About Me

My life is not my own, for I belong to Christ.

It is because of God's grace and for His glory that I "live and move and have my being."

I am currently back in Indiana, studying English Education at Purdue University, far from the home I've come to know and love in Victoria, Australia

My family means the world to me.

Living in America and loving in Australia, I am blessed indeed. Complete Profile

Some Fabulous Posts

• 10/01/2003 - 11/01/2003
• 11/01/2003 - 12/01/2003
• 12/01/2003 - 01/01/2004
• 01/01/2004 - 02/01/2004
• 02/01/2004 - 03/01/2004
• 03/01/2004 - 04/01/2004
• 04/01/2004 - 05/01/2004
• 05/01/2004 - 06/01/2004
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• 02/01/2005 - 03/01/2005
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• 05/01/2005 - 06/01/2005
• 06/01/2005 - 07/01/2005
• 07/01/2005 - 08/01/2005
• 08/01/2005 - 09/01/2005
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• 10/01/2005 - 11/01/2005
• 11/01/2005 - 12/01/2005
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• 01/01/2006 - 02/01/2006
• 02/01/2006 - 03/01/2006
• 03/01/2006 - 04/01/2006
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• 05/01/2006 - 06/01/2006
• 06/01/2006 - 07/01/2006
• 07/01/2006 - 08/01/2006
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• 09/01/2006 - 10/01/2006
• 10/01/2006 - 11/01/2006
• 11/01/2006 - 12/01/2006
• 12/01/2006 - 01/01/2007
• 01/01/2007 - 02/01/2007
• 02/01/2007 - 03/01/2007
• 03/01/2007 - 04/01/2007
• 04/01/2007 - 05/01/2007
• 05/01/2007 - 06/01/2007
• 06/01/2007 - 07/01/2007
• 07/01/2007 - 08/01/2007
• 08/01/2007 - 09/01/2007
• 09/01/2007 - 10/01/2007
• 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007
• 11/01/2007 - 12/01/2007
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• 08/01/2008 - 09/01/2008
• 09/01/2008 - 10/01/2008
• 10/01/2008 - 11/01/2008
• 12/01/2008 - 01/01/2009
• 07/01/2009 - 08/01/2009
• 08/01/2009 - 09/01/2009
• 09/01/2009 - 10/01/2009
• 05/01/2010 - 06/01/2010
• 06/01/2010 - 07/01/2010

Some Fabulous Places

Some Fabulous People

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Goodbye (almost)

I have decided to dedicate this post to 5 of my very most favorite people in the world: Ellie, Kathryn, Cathy, Beth, and Heather. They're going on ECHO next week and...I just felt like saying "goodbye" on my blog. I love you all so much! You have been such an encouragement to me and I'm so glad to have you as a friend. I hope you all have a truly fantastic ECHO trip this year. Glorify God, work hard, and think of me at least a little. :-) You are and will continue to be in my prayers! Thank you for being there for me... I LOVE YOU ALL!!!



Me & Ellie

Kathryn & Me Cathy, Beth, & Me



Heather & Me

Song of the post ~ "I hope you Dance" By LeeAnn Womack
No particular significance to this post... I just like the song and am in a Country mood. :-)

Charity | 8:26 pm

Monday, May 22, 2006

Marvelous Things

I've decided to write a general update of my life. Boring? Probably. Silly? Definitely. Bear with me. :-)

First of all, only 17 more days until The Guys (which includes Allen and Zachary and the rest of the Missions Team. "The Boys" refers to A & Z only - just so you know for future reference) arrive! Can I say again that I am bouncing-off-the-walls EXCITED!? Well, I just did. :-)

Secondly, I never wrote about our lovely weekend with Casey and the rest of the Plukies. We did makeovers, nails, and hair while watching movies and chatting mostly aimlessly. Oh and we played Around the World on the church's ping pong table (which they stole! *tsk tsk* [just joking]) Such fun! We have lots of pictures, but we haven't updated our picture blog in ages. I think we might wait and try to set up an actual website to make them easier to load and see. That probably won't happen until The Boys get here. So, keep your shirt on, okay?

