Hear the banjo strumming....

Santa Clause is coming! hahaha I LOVE this song! I love that it's Christmas on my blog! I love this illustration I found of a glowing Christmas tree. :) Something about it just captures the magic for me. There's a few fun songs I added here, I hope y'all enjoy it! (There's no Thanksgiving here so I get to skip straight to Christmas hehehe)

We don't have a Christmas tree yet. There aren't any places in town that sell them so we have to wait until we go into Mackay to pick one. :( I think we might be going in next weekend though so maybe we'll find a good one! I'm debating whether not to get a white tree and go for something chic and cool or do a green tree and keep things more natural and homey. It's an exciting decision I've never gotten to make before! When I was growing up my family never had a "theme" for Christmas. We always used the same old ornaments, a lot of the handmade, year after year and we all had our favorites. It made things so special as we decorated the tree to have our favorite ones peek out of the boxes every year. The older we got the more jumbled the boxes of ornaments became and the more surgery we had to perform on our old friends. I'll never forget the year Kaitlyn decided to hot-glue my FAVORITE ornament (that was a gift from mom) onto her stocking.... sad day.

But that was one of my favorite parts of Christmas....opening all the boxes of decorations and ornaments and figuring out where each thing was going to go that year...so I think we won't be doing themes year after year either. We'll start building our ornament collection this year and buy our nativity set and the lights and the tree....it will be fun accumulating all the stuff. I'm thinking maybe a green tree will be more versatile. We'll see what we can find for sale. Sadly there aren't live trees in the "Tropical North" so that's not even an option. But we never had a real tree at our house until I was like 16 or something so I'd be lying if pretended it was like, a huge deal not to have the choice. ;)

I'm going to have to turn the air conditioner on full blast, put on cuddly pjs and watch White Christmas with beebs! yay! I bet we could even find some egg nogg.... ooOOoo! They have stuff here called like...brandy cream or something....yeah, or something. lol But no one I've asked has every had egg nogg. They're missing out. hahaha





Okay, so the margarita mix here (Jose Cuervo) is gross. So I tried to make my own last night and it was REALLY yummy! It turns out that lime-juice cordial is EXACTLY the same thing as sweet-n-sour mix! This means that I can just ask the bars in town to use lime-juice cordial instead of lemon juice in my margarita (yes they use lemon juice....I don't know why.) and have an yummy margarita every time! I mean, I can't keep the tequila from being crap...but I'm not going to taint a good thing by getting all technical.

ALSO, I found MISSION tortilla chips at Cole's today. YEAH!! I about freaked out when they started carrying the Mission tortillas, but now I have REAL tortilla chips too! I could die! Up 'til this point the closest thing resembling tortilla chips was the plain Doritos (without cheese powder) and the only tortillas were Old Elpaso (git the rope.) If you can't tell, my relationship with food is very dear and having some of my favorites nearby again with the Dr. Pepper and the tortillas and chips and them actually carrying jalapenos at the store now...it's all a big deal for me! They even had Hass avocados at the grocery store today! I think maybe I've just been out of the country when all of this stuff was in season before now. I've never been here for the summer before...well, I was here for 6 weeks Jan-Feb in 2008, but I wasn't cooking then! If there is an Angel of Food, God has sent him my way and I'm loving every second of it. This is pretty cool! It would just about take my breath away if I walked into Cole's next week and saw Hidden Valley Ranch dressing on one shelf and A1 on the other.....I'm just sayin', if there is an angel...just sayin'. ;)

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Let's see....what's been going on lately....hm. We saved a green frog from Bean on Friday! I was just about asleep when I heard this TERRIBLE noise!! I'd never heard it before and I freaked out because I thought it was Bean and he was choking or in trouble or something! Chris said it was a frog's distress call and that we had to save it. We found Bean cornering the frog under the washing machine and it made a RACKET that resonated up through the washing machine every time Bean got close. It took disconnecting and lifting the washing machine out of the way to save it, but I think our little green friend will live to see another day. Chris OBSESSES over stuff like this....whether it's an ant or a spider or, in this case, a frog he will do everything to try and save it. He's just so empathetic he can't stand being responsible for the death of anything with breath. It's kind of adoreable most of the time....but the rest of the time it gets annoying. lol LET ME SPRAY THE SPIDER!! No...he must escort it outdoors to safety....I don't mind saving the frog from Bean though. Hopefully it doesn't hop next door and meet the Staffy that's moved in there!

