Unfortunately I wasn't able to do a proper blog Saturday, which is my goal every week, and of course more often if I have the time. :) We're dependent on our neighbors' wireless, which is on and off.
The term has officially started today. It's the equivalent of starting a new semester. New students coming in, old students moving back after a 4 week vacation, etc. This is the last term of the academic year, so many of our friends who came here in the fall will be wrapping up their studies this term. The term ends June 24th, which is really coming up fast.
The international work this term is studying some Psalms- all 3 groups are doing the same psalms. We're learning a lot from the psalms already. Understanding the OT well is a key to truly, deeply understanding JC's sacrifice, and Gd's character, so I'm looking forward to this term. We go to the 5pm service, where we're studying through Leviticus, which is SO interesting I can't even describe it! If you've ever thought that the OT and NT weren't related, or that Gd had changed, that is simply not true. When we study the OT through the lens of the NT we see clearly that they are one and the same. In a book like Leviticus it is clear that Gd relates to us at the same level now as he did then, though the means were different then than they are now that JC has come. We understand abt JC's sacrifice on a much deeper level when we understand the writings about the sacrifices and what they meant for a person of that time, and what they represented. If you've ever thought that Leviticus is just one long book of "this is how to do the ....offering" then you've missed the real depth of knowledge of the book.
We are so blessed by the teaching at StAG. We feel better prepared now to go farther afield than we were before, because we've rigorously studied through the OT and NT, and understand it more clearly. Since we expect to be teachers of Gd's word in other places, it's critical that we understand it well ourselves. I'm so looking forward to the rest of the series in Leviticus.
As I said, our 3 international groups are starting this week. Our first iBASE of the term is Wednesday. There were 20 new faces at the iBASE lunch, so we're hoping some will come along on Wednesday night. Our housemate, Zephyr, is part of iHUB, which is for the 20s and 30s, and they also start this week. There's an iHUB guest party at our house Sunday afternoon, so please pr that many new friends would come and that our house would be welcoming for them.
My photography business is going very well- growing slowly as I meet new contacts and take on new projects. I'm also doing a lot of volunteer work, which is generating great new ideas in new areas that I wouldn't have considered before. All very exciting. G's work is going well too, so we feel really quite blessed with peace and prosperity right now. We know that those are gifts from the father, and we just want to praise him for that.
Monday, 27 April 2009
Monday, 20 April 2009
April 20, 2009
The interview at the National Trust went really well- they offered me the position of Volunteer Community Warden, and I'm not entirely sure what that means. :) I just wanted to do some gardening work, but they needed a person to help liase with the various special needs groups that come in. When I told them I was a photographer they were thrilled, because they want photos of the groups and things. Anyway I decided to go for it, as it's only 2 hours at a time, and it gives me an in into National Trust. It already meant that today I could go out to Anglesey Abbey, open the gate myself, come on in, and treat things like my home. Needless to say I loved it. :) As a side note, Anglesey Abbey is one of the manor house estates here in Cambridge.
I get to help coordinate the groups that are doing work there. Plus I have leave to go anywhere on the grounds that I want, and take photos of anything, AND do any kind of weeding that I feel like! What a deal! Today I spent 2 hours riding around on the back of a 4 wheeler with a crazy Welsh guy driving over mole hills to flatten them down, over fields and through the woods and everywhere. Then I went to see the beautiful tulips that are growing under the white birch trees...it smelled so good, and was so beautiful that I stayed out there 2 hours, doing some photographing and a LOT of weeding. The staff were a bit surprised to find me weeding their flower beds, but they were happy for the help. :) Honestly, on a beautiful sunny day, lovely open good scented 6 inch high cute little tulips just need someone to hover over them and pull the weeds. That was my feeling anyway. :)
We've been doing a lot of biking here now that we've moved into town. Pr for our safety- honestly at times I felt safer in Cambodia than I do cycling on the roads here. I hate road cycling- if it wasn't so slow walking I'd walk instead. Anyway it saves us money on gas and parking and it's healthy, so although I don't like the roads I do it anyway. We ALWAYS wear helmets, and have very good reflectors and lights, so we're about as safe as we can be. After cycling up a big hill twice yesterday, then spending today out gardening, I'm pretty exhausted.
