Pedestrians beware…

Saw a fantastic sign today going past a local church in the area. They are well known for their captivating signs and today was no exception. First a bit of background. The church is situated on the corner of Marion and Norton Street in Leichhardt. This is a very high traffic area and right next to a set of lights and crossings. It has a very high pedestrian density. Anyway, the sign says “Pedestrians beware, Jesus died on the cross”. Love it!!! Funny yet profoundly thought provoking, a real conversation starter!

Did you switch off your lights?

Well Earth Hour in Sydney came and went. We went down to Pyrmont to watch the lights go out over Sydney. The Harbour Bridge was eerily dark and the city was significantly darker but by any means we were not able to see any more stars than normal. It was encouraging to see a large number of big businesses had switched off their advertising on top of the buildings. Shame on Samsung being the only one (within the area that we could see) for not turning out their lights! The next day in the paper it would appear that the participation from the public and corporate world was impressive. Hopefully this event will catch on throughout Australia and hopefully other countries. For the 1 hour with lights out this saved green house emissions equal to 48,000 cars off the road for a year! Woo hoo. How simple it is to make small changes that create a exponential difference. We had made the decision to participate in turning our lights off for 2 hours seeing as we used our car to get to a viewing area! It was rather fun doing everything by candle light!

Side note: during our lights out time we did manage to see a stunning comet with blazing tail and all burning up as it came through the Sydney skyline. Fantastic!

Election time in NSW

As a non Australian citizen we are not required to vote. However, we do take an interest in seeing what the parties have to say and the reactions from the public. It would appear that this year the NSW public have shown that they are tired of the slow progress of their government but not tired enough to boot them out. As the media have been saying, NSW Australians have voted rather for “the devil they know than the Debnam they don’t” (Peter Debnam of course being the opposition leader). So it is another 4 years of Morris Iemma. Being a very clever man he has publically acknowledged that the Australian public have shown their disappointment and his intention to move his programs forward so they have services they can be proud of. Good move. Been reading the following in Proverbs 15:5 “A fool spurns his father’s discipline, but whoever heeds correction shows prudence”. This lesson can be used in many areas of life. Even in light of this election. Morris has been disciplined by the public who have said they are not happy with his leadership or lack of and he should now show prudence in listening to them and discovering how he can serve his people better.

Movie: The Wicker Man

Starring Nicolas Cage and supported by Ellen Burstyn and a small part by Leelee Sobieski this movie had plenty of promise. Cage plays a police officer that is called to a secluded island to investigate the case of a missing local girl. He quickly learns that the island dwellers are harbouring dark secrets and races to uncover the mystery of the disapperance before something further happens. I think as movie goers we have been so moulded into a particular style of story telling that we are disappointed when we don’t get the expected result. Without giving anything away, this movie left me disappointed but more so at the recognition that I am one of those that have been moulded to that style of story telling. If you think that you can work out the plot, go for it, I didn’t even see it coming! 5 out of 10.

Rainy days and Monday

Well in fact this is only about a rainy day but I love that song from “The Carpenters” and it seemed appropriate for the title.
Saturday morning and I was extremely organised. Up early, completed the dishes from the night before (yes I know I should have done these last night, so what!). Then nicked down the road to get the washing on while racing off to get the groceries in the 30 minutes that it takes to do a load at the laundromat. Picked up the washing, endured look of disapproval as I was 10 minutes late collecting the washing (oops), raced home to hang it out… ahhhhhh time for breakfast. All this achieved before 10am. Lovely.
However, just gotten home from shopping for a backpack for our pending UK trip and it has decided to rain today! We are in a drought and it rains all over my freshly laundered washing. Of course it rained so hard that it kicked up mud all over the washing so it is even dirtier than before washing it! Man, that sucks. Oh well, start it all again tomorrow.

Marriage – what is it?

Been pondering this thought lately and I have come up with my initial draft on the subject. However, you have to read it right through.
Marriage is about self sacrifice. Caring for someone so much that you place them and their needs above yours. However, the kicker is that both parties must possess a spirit of self sacrifice. Both parties putting the needs of the other before their own. When this happens only then can you truly work together to figure out how to move forward based on “we” decisions not “me” decisions.

Ulcers

It is amazing how your body tells you what is going on inside your head before you figure it out yourself. I have had a darn mouth ulcer for the past week. Situated right on the top inside of my lip it has developed in just the right area to not be seen but impact sorely on every time I eat, drink or talk.
Now I don’t often get ulcers and couldn’t figure out why until driving to work one Monday morning for some reason I was really anxious, heart was fluttering, jittery etc. Ah hah, stress. What the??? OK so we are slowly packing up our place, selling everything we own, moving to the other side of the world where we don’t know anyone, why would I be stressed?!!!
Now only if my body could come up with a good way to tell me how to deal with it!