It's going to be a good year

Today was a brilliant day and I'm so excited about the things ahead. We had a Leadership Day at church where our Pastor spoke to the leaders about the things that are ahead, our goals and the coming year, so I'm feeling very inspired. :0)

I've been reading Joseph Prince's book, Destined to Reign, recently and let me tell you, it is amazing! I had started to read it before but I decided to start from the beginning and really take it in chapter by chapter, taking notes and studying the Bible alongside it, and it is brilliant. This book has the potential to totally change your mindset about the gospel of grace and bring real understanding into why we believe what we believe - backing everything up with the Bible so that you can talk to others about it too! Prince's teaching totally changed our church so well worth a read!

I'm really seeing the effects of investing into my own life already so looking forward to doing some more reading in the near future. In fact, after today, my book list has grown 10 fold!

And I finished Sense and Sensibility! I absolutely loved it! It's nice to be able to read that kind of book on the train and then come home and read a study kind of book - strikes a good balance! Jane Austen's writing was beautiful and I can't wait to make a start on what's probably her most famous effort - Pride & Prejudice! I'm also curious about the other one I bought, Persuasion, because I haven't heard as much about it so not sure what to expect at all!

Anyway, Sense and Sensibility was beautiful, and I could see all the characters alive and well in our modern day society. In fact, I was thinking, Jane Austen - as classically acclaimed as she is - was just her days equivalent of Sophie Kinsella or Mariane Keys. Think about it, she was just writing romance laced with gossip and scandal which is essentially chick lit right? So just because it is set 200 years ago, it doesn't mean we don't see this kind of classical writing today, we do. The plot is always the same - just fast forward a few hundred years!

Speaking of Sophie Kinsella, I was excited to read that a movie has been made about our favourite Shopaholic, Becky Bloomwood. However, I was disappointed to find out they have made her into an American! No offence to my friends across the pond, but isn't the charm of Becky that she hails from a small British town, working in the City of London and shopping to her heart's content in the designer shops on Bond Street that she really can't afford?! And does making her an American render useless the whole plot of the book Shopaholic Abroad - where she moves to New York and tries to grow accustomed to US shopping! And I'm sorry but Isla Fisher?! How can you take an Australian and make her play an American who clearly should be British?! And she has ginger hair!! (My interpretation of Becky was that she is brunette and quite plain looking!)

So I'm not sure I'll be inclined to go and see that one.... Seven Pounds, on the other hand, is definitely on my list to see!

Goals:

• Go to see Seven Pounds (remember the tissues!)
• Read Pride and Prejudiced
• Keep going with Joseph Prince
• Seriously think about what I would like achieve this year in regards to Church, and how I can help to move the Church forward in relation to what was discussed today.

It's all about me, me and.... me!

It's so nice to have a Saturday when there are no plans. :0)

Jon was at work (as usual!) so I had the day to myself (as usual!), but instead of having lots of errands or meetings or shopping to do, I actually had nothing on the cards! Which is great - probably as a result of me being so organised lately (see previous posts), which is gonig really well. I'm loving the whole list thing. It wasn't even my turn to do the cleaning either!

It was an aboslutely gorgeous day, I wish I had taken a picture of the clear sky to show you, and it was really warm so i went for a run (Run number two of 2009 - making progress!) and it felt soooooo good just to be outside in the warm and the sun... and there was a slight breeze so running was really comfortable. I noticed that I can run a lot further in the warm as well, it's easier to breathe!

I took my bank card with me so that I could swing my Sainsburys on the way back, and as I crossed the road who should I see in the Starbucks queue? Marcus. And who was he with? Pearl and Mark! So I went up for a pit-stop and had a nice chat (hopefully I didn't stink too much!) before heading to Sainsburys to get the food in. Came home and had the house to myself. Which was cool...... for a while.

You know, sometimes I really look forward to having the house to myself and I have loads of plans of what I might do, but then..... I do feel a little lonely. It would be nice if Jon didn't work EVERY Saturday. In fact... it's 8.55pm and he's still not home. So glad I made my own dinner!

So anyway, I ended up sorting out some bits and pieces and sorting through my craft bits and then I made these postcards. Really simple to do, but beautiful and they make a nice little gift.

I then curled up in bed and read some more of Sense and Sensibility. I'm almost at the end now and I honestly don't know what's going to happen (I'm sure I've seen a dramatisation before but can't remember the storyline at all!), so I'm excited to get to the end.

So I guess from today I'm doing well on the fitness front and also developing my personal interests, which is cool - a bit of crafting and reading are always good. Let's not talk about the budgeting....... ;0)

As for living life on the front row, last weekend was really busy but I really made an effort to go to everything and you know what? It was a really cool week! Friday was our East London regional party for church, we had a really good turnout and it's so good to see everyone progressing and a genuine community being built out in our neck of the woods.

Sunday was a great day in Church! And I wasn't tired at the end of it either. Towards the end of last year I was quite run down and I couldn't last the day in church, which is really unusual for me. But on Sunday I went from 8am on team and served for the first service and went to a team meeting, had a really nice afternoon with Jon (it's always nice to see your husband!) and then went to the 5pm service before taking a new girl out for coffee afterwards - getting home at 9pm!

On Monday, even though my trains were delayed and I was tired, I still went out for some birthday drinks and then on Tuesday, we had a team night at church and I am so glad I went because it was such a great night. Gary went back to basics and spoke a bit about why we do what we do and what's coming up for the new year, and the rest of the night was prayer for all the different areas of church, driving everything forward etc. Was a good night, although I have to admit I was REALLY tired by the end, but I survived Wednesday and it was well worth it - just goes to show that you can get over the obstacles and make the most of everything, not missing out and still travel 50 miles every day to go to work!