like that one! Simple yet effective. I should be using my gifts to the best of my ability though, I guess I'd better get practicing.
Anyhow, after church we went to Jo and Lloyds house to pick up the cheque for the Insurance course I've got to take and they said that they need a house sitter for the next week. They have a really nice house, with a pool (which got me excited) and a puppy (which got Ash excited).
After that I went out and bought some clothes for work. I got some trousers (the ones I have are too short) and a shirt. Then we came home, took a nap and woke up really late and that's about it!
I've got a meeting tomorrow in New Orleans with all the insurance bods about what to do now I'm employed with them. The good news is that I can say I can do the course tomorrow, and there isn't really any bad news! They gave me a kind of script to run through when I'm selling. I'm going to have to get it memorized. Not for tomorrow, just for sometime in the future when I actually start selling.
Well there you go, all up to date. I don't think I can really be bothered with the comics. Call me lazy, and I could do the same for you because you can't be bothered to go to the sites yourself and look them up! I'll give you a list of the sites I go to for them and you can add them to your favorites:
Comics.com
Grimmy.com
Shermans Lagoon
King Features.com
uComics.com
That's right, I used to go to all these websites daily to make you laugh. It's a lot of work! I didn't even get a thank you, just complaints :-( Hey, I'm just kidding, it doesn't bother me. I'm just glad y'all enjoyed them. It'd probably be better if you just linked straight to this page, I'll tell you here if I change anything on my website, and you can use the link on the right. Been as I've been having trouble keeping up with this, it's very unlikely that I'll do anything to my website apart from put photos on it really. Did I say link on the right? I mean left. Stage right.
/Hopped!
9:57 PM
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In Which I go on the Alpha Retreat / Saturday, May 08, 2004
Hello everyone, long time no write. Sorry! Well there's two exciting things that have happened to me, the first one is getting a job, the second one is going on the Alpha retreat.
First the job. I'm going to be a life insurance salesman. Not as bad as it sounds, honest! It's for a company called American Income, they have an original way of selling insurance, they only sell to unions. It means that I'll only be selling to people that are interested in buying. The average policy is $400 per year, and I get 50% commission. I get 6 people to sell to everyday. If I only manage to sell one policy a day that's still $1000 a week, and that's not including residuals. It's a growing company so it should be easy to move up. I was talking to one guy who's been there for 4 months and he's already got 3 promotions! So I've actually got a career now. Fantastic eh? I've got to take an insurance license course, it;s going to cost $300. A lady from church said she would give me the money to do it, which is totally amazing right? I will pay her back, even though she says she doesn't want me to.
The other thing is the Alpha retreat it was at this beautiful
retreat centre about an hour outside Baton Rouge. The main complex had a lake on three sides of it that was full of turtles, ducks and jumping fish. The chapel was really nice, it had huge glass doors on the side of it that opened up into the woods, it really felt like we were in the middle of nature. A great place to feel God's presence. I had some real spiritual battles going on while I was there. As a helper of the Alpha course I asked God to help me pray for people, He just kept quiet. It was very upsetting. So I went for a walk and spent a lot of time screaming at Him. He pissed me off!Then I was just very sad. I almost quit right there. I was thinking "Right, if you're not gonna talk to me, I'm just going to give up on you!" Then I went to the final service in the chapel. It was a Eucharist, which is really just a thanksgiving service. I was in tears, at first it was because I felt left out by God. Then I realized how much he's done for me. Let me just make a quick list for you right now:
1. He died so I could be free from sin
2. He's promised me eternal life
3. He has given my life meaning
4. He's the best friend I could ever ask for, as well as being the creator of everything. (which is just mind boggling - He's so powerful, he's not only my best friend he's the BEST friend anyone could have)
5. Without Him I wouldn't even exist
6. I've been blessed with a beautiful, caring wife
7. He's answered my prayers (about confidence. I played guitar for all of the worship songs this weekend and I play in the church band. I wouldn't have had the nerve to do that before)
8. He's made sure I got a decent job
I couldn't possibly list everything He's done for me. It would go on forever. Seriously. So then after I realized this, I started crying for treating him so bad. I was a mess! Anyhow, it's all good now. After all He's forgiven me! Halleluiah! Praise God! Alright, you might not, but I will! So Ash and I went to a worship service. I'm not sure any of you could understand what it's like, but people dancing, singing, and praising God. The place was alive with the Holy Spirit, I had a smile a mile wide from genuine joy. Incredible. The only problem was with the American twang in the priests voice it just sounded really insincere. The music was incredible though.
I'm sorry to harp on about God and Christianity and all that, but sometimes I just feel like standing on a mountaintop and crying out His name and how much He loves me and how much I love Him. Amen! I pray every night that y'all can feel the peace and joy I feel (and honestly, there's nothing like it. I've tried quite a few different ways to experience joy believe me, this is the best!) but that's a decision you have to make for yourself. I'd better stop now before I start getting really preachy!
Oh just one more thing. Been as this email is super-Jesus anyhow... Oh that reminds me of something else actually, there's a version of the Bible which is like a comic book. Jesus wearing a cape and pants on the outside. Isn't that funny?! Anyhow, I digress. There was this lady in the church that Ash and I went to who a year and a half ago couldn't speak. I guess she had a stroke or something, but she couldn't speak and could hardly even walk. He family prayed hard for her to get better. Tonight she was singing and dancing with the rest of the congregation. Who says miracles don't happen?
Been as I get the chance tonight to say it: God bless you all. Goodnight.
/Hopped!
11:09 PM
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Ash Gossips about Pete / Friday, May 07, 2004
As I type this, our Darling Peter Snookums is on his way to a third interview for an Insurance Manager position with a successful Life Insurance company. Three interviews, three days in a row, must mean they like him right? We'll see.
Sorry that he hasn't been posting this week. It has been especially busy for him with job interviews, courting me around town, and taking me on much needed dates. Yes, we've gone a few dates this week to keep up our happy mushy if-i-say-anything-more-you'll-be-embarrassed-or-annoyed marriage. I love being married. I love being married to him. I love being in a public place and having my nose kissed, my hand always held or an arm always around me, and someone shouting from the back "Get a Room!". I love always being with my best friend, and always having somebody to talk to at night, somebody to pray with, and somebody who will wash my dirty drawers while I'm at work. I love it. I love him. I also love the idea of duplicating little Petes once we're settled and ready for kids. I'm not crazy about the 9 month process, but the results must be worth it.
Anyway, so we've been busy. Especially Pete, putting up with the dogs, the house, our laundry, cleaning out the truck (he did a GREAT job!), running errands for my parents, chauffering me, and going to job interviews - in a SHIRT AND TIE!. Yes folks, a shirt and tie. Don't fret, I have pictures and will share them when we get back next week.
Today we're off on our Alpha Weekend Retreat, to help others be filled with the Holy Spirit and lead them to God. If that doesn't happen, then at least we've provided them with a relaxing weekend with free food and the enjoyment of Pete's guitar and singing. Happy Mother's Day (Sunday in the U.S.)!
/Hopped!
10:41 AM
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In Which I Do Another Post / Sunday, May 02, 2004
Sorry, not such an imaginative title! Well it's been a pretty quiet week really. I've been spending most of my time playing Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX and NHL 2002. Other than that I washed the truck (inside and out), watched The Transporter, Phone Booth, and School of Rock, and that's pretty much it really!
The Transporter is a cool film. It's got that dude with the shaved head that was in Snatch and Lock Stock. Imagine a Jackie Chan film but instead of Jackie Chan there's a serious English guy instead. There's a great grease fight in it. Phone Booth is kind of average really, and School of Rock is pretty funny. Not as funny as I thought it would be but still pretty entertaining.
There was only Maria and me playing in church today. We got by alright though, everyone was happily praising God, so we did the job! Alpha was about the devil and evil, so that led to some pretty interesting discussions.
Umm... The interview I was supposed to have on Tuesday is going to be this Tuesday instead, and I have another interview on Tuesday as well. It's good to be in a situation where I can actually turn down a job now. If they offer me lots more money I might have to think about it a bit harder though!
Anyhow, that's about it really.
/Hopped!
8:44 PM
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