Crochet queen and Rachael & Emma

Lizzy is a crochet queen. She really is. Thanks to the encouragement of Lynn Irving, Lizzy's been learning to crochet all year after I gave her a book titled 'Stich & Bitch - The Happy Hooker'. Charming title, with great pictures and patterns. One of those patterns is a baby blanket, as below:


The book pattern is the stripy one, and Lizzy designed the square one. Both made of acrylic rather than wool to make washing easier, and both with a seatbelt hole. Rather good eh? She's now moving onto other items (but obviously I can't say what, top secret at the moment!).

It was nice that they were finished on time, ready for the arrival of Rachael & Emma Sturgeon. Their parents, Mike & Helen, had suffered the pain of miscarriages and their son William last year being still born, so to actually see Rachael & Emma breathing was very exciting. Mike and Helen are obviously very, very excited; thankful to God for new life; and daunted about raising twins! We look forward to seeing Rachael & Emma outgrowing their crocheted blankets!

LUSA and the sovereignty of God

God's sovereignty is great. The timing with the way he works things out does make me smile. For example, a couple of days ago I happened to ring Jo at LUSA (Lincoln University Students Association) to enquire about their programme for O-week at the beginning of the 2008 academic year come February. She said it wasn't finalised, but why not come to her office to see the draft?

So I did.

And in that afternoon meeting she mentioned that the LUSA executive had been talking about Jesus Awareness Week. Now in that moment I was concerned - i feared that they didn't like the chalking, the talks, the posters, the questionnaires during Jesus Week in July, and thought they'd not want to have a Jesus Week in 2008. But I was wrong. She said that we had a choice of two weeks for 2008, so as not to clash with Maori Language Week. Fine said I, and chose week of 14th July.

More 'smiling-at-God's-sovereignity-ly' our conversation was just two hours before the 2008 student diary was being sent to the printers, so our conversation about Jesus Week 2008 meant that it could go in the diary for 14.7.08. This diary is something that every student at Lincoln University receives when they enroll. Cool eh?

So not only was there no grounds to my concerns that LUSA didn't like Jesus Week 2007, but Jesus Week 2008 is listed in the diary for every single student!

Just have to sit down with the Christian Fellowship and work out how best to use that time now.....

Movember

We're now into early December and I need to give an update on Movember. Movember (the month formerly known as November) is an excellent idea from the Prostate Cancer Research people. Clean shaven on Nov 1, and grow a mo through the month, raising funds for research and raising awareness. I've been telling everyone that more people in NZ die from prostate cancer than breast cancer.

Anyway, here's my effort, in NZ cricketer mode and more common smiley Mothy mode:



Comments welcome. I reckon it's not bad for me first ever mo. I'm really quite pleased at how ugly it looked. Liz thought it was delightful, of course, in the same vein as a Tui ad I saw recently - 'My missues reckons my Movember mo is a great thing.....yeah right'.
All good fun, but I'm pleased it's now December and it's gone until next Movember - suggestions for next year's style on a postcard please!