Oh, one of the movies we watched at the Plukies was "October Sky" - fabulous movie! After hearing that lovely Virginia drawl for 2 hours, I was in a very Southern mood for the rest of the day. I tried to keep my "accent" for the entire morning. It was really hard! Southerners talk so slooowly and it's hard to get out what you want to say in time. For example... oh never mind. If you want to hear it first hand, call me and I'll be happy to demonstrate. :-) (My dad has banned me from speaking in my "southern accent" when he's around...so I just do it when I go to the Plukes' and such. :-D)

Anyhow... we girls are working hard earning money from our extremely entertaining and well paying job (*snort*) delivering newspapers! We do it on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. M & T ride their bikes while Benji (oh yeah, he's not a girl...) and I walk. I listen to my MP3 player and it's not an overall horrible job.

This past Friday, we girls went to footy, but decided to skip on the whole "coaching" thing. (though we had a few "run-ins" - hah! - with some of the little kids) We practiced our oh-so-great kicking skills with Matthew Pluke. All was going swell (love that word) until Matthew Pluke mercilessly put out his wrist to collide with poor Tamara's nose! Half laughing, half crying, she was led to the bathroom by Maria, Matthew, and me. All the adults kept crowding around asking what happened. I just started kinda yelling, "It's ok! Bloody nose! Bloody nose--" Then, realizing my mistake, I quickly shouted, "I mean blood nose! Blood nose!" [*ahem* "bloody" isn't a very nice word in these here parts of the world...] All was well and good once again until Maria, bully that she is, threw the footy directly at suffering Tamara's EAR! We had a good laugh..err..I mean we were all deeply sympathizing with her for a short while. She lived, I learned how to kick a footy (sort of), and Matthew "shouted" us all a sausage and a drink. So we all lived happily ever after in the end.

On Saturday, our previously planned shopping excursion to Melbourne was canceled. After the ladies breakfast, Jackie offered to let us spend the day at their house. Of course, knowing spending time with the Plukes, wacky as they may be, would be far better than staying home all day, we happily agreed. We persuaded Matthew and James to take us on a walk in the bush (the woods) - with Matthew as our "fearless leader" (his leadership skills are a bit lacking, though...hehe). After spending 2 hours there, Maria and I jogged back to the Plukes' (it was maybe 1 mile). Casey obviously felt our amazing efforts deserved a reward, for when she returned from school, she took us girls to Hungry Jacks for ice cream and Coke. We got about a zillion re-fills and tried to have chugging contests. All we got was some Coke squirting out of Maria's nose, lots of laughter, and stomache aches. Ahh...good times!

Hehe this is so fun. Though it's getting really long and I'm positive no one will read the entire thing....so I better end my lovely time writing this post. I really need to go take a shower and get dressed since we have Bible study tonight. (And yes, I do realize it's 3:18 in the afternoon and I'm still in my PJs. Homeschool bliss! ;-))

Soon to come: A Rant on Driving. Stay tuned!

"I'm loving life, it's so wonderful..."

Song of the post ~ "Memories" by Eisley

Charity | 2:53 pm

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

A picture's worth 1000 words...

but I'll just use a couple to describe the following pictures (and let you do the rest):




I could've daaanced all niiiight!


Hey, SHE --> started it. I just finished it (mashed potatoes, if you couldn't tell).


There's my Australian hottie. ;-) (he refused to kiss me on camera)


We're VERY into these head pictures lately.


The name's blonde. Jane Blonde. (hah! Mary Ray, remember!?)


Hmmm....

Now you guys can think of captions to your hearts content. Comment them if you so desire.

And yes, I know putting a bunch of pictures is kind of a cheap excuse for a post, but they're so much fun!!! I'll update for real in a few days... That is, if anything updation worthy happens.

Song of the post ~ "Look What You've Done" by Jet
I haven't heard this song in forever! I just thought I'd share it with you as I listen to it myself.

Charity | 2:42 pm

Friday, May 12, 2006

Reasons to be Happy

Today is Friday.
Jackie and James came to our homeschooling group today.
I met a new friend at our HS group today.
I finished my article for the Covenanter Witness (YOU ALL MUST READ IT WHEN IT COMES OUT!!!)
Jan Lumley took us girls shopping on Wednesday and bought us clothes!
My dad bought my mom a dryer for Mother's Day. (What a luxery!!!)
Allen and Zachary are coming in 27 days!!!
And we get stuffed crust pizza for 'Tea'!

