Chocolate Treat

A voucher can be downloaded here for a free bar of Divine chocolate at any Body Shop branch. Its yummy and its ethical.

Powerful Words

Firstly, I checked with my friend James that I was allowed to post lyrics from the album cover and spent time scanning in the words, only to find out that lyrics can be found here!! (so I didn't post the image in a large size as its easier to read on their website!!)

Anyway, I was listening to my itunes on shuffle last night and this tune from the 29th Chapter came on. I know their songs fairly well, but I hadn't heard this tune for a while. The lyrics are so powerful and very challenging.

TV Christians

I've been meaning to blog on this for ages...

It is fair to say that Christians on TV get a raw deal! Flying the flag for us are the likes of Dot Cotton (now Branning) and Harold Bishop, with numerous numbers of cults making the storylines in most soaps. Lucas in Eastenders (my fav soap!!) had his first scene set in his Church, pretty standard Pentecostal stuff. His character was openly Christian, and he was trying to prove to the mother of his daughter that he had changed from his past. All this is fine. The church leader started to pursue Denise again and they eventually got back together once she realised he had changed due to God. Fair do's....

However, Denise gave him a rough time and mocked him for his faith. I personally would not want to be with someone like that. He wanted to be with her no matter what, but in my opinion was compromising his beliefs. He also now lives with her, even though he has said there will be no sex before marriage. Hmmmm...

True to form in soapland this Christian character is unravelling. A man who was feeding the homeless last week has since been revealed to have had an affair and in tonight's episode was blackmailing to cover up his deceit! I know none of us are perfect, but I really wish that one day a christian was portrayed in a more regular light, if there is such a thing!

Rubbish Love?

Originally uploaded by Roothie

My little garden is part of the 'waste area' of the shop I live above. When I was out there today I found this photo opportunity and took it on my phone. Clearly the recipient of the balloons got bored after a week!!

Babywatch Week

This week I have been living in the Roper House, as Neil was away completing his final week at Cliff College. I was helping Amanda with Daniel, and much to my fear being on hand if baby girl R was to arrive early! It has been a fun week, if not tiring! I got an insight to what living with a small child is really like!! Here are a few pictures from the week. They include such events as making snow cakes, playing drums, big jumping, lunch out, shopping and playing in the park.

Funny Friends

I was sent this to my phone last night with the caption "Look what you missed today!" ...Ha ha!?

All About Me Email

Its one of those silly forward things, but today I took the time to fill it in and sent it on to some of my friends.

1.What is your occupation right now?
Office manager and GAP year co-ordinator.

2.What color are your socks right now?
White with silver stars (from Amy for my birthday last year!)

3.What are you listening to right now?
Radio 1

4.What was the last thing that you ate?
Cinnamon swirl in Starbucks

5.Can you drive a stick shift?
A car with gears, yes!

6.Last person you spoke to on the phone?
Kathy Goddard

7.Do you like the person who sent this to you?
Yes, he’s fab!

8.How old are you today?
27

9.What is your favorite sport to watch on TV?
Rugby!! ;-)

10.What is your favorite drink?
Malibu & diet coke

11.Have you ever dyed your hair?
Yup

12.Favorite food?
Cheese!

13.What is the last movie you watched?
Doubt, with Dan

14.Favorite day of the year?
Christmas day

15.How do you vent anger?
Rage!

16.What was your favorite toy as a child?
My little pony

17.What is your favorite season?
All of them for different reasons!

18.Cherries or Blueberries?
Glacier cherries!

19.Do you want your friends to e-mail you back?
Yes please!

20.Who is the most likely to respond?
Sammy

21.Who is least likely to respond?
Steve

22.Living arrangements?
Me myself and I (and the pet fish!)

23.When was the last time you cried?
Hmmmm, I actually don’t know. Prob sat eve with happiness

24.What is on the floor of your closet?
Shoe boxes and towels

25.Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending to?
Rod

26.What did you do last night?
Had dinner at the Roper ‘in laws’! Then put Daniel to bed, then hung out with Amanda.

27.What are you most afraid of?
Not meeting my prince

28.Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers?
Cheese

29.Favorite dog breed?
Don’t have one.

30.Favorite day of the week?
Umm, Friday or Saturday

31.How many provinces have you lived in?
(so American!) 2 counties!

32.Diamonds or pearls?
Both, I’m not fussy!

33.What is your favorite flower?
Roses and gerberas.

Film Review

Me and my friend Dan really wanted to see this film before it left cinemas. It had received some Bafta nominations last week and I know it has upcoming Oscar nominations too.

Unfortunately...I was very tired and did the sleepy head-bobbing, heavy eyelids thing through some of the film! So it didn't make a lot of sense! I was quite disappointed in myself for not being able to stay awake! Meryl Streep played her role brilliantly, she was very scary and I was glad that I didn't ever have a school teacher like her!

(not my best film review I know, but what else can I say?!) A proper review can be read here!!

Grace

noun, verb, graced, grac⋅ing.

–noun

Theology.
a. the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God.
b. the influence or spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them.
c. a virtue or excellence of divine origin: the Christian graces.
d. Also called state of grace. the condition of being in God's favor or one of the elect.

I am a bear of very little brain and I rarely apply things to create illustrations. However I was walking to the bakers yesterday to buy my friend 'S' a cake. It was going to be in the amazing form of a belgian bun. I personally love these and I know that another friend of mine 'D' does also. However I immediately thought "I'm not going to buy 'D' a bun as they would never buy one for me"!! I laughed to myself as it struck me/God spoke to me that this was how Grace works. God continually gives us good things, even though we always fall short and never give enough back to Him and/or appreciate it.

From Michelle...

Its nice to see what one of my American GAP Year team thinks of me!

Film Review

I had been looking forward to seeing this film ever since I saw the trailer. Even though I knew nothing previously of the Watergate scandal surrounding Nixon.

I did enjoy the film. (Even though one of my friends didn't think it was quite 'my thing'! Rude! Not sure what he quite meant by that!)

When I look at Michael Sheen all I can see is him as Tony Blair! But I was able to watch him in this as a very convincing David Frost. The fact that they both presented a Bafta this week was very amusing.

If you like political dramas then this is a film that I would recommend seeing. It was shot very well and the recreation of the 1970s outfits was very convincing.

PC