sewing again

Yes already! You'd think I'd had enough after Oamaru's flurries. Well no, today from 10am to 5pm I was hard out sewing. (With some professional photography in-between ;) ) I was helping with the flower girl dresses for a friends wedding. Well there was actually five of us all set along the extended table working all five machines. It made quite a sight, blue, and lots of purple satin strewn across it, mingled with threads, ribbons, pins and at least three quick-unpicks. Our goal was to have seven dresses done before the end of the day. It was intense I tell you, Samara managed to finish two dresses, the rest of us completing only one, my excuse? Ahh strange shoulders and confusing fabric -mostly my fault :) Oh well, it was quite a lot of fun, and I got some of the material to make a dress for myself - so I guess I'm not nearly finished with sewing...*

Tiffany

*I wrote this yesterday but only just managed to get publish

Oamaru Heritage week

The train (er van) arrived back at my house last night
sooo I'm back!!!!!

And was it fun! True I did absolutely no writing, but I don't really mind anymore, I might get 10k done this year but that doesn't matter. Although I had two radical ideas that will greatly change my book - oh well, I'm not sure if I'll use them, we'll see.  One of them is changing the setting to some place down south instead of Waipara North Canterbury, but that will include heaps of research.

I got my jacket done in plenty of time, I was sooo glad I wasn't sewing last minute. Although strictly speaking its not finished according to the pattern, but I didn't want to put lace on the cuffs as it looked fine without, so that's all good.

here's a couple of pictures from the trip

this is the tiny little house that we stayed in,  it was sooo cute the front part there is the lounge/kitchen, the house had a double bed, a loft with a single bed, a bathroom, and tiny laundry in the hall way. It's meant for three people at the most. We had 9 people there one time, for getting ready and for meals (which we had on the deck) and 6 sleeping over night -and I tell you it was a squish!

the view of Oamaru from the deck

my jacket all finished

eating ice cream in Oamaru, all dressed up in one of Mum's bridesmaid dresses (adapted of course)

I got badly sunburnt that day

So that is a little snippet of what happened, now I'm off to have lunch 

Write... Sew.... Sleep...

As I said in the last post this is pretty much my life this November..

Well not so much the writing, I've decided to make my goal to plan something rather than to write myself into a hole. I'm doing the same story that I did last year, and although I haven't done much,its quite fascinating seeing how much my characters have changed.

 I'm focusing more on my sewing as I've only got till Thursday to finish my jacket, but it isn't too bad as I've only got to pop on the buttons, ten to be exact, which I'll probably end up doing tomorrow - hopefully I'll have some pictures to show you later

And well sleep, lets just say not much -after all a writer needs to tank up by reading ;)

I'm looking forward to having the next two weeks almost free (Ikr almost) so hopefully I'll be able to stick my head into writing, and try a few sprints because hey I'll  still want to try to get to 30k, oh well, we'll see.

-Tiffany

A flurry a whirlwind

ah,  I'm pretty much panting. My life is sooo busy right now, and well it's mostly my own fault. I'm doing Nanowrimo again, trying to push out 1,000+ words a day, to end up with hopefully more than 30,000 words by then end of this month. hmm add that to frantic sewing for Oamaru heritage week, a week of baby sitting, secretary-ness, hand-writing and counting every. single. word. Also lack of inspiration, procrastination, and life and you end up with 8,245 words on day 10 (when you're meant to be at 10,000+)  Just sad just plain sad... so any way thats my list of excuses for not blogging in aggessss   ;) and I did try and find a picture of my sewing for you but it seemed to have run away :\  life
Oh and by the way and completely out of context - The Shack is a REALLY good book :D

Getting it right

Hi,
I'm writing again ;)
Actually I've been away for two weeks... it was pretty fun. And I just want to share with you a real crazy out of place, God moment I had at confrence. We went to Manifest Presence confrence last year and it was really good last year, but this year I had a little bit of a reserve about going. I was panicing that it wouldn't be worth coming and that I might believe a lie that the teachers unwittingly told; something un-Jesus like. And on the first night I was trying to rid myself of all this prejudice and Daddy/God suddenly put into my head that he is truth (well duh) but not only that, we don't have to rely on people getting things right for us, we can go straight to God for an answer. Ok I know that sounds really dumb and a Home-schooled Christian should know that stuff off by heart. But my questions weren't small and some how I'd got it into my head that some questions are too big for God and that I had to ask other people to see whether this was even remotely wise. (not that I'm promoting ignoring people, but I've learnt that you can overdose on human reasoning)
Anyway there was this peace that I didn't have to get it right, that I could believe a lie and that it honestly wouldn't hurt God, I mean he may have a learning curve in store for me, but he's got this even if I tear my world apart he won't panic!!
What a relief

