Blogs I Love Right Now

Happy Weekend!

It is a beautiful 30 today, still, with wispy clouds. Dave isn't feeling well so he went back to bed, hopefully he'll feel better and we can head to the beach. I've been killing time by looking up hotels for our stay in Indianapolis in July!

I thought that I might post about some of the blogs that I'm loving right now, it could be fun to look back on and see if I still read them in a year!

So, in no particular order....

Bring the Rain

Angie Smith is one of my Christian hero's. She always encourages and inspires me. Her and her family's story will wrench at your heart, but then in her beautiful way, Angie will make you laugh whilst you cry along with her. You can feel her love for God in every post and she never fails to point the reader towards Him, and at the same time you will fall off your chair laughing over the latest sayings and antics of her four girls. Love her! Like she loves Beth Moore!

Enjoying the Small Things

Kelle writes so beautifully about the everyday things in life and inspires me to look for the beauty in the normal too. And her photography is stunning! She writes about chalk drawing on the footpath, swimming at the beach, dancing in the rain, baking, nap times, morning bed hair. Her account of the birth of their second daughter (Nella has down syndrome) is...beautiful, poignant, moving. A beautiful story of their family's life that doesn't always work out the way they plan, but is usually even more beautiful in the imperfect.

Young House Love

This is the blog that started my love of blogs! John and Sherry note all their house decorating, renovating, moving, inspirations and more on this blog - both the triumphs and the trials. They are witty and stylish and have a cute dog and baby to boot!

Our Happily Ever Afters

I love reading Ashley's blog. She's just an ordinary girl serving an extraordinary God, plus she loves Disney, maybe even more than me!

Our Family Advocating for the Orphan

This family's story and gotcha day video really birthed a desire to adopt within my heart. I love reading about their latest adoption plans for their new little boy! Kristi is sooo passionate about adoption and taking care of orphans, and if she doesn't inspire you to I don't know what will!

There are others, but these are my favourite at the moment! Plus Dave just woke up so we're heading off to the beach!

Tennis

I come from a tennis loving family. My sister and I both played when we were growing up, and both my parents played before they had us. We played on Saturday mornings in teams and practiced a couple of times a week usually, especially over summer, and both Lari (my lil' sis) and I had coaching at one time or another.

Well, I had tennis overload last week with the Australian Open happening in Melbourne. My mother in law was given a whole lot of tickets for centre court seats and she very kindly gave us some! So on Wednesday my sister and I caught the train to Melbourne and had a day at the tennis.


Our seats were really great, in the first tier of seating!

We got to see Justine Henin, Andy Roddick and Venus Williams on our court. Venus Williams and her skin toned briefs that made her patooty look like it was bare naked out there on the court. Kid you not! We also had a wander outside and watched some of the games on the smaller courts after staring in confusion atVenus booty for about 10 minutes.

On Saturday, Dave and I jumped on a train and headed to Melbourne again! This time our seats were a little bit higher up but again we had some big name players to watch!

Vera Zvonerava, Andy Murray and my favourite Kim Clijsters!!

This is what we do at events before the real action starts!
 

Happy weekend!
Sharen

Queensland Floods January 2011

It is hard to believe that just two summers ago Victorians, and the rest of the nation, watched in horror as bushfire's burned over 1.1 million acres across of Victoria. Those Black Saturday bushfire's are Australia’s worst natural disaster on record.


Our nation is once again watching our televisions in shock as Queensland is inundated with floods. Walls of rushing water, being dubbed “inland tsunami’s” have swept through towns taking with them cars, buildings, belongings and people. The footage is horrific.

More than 70 people are missing. Thirteen have been confirmed dead. There are grave concerns held for many of those reported as missing. Only God knows where bodies might be found in the coming days, weeks and months.

Tens of thousands of homes are currently without power. It had to be shut off for safety reasons.

Most of the east coast of Australia has been bombarded with rain over the last week. There has been flooding in parts of New South Wales and Victoria, yet what is happening in those places in nothing like the magnitude of Queensland. They have experienced weeks of rain that has culminated in what we are witnessing now.

In a number of places the water is receding just as quickly as it swept through. The images of this are truly heartbreaking. People's belongings lay in the streets. Silt and mud cake walls, both inside and outside of buildings. Rubbish and rubble line the roads and water ways.

We have family in Brisbane and Toowoomba. All are fine, Praise God. Water reached just under the house of family in Toowoomba, and my Aunt and Uncle’s house is far enough away from the Brisbane river to be safe. Their greatest threat at the moment is their backyard pool flooding! Their church however didn’t fare as well. The lower level of their church building was/is under water, and they personally have been blocked off from their church by the floodwater that has burst the banks of the Brisbane river.