Yessss!

Ohhhh now something sad: I looked at Zachary's SONrise pictures and *sigh* now I'm sad. Well, actually, I got REALLY excited looking at them. Everyone has CHANGED! *gasp* No seriously, I noticed soo many different things about people. You guys are all growing up on me... I think I will email a couple people with stuff I noticed about them. Aw, I really miss you CYPU people!!!

Ah, one more thing. The Chocolate Game.
You take a bar of Cadbury chocolate (I guess you could use Hersheys, but Cadbury works best), a cutting board, a hat (You can also have a scarf etc.), and some cuttlery (were you guys paying attention to the Aussie words? - knife and fork). Set the chocolate (a bigger bar for a bigger group) on the cutting board. The person to go first must put on the hat, take the knife and fork (in the proper Australian eating style), and start cutting one divided section of the chocolate. They must then put it on their fork, and chew until it is completely gone. Then they may start on the next piece. However, while they are trying to do this, the rest of the people are rolling a die. When someone rolls a 6, they get the chocolate and hat and must do as the first person did. Then they next person to roll a 6 gets it and so on and so forth. It gets pretty hilarious (especially when you have someone who almost gets the chocolate in their mouth when the next person to roll the die grabs it from them).

Song of the post ~ "My Best Friend" by Weezer

This song is for my IzzieBeff ;-)

Charity | 6:55 pm

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Caution: I'm lukewarm

That's what my cappacino should've said yesterday because it certainly wasn't HOT! Let's just say Mickey D's isn't my all-time favorite breakfast place... (At least I didn't order a McMuffin with egg shells in it like my sisters did. :-P) What drove us to such a place was...well...my dad (ha!). We were on our way to Geelong yesterday to spend the day. The morning started out just grand when my dad turned on our (we girls') bedroom light and expected us to wake up. Of course, we didn't fully awaken until my mom came in 20-30 minutes later and asked us if we were almost ready. We jumped out of bed (sort of), hurriedly got ready, and leaped into the car (okay, no. We really are NOT that entergetic in the wee hours of the morn.) To my dad's ecstatic joy (or not), there were wrecks and oil spills on one of the roads that should've taken us (and many other people) to Geelong. We left our home at 7:15 and got to the Geelong church at 10:45. Ideally, it should've only taken nearly half that time. :-/ My dad may have been pulling out his hair, but Tamara and I had fun listening to ~50 songs on my MP3 payer - from the Black Eyed Peas to Frank Sinatra (and everything in between). [Trust Allen to give me a wide variety of music when I asked him to put the songs on there after Christmas. I haven't even tried changing any yet... maybe I'll wait till he gets here.]

We spent the day at the McEwens' (sr.) lovely home. It was a good day. Kate (McEwen) Kent came over with her two girls for lunch, then the Mickelsons came for afternoon tea. We took a TON of gorgeous photos, but Tamara left her camera there! Hopefully Alistair and Margaret will bring it on Sunday when they come to McKinnon, and we'll put them up after that. Josh, Sarah, and Eleni came over for Tea (dinner). We had a good time talking to them and playing a very interesting chocolate game (I'll only explain it to you if you ask - it's an excellent group game!). They supplied us with several more Australian words/phrases, but I'll save them for a future Part Two post. (It's amazing how many we missed!) Also, Josh tried to teach me how to juggle. Ehh... we'll just say I'm still working on it. I told him I'd practice and make him proud next time I saw him. :-)

We got home late and very tired, but overall it was a wonderful day. I love the McEwens!! :-D (Who doesn't!?)

Quote of the post:
(stuck in traffic on the way to Geelong)
"I'm going to give Margaret McEwen a piece of my mind...but I don't have much to spare right now."
--My dad

Song of the post ~ "Father And Daughter" by Paul Simon
One of the many songs we listened to in the car yesterday.

