When the blogosphere and the real world intersect

Yesterday I was really excited to meet Wendy in person for the very first time. You can check out her blog about missionary life in Japan here. She is here in Australia at the moment with her family, as they are doing a little bit of work connecting with their supporting churches, and also having some rest and relaxation time exploring central Australia in a motor home. Our family met up with them at a group picnic event, where we also met some of their other friends (including some other bloggers!).

I was a little bit nervous beforehand, to be honest. But it was a lovely time spent chatting and getting to know a bunch of new people. It's a bit strange meeting people face to face for the first time, but feeling like you already know them so well after having read their blogs for ages. So the initial nervousness wore off very quickly, which was great.

So thanks to all for a great day yesterday. Lovely to finally meet you Wendy, and to meet Mel, Sandy, Mrs Q as well!

Have I mentioned before how much I love blogging? So many new friends out there to be made.

Too much information

Today I went to have a bit of orientation at my new workplace. I came away feeling a bit overloaded with information. But I did score a free lunch because it was also student orientation day.

I will have twenty six students in my tute group if they all turn up. There will probably be a few drop outs though.

Getting myself onto the Uni email system and getting a photo ID card are the next jobs to be tackled.

Before I went out to Uni, I caught up with my friend, Jonathan's Mum. We walked and talked, and drank peach iced tea together in a cafe. And it was nice to just be with her, talking about anything and everything and enjoying the sunny day. And we talked about our little boys. Even though we were sad Jonathan wasn't with us, it was good.

Goodbye Jonathan

We are very sad we won't get to know you here on earth but look forward to meeting you in heaven.

We are so proud to be friends of your amazing family. Today it was great to hear the letters your Mum and Dad had written for you and to see your photo.

We grieve, but not without hope. We smile to know that one day we will see you again.

I have to finish reading this book today

In time for a discussion this evening. 90 pages to go. It's going to be tight. Between now and then I also have to make some plum and almond cupcakes for dessert (goes with the book discussion), pick up the kids from school, deal with a few toddler toilet trips and feed the baby at least twice.

It is an excellent book though. I'm very keen to get to the end to see what happens.

I talked to my friend, Jonathan's Mum, this morning. His funeral is tomorrow morning. She is doing as well as can be expected, considering what she has been through this week. Still praying for strength for their whole family.

Off to keep reading over lunch while both kids are still asleep...

Loving...

...the meals that wonderful friends in our church family are bringing to us at the moment. It's so good to feel this loved.

And it's very exciting getting a surprise dinner each night. I'm usually the menu planner in our house, so I nearly always know what we're having to eat for dinner. It's refreshing being surprised.

No baby here...

...yet. 37 weeks today. Still feeling pretty okay. No swollen ankles, not feeling too bloated or anything. A bit tired but that's about all. I've only been this many weeks pregnant once before but I don't think I was feeling this good that time. Just goes to show what eating a healthy diet can do for you, really.

So now it's official: this one will be a full term baby. This is good. Hope that means it will get its act together with breastfeeding a bit quicker than Rosie did.

Still feeling a bit sad for our friends, who had another scan for their baby boy this week. Nothing much had changed, so they had to go through the pain of hearing the same news again. I don't think it would be any easier hearing it a second time. They are now having a week of holidays. I am praying that they will still be able to find some restful and enjoyable times.

This is the coolest house

You can see more photos of it here. A friend of ours lives there now. But she is selling. It's a beautiful location, across the road from a quiet waterfront. There's a nice little jetty there to sit on and go fishing. Or have a nice glass of wine.

We haven't caught up with our friend for a while so we're not sure why she's selling. Chris stayed with her for the first few weeks when he started working down here (while he was waiting for the rest of us to move down from Brisbane). Some of the sloping ceilings weren't fantastic for his tall frame to cope with.

Our friend is a great collector of old furniture. She likes to find stuff at kerbside collection time and carries it back to her place. Somehow the eclectic mix of things seems to work really well together. And it all feels really homely and just right for the style of the house.

It's not a house that's really suitable for small children. But it is amazing to see it inside. And it has a library. One of the A-framed sections is lined with bookshelves.

I'm a little bit envious. I would love to have a house with a library in it one day. I have another friend who has a library room in her home too. One of those unfulfilled dreams that might come true one day....

Sorrow and joy seem to go together

More than I'd expect.