I'll be testing the iPhone blog post feature here soon. I can take photos with my iPhone (which I just got last week) and post them to the blog from wherever I happen to be. Once I get that figured out I'll post random images from wherever I happen to be just for the fun of it. :)
I get to help coordinate the groups that are doing work there. Plus I have leave to go anywhere on the grounds that I want, and take photos of anything, AND do any kind of weeding that I feel like! What a deal! Today I spent 2 hours riding around on the back of a 4 wheeler with a crazy Welsh guy driving over mole hills to flatten them down, over fields and through the woods and everywhere. Then I went to see the beautiful tulips that are growing under the white birch trees...it smelled so good, and was so beautiful that I stayed out there 2 hours, doing some photographing and a LOT of weeding. The staff were a bit surprised to find me weeding their flower beds, but they were happy for the help. :) Honestly, on a beautiful sunny day, lovely open good scented 6 inch high cute little tulips just need someone to hover over them and pull the weeds. That was my feeling anyway. :)
We've been doing a lot of biking here now that we've moved into town. Pr for our safety- honestly at times I felt safer in Cambodia than I do cycling on the roads here. I hate road cycling- if it wasn't so slow walking I'd walk instead. Anyway it saves us money on gas and parking and it's healthy, so although I don't like the roads I do it anyway. We ALWAYS wear helmets, and have very good reflectors and lights, so we're about as safe as we can be. After cycling up a big hill twice yesterday, then spending today out gardening, I'm pretty exhausted.
I'll be testing the iPhone blog post feature here soon. I can take photos with my iPhone (which I just got last week) and post them to the blog from wherever I happen to be. Once I get that figured out I'll post random images from wherever I happen to be just for the fun of it. :)
Monday, 6 April 2009
April 6, 2009
Wow- it's been a long dry desert without our internet connection! If I sit in the window of our new house, I can just manage to pick up a neighbor's open connection which I can borrow, so this is the first time I've been able to use my computer to check email and respond to email in about 3 weeks it seems. We do dearly miss our friends and family back home, and being without internet has reminded us both to be thankful for Gd's creation of the internet, and how merciful it was of him to create such a tool to help his workers all over the world to stay connected. We are so very grateful.
We have settled well into our new house- I have a new desk (courtesy of Citrix's getting rid of all the old ones in G's old office on Sunday) and a filing cabinet with it, and a very nice chair all set up in my cute little office room. G and I will share it so that if he's working from home he can use it. It's a wonderful big desk, perfect for spreading out photography work, housing my scanner and printer, and my computer. With my photography business growing so much I really do need a proper office space. BNI has continued to go well, and I'm now so enjoying the meetings that I look forward to Tuesday mornings at 6:30am! :) Tomorrow after BNI I'm driving out to a local village to give a quote to a man who runs a big pub/inn down there and is looking for photos of his rooms, and for photos of the village to put up in each room! Quite an exciting project for me. Yesterday I went to a wedding fair to meet more photogs and gather information about their services and pricing. I also discovered that there's a need for product photography for many of these wedding fair people- their photos are not good at all on their flyers. This week I'm going to create a special flyer which I can use to give to people at fairs and things like that. I hope to generate some good business that way. I never saw myself as a business woman but I've surprised myself- I inherited quite a large dose of business sense from my dad, and good solid common sense from both my parents. :)
Today is G's first day at his new office- this office building is something else. You won't believe it- the Cambridge Science Park is like Silicon Valley. When you drive in it's like a time warp-all the buildings are glass, the layout is very spacious and American, and it's just really different from the rest of England. Movers moved all of their computers and things to the new building, and I can't wait to visit him there when it's all set up!
I have a lot of random bitty news that has been piling up for the past few weeks- nothing terribly exciting but still the day to day details of living in a foreign country might be interesting. If not, just humor me since I've been disconnected for 3 weeks. :) I finished the final painting at our old house on Saturday- our old landlord said to G that I "worked like a demon" which I wasn't sure if I should be flattered by or what. :) I decided to take it as a compliment- he was shocked that I painted an entire room in 30 minutes using a roller. I suppose I am an unusually hard worker when it comes to physical tasks, and women here tend to let me do that sort of thing. Hard work or no, efficiency is one of my #1 values. :) So the painting is all done there, and I've had time to dig into our garden here which is massively overgrown and needs help. Progress is being made in removing stubborn weeds, whacking back overgrown bushes and vines, and planting new plants and bulbs. There's nothing like looking out the window everyday and seeing the progress you've made!
We have a small colony of frogs living in our teeny pond- I've counted 10 to 12 of them, 2 different species. It's the time of year when frogs are making baby frogs, so we've also seen frog eggs and are hoping to see tons of baby frogs when the time is right. Frogs eat slugs, which eat garden plants with a vengeance here, so we want to encourage our colony to multiply. :) So far Nelly has left them alone as they taste awful, and she likes to watch them hoping around in the water.
