Not Sure What to Title This One....

Hi Everyone...

Well, I know it's not Sunday, and yes - I did miss last Sunday's post. My apologies for that. I shall try to do better in the future.

Here's the news for today...

I'm a singleton again. I won't go into too much detail, but long story short, the Barenaked Ladies are right - absence does make the heart grow fungus.



The rest of the song has nothing to do with what happened to Andy & I. The distance was hard though. I think it was really easy for us to forget what it was like when we were together, and therefore it dwindled.

Never mind... as hard as it's been this week - onwards and upwards.

Andy is my friend, and in fact we still keep in touch in some small way every day. So, that's positive. We're just moving on.

Overall, a good learning experience in feelings and relationships.

Moving on from that topic...

I've become slightly idolatrous over this item...



The HTC Desire... An Android operating system smart phone with amazing capabilities. With everyone around me all of a sudden getting i-phones and the like, I find myself coveting this little beauty. The only trouble is, that I'm still very much on a contract until February 1st. If you know anyone who wants a Sony Ericsson K770i for about £108, or wants to take over my contract - let me know. This offer only applies to people who actually live in the UK of course.

Meh, I'll just have to be patient. In every aspect of life. :-/

Hope everyone is well. I'm doing quite well today considering I've had some serious heart-ache this week. Everything happens for a reason, and I'm grateful for the experience.

mormon.org Re-vamp

So, I don't know if you knew this or not, but; my church website has been re-vamped, and it looks fantastic. Just look at this...



The new website very much focuses on the members of the church now. I think this is a great idea, because the best thing we have to offer really to the world (besides the most important things, such as truth, salvation through Jesus Christ and happiness) is our people. I mean there's still the most important things on the site - such as the doctrines of the church, and what's important to us, and how to get in touch with missionaries, etc. There's also a way to chat online to missionaries and get answers to questions. I think it's brilliant.

There are individual profiles on members of the church throughout the world. Here is my profile...



which can be found here... (link)

Here is Andy's profile...



which can be found here... (link)

I think this is a fantastic tool for getting the message out with regards to what Mormons believe, and what they are like. As many of you know, I'm a pretty average, every day sort of girl who tries to live a clean life, and does my best to help people. I'm not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but I do try to be my best. I have incredible flaws, but I suppose that is normal. I think, though - that helps in getting people to see how normal we are. In fact, normal is hard to come by these days. If I'm honest, that's one of the things that attracted me to Andy - his level of normal-ness. I love that. :-)

On an un-related note, I've started another blog. (like I have time to keep this one up, let alone start another one) It's entitled "Hidden Dundee", and can be found here... (link)

I just really felt that I've been learning enough quirky things about the history of Dundee to start a whole new blog. It will give me a chance to do some research as well. There's that many interesting things, that I can actually do a fair number of posts without running out of things to blog about. So - there you have it.

A Bit Distracted...

You may have noticed that I've been a bit boring lately in my blogging. I think it's because I'm a bit distracted and for the most part my thoughts have been focused on feelings, hearts, and everything sappy one can imagine. I guess it's a sign that I'm pretty happy. I mean, I'm mostly happy. I just think that it's a bit difficult to have a long distance relationship. It would be a lot better if we could see each other every week-end. However, our schedules make that difficult. Andy works a different type of shift every week, and his visits often depend on whether he's on earlies, or lates. He was here this past week, but now I won't see him for a month! The time he was here though, was lovely. We always enjoy our time together. Well, there you have it though - my excuse for being a bad blogger... a bit distracted.

News?

Well, I finished my first University Course last week. That was a relief. I won't receive my result until early September though. I'm sure it will be fine, it's only a 10 credit course. I begin real live University courses in October. That will be great. I really enjoyed the wee course. It was really interesting. It felt a bit like High School Biology, but as I said - it was a 10 credit course; not worth much. It did get me into the right frame of mind though, and helped me to think about what I need to work on for my next course.

Primary is great. We are finally getting callings filled. :-) People keep moving into the ward left and right. I'm loving it. I think it's often about timing with filling callings. Have I told you I love the kids? I love them. They are fantastic.

I finally put curtains up in my flat. People can now no longer see into my flat at night. If they were looking, they wouldn't have seen much anyway because I'm higher up than all the other flats in the area. However, last week, took a quick trip to IKEA (not so quick!) on the bus which included taking the megabus to Edinburgh and then taking a Lothian bus to the outskirts of Edinburgh. Lucky for me there were better quality curtains on sale than the ones I went there for. They were cheaper too! (£2.99) I do like the IKEA sales.

That's about it for news. I don't really lead an exciting life. I mean - it's exciting to me, but I have nothing that I can report. Life is just generally good. Take my word for it.

I do miss my Andy though...

Thoughts

What to blog about? What to blog about???

Not sure really. I've had a decidedly low-key week-end. I've been finishing up my course on "Introducing Environment". I have one assignment to write up, and then I'm done. I'll be working on it over the next week or so. It won't be that hard; it's only a 10 credit course.

Other than that...

