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Friday 25 April 2008

Baby Girl's Birthday

Here's a picture post of Baby Girl's Birthday:

Opening cards before birthday breakfast:

Opening presents:



Fun at the farm:


Riding on the trailer:



Lunch at the farm cafe:




Saying goodbye to the chicks:

Birthday cake:


Yum yum:

Thursday 24 April 2008

Happy Birthday Baby Girl

Baby Girl is one today. Here is a photo from when she was born:


Tuesday 22 April 2008

The Woman in White

I finished reading this book and we have decided that it is certainly one to keep.

In addition to forgetting a lot of the plot, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed this book until I reread it. It is one where the "goodies" live happily ever after and the "baddies" receive their just deserts but it manages to do this in a believable way. I liked the fact that the main characters were good and strove for what was right and true. Those characters who did do wrong are not condoned and those who commit the worst wrongs do not profit from them in the long run. Although the plot is not something which would happen in real life, it does illustrate how the wrongs committed by an individual can have far reaching effects on many other people.

I particularly like Wilkie Collins' writing style - the story is narrated by different characters throughout the book and the characters are well described so that you get a real picture of what they are like. After Far from the Madding Crowd I will probably read The Moonstone which is also by Wilkie Collins.

About the poem posted below

The poem below is an unattributed poem which I used to have on my door as a student (along with various Bible passages, hymns, Christian songs etc.) I wanted to post it alone as I thought posting any additional discussion in the same post would detract from it. I really like the change from complete despair to redemption in Christ. I was reminded of the poem by a video Stacy posted here yesterday.

In other news, the wonderwash arrived today. I ended up ordering it from a different company as the original one had run out and was having trouble getting hold of more. My kombucha scoby just arrived too. I got it through Kombucha Exchange Worldwide. I guess I'm going to be pretty busy starting of kombucha brewing and using the wonderwash. Tomorrow the council will be taking away our old washing machine which should make some more space. I also need to make a birthday cake as Baby Girl will be one on Thursday. It is amazing how the time flies.

Monday 21 April 2008

Meeting with God

Everything and Nothing;
Surrounded by people,
yet all alone.

Complete Emptiness.

Living in a void,
with sounds all around,
but no one knows me,
no one hears my voice.

Do I call out again?

Locked away;
Hiding from Nothingness,
Emptiness comes to consume me,
as I throw away the key.

Deeper than I've ever been,
Drowning in the indefinable.

I bleed again.

Seeking respite from what I do not know
Stuck on self-destruct
Spiralling ever downwards
Sinking further;
in an effort to escape hollowness...







...Tears devour me,
But now they are tears of joy.

I live again,
drenched in Jesus' blood,
He bleeds for me.

Out of the Darkness.
Into the Light.

Dancing with joy,
My life is full.
I am renewed,
I revel in is love,
Singing of His grace.

I call out His name.

Everything is new,
and filled with His glory.
How can I pay the debt?
A life was given for mine.

I breath again,
He breathed life into my bones
And I will live forever,
Now I have met with God.

Thursday 17 April 2008

Why "Sinner Saved"?

Why did I choose the title "Sinner Saved" for my blog?

The most important thing about me is that I am a sinner and I am saved.

Being a sinner is not unusual - we are all sinners. Before I was a Christian, I didn't think I was a sinner. Admittedly I didn't think I was "good" - I knew I wasn't perfect but I thought that I was "good enough" to go to heaven. After all I wasn't a murder or anything so I had to be good enough didn't I? Wrong.


"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God"

Romans 3v23


Once I had become a Christian I knew that I was a sinner. But, along with the knowledge that I was a sinner came the gift of salvation. I am too sinful to earn a place in heaven. I could not even come close. But I am saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ.


"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God"


Christ lived a perfect life and died on the cross to take the punishment which I deserved for my sin. Thanks to his sacrifice I am saved. Whoever believes in him will be saved.



That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

John3v15


Being saved does not stop me from sinning. I am no less a sinner now that I am saved. So my blog title reminds me of the two most important things about me:


  • I am a sinner.
  • I have been saved.