We found out that for many people insurance may not cover the cost of the damages incurred. Many insurance companies will not insure for floods if you live within a certain distance from a river, creek or lake. For many families this will no doubt be of major concern.

This is where the money from the flood appeal will come into play. If you feel so led, here is the link to the Queensland Government’s Premier’s Flood Relief Appeal.

My heart breaks for those affected. Please pray for the people of Queensland and their families. They are truly going to need God’s peace and comfort over the coming weeks and months.



The Tsunami like water rushing through Toowomba





Brisbane CBD



 
Please be praying!
Blessings
Sharen


All images found here

Travel Plans 2011

Well, all this week we have been able to say "we are going to America this year"!!! Talk about lighting a fire under our butts! Our great adventure had seemed so far away when we were saying "next year" but holy moley all of a sudden it has become "this year." As in 7 months time we will be in the US of A!!!

Well not exactly 7 months, as we fly out (when I officially book the flights, hehehe) on the 9th of July!

Yipee!!!!

We have actually booked two things for our trip so far.
one is tickets to this:

Yep my hubby does love him some NASCAR!
So on July 31st we will be sitting somewhere pretty similar to this

I think our seats are somewhere up to the top left hand stands

Dave is super excited!

The other thing we have booked is our accommodation at the Grand Canyon North Rim.
Oh. My. Gosh.

We are staying in one of these cute cabins

And the scenery, oh, spectacular!

I plan on spending a lot of time just sitting around and drinking in the beauty.

We still have a lot to get organised (like..oh..plane tickets!) but we also want as much of our trip to be spontaneous as possible. We plan on being in the USA for six weeks and have a pretty good idea of the main things we want to do, but we are also allowing for freedom of changing our minds, for just seeing where the road will take us.

We plan to buy a car when we get there and drive our way to as many adventures as we can find!

At this stage we have a basic idea of how things will go.
1. We start with about a week in Houston with friends
2. We will then have about 2 weeks to get to Indianapolis for the Brickyard 400. We are going to go via Nashville, Washington DC, NYC (eeek!!) and Niagara Falls. I'm also hoping to get in Savannah, Charleston, and the beaches along North and South Carolina!
3. From Indianapolis we are heading to Chicago which will be the start of the Mother Road! Yes folks, we are doing Route 66!! We will have about 10 days to get from Chicago to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
4. From there we will head to Las Vegas and then onto California.
5. We will finish with 3 days at Disneyland!!!

What we do in between those locations will entirely depend how we feel on any given day! I am completely Type A so it will be quite a stretch for me to be so unorganised and spontaneous for such a big chunk of time. but what a crazy adventure we are embarking on...

..this year!!!

have a great day!
Sharen

New Year

Wow 2011! How fast did 2010 go?! I can’t believe Christmas is now behind us and we are headed into another year!

I don’t know about anyone else but I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions. Mostly because I end up failing within a few weeks of the year starting. Then I start to feel bad that I didn’t keep up with it or my stomach doesn’t look any flatter and think ‘oh what the heck’, so I eat lots of chocolate and my pants keep getting tighter and tighter, and the zipper on my jeans won’t go up, and then I feel bad so I eat some more (and breathe)! Can anyone relate?

So no resolutions for me this year. I mean really, as if I don’t put enough pressure on myself anyway without knowing I have failed yet another resolution!

I do however like to take stock of where I am at in life, in my walk with God and think about where I want to be and how to get there.

One of the things I really want to do this year is read my Bible more often. It is His inspired Word for each one of us and how can I really walk and grow in my faith in this world we live in if I don’t saturate myself with His Word?

The answer is I can’t. Not for very long anyway without some sort of backsliding taking place.

So this year I have decided to join in with Beth Moore’s Siesta Scripture Memory Team. It is simply a way to keep on track with memorizing Scripture. Twice a month (the 1st and the 15th) you can simply go over to her blog and on a post Beth writes for that day you can comment on what verse you intend to memorize for the next two weeks.

How easy is that! I’m pretty sure that I can handle learning to memory just 24 verses this year! My husband is going to be so excited about finding little notes stuck everywhere! (sarcasm! ;) )

I have decided that I will also post my verse on my own blog and perhaps add a little about why I have chosen that particular verse.

So to get started for 2011 here is verse numero uno!

“’My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV)

I have needed grace the last few days. A couple of days ago I had one of those moments where my brain disconnects from my mouth for a few seconds and things come flying out that would normally go through a filter. Yeah. Nice.

How great is it that that His grace is sufficient for me! For any mistake I make and any sin I fall into (or deliberately walk into), He will pour out His love and grace and mercy upon me. Wow!

So there you have it, verse one of 24! Hope I make it!

Is anyone else thinking of skipping their New Year’s resolution this year?

Have a great start to 2011!

Sharen