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.” John 16v33

CEF camp

Hey everyone I just got back from CEF camp (child evangelism fellowship) it was so much fun despite the fact that I had a terrible cold all week. It was exhausting but I already missing my girls and all those lovely leaders You guys were awesome5! Anyway where do I begin? Well on Sunday afternoon a friend and I went down to the camp where a whole bunch of teens were gathered in slightly awkward circles waiting for everyone to arrive. When they all did we went inside and played some icebreaker games aka going round the circle saying your name etc. Then we played horses knights and cavaliers in which you had to pair up with a Guy (luckily I was paired up with someone who I consider to be an older brother) so with that person you had to do a series of three actions a horse, someone on there hands and knees and the other person sitting on them. A Knight, where one person was down on one knee and the other person sat on the other knee, and then there was the cavaliers where one person jumps into the other persons arms. And you had to do all three as fast you could with the director calling out the order -it was a great segregation breaker :) After that we had a devotional / challenge from the director, went through all the training stuff and eventually the director announced which leaders (teens) we were with, then we went to put our bags in the cabins, had tea and more training, with a little time to hang out before bed. The next morning we had breakfast and started decorating the cabins only to near that the bus full of children had arrived. Now there is nothing like the excitement of thirtyish leaders when the bus arrives. We all run outside wild with excitement and begin to unload their gear. Followed by morning tea and a safety regulations talk, the boy and girl campers get split and we find out who our "girls" are. I was in a cabin with seven girls and three other leaders. As the week progressed we got to know our sweet little girls, learnt the difference between just being nice and actually loving. You learnt how valueble encouragement is, what exhaustion feels like and you learnt that God has got this, and how important showers are for relaxing by yourself. How annoying head colds are, how fun air rifles are. You wonder how Jesus loved, how other leaders could be so constantly giving all the compassion they've got, how you could give more but in your own way, how food at home tastes worse than food at camp, how to be so tired that you have to think to spell your own name, what herding seven children outside at six o'clock in the morning feels like, because the fire alarm went off, what enthusiasm is after waking at sixish in the morning and getting.g to sleep at nine thirty if you're lucky, what giving every ounce of kindness within you 24/7, doing everything from acting to decorating your cabin in a cowboy theme, to getting complemented for that skull and cross bones that was painted on your cheek for pirate day, to getting home and sleeping from eight pm to eight am and still feeling tired, but most of all terribly missing every single moment of CEF camp Tiffany

Some fun

 So this is what I got up to today ;)
(second title: what you can do without a computer)

So I raided the dress up box and tried some steampunk... da da da ddahhh!! (drum roll)

                                            Then posed in front of the camera serval times...

                                                                heehee it was lots of fun!

                                                                         -Tiffany

Bits and bobs

I'm just writing down some interesting ponderings about stuff I learnt to day.

In search of truth.

Wouldn't it be nice if we knew somethings were absolutely true. I don't mean things like did God create the universe. But things like is being doggedly positive about everything Christian/Buddhism, Christian or Buddhism ;) get your head around that one. Ok I'll ease it up... Do you think "pain free births" are for Christians or is it an influence from an Eastern Religion? hmmm... I don't actually know... sounds Buddhist to me (as in everything is an illusion type stuff) but at the end of the day it isn't important (well definitely not for me ;D ) *

But it would be really nice if Jesus just said" Missy you're doing real well there.... and well this needs fixing." A kind of Rev 2 & 3 re-enactment. Well that might actually be kinda painful in the end... but a least you'd have some sense of direction!
(just paused to read an article about Buddhism and pain free births, wasn't that helpful in a philosophical sense but I gleaned one thing; *don't freak out* about labour pains and I have to admit that that's gotta help)

