30.07.07
Posted in Seen at 1:04 pm by Sarah
Amazing Grace
This was a cool movie. ‘Mr Fantastic’ (Ioan Gruffordd) played the lead and did a good job too. Negatives included the ‘airy fairy’ Christian portrayal and John Newton being disturbingly monk-like. Although otherwise I did like how they portrayed John Newton, he was so very human, and so very aware of his sins. It seemed realistic that he was the man who wrote ‘Amazing Grace’.
It was also (according to H’s internet research) very historically accurate – besides missing out a few minor details. Like the fact that Wilberforce was the founder of the RSPCA, CMS, and was partially responsible for installing Australia’s first chaplain.
I especially liked the first part of the movie where Wilberforce is torn between ‘a life of solitude’ i.e. the church, or politics. Until he is asked,‘Why not do both?’. I wonder whether this was unusual for the day – to be mixing your day job with your ‘religion’.
I also found his passionate ‘change the world’ philosophy very endearing – possibly because I am married to someone who thinks the same way!!
Last Kiss
Initially this movie stood out because Zack Braff was on the cover. Then I read the back and almost put it back because the story line just seemed too familiar. Guy and girl – things get serious – he gets scared of commitment and does something stupid. Boring! However, H convinced me to take it.
I was right – the storyline was familiar, typical, uninteresting. And I came away feeling sad and frustrated at all those people doing such stupid things!
But, H pointed out to me that the interesting thing about this movie is that it wasn’t a fairy tale, it wasn’t a Hollywood Blockbuster with a happy happy ending. It was human. It was reality, or at least trying to be real.
So with that in mind I think I liked it. It made me think about people and how they view relationships. Although it’s probably a once-only watch.
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23.07.07
Posted in Journal at 2:55 pm by Sarah
On Friday night, for the first time ever in our reign of coupledom, we did our budget.
Yep – that’s right. Put it all in an Excel spread sheet and everything. We never felt the need to have one before – partially because we were both working and things seemed to work themselves out – and partially because we’re lazy-butts.
Anyway the results of this exercise brought some things to light. Like the fact that we need to save money for certain future things/events.. and at the moment that isn’t going to happen.
So I decided to tackle the most obvious money-gobbler: groceries. I set myself a budgetary goal and we planned our meals for the entire week (another thing we’ve never done before). I would dearly love to have a food co-op near-by – but the internet proved this was not the case. So we did the next best thing. We went to Parklea Markets.
The markets require extreme organisation - a shopping list, a whole bunch of green bags, teamwork – in order to get in and out as quickly as possible. We tried to distinguish between the sellers produce (which looked exactly the same to me) and picked up almost everything we needed. Don’t know if we could survive the experience every week – but it was definately worth it.
If you’re wondering – we went over my target budget. But H figured this was justified as some things would last longer than a week.
Anyway this has inspiried us to look into doing a church food co-op. Another crazy idea for H to latch onto!
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16.07.07
Posted in Journal at 2:40 pm by Sarah
So after a stupidly long and tiresome week – I emerged relatively unscathed!
All is good and happy in the world.
We went shopping on Saturday to buy a couple of H’s birthday presents which required trying on… (and secretly because I needed a shopping fix) which was tiring but entirely productive. We now have warm feet thanks to new funky ug boots… and I might have bought a few other things as well.. 
We also went out to dinner at our new favourite Indian Restaurant.
Haoran’s birthday started with presents (as all birthday’s should), continued on to an egg and bacon breakfast. The rest of the day was basically spent on the X-Box working through the levels of Lego Starwars. It’s actually pretty cool.. especially when I get to be Leia…
And the day ended with a dinner out with church pples, a big birthday cheesecake, church, and a lovely (yet somewhat cold) catch up with other church pples.
A pleasant weekend which dashed all memory of a yukky week – perfect.
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11.07.07
Posted in Church/Ministry, Journal at 2:28 pm by Sarah
I feel a bit sad this week.
Obviously because H is away and that makes our house a pretty lonely place. But also because I don’t quite know how I feel about the upheavals happening at church.
Two constants are no longer constant and that makes me sad.
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06.07.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:41 pm by Sarah
Hehe….
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03.07.07
Posted in Journal at 2:52 pm by Sarah
My week was fragmented, abnormal and a bit nuts.
It was also punctuated by our first night away from each other since we were married. (unmarried people may groan… now) I coped quite well… but it served to remind me that MYC is coming soon – and for me that means no husband for a week. I’m trying to put some survival techniques together to get me through…
It was a bit a of a cluck-fest over the weekend. I spent a few hours seeing off the B Team accompanied by (what I think is) the cutest little girl ever. And saturday night we played with H’s 2 1/2 year old cousin – who fully appreciated the joys of rice-filled fabric frogs. Much fun.
This week I decided I’d start walking again. And since it’s way too dark/cold to go out at night right now – I thought I’d take advantage of my office’s location. I’ve actually discovered that there is a whole heap of walking/riding tracks around the bay and in the Olympic Park site. So my lunchtime is now happily spent walking through manufactured bush and dodging kids on bikes. Quite pleasant.
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