We've watched a couple good movies: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist which I had already seen but thought would be fun for a Friday night, and tonight we watched Fireflies in the Garden which I thought was horribly disappointing but Chris just loved to pieces....so. Of the two I'd recco Nick and Norah, but obviously Beebs would disagree. lol Your pick!

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Love ya'll! I'd like to write more, but I'd better go to sleep. Church in the A.M.!

Gunna git mah hur did

I had to have boring hair for the wedding so I could look glamorous. Now, four months later, my hair is STILL BORING!! I went to brisbane with beebs two months ago and dropped a LOT of money in a salon...only to leave with a cool cut (even if not what I wanted) but BORING color still (they totally didn't get what I was trying to say I wanted.) So....I'm ready for something fun and different again. I don't remember the last time my hair was the same color for more than 3 months, so this 10 month thing is CRAYZAY for me! I'm ready for a change. I've been every natural color under the sun at this point, every level of blonde and brown (even black)....but I haven't explored red yet. Maybe it's time.




I know that I look better with dark hair than with light, but I just LOVE this color and how it fades from dark to light in the front...maybe we can do something similar but toned down a couple levels. I also love the haircut. It's super modern and full of texture and would thin out some of this heavy mess on my head while keeping the current length. I've had a variation of this cut before but the color was black at the time so it was a little more Joan Jett than I would have liked.....We'll see if I can stand to wait until I get to dfw to try this cut and color out. I think there are like 4 colors in there so it could be expensive....it looks like a medium brown with chocolate-cherry lowlights in the back and then a medium-light copper with blonde highlights in the front. I don't know how easy it'd be for me to go from my current level to such a light copper so I'll just have to talk to a colorist and see.


Anyways. Just sharing. :)

oh boy!

I was reading some entries from my old blog.... It's interesting to see the world through the eyes of my 19 y/o self. It's exciting to return to this turning point in my life and in my faith and see the doubts fade and my footing become sure. I just want to go back in time and SQUEEZE me into a hug and say how proud I am of me for not just accepting things blindly and, even though it was hard, to listen for direction from God first and foremost. I was so excited to find a blog post cataloging the day that I decided to follow Christ and his will for my life. This was the first day in my life that it made sense that I wasn't just calling myself a Christian because I always had but because it's what I'd chosen for myself. I think I could take a leaf out of my teenage self's book today actually...it's so cool to relive that moment. I don't blog about the exact moment but I remember it well...I was sitting on my bed just crying out to God to TELL ME the answer....and then I was silent....and it all just clicked. It was like a button was pushed somewhere within me and it all made sense. Here are the entries:
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May 28, 2006

He is the answer to the Question.....

Okay so I've just had a breakthrough..... I babble on about these doubts of mine but in the end, they are not even relevant to what is the true root of my struggle; am I following Christ because I love Him or am I following Him because I believe just enough to fear not following Him would lead to eternal suffering?

The problem was that I had only ever looked at my faith in this light. Therefore, I had no idea if I was a "true" Christian or not, knowing all along that God would see right through me if I have been faking it all this time...And so today, for the first time, I looked at all this in a different light.

I reworded that question of mine into an even more important question; If there was no Heaven and no Hell, if there was no reward or punishment for choosing Him or rejecting Him, would I still follow Him? And so there I sat, wondering...imagining. And it was then that it dawned on me that I could never give up my life as his disciple because He is my life. Even if I would suffer no punishment to say Goodbye to Him forever and go about my life just like everyone else....I couldn't imagine a life without Him in it. What would be the point? And my heart smiled and swelled with pride at that thought that I am truly His, and yes! Yes, it was all by my choice! Of course there is no choice when you are looking at it as a life or death decision....but that's not what it is. It's a life decision. Period. The choice is not to choose whether to live or die but to choose HIM. Or not. And the punishment isn't really a punishment at all.....after a person dies their spirit has to go somewhere, after all and, since this person has denied and rejected God and wants nothing to do with him, the only place in existence where that is truly possible is in Hell.