Anyway all that blah di blah was just a baby question of mine (pun not intended) and I guess everyone has questions about everything. Soo helpful. So last month I decided to go to a counsellor (someone fall over and die/scream or gasp) just to see what it was like -as it was free. It was like having a conversation, we didn't discuss anything big and it was a lady btw. We talked about fairly controversial topics like music and conflicting word views that you agree with (WHAT! somebody explain! ;) when someone on one side of the fence says blah di blah about singing and the other person on the other side of the the fence says blah di blah opposing their neighbours view... but when you analyse them they both make sense. Small problem) anyway we talked about stuff and one thing that I really got out of it was... don't worry if you don't get it right! well duh common knowledge... but for some reason I couldn't quite get into my head that you didn't have to know everything about God right away... I mean all he asks for is you to believe and receive that he loved you enough to die for you**... really? Is it that simple?! well apparently... But then life crashes in on you (btw I tend to be slightly pessimistic naturally) and you watch riveting videos about the promises in Revelation that are panning out in modern day Israel that urge you to study God's word (out of fear, I mean honestly who doesn't want to avoid bad stuff) but the problem is your bible isn't at all interesting and you want it to be interesting plus you've been raised on the book so you kinda know a bit. Ok a *bit*.
Anyway you go down the same old track of getting other peoples opinions and some say get to know God first then read his book and others say take a concrete pill/ build a bridge and get over it. Then you get really confused and round it goes again. Brilliant!
But life goes on... and you keep on struggling through it with highs and lows. So hopefully God will reveal himself more and somethings will fall into place before we're on our deathbed. ;D So I guess this is my little corner of rebellion. I hope it made sense. Probably didn't help one bit. But anyway it's a slice of a real teenagers life
-Tiffany

(and I manage to cover my favourite topics; midwifery and deep thoughts in one post and it's 11:10pm)





*Another unimportant, wanna be a midwife find;  apparently Vaginal Birth after C-section (VBAC) is safer than continued c-sections statistics for maternal death of VBAC mothers 3.8 out of 100.000 v.s the American populace of 13.4 out 100.000 (for non VBAC) also apparently Amish women have a lower c-section rate etc. read more here
**btw I only just realised that was all God asks for

A book!

In June I was reading a post on Writer's Alley, at the end of the post they asked the reader's what their favourite books were. So I looked at all the comments to see what books the other readers liked ( to get a good idea what to read ;D ) and typed in one of my favs, Mara daughter of the Nile.

A week later I was scanning through Writers Alley again and I saw my name it fairly big print. I stopped, and scrolled up a little and there was: Tiffany Jane won the favourite book competition. The prize being one of the Writer's favourite books. I was in complete shock. I didn't even know it was a competition!!! (If you go and have a look at the comments here you will see my remark of complete and utter shock)

 A few days and got a reply from one of the writers, saying yes I won it. But I had a small problem, I'm no from the States. So after a few days of emails going back and forth, the writer said she could still mail it. And today the book came!! I'm so excited, I haven't even read the back cover. I hope it's really good book!  It's called Wish you were here by Beth K Vogt. And it sounds very adventurous/thriller and romantic, a mix that I love!!

Real

Ok so after months of not posting, well in reality having no idea what to post, and not sure if I should bother as no one seems to be reading my blog anymore I have decided to post real, to post what I'm really like, not to second guess what people want to here, to get feed back. Last time I  did that I wrote a post and got 5 comments from it I think was stupid so I'm gonna write realness on here whether anyone reads or not.

You deserve my all Lord (Jai)

V1:
You will never have me incomplete
Without a heart that speaks of You with every beat
Daily take me far from compromise
Open up my eyes, to see with Heaven’s sight
I’m praying

Chorus:
Open my eyes and I will walk Your way every single day
You deserve my all Lord (You deserve it)
Open my mouth and I will shout Your praise Louder every day
You deserve my all Lord (You deserve it)

V2:
Put a new song inside of me I pray
An anthem for today to show the world Your way
Singing of the greatness of Your love
The Blessing of Your Son, the power of His love
You saved me!

Bridge:
I wanna know Your heart! Show me who You are!
Speak and I will go! Lead and I’ll follow!