Wednesday 16 April 2008

HTML: A bit of JavaScript

This is the script I have used to make my “To do” list which changes according to the day of the week:

<script language="JavaScript">

<!--

var ar = new Array(

"<b>Sunday</b><br>Worship God<br>Rest<br>",

"<b>Monday</b><br>make bread<br>make buttermilk<br>",

"<b>Tuesday</b><br>Bake bread<br>make spicy fruit loaf<br>",

"<b>Wednesday</b><br>bake spicy fruit loaf<br>plan menu for next week<br>make buttermilk<br>start yoghurt<br>",

"<b>Thursday</b><br>put yoghurt in fridge<br>start cream cheese<br>",

"<b>Friday</b><br>grind wheat<br><br>re-strain whey<br>transfer cream cheese from strainer<br>",

"<b>Saturday</b><br>Family Activity<br>"

);

var now = new Date();

var num = now.getDay();

num %= ar.length;

document.write(ar[num]);

// -->

</script>

Each day it displays what I have entered between the quotation
marks for that particular day so for example for Wednesday I have entered:

<b>Wednesday</b><br>bake spicy fruit
loaf<br>plan menu for next week<br>make buttermilk<br>start
yoghurt<br>

Which comes out as:

Wednesday
bake spicy fruit loaf
plan menu for next week
make buttermilk
start yoghurt

You could enter whatever you liked for each day such as writing, pictures or links as long as you remember to use HTML code to format what you put in.

Tuesday 15 April 2008

Alive and Kicking

Those of you who live in the UK may be aware of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which is soon to go through the House of Commons. The Bill has already passed through the House of Lords and has the potential to liberalise abortion law as well as pave the way for human-animal hybrid embryos being created. Various pro-life amendments to the bill were proposed when it went through the House of Lords but sadly these were defeated.

Alive and Kicking have information on their website on how to go about lobbying your MP about this bill. They also have a database which tells you how they have voted on this kind of issue in the past and if it is known which way they would vote on various issues. I was saddened and surprised to find that David Cameron who has a disabled child himself is in favour of keeping the allowance for abortion to be performed right up to birth if the child has a "serious" disability.

I urge any readers who live in the UK to get in touch with their MP about this bill even if their MP is pro-life as the pro-abortionists will be lobbying them too. You can also find information on the Christian Institute website.

Unfortunately also although this is a matter of conscience, GordonBrown is imposing the party whip on the Labour Party for this vote meaning that as things stand, those Labour MPs who cannot in conscience support the bill have the choice of either voting against it and being kicked out of the party or abstaining. It is important therefore also to lobby Gordon Brown to allow a free vote on this matter.

I've made this a sticky so new posts will appear below this one for the next week.

Friday 11 April 2008

Caught up

The washing on Wednesday was dry by late afternoon so I was actually able to bring it in before Hubby got home which was nice as I don't like him to have loads to do when he arrives home. I did another load yesterday and today so I am all caught up and awaiting my wonderwash. We've also gone back to our washable nappies which is nice as it just feels so wasteful throwing away disposable nappies aside from the added cost.

My mum found another phone number for the insurance company for us and I phoned and got through so the car is going to be fixed in a couple of weeks. It turns out we have no excess (I chose zero voluntary excess and didn't realise there was no compulsory excess) so whatever happens we don't have to pay anything for the repairs. Because the landlord hadn't maintained the roof even though we told them, the insurance company is going to claim from them which should mean we won't lose our no claims bonus. If they aren't successful, we will lose two years of our no claims bonus. Fortunately, I always budget our car insurance for more than it cost the previous year just in case so it won't cause budget problems if that happens. (I have a very complicated spreadsheet to budget over a year because Hubby works as a gardener so our income is seasonal.)

Hope you all have a good weekend, I've got all my days muddled up at the moment because my mum and brothers visited yesterday afternoon but normally they visit on Saturdays.

Wednesday 9 April 2008

Wet washing etc.

Well yesterday I managed to get the last of the oil stained nappies and flannels washed and all of Baby Girls clothes. I did the rinse with hot water and hubby wrang them out so they would not be so wet hanging up to dry. I hung them up indoors and they were mostly dry this morning and should be dry by this evening.

I washed the next load (Hubby's work clothes prewashed in the previous old washing water and some towels and sheets) using the water from the previous rinse and left them soaking overnight. I rinsed them this morning and put the next lot to wash in the rinse water. I didn't have hubby to do the wringing so I did it myself which wasn't as effective and lugged it all outside to hang on the washing line. It's still quite cold out but because they were still relatively wet I figured it was worth hanging them out as it would get rid of the worst moisture.