I've had this issue with worship for 2 years now....the idea that God would create us only so that we might bow down before Him and tell Him how great He is....well that's not what worship even is is it? It's a choice just like everything else.....it's just all the people who have chosen to love Him coming together to visit their father and thank Him for all he's done for them and given them. It's like..let me tell you a story.

You are lying on the side of the street naked, starving, thirsty, impoverished and dying. Just as you draw what you believe will be your last breath, a stretch limousine pulls up not two feet from where you lie in the dust. A man in a white linen suit emerges from the car, lifts you into his arms prepared to give you new life. First he takes you into his home where he makes you a part of his family. He clothes you and feeds you. And then, when you have strength and life again, he places a check for 15 billion dollars into your fist and tells you that "you are now strong enough to be free to go out and make a life for yourself in whatever way you choose." You stand there looking at Him, jaw agape, in awe of the goodness of this man and you ask him, "What can I ever do to repay you? I never deserved any of this. I was a wretch, I was worthless, I--", it is here that the man cuts you off with a smile and a wave of his hand. He shakes his head at you, his eyes shining with unconditional love and he takes you into an embrace while saying this; "All I ask is that you come by and visit me once a week, just one day every week that we might spend together, just you and me." You smile into his shoulder as two tears run down your cheeks and you say "Thank you Father."

After all this man has done for you, would you not visit him once, even more than once, every week bringing gifts and singing his praises, all the while never letting him forget just how thankful you are and what an amazing and wonderful person he is?

I feel as though our relationship with God is parallel to this story.Except of course we are more than simply indebted to Him. We owe him our very existence, our world, our family.Everything. Imagine if the man had let his only son die for you so that you might live? How much more grateful might you feel towards him?

I finally understand that liturgy that I always thought was so corny, until now. "It is right to give Him our thanks and praise"

The Truth

Relient K

And I've collected all these thoughts
And I'm dying just to lose them
And if your words are true or not
I'll die trying to prove them
But I'll just have to accept
That my mind is so inept
And the only thing that's left
For me to do is to trust you

Convince me
Because I really need your help
Oh convince me
Because I can't see this for myself

I'll put the emphasis on the evidence
Begging for the proof
Sometimes the hardest thing to believe is the truth

This is so unnerving
I know you've never lied to me before
But the things you're telling me
I can't yet believe
Yet can't ignore
But I'll just have to accept
That my mind is so inept
And the only thing that's left
For me is to trust you

Put the emphasis on the evidence
Begging for the proof
Sometimes the hardest thing to believe is the truth

It's a world full of cynics
Who say to stay alive in it
You gotta stick with what you know
But the soul is always aching
For the heart to start taking
A chance by letting go

So let go
Let go
Sometimes the hardest thing to believe is the truth
Attempt to place our lives into your hands
Confide in what you'll do
Cause sometimes when you're trying to sleep
And all your doubts and your faith don't agree its cause
Sometimes the hardest thing to believe is the truth

Ahhhhhh....I love when everything just comes together. And all I had to do was look at things in a different way. :) Today is a landmark day. I have to go spend some time getting reacquainted with my Father, I'm sure you can understand. :)

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June 19th 2006

Updates;