(source http://justjai.com/lyrics/)

Had to share this song with you guys, I just love it!

A Life

Last night I was at a friends and we watched "Not without my daughter"
and the story goes that an American woman, Her Iranian Husband and their daughter go on vacation in Tehran for "two weeks". Due to family pressure and his Islamic faith her husband forces her to stay in Tehran, where she is required to wear a burqua etc. Long story short she tries to escape and he becomes very violent with her, many opportunities arise in which she could leave *by herself* but she refuses to leave without her daughter. In the end she finally gets back, but the thing that really hits home is that the story was true, and is true for many Western wives living in the Middle East.

This post isn't saying that all Muslims are women beaters, I'm very sure there is lost of nice muslims out there who love their familes. But the thing is there are lots of people being abused out there right now, regardless of religion, "race" or gender. Some people never get out of it and believe that this is what life is like. And when you think about that hard or what an intense movie like that,
You can't help but think... So much doesn't matter

So much... your own comfort... your house. If someone out there is hurting... if someone out there is dying inside, how can we keep living? How can we look at the world in the same way? How can we complain about our own problems when there is millions out there who have absouletely no hope? When everyday... every breath is full of pain? How can we begin to think of staying at home and getting married and having children, when so many children are abandoned, abused, starved and killed. How can we read books on how to be feminine when so many women are having the life crushed out of them? How can we buy a new couch or up grade some part in our house, when others go hungry?
How can we hog a hope to ourselves because we are scared of what others may think. How can we walk past people who are in chains?

But then we get locked up in our own little world, the world in which our utmost pleasure comes first. We forget what another's reality is like, we all are guilty of walking by and yes that "we" includes me.
So then I guess the question is how we break out of that? By taking a running leap at Jesus and making the jump?

Spaetzle

Spaetzle is a German free form pasta that I made this morning. Really addictive, I keep going back to the pan for more ;)
So here's the recipe

1 cup of Milk (about)
2 eggs (or one)
1 1/2 tsp of salt
2 1/4 flour

Mix milk, egg, salt and any other flavouring ( herbs, spices etc.)
Stir in flour. Add more flour or milk 'til it becomes the consistency of
thick pancake batter (sloppy batter) Rest 10mins

Bring a pot of water to the boil. Turn it down a little til it gently boils.
Push the batter through a colander (with a spatula) and into the water.
When the pasta floats to the top scoop it out and into a buttered pan.
Cook them a little in the pan. Serve with meat, gravy, soup or whatever.


 Pintrest

Vote

Do you think it is very good if people write about their feelings on a blog -as in what difficulties they are having? etc

our world

In these past to days I've been thinking about, well the situation in the world. Some of you probably know this but we are so terribly behind the times with any sort of news.
So for starters I didn't know that  the british crown wanted to reduce the world population to 1 billion to bring back under British rule. And the Prince and Queen have made this statement several times. How would they do this through the banks (in a hazelnut-shell) causing mass starvation.
I have heard a lot about banks myself but I was surprised that the rumor of mass murder could be achievable.

So I was thinking -what on earth do we do about that? Do we stock up on food and live in fear? Well the food bit might help, but then this is all self preservation. In that case do we employ all our money and hire an airplane and go round the restaurants and collect the 'pig food' and fly it off to those who are already starving in africa? But this even though it would make a world of a difference for them, we in theory would be treating them like monkeys, they are human they deserve the same as us. But then you go back to the idea of communism -which obviously doesn't work with selfish mankind.
So what do you do?
love- pour yourself out daily thinking -even in your own state of starvation, thinking only of what this would mean for the other person. Giving out in the face of mass murder for no gain -for almost no reason except that these people are beloved -God's passionate about them. That they deserve -or not deserve to see an inch of love and through this show Daddy/God can do so much more.  And in thinking this I was overwhelmed with the strength and sheer determination and trust in God this would take. I also know that this mayn't play out in my life time, but in the likelihood  of something happening      I can only hope that I can out just a tiny bit of this ideal. I guess we can practice. As I type people are starting out work - the most demoralizing kind there is, prostitution. In which they expose themselves to goodness knows who, for some money that requires being dominated by the unpredictable stronger sex.     And this is happening (at the most) an hour away from where I live.  


pictures meant to be coming