Charity | 11:24 am

Monday, May 01, 2006

The Way of the Aussies

The following are Australian phrases and words (and their meanings):


• G'day! - Hello (duh)
• How are you going? - How are you? ("Uhh...I'm going with my feet...")
• Would you like a cuppa? - Would you like tea or coffee? ("A cup of what??")
• Good on ya! - Good for you, well done ("Hey! That shirt looks good on ya!")
• Bob's your uncle - Everything's okay ("Umm...actually he's not.")
• She's alright - It's okay
• Barbie - Grill
• Uni - College (University)
• Footie - Aussie's rules football
• Mossie - Mosquito
• Brallie - Umbrella
• Tellie - T.V.
• Dunnie, Long Drop, Thunder Box, Loo, Outhouse - Toilet (The first thing Casey and Matt taught us)
• No worries - You're welcome
• Fringe - Bangs
• The Tip - The Dump
• Tiptruck - Dumptruck
• Boot - Trunk of car
• Bonnet - Hood of car
• Please call again - Please come again
• Fortnight - 2 weeks time (I've only ever read that in Jane Austen books.)
• Heaps - A lot
• Fatigue - Tiredness (Okay, so we know what that means, but no one ever says it!)
• Ta - Thank-you
• Tomatoe sauce* - Ketchup
• Mackers - McDonalds (Mickey D's - they love saying that since we introduced it to them!)
• Wish-ta-shear - Worchestershire Sauce (Kind of hard to explain...)
• Colour, Flavour, Mould, Tyre, Aluminium - They can't spell
• Overtaking - Passing another car ("Sounds like something you'd do in wrestling!")
• Road planting - Road construction ("They're planting a road!")
• Lounge - Living room
• Trolley - Shopping cart
• Fillet (prounouncing the "et" instead of the "a" sound)
• Lawr, Idear, Sawr, Mariar, Normar (Unconciously putting an "r" at the end of words)
• Trousers - Pants
• Knickers - girl underwear
• Jocks - Guy underwear (haha, getting a little personal here...)
• Hoover - Vaccum
• Bowl of Wheat Bix - Bowl of cereal (It's a popular Aussie cereal)
• Brekky - Breakfast
• Morning Tea, Afternoon Tea (after lunch) - snack
• Tea - Dinner
• Supper - Finger food (We had all these ^ meals every day at Dixon's Creek. SIX meals!)
• Torch - Flashlight
• Winge - Whine, complain
• Sook - Wuss (Ellen - new word for ya!)
• Dummy - Baby pacifier
• Spit the dummy - Getting mad
• Nappy - Diaper
• Serviette - Dinner napkin
• Pram - Baby stroller
• Cuttlery - Silverwear
• Notes - Bills (money)
• Splade - Spork (spoon and fork mixed)
• Cheers - Thank-you
• Caravan - Camper
• Zed - The last letter in the alphabet ("...W, X,Y, and Zed...")
• Give 'em a fright - Scare them
• Runners - Sneakers, tennis shoes
• Gum boots - Rubber boots
• Beach shoes, Sand shoes - Water shoes
• Tap - Faucet
• Give 'em a ring - Call them on the phone
• Wardrobe - closet
• Far out - Weird
• Bench - Counter
• Sport - Sports
• Maths - Math
• Shops - Store (They say "Go to the shops" instead of "Go to the store".)
• Rice Bubbles - Rice Crispies
• I'll shout - I'll cover the bill, I'll pay for it ("But I'm not shouting!")
• Having wind - Burping, belching
• Fairdinkum - Real, genuine
• Shilea - Girl in general
• Bloke - Guy in general
• Mate - Friend (Guys usually only call their friends that)
• Cobber - Friend (Girls " " )
• Duna - Blanket
• Cot - Baby crib
• Stretcher - Cot
• Love hearts - The kind of heart you draw ("Heart" is actual thing)
• Be good - Goodbye
• See you's later - see you all (ya'll) later

Thanks to Mom, Maria, Tamara, Jackie, Casey, Matthew, Alistar, and all of those other wonderful Australians out there for the inspiration and help. There may be more coming if we think of any more, hear more, or remember some we forgot to put. Enjoy! Introduce the other side of the world to some of this delightful Aussie lingo!

Song of the post ~"Storm" by Lifehouse

Thanks to Benjamin Jones for this song!!!

*Okay I just have to tell this story. My dad went to Hungry Jacks (aka Burger King) and asked for "ketchup". The lady looked at him strangely and he rephrased it. "Tomatoe sauce." So she handed him a package of Heinz ketchup!

Charity | 5:04 pm