2 years ago I began running in circles around the inside of circular pen; a pen with walls built from my own doubt and disbelief. Everyday I ran around and around that pen, just staring at the beaten path in front of me...never looking up. I was determined that this path, my path, was the only path worth traveling and would surely lead to an exit if only I followed it long enough. After a couple years, I changed tactics. I was so so tired of running and, as I staggered from the path and collapsed in the center of the pen sobbing and gasping for breath, I cried out to God, "This isn't working!!! This stupid path doesn't even go anywhere!!!" As I sat there staring at the ground, my breath steadied and, so softly as to be almost inaudible the words "Lord, show me the way....I want to know...I need to know the way....." escaped my lips. I had asked for help before as I ran along the path, but this time was different because this time I stopped and took the time to listen....after a while, I heard a soft reply, "Look up." My lip trembled with shock and relief at the voice of my Lord and as I obeyed, I saw Him standing next to an open gate that led off into the meadow. "I've been here all along.", He said. "All you needed was a change in perspective." I had spent two years of my life running in circles when, all the while, my God had been standing at the gate to the pen; the gate I had never noticed because I was too busy staring at my own two feet to look around and see. I climbed to my feet and stumbled out the gate. I stared into the face of my Lord as He took my hand. And as He began to lead me along the new path, He said "I am the way."

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Intense eh? haha I love writing metaphors and that is the metaphor for the last two years of my life. Less than 24 hours after I hit rock bottom three weeks ago, the Father showed me what should have been obvious all along; He is the answer to the question, He always has been The Way, The Truth and The Life and all it took for me to fully realize that these are more than just words but TRUTH was a change in perspective. :)

If you want to know the full story of me coming to find the Truth, read my May 27 blog entry on Myspace. :)

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Endings;

I know people say it and rarely mean it when I say it because I really have no reason to continue; This is my last and final Xanga entry ever. I've worked out what I needed to and see no reason to continue. Find me on Myspace!

Love, Mel

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And that was 19 y/o me. :) That was when I decided I was going to make a difference in the lives of youth. Granted, I didn't think it'd be in Australia. lol But it's still taken me this long to begin to understand God's plans for me. It's great to be able to see where I've been and get a glimpse at where I may be going. Funnily enough, I met Chris not 1 month after that post.... and the post before it was about being frustrated at being single and how I knew the "textbook" answer was to "put God at the center of your life and, when you find yourself content in HIM you'll run into the man He has planned for you when you least expect it." I was SO frustrated by that "rule" so to speak....and yet it seems to be how things worked out for me. It wasn't an easy path, but it's the right one. I'm glad I made the right choice.

Good Day

Okay, so yesterday was just a WEIRD day. I was like...crying all day long for no apparant reason. I don't know what my drama was. Maybe it was just home-sickness like mom said. I just felt this overwhelming need to get OUT like I was trapped in a box and couldn't find an exit. Anyways, as sporadically as those sad feelings come, they have gone now. Hurray!

Okay, so today I'm super excited. :) Check out my Kangaroo:


I saw him through the window of a new store called Australian Country Living that just transferred to Moranbah from Mackay and I WANTED him. :) He's just hanging out on his little shelf here in the living room now. For some reason his tail is detatchable...it's magnetic. Maybe for storage purposes? Anyways. He's pretty much awesome. I guess it's a she and not a he since there's a little joey in there too. She's a mumma. :)

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ANOTHER reason I am excited is because I have TWO episodes of Gossip Girl, TWO ANTM, 1 Bones and 1 Medium to watch on my iTunes. :):):):) That's a lotta happy right there.

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Bean got "fixed" yesterday. I felt so horrible that we did that to him but he doesn't seem to know it was our fault. They did the procedure completely different than they did with Ender or Tigger....there are no stitches and they shaved his whole behind area. I don't remember Ender being shaved at all....his little booty looks VERY amusing at the moment. He was high on drugs when he came home too which was sad. He would scream if we left the room and couldn't figure out how to find us. It must have been very traumatic for him. :( He's just been resting up a lot since then. He did a number on the vet tech. too...he gave her a nice bite on the back of one arm and scratched up her arms and face and scalp...they said it happened while he was going back into his cage and I just don't understand why they didn't hold him by the scruff of his neck so he'd freeze up. He's been labeled as dangerous now on his records and that makes me sad because he's not!! I mean, I'm not happy he attacked the technician but I think he was just scared. He's been fixed and had all of his shots now though so hopefully we won't have any reason to need to go back any time soon.
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We planted a WHOLE bunch of new flowers that are just dwarfed by the ones we planted a couple months ago. I hadn't realized how much the other ones had grown. Actually, only about 4 of the petunias are just huge and thriving and then a further 8 are just living and are about half the size of the other 4....I don't know why those 4 would be doing so much better than the others. Maybe they are getting more sun? Or more shade? They are all on one side of the garden. I don't know! But they look pretty!