A little bit later while I was feeding Baby Girl, I noticed it had started to rain. I figured it was probably just a shower because Hubby hadn't mentioned any rain (he's a gardener and follows the forecasts very closely) so combined with the fact I was in the middle of feeding Baby Girl, I decided they probably wouldn't get that wet so I left the stuff out.

Big mistake.

It absolutely poured and at one point it was even hail stoning. The rain has stopped now but last time I checked the washing was dripping! Hubby has kindly said he will wring it out for me if it's still that bad when he gets home but hopefully it will dry up a bit before then.

Aside from the drying issue (which wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have a bit of a build up of washing), hand washing has been a lot easier and more manageable than I expected. I think the main reason it is easier than I expected is that when I was a student I hand washed in the baisin in my college room whereas I am currently using a bath to handwash which makes it so much easier as you can do more at once without splashing water everywhere. We've gone back to using flannels rather than baby wipes (which don't seem to work as well as flannels anyway) and by the weekend I expect we'll be back to using the washable nappies.

Today we got our fruit, veg, milk and eggs delivery so I have set some yoghurt and some buttermilk away and later on I will write out a menu plan for the next week. I need to change the to do list in my side bar as I've changed the days that I do some jobs. I'll also try to get that next HTML post up some time in the next week. I'm making progress with my sourdough hot cross bun recipe so hopefully I'll be able to post it in a couple of weeks time.

Monday 7 April 2008

Making progress

Washing Machines
After some discussion with Hubby, on Saturday I ordered a wonderwash handpowered washing machine. We figured that if it works out, it saves us buying a regular washing machine and if it doesn't, then at least it saves us spending and the laundrette while we sort out a regular one and it would be back up for those times when the washer breaks or there's a power cut or something.

The main potential issue we can see (aside from the time spent which may not be any different to normal and whether it washes well enough which we'll see when we use it) is that the washing will be fairly wet which is an issue when we are drying clothes indoors. (There is already a slight damp problem we are waiting on the landlord to deal with and we don't want to make it worse.) If that does turn out to be a problem but it is fine in other respects, we might consider getting a spin dryer. The two together would cost less than a regular washing machine, would get the clothes drier because a spin dryer spins about twice as fast as a washer and would use much less electricity. The wonderwash is due to arrive sometime from Wednesday to Friday so in the meantime I am doing some handwashing.

Oil stains
I searched on the internet and found various different techniques for removing oil stains. Most were for stuff like cooking oil and worked on the assumption that the clothes were dry and that you had a working washing machine. In the end I decided to try some washing up liquid as it sounded like the most likely one to work. I put washing up liquid on every bit of oil on the nappies and flannels and rubbed it in with a toothbrush. I then left them for a couple of hours before handwashing them. This got almost all of them clean :D and the remainder are now soaking in some soapy water ready for a second go. I really was amazed at how well it worked so would definitely recommend it as a way of getting rid of any kind of oil stain.

Other stuff
I finished reading The Woman in White and have started on Far from the Madding Crowd. I'll post another time on my thoughts on these as I haven't got time for any more at the moment.

Friday 4 April 2008

Living without a washing machine

Jennifer recently posted about living without a washing machine. I cammented that I didn't think I would want to live without mine and then hey presto! Our washing machine died. I'm not sure exactly what happened to it but it's managed to get marks which look a bit like dirty oil all over the washing which was in it at the time. Fortunately it was a nappy load so it was just nappies, flannels and cloths so it's probably the cheapest load of washing to replace if it's ruined. About half the stuff is okay and the other half is currently in a bath full of cold water while I work out how best to go about getting the marks off.

We're hoping to be able to get hold of an old washing machine on freecycle but if not, I guess we'll have to buy one. In the meantime I'm going to be handwashing our clothes although I am cheating a little bit as I've bought some disposable nappies and we are also using disposable baby wipes at the moment. Assuming I can keep up with the washing, we'll go back to the washable nappies and flannels but I'd rather get ahead first rather than try to do it all from the beginning and end up miles behind. When I was a student I did used to handwash my clothes most of the time because I didn't like to pay £1 to use the washing machine but that was fairly easy as I didn't have a baby or a husband who works as a gardener.

In some ways I am quite enjoying the idea of the challenge. Well I'd better start looking for ways to get rid of oil stains...

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