This week I have an interview with the National Trust to become a volunteer gardener/landscaper for Anglesey Abbey. I'm excited to be able to spend some time every week outside of the city and away from the madness, and they're interested in my leading a team of volunteers since I have so much experience already. Very good for my gardening resume, and for my mental health. Wednesday is the "interview" and I hope it goes well- i can't wait to get started! This month has been slow for the fluency in English job I have (there are no students in April) but in May they have almost too many, so I'll have lots of extra work then. I am blessed with 3 very flexible "jobs" and I intend to make the most of the opportunities I have without overworking myself. :)
My laptop battery is almost dead, and as I can't move from this spot due to the internet access only being right here I'd best end this overdue blog now. I can read email easily, so do feel free to email me! We have determined that our house has no phone jack, so it might be another week before they can install one and we can get back to using Vonage and normal internet anywhere in the house. :) We miss you all!
We have settled well into our new house- I have a new desk (courtesy of Citrix's getting rid of all the old ones in G's old office on Sunday) and a filing cabinet with it, and a very nice chair all set up in my cute little office room. G and I will share it so that if he's working from home he can use it. It's a wonderful big desk, perfect for spreading out photography work, housing my scanner and printer, and my computer. With my photography business growing so much I really do need a proper office space. BNI has continued to go well, and I'm now so enjoying the meetings that I look forward to Tuesday mornings at 6:30am! :) Tomorrow after BNI I'm driving out to a local village to give a quote to a man who runs a big pub/inn down there and is looking for photos of his rooms, and for photos of the village to put up in each room! Quite an exciting project for me. Yesterday I went to a wedding fair to meet more photogs and gather information about their services and pricing. I also discovered that there's a need for product photography for many of these wedding fair people- their photos are not good at all on their flyers. This week I'm going to create a special flyer which I can use to give to people at fairs and things like that. I hope to generate some good business that way. I never saw myself as a business woman but I've surprised myself- I inherited quite a large dose of business sense from my dad, and good solid common sense from both my parents. :)
Today is G's first day at his new office- this office building is something else. You won't believe it- the Cambridge Science Park is like Silicon Valley. When you drive in it's like a time warp-all the buildings are glass, the layout is very spacious and American, and it's just really different from the rest of England. Movers moved all of their computers and things to the new building, and I can't wait to visit him there when it's all set up!
I have a lot of random bitty news that has been piling up for the past few weeks- nothing terribly exciting but still the day to day details of living in a foreign country might be interesting. If not, just humor me since I've been disconnected for 3 weeks. :) I finished the final painting at our old house on Saturday- our old landlord said to G that I "worked like a demon" which I wasn't sure if I should be flattered by or what. :) I decided to take it as a compliment- he was shocked that I painted an entire room in 30 minutes using a roller. I suppose I am an unusually hard worker when it comes to physical tasks, and women here tend to let me do that sort of thing. Hard work or no, efficiency is one of my #1 values. :) So the painting is all done there, and I've had time to dig into our garden here which is massively overgrown and needs help. Progress is being made in removing stubborn weeds, whacking back overgrown bushes and vines, and planting new plants and bulbs. There's nothing like looking out the window everyday and seeing the progress you've made!
We have a small colony of frogs living in our teeny pond- I've counted 10 to 12 of them, 2 different species. It's the time of year when frogs are making baby frogs, so we've also seen frog eggs and are hoping to see tons of baby frogs when the time is right. Frogs eat slugs, which eat garden plants with a vengeance here, so we want to encourage our colony to multiply. :) So far Nelly has left them alone as they taste awful, and she likes to watch them hoping around in the water.
This week I have an interview with the National Trust to become a volunteer gardener/landscaper for Anglesey Abbey. I'm excited to be able to spend some time every week outside of the city and away from the madness, and they're interested in my leading a team of volunteers since I have so much experience already. Very good for my gardening resume, and for my mental health. Wednesday is the "interview" and I hope it goes well- i can't wait to get started! This month has been slow for the fluency in English job I have (there are no students in April) but in May they have almost too many, so I'll have lots of extra work then. I am blessed with 3 very flexible "jobs" and I intend to make the most of the opportunities I have without overworking myself. :)
My laptop battery is almost dead, and as I can't move from this spot due to the internet access only being right here I'd best end this overdue blog now. I can read email easily, so do feel free to email me! We have determined that our house has no phone jack, so it might be another week before they can install one and we can get back to using Vonage and normal internet anywhere in the house. :) We miss you all!
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