Oh, yeah - Final episode of Doctor Who series 5 was fantastic. I'm really impressed with Matt Smith actually. Some people swear up and down that David Tennant is better, but I think Matt is fantastic. I love the fez in this episode... it's too bad it had to go at the end there.

More people should wear fezes.



I wish I had a pet sometimes. A furry one.

Babies are nice, I held a baby today in church. They're everywhere I turn at church.

Dundee has had ridiculously lovely weather for the last month.

It's amazing what delicious concoctions you can come up with when you have a near-bare cupboard.

There are 9ish sleeps until Andy comes back to Dundee to see me. (he hasn't given me an exact day yet - deciding on transport)

I'm looking forward to reading for fun this summer, and not just reading my course materials. In October, I'll be back at it - for 60 credits this time.

My peace lily has decided to flower in June instead of at Easter.

Yep, that's about everything that's on my mind at the moment. Some of it's boring I know, but there it is...

Have a nice week folks.

Happy Father's Day!

I just spoke to my Dad on the phone... he's sounding ok, just feeling a little bit older overall. I guess the stroke, and surgery has left him feeling a bit more tired, and a little absent minded. I suppose a cerebrovascular accident is bound to slow you down a little bit, his brain is bound to have suffered a little damage... (which accounts for the absent-mindedness) I think though, considering his age (78), he's done very well.

I miss him (and my Mum), especially on days like today when families are meant to be together. At church today for Father's Day, we had the Primary children colour paper ties for their Dads, then put them on ribbons so that the Dads could wear them. They turned out really cute. It made me think that perhaps I wanted one. One little girl (one of my favourite girls) drew ginger-haired sets of toupees and wigs on hers to remind her Dad of his former glory days when he had hair. Heehee. Some of the boys drew weapons on theirs, and flames... I suppose their Dads will see the artistic talent in them anyway. I love opportunities to see the artistic talent of the children in our ward. They're absolutely brilliant in every way. I really think this is my favourite calling I've ever had. I look forward to church every week, even though I know it could turn out chaotic; simply because the kids are sooo great. :-)

We also taught them a song to sing in sacrament meeting to their Dads. We then handed out fairy cakes to all of the men over 19 in the ward. It turned out rather lovely. :-) It looked a bit like this...



That's the song we sung anyway... imagine that x 25. :-) Brilliant.

I've just been thinking that I really miss all of those family dinners we had out in Okotoks at Debbie's house. That's where my family will be just now... sitting around the dinner table, eating more food than necessary, and talking about politics, religion, and gossiping about this and that. One is always guaranteed intense conversation at our family gatherings.

I hope all of the Fathers, and future Fathers out there have a lovely Father's Day. I know I'm really grateful for my Dad, not to mention my Heavenly Father. I'm thankful for his constant guidance in my life. I don't know where I'd be without him, to be honest. It's a good thing he'll always be there. :-)

Happy Father's Day!

Adventures with Andy in Arbroath

I didn't post yesterday because, frankly I had better things to do. :-) Andy was here in Dundee this week-end. He came up on Friday (really really tired from working earlies all week), and then Saturday morning, we took the bus to Arbroath and I made him walk everywhere (he didn't complain though - bless him) We had an Arbroath Smokie. (I now wish I had taken a picture of it - Andy did though) Arbroath smokies are quite tasty I have to admit. My only problem with eating fish in it's non-battered form is fighting with bones. I hate fish bones, they gross me out a bit. The taste of smoked haddock though, is quite delicious. We then went to the Seaton Cliffs at Arbroath.





The Seaton Cliffs are really quite beautiful. Apparently if we had gone a bit further on the path, we would have seen even more beautiful cliffs, and the Mermaid's Kirk, not to mention the Deil's head. But, I suppose we shall have to save those delights for another day. From the cliffs, we went back into the town, and had lunch, then we toured Arbroath Abbey... which is really quite interesting and Rich with History.





It was founded in 1178 by William "The Lion" I of Scotland who built it in honour of a friend of his who had died a Christian martyr. William I is actually buried in the Abbey. (see picture below) One of the many other things which Arbroath Abbey is famous for is that it is the site where the Declaration of Arbroath was drafted and signed. It's also really very striking because of the red sandstone rocks it is built from. As you see in the Cliff pictures, Sandstone rocks are quite common in the area of Arbroath. So, when the monks built Arbroath Abbey, they did so with the materials available to them in the area. It's really quite a striking building - even just with what's left of it.



So, our time in Arbroath was lovely, and in fact all of the time we spend together is lovely. It all goes by far too quickly though - as I'm painfully aware of this morning. I only just left Andy at the bus station an hour and a half ago. I suppose I can survive the 3 weeks before I see him again.

I never thought I'd be this sappy.

What's On My Mind...

Friday morning I got up early to catch a train to Chorley. I went to the temple again this week-end with Andy. He could only do one session, because he was on the early shift on Saturday. He has to get up at 3:30 am every morning this coming week and cycle 6 miles to work. :-S He's a hero in my books; among other things. As many of you know, I am far from being a morning person. Neither is he - which makes it so amazing that he manages to do these morning shifts.

What I really am enjoying right now, is who I am when I'm with Andy. He brings out the best in me. :-) He's also just - a really really good person. x