Today I heard some great news about little Harvey, who has been having treatment for a rare brain tumour since the beginning of this year. I have blogged about him before here and here. He is now a big two year old and is going really well. His scan at the conclusion of all his chemo and radiation therapy has come back clear, and although he's not out of the woods just yet (he needs to keep having three monthly MRI scans) this news has come as a great relief for his family.

And this morning I was talking to another good friend of mine who is pregnant and due a few months after me. They have two older children about the same ages as our boys and had been trying to have another baby for several years without any success. We were both trying to fall pregnant before Rosie was born and so it has been lovely to share the pregnancy journey with their family this time around. She had her 18 week scan yesterday, which showed some abnormalities, which might be serious or might not mean anything. They are not sure yet but have been referred for more detailed scans to find out more information. I am praying so hard that it will all be okay for them, knowing that their journey to this point has been such a difficult road. Whatever happens, pregnancy has changed for them (for now anyway) from a joyful time to one of anxiety and worry about what might be going to happen.

The Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 that there is a time for everything under heaven. And so it is true. But it seems to me that there are times when these times just happen simultaneously.

Please pray for both my friends.

Yum

This afternoon I went to a cooking class at a friend's house. It was so much fun. Lots of clever cooking tips and new recipes to learn. We made tortellini using wonton wrappers, with a pork mince filling. Much easier than I expected it to be. I am definitely going to give that a go at home.

And we got to eat all the food after we'd watched it being made. A three course dinner with my favourite creme brulee for dessert.

Great food, lovely company, what could be better?

Would you do this?

Yesterday I was reading a discussion on one of the parenting websites I visit. The topic was "if you recognise someone you haven't seen in decades (even if they don't seem to recognise you), do you go up and say hi to them?" The person who asked said she has a good memory for names and faces so she always says hello when she sees someone she knows from her past. The example she gave was of seeing her ex-boyfriend from Year 7 and saying hello to him after not seeing him in 36 years!?

I'm not so sure about this.

I also remember faces and names well and had this dilemma when we were on holidays recently. I saw a Speech Pathologist I worked with in my first job as an OT, seventeen years ago. I saw her at the supermarket last time we went to Yamba as well. This time I saw her at the beach with her kids. She was having coffee with a friend at the kiosk. I haven't seen her since I left the job where we worked together.

After spending much of the morning wondering what to do, in the end I didn't say hello. What if she hadn't remembered me? Then I would have felt embarrassed in front of her friend and all of their combined kids. Maybe if she had been on her own I would have done it. She was actually lovely to work with, so it wasn't like it was someone from my past that I didn't like (in which case I wouldn't have the dilemma, I'd just run and hide).

But maybe she saw me and recognised me too and both of us were waiting for the other person to make the first move.

Perhaps on our next Yamba holiday I will finally be brave enough to go up and say hi. But knowing my luck, I probably won't see her next time we go there.

It's interesting that I find this far less of an issue in the online world, although I did follow Simone's blog for quite some time before I was brave enough to comment to see if she remembered who I was. But then it's far less humiliating to say hello to someone online that you know from years ago and not get a response, as opposed to saying hello face to face and having the other person say "Sorry, do I actually know you?"

But when I have stepped out and been brave to contact people I know from years ago on Facebook or through blogging (hi Sheryl if you're reading!), it has been very rewarding. I suppose the face to face thing could be the same.

On sharers and secret squirrels

I think these are just alternative titles for extroverts and introverts, but I was reading an interesting column in one of the newspapers last weekend on this topic, in relation to social networking sites.

Most of the people I keep in touch with on these sites fit into one or other of these categories. Sharing is good. Over-sharing, particularly if it's done in a "look at me" way, can be a little annoying. I'm not sure that I need to know everything that people are eating, but on the upside there are times when that information can inspire me to go and cook something I might not have tried before. When it's done in a good way, sharing can open your eyes and your mind to new things that are enlightening and stimulating.

On the other side of the coin, I'm a secret squirrel through and through. It takes a while for people to get any kind of information out of me and I'm not generally one to volunteer much. I often watch or follow a conversation for quite a while before joining in. I don't get why people feel the need to tell everyone they know on a social networking site what they just bought, what they just ate, what bug they've come down with this week etc. Maybe that just makes me dull and boring to know, but I prefer to think that it's more interesting to be a bit less out there. Hidden depths and all that stuff...