Angel

I need to learn how to be a better person.
=(

WEDDING ATTENDEES

Thee people made my day this past week:

Emm Peterson saying that she would arrange to start prac one day early so that she could have the Friday off to come to the wedding.

Amy Anderson saying that she would make mini quiches

Diana Seah saying she was going to make time to usher even though it meant skipping theatre.

Makes me feel like, if I really wanted to do something, I could make the time to. <3 Thanks beautiful ladies.

MUSINGS

Today a random guys on the bus told meI was absolutely stunning. I don't think I've ever been called that before (albeit he was a little bit deranged looking).

I wish for so many things.

Mostly things that I can never change.

Sometimes people are just too difficult for me.
No matter what I do it's never good enough for people who are closest to me.
And I guess that's mostly true.

Who wants close when you can have acquantainces right?
Who wants people?

I wish I could speak the things I so "eloquently" put into writing.
This sucks.

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN

if no one cared?

anymore.

When you've got to tell yourself, don't try so hard.
It means you're trying too hard.

Never thought that I'd have to try so hard.
I'm used to it being different. I'm scared. What if it's not right for me?


awakened by the smell of awesome food..maybe I'm hungry.

UNMOTIVATED

This PhD is sucking the life out of me.

Please make it go away

DAY 20 IMPUTATION PROPITIATION

God's wrath completely satisfied.
God's glory placed upon undeserving sinners.

And nothing I can do to wreck it.



How can we not be thankful?

OH BLURRY LINES

Sometimes I don't even know if what I like, is what I like.

Or it's what you want me to like.

GIRLS

I can't believe we have a whatsapp chatroom called 'popcorn'. We have such stimulating conversations.


Till tomorrow.

DAY 19 DINNER WITH GIRLS

Dinner with the girls.

We talked about weddings. Food. Complained about PhDs. Work. Golf. Olympics. Traveling. Visas. Food. Chocolate. Salt. Sugar. Going to the gym. Lifestyle choices.


Doing a PhD bonds you in more ways than you can imagine.
Put people together in the same room, with excessive levels of stress, crazy working hours, same goals (publish or perish) and you get ..friends.

I find it unbelievable. Especially for someone like me, who doesn't make friends easily.

Day 19, I thank God for friends (circumstantial or not, only time will tell).

THIS WEEK

I tried on my wedding dress. =D

I love my wedding dress.

Boo.

Bed time.

Btw, a recent publication found that those who slept less than 6 hours and more than 8 hours had weight gain over 4 years.

Don't be sleep deprived.

<3 Serene

THE DAVID CHOI EXPERIENCE

was simply awesome.


















I must admit that before the day, I was more looking forward to seeing Jayesslee.



























But ended up being completely won over by the straight-faced musician.



























If he ever comes back to Sydney again, I would brave the squealing teenage girls (+ boys!) to see him play live again. (Poor Brendan...=p)

*click*

Some people are so FULL of themselves. Seriously. Jump of your high horse.

God you know that I am often times exacly the same way if not worse.
Teach me not to feel this way.

BEING SERENADED

by jack johnson.

Ahhhhhh..

"umm it's always better when we're together".

Bits and piece of wedding planning inspirations.

We have a colour scheme. honeysuckle and peach!





















Liking the idea of hanging stuff of branches/edges of chairs. Not sure how that's going to happen yet.










































































sources: 1, 2, 3

Don't want to give away too much!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

I'm not much of a baker.
But

















you inspire me to do things I never thought I would do.

To serve Christ with all my heart.
To love people beyond my own capability.

You have truly taught me to move beyond my comfort zone.

WEDDING COLOUR/FLOWERS!

Been reading way too many wedding blogs recently.

Since I'm having a spring wedding;

I can't decide if I like VERY PALE pastels



















































or

PALE Pastels















































or


Bright colours more.
























































Being indecisive, I'm kinda leaning towards VERY PALE or PALE, with some colour.



















Like the yellows in this.



Anyone?

Picture credits: Ruffled, Style Me Pretty

JESUS IS LIGHT

From what I have observed, read and personally experienced, there are four types of Christians:

a) all talk + no action " I know the Bible bla bla bla, here, bla bla", when it comes time to serve, disappears like wind
b) the indifferent one " I don't care if I don't act like a Christian and don't do Christian things, as long as I know I'm a Christian, who cares?"
c) the all action + no substance " I go to church, like everyday, like every night, every evening, by the way I'm sleeping with my boyfriend"
d) the follower of Christ "I struggle with sin, I struggle with giving up all my time and own desire to serve, I want my own way but I will serve, I will change, because Christ is Lord of my life, I am no longer boss of my own life"

Let me first say, that salvation is obtained through faith in Christs' redemption of our sins on the cross, regardless of which category we fall in.
I have been in categories a to c; and lots of times am still in one of those categories.

But I hope and pray that as the Holy Spirit in His power changes people, that I will want more and more to be in category d.

And I pray that for all of you, who follow Christ.

I TURNED 25

On Friday.
Today. Happy Happy. Cake. Yummy. Icing. =)

Proof that you don't need to be eloquent to get your message across. =p

David knew what he was talking about when he wrote this.

A man in trouble.
Hunted down by his enemies.
Trusting in God to deliver.
And deliver, God did.

You are my strength, I sing praise to you;
you, God, are my fortress,
my God on whom I can rely.

How blessed are we that we can rely on that great God.

WEDDING PLANNING

I have only really started planning my wedding maybe two days ago.
It's really kinda exciting but I can see how people would get stressed planning a wedding in a short time.

