/karen/

Ben gets home from Melbourne tonight!

Tuesday, 22 June, 2004

I'm so excited! Ben gets home from Melbourne tonight! He's been messaging me from the road every day. Technology is great, isn't it. I love how Orange Mobile lets us message and call each other for free! Don't know how long that will last but anyway ... Last Thursday was my day off so I didn't do much except walk into town, pick up a lot of things from Spotlight, spend too much money (trying to justify it by saying that they're presents) and watch Monsters, Inc. I got invited out in the evening but didn't want to go; I figured I was going to spend the entire weekend with people so now was a good chance to have some non-people time. On Friday I resolved to get off my lazy bottom and do some housework: laundry, ironing, mending, sweeping. I got the laundry and half the mending done. One of the reasons it took so long was that I was trying to patch together the lining of my duffle coat which, over the years, has been reduced almost to ribbons. I did a bit more last night but it took ages. Not sure how long it will last. Can one justify buying a new coat if the only problem is the lining? I still wasn't feeling very sociable but it was time to leave for Telford for the AFES female staffworkers' weekend away. There were women there from all over Australia—women who were quite often the only female staffworker on their campus. The girl from Tasmania told me that she was the only one in her state (it's a state of two major universities) but she only does two days a week. I could really see the need for more workers in student ministry. Shame I'm not really suited to it (though maybe in a part-time very reduced capacity with lots of other non-Uni things ...) (BTW, Deb, I met Natalie from University of Queensland and asked her if she knew you. She said your name was familiar but she just couldn't place it ... do you know her?) The girls from the Wollongong team were on music so Miriam, Amanda, Sarah and I had a good time giving our skills a workout (I haven't played piano in a congregational setting for at least three years). Breakfast was at the reasonable hour of 8:30 and the first sessions started at 9:30. The talks were all given by different women on senior staff and they were mostly centred around the cross and how that affects our ministry and the way we live. It was very encouraging stuff! During free time, a bunch of girls who were into craft (and me who was trying to finish my Sunday school lesson) sat around the table and knitted/stuck things on noodle boxes/cut out bits of cardboard with fancy scissors and wrote tags (I was making cards to attach to the pipecleaner beaded and feathered flowers that Julie got us to make on Sleepover; they're for the girls who couldn't come). Though it was nice to meet and catch up with people, I was also glad to get home (and very worried about my Sunday school lesson). I had an hour to have a shower and pull everything together before Amanda dropped me at church. One of the mothers from 5 o'clock church sat in on the lesson to give me feedback. I was so afraid the craft thing would backfire; I was going to get the girls to colour in a very simplified family tree of David to Jesus, then decorate noodle boxes in the form of houses (to bring across the concept of the “House of David”) and make pipe cleaner men to put in the house. I had 11 girls that day which was a little bit more than usual but they all got into it and nobody told me, “I don't want to do this.” There were sausages for tea afterwards, then 7 pm church with a great sermon by Shaun, encouraging us to persevere because it's worth it. I helped Tim and Liz wash up (they'd been doing marriage prep with couples who want to get married at St. Michael's), they gave me some soup to supplement my sausage-dinner and then dropped me home. Because I have no car, I've spent the past two days walking to work. It takes approximately 40 mins and it's quite a nice walk with only two hills. I have to admit that it takes me a while to get out of bed in the morning and get going because of the cold, but when I'm underway, I don't regret it. Last night I caught the bus home and ended up watching three movies while I did the ironing and some more mending. I also forced myself to make lasagne because otherwise I wouldn't have any lunch. It's funny how I feel very little incentive to cook when it's just me. I wonder if everyone else is like that when they live by themselves. But Ben is coming home from Melbourne tonight. Yay!

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