The Chronicles Of…

I thought watching six minutes worth off stuff being broken and the like would be a little boring, but to be honest I found it wasn’t enough!

Tempus II from Philip Heron on Vimeo.

I’m starting to become like the people I laughed at in the past… Those people who turn appliances off at the wall after using them!

I know, ridiculous!

This was after our last bill being over $600 for a quarter. So now I’m becoming the electricity Police, turning power points off at the wall and lights off that I think aren’t in use, sometimes I’m corrected and told that the kids need to see while eating, but hey it’s a learning curve.

The good news is that the house we’re moving into (did I mention that we have to move again?? So annoying!! Even if we did know it was coming…) anyway, that house is have some solar panels installed later this year and although they won’t produces massive amounts of electricity at least it will decrease the bill a little.

It also has natural gas which is far more efficient than using electricity to heat. And I think it’s a better insulated place. So I’m looking forward to that.

The other morning I was making the boys porridge, I know I know I’m awesome.

Anyway…

Oh actually did I tell you I don’t even eat porridge and I think it tastes like glue? Yeah so I was making it but not going to eat, it was just for others!

Alright, I’ll get on with it…

So I put some brown sugar on it after serving it up and got some of the sugar on my finger so decided to suck it up, as it was going to taste awful, and just lick it off.

You know what?! It tastes pretty damn good and it was then that I realised I may never have tasted it not in something!!

I know that sounds stupid but since I was a kid I always thought it smelt terrible! So never ate it. My brothers and sister did, but not me, just couldn’t stand that smell.

But I may now just consider it next time… Although I’m not sure what else you put it on besides porridge…

I’ve seen that section in here to do post tags for quite a while now and have never been bothered to do it.

But yesterday that changed, while blogging I decided to use them. Although I have no idea why they are there…

Wouldn’t a search of the site produce the same results as a search of the post tags as the post tags are more than likely in the post itself??

To find out why you’d use them I could of course just google it, but I couldn’t be stuffed! Plus someone once taught me something about the art of conversation in the modern world, and that is that you don’t go googling the answer to every little thing first up, ask the question of others, chat about it and have an old school conversation and a little interaction with others (even if that interaction is online like this). This will help us all not to be little geeky types who never get out into the sunlight.

Then if you aren’t satisfied, or haven’t got the correct answer turn to the internet and find something written by someone whom you really don’t know is a credible source and take their word as gospel until you find someone of similar or better credentials and then start spreading what they say as being right.

But I digress.

So could someone tell me why I’m using/should be using them?

Last night was another shed night, which meant I was able, with the help of some of the guys, to get some more sanding done on the Jeep.

Pete, my go to guy for when it comes to knowing what to do in terms of the painting, and preperation for that, has told me that we should be right now and that the sanding is finished!! (except for sanding between coats and a few other things, but I’m trying to be positive here…)

The downside is that we really shouldn’t paint until we get some warmer weather, but, we can do the undercoat and look at repairing a couple of the dints and maybe weld a few holes up and the like.

The good thing is that it’s time to move to the next phase, at that’s always exciting.

On Saturday night our church put on a night where we invited some guys to a shed where we had a butcher cut up a cow’s hind quarter.

Before we got into that they cooked up a little Kangaroo, Emu and Crocodile for us all to taste test.

We then headed in to check see the butcher work his magic. For those playing at home it was Jason from Farmers Choice Butcher’s here in Dubbo, I would definitely recommend them as his brother in law grows the meat and he’s a trustworthy guy so you know that you’re getting what you paid for.

Anyway, so he showed us a bit of his trade, it was fascinating, he explained all the different bits of the animal and different cuts, gave us tips on choosing meat and what cuts are good for different dishes.

Then we fired up the dozen or so bbq’s and cooked ourselves an tasty bit of meat each, there was salad somewhere I’m told.

So the a minister, Bruce Bennett, from a church in Orange gave a cracker of a talk and we hung around chatting about things that matter.