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It has uncharactaristically been POURING rain on and off since yesterday morning (it's now 4pm.) This is SO exciting! We put a lot of fertilizer on the grass and the flowers two days ago so it's perfect timing for showers. I wish it would just rain all the time....I should have lived in Seattle. lol

I don't have much to talk about today other than those things. If I think of anything else I'll stop back in!

Bad day.

Today is a bad day. I just feel trapped. I feel like a bird in a cage. I could never be a small town girl....I could never live here, or even in Mackay (still small town by my standards,) forever. I get too restless. I'm tired of not having options. I'm tired and I've only been here 6 months. ::sigh:: I'm already over it. The more and more I read about all the stuff there is to do in Sydney and Melbourne the more and more restless I get. I can see why most people live in the capital cities here...I've only ever "met" (online) other Americans who've moved to Sydney. Nowhere else in Australia...they all just move to Sydney. I don't think they know how frickin easy they have it...not that I'm bitter or anything. :P

I guess I'm just not at all a small-town girl. I'm too high-maintenance and maybe even too prissy. It's not that I think I'm "too good" for Moranbah....I just feel like I'm having to re-evaluate all the interests I've developed over my lifetime like fashion, culture, food, shopping, etc. and replace them with gardening, crafts, and bird watching. I guess I also have an affinity for being surrounded with convenience. I don't ever want to have to drive more than 15 minutes for absolutely anything with very very few exceptions and I CERTAINLY don't want to drive 2 hours just to see a movie or go shopping. I think I just managed to pick one of the most difficult place in the country to transition from the USA and I'm trying not to resent the town at the moment because of it....

I sound like a spoiled brat throwing a tantrum and maybe I am. I don't want to live in the middle of nowhere anymore. blehhhh I know I grew up with more convenience than even the average American which just comes with living in such a huge metro (4th largest metro in the country with something like 6.5 million people vs. the 6,000 in Moranbah) so I'm not surprised things are so different...I just didn't expect the difference to affect me so much. I guess I'm just that spoiled.

Possum!

There is a possum and her baby living in our trees. :) I took a picture just now to show you! She may have eaten one of my roses.... we'll hope not. She had a leaf of something in her mouth anyways.

Schmevolution

The idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs is illogical. How would you just make the jump from scaly reptile skin to feathers and going from running to flying? Why would you just, all of a sudden, grow feathers?? I just don't get it, it boggles my mind why that would make sense to anyone. Why would they decide that a dinosaur just hatched one day covered in feathers when the rest of his friends had scales and then go around touting it as scientific fact?
Anyways.

"According to evolution theory, birds should not have been around at the time of the dinosaurs. This is especially true of the parrot, which is supposed by those who believe in evolution to be a more highly-evolved bird.

A fossilized parrot's beak was dug up 40 years ago, but ignored. It was recently rediscovered at the University of California, Berkeley, by a graduate student. The problem for evolutionists is that they date the rock in which the beak was found as coming from the Cretaceous period when the dinosaurs lived and birds had not yet evolved. X-ray study of the fossilized beak shows that the beak has the same blood vessel and nerve channels as a modern parrot. But it is not just one parrot's beak that has been found in rocks from the age of dinosaurs. Loons, frigate-birds and other shore bird fossils have also been found in rock that was supposedly laid down during the time of the dinosaurs!

Fossils are remains of living things rapidly buried, we believe, at the time of the Genesis Flood. However, it is perhaps not too surprising that bird fossils and dinosaur fossils are generally not found together; indeed, bird fossils in any part of the earth's strata are extremely rare. This is because while dinosaur bones are very robust, bird bones and beaks are extremely fragile and would not have survived the turmoil of the Genesis Flood. The very few that have been fossilized tell us of very rapid and deep burial that would be expected during the Biblical Flood."
-creationmoments.com