First, you kinda have to decide how much money you have and where you'd spend it on.
Then you have to lock in your big ticket items; the date, the church and the reception.

Because you're going to be spending so much money on the reception, you don't want to rush into it. But when you hold back, it gets booked up by vicious brides getting married in November.
Arrrggggh..I think planning a wedding is going to be difficult for someone like me because I tend to like to shop around and then come back.

Once the big ticket items are done, there's where everything else comes in.
Photographers
Dress
Bridal Party
Colour palate
Flowers
Invitations
Who should we invite!

Plus trying to work so that I can have a lot of time off!
It'll be an amazing six months.

Stay tuned <3

THE RANDOM I MISS BLOGGING POST

Month four of 2011.
Oh wow.

I miss blogging. In case you haven't figured out from the title.
Just sitting in my room, taking a break from 'life' and typing away.

Had a go at merging the pictures from 'that' Saturday.
Couldn't get it to line up because I took the pictures from different angles instead of sweeping across like a panorama. (Was going to post it here but blogger wouldn't let me).
























For those who get a text message, Brendan wrote the words on the sand.=) The letter was my favourite part <3.

Life has been mostly good, filled with lots of I'm so stressed and tired because of my PhD.
It's been good being able to think through stuff a little , with no rushing around this weekend (missing FOCUS camp though).
All I can say is, I can't wait for this part of my Uni life to be over.

Been thinking about organising the wedding. And really trusting God to provide me with the stamina to do enough with Uni, plan the wedding and take time off.

Am really glad for people who have so happily volunteered to help in any way they can.

Hmm..maybe I should take a little afternoon nap. Ahh..love the luxury of Sunday afternoons.

DAY 4 ENGAGEMENT

I will blog properly about the proposal.
It's too good not to blog about. <3
Loved everything about it from the breakkie, the cold wind, the running around in the rain, words in the sand, the stone that will remind me that I'm about to be 'someone's wife' =), the amazing letter.
More than the actions, were the thoughts that went behind everything. The prayer, planning, physical exertion and sacrifice. And I will blog properly about this.

But today I want to talk about something else.

I've told the proposal story probably about 50 times (probably going to tell it a few more times too). I've explained about when I'm going to get the ring about 80 times (somehow guys are very curious about the ring).

As good as the proposal story is. As much as I'm going to love the ring that I get.

Those shouldn't be the main things in my head right. I love romance and pretty trinkets as much as every girl out there (in fact I'm the typical girl).

But the question I need to be asked is not how many carats the ring is but is he going to gently but firmly nudge me towards Christ.

Is he going to love and sacrifice himself for me, just like Christ did for his church?
Am I going to be a good wife, that submits to his leadership?
How can we plan our wedding in a way that shows that we trust God?

I am very blessed indeed. If you know me, I'm not into public displays of affections.
But to quote Bec, " I have truly got a good guy'.

The proposal was great.
I love the stone.

But, it wasn't the proposal or the stone that made me said yes (though the letter was amazing indeed).
It was the 3 + years of watching him love God more, make big sacrifices and learn to be patient.

I'm going to keep telling the proposal story as though it's the first time I've told it.
I'm going to really love my ring.

But what is going to make this marriage count is not romance and pretty gifts.
It's being united under Christ that is really going to make the difference.

2011-03-28

Won my first touch game! =)















Scored my first touch goal!

This is a moment to document.

Quote from Hardcastle et al;

Since the intervention (targeting weight loss) appeared to have little impact on dietary behaviour, it could be argued that a dietitian is unnecessary.


Sigh, there must be no dietitians on the paper.

WHAT DO I BLOG ABOUT NOW

My mind's pretty scattered right now. Lots of jumbled thoughts with no way to connect them.

Been feeling just tired. Too much work definitely.
Need to remind myself how awesome God has been to me this year.
I wish I had a bigger capacity to love others and not be so selfish.
I try but it's hard.

Some things are too private to write here, but I have no way of getting it of my chest.
And no mental capacity to do cryptic posts.

Is anyone still reading?

I forgot that I love stringing sentences together.
Make tangible; ideas that are abstract.

Running around like we just don't care. That just popped into my mind. Must be from a song.

You know what, project 101 needs to continue.

Run around like we just don't care.

Jay Mie asked if I had any special requirements: I said lots of love, hugs and smiles.

Run around like we just don't care.

STATE, DEVELOP, SUMMARISE , CONCLUDE

The four steps to writing a position paper.

I'm attempting to read paper by Bray, which does exactly this.
With words like corpulency and inundate, I'm tempted to give it a miss.

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER FROM WAVE 2011

Always surviving, never striving.

Self-doubt is a difficult thing to overcome. =( Human assurance is fleeting.

God can work in awesome ways.

Door knocking can be effective.

2-year olds can learn the gospel, "God made the cowwwwwss".

Kids ministry is invaluable. And very difficult.

Chris Webbs' intro to the guests each night. Just pure GOLD!!
Day 1: I'm samie B, don't look at me Day 2.dj l's in the house, greg lee is in the house Day 3.But they're leaving town, and we all have frown, (the Ackmans) Day 4. We love yewwww Caleb, cos you look so good in the kitchen.

Khaos!

Tug-a-war, SNAP, 3-second stunned silence then, kids: we WON!

The impromptu singing of the hundred or so helpers, no lyrics upfront, just one guitar - a little glimpse of heaven.

Little Jeffrey's echoing Roger's " This is so exciting ' with ' SOOOO EXCITING'.

Super super saviour by Colin, the man Buchanan.'

Michael Jackson from the Storm tent.

The M&M girls.

Right, I could use a good dose of 'self help'.