I highly recommend it as a way to get non Christian blokes to somewhere that you can have a great night and share the gospel with them.

Twitter is over capacity again, if I were going to tweet, which I was, I may have said one off these…

It’s raining, still loving it, even if the farmers are now saying they’ve had enough.

Or…

Tried chopping wood, wood was too hard or I was too soft, gave up after barely getting anywhere. #hardenup

I’m thinking about putting a twitter account together for the company where I work… A Volkswagen dealership.

I haven’t entirely worked out why, what I would write (I have a few ideas actually) or if there’s any real benefit except being about to be caught on twitter during work and not having to really explain myself…

I hear lots about how businesses should really jump on this stuff and engage with people through social networking and the like, but don’t want it to turn into a boring thing that people end up following.

So, what do you think? Actually what I would love to know is if you follow any businesses on Twitter, or Facebook or in any other online form? And if so something you like or hate about what they post?

Due to popular demand, ok one person asks and i like to make everyone happy, whenever you comment on a blog posting you can now subscribe to have notification of all following comments emailed to you.

Thought I should let the people know…

I was recently informed of a young girl passing away who I had known from a long time ago. It got me thinking.

Firstly, I thought again how I hate death; just hate it with a passion. I know that as a Christian I can look forward to something far better than this world, but still, I just can’t handle death. Hate it.

I knew the girl from primary school, well I knew of her more than I knew her, she was 24 so a bit younger than me, but her mum, my mum and a bunch of other mums would wait, while chatting, at the back gate of our school for us to come out. Then after we got out of school would continue to have their chats so we played for a while, sometimes only minutes, sometimes a lot longer.

I already knew back then that she had struggled with her health for all her life and to hear that she only made it to 24 just made me cry. I hate death, especially death at a young age.

It made me think too about how life changes, how we all go through stages which either you never even think about how they may change, or maybe you do acknowledge that will or could but hope so much they won’t. We go through other stages where you hope they will change, but I guess that’s another blog altogether.

I may be wrong, and I haven’t asked mum, but I think that would have been a great time in life. Those mums hanging out at the back gate of school, at first they wouldn’t haven’t known each other, the first few days and weeks may have been awkward, but as the years went by would have become closer. They would share in good times chatting, they would share concerns about the school, and then actually act on those concerns, whether it be at a P&C meeting or something else, as they were the sort of mums who were involved in the school and cared.

And now due to circumstances they’ve drifted apart, but they still care, if on the grape vine (which always has it’s way of working among mums even if it hasn’t been used in a while) they find out of something happening to one of the others or their family which requires action or support they’ll contact each other and help out anyway they can.

My mum is especially great at caring, it blows me away sometimes. Nothing is too hard, if you need money, food or anything else she’ll be there, she isn’t rich or anything, but even before she became a Christian I could see how incredibly generous she was. I love the love she has for others and her giving heart. And she’s quiet about it, she wants no praise, praise actually makes her a little awkward, she just wants you to be ok. I want to be like her when I grow up.

And Dad’s the same, he loves to help, he loves to give, and he really gets stuck into the things that he feels he can do. They both hate being in the limelight but love to help behind the scenes. It’s been like that all my life too, just one example of many is how is how when we grew up my brothers and I played Aussie Rules and they would always be there with the other early birds on a Saturday morning setting up the fields and dragging out the canteen which was a caravan and then setting it up and getting everything going and be there most the day. They did all this because they cared, about us, about the footy club and the people in it.

I don’t know where I’m going with this blog, but I suppose a few points are:

• I hate death
• I love life even if it’s not always easy
• I love the example my parents are in their love for others
• and, I don’t like how life sometimes takes you away from people that are such a blessing and amazing to be/have around, people you love, but I vow to try to hold onto those relationships which really mean something to me, even if I don’t see them today or tomorrow or this month, I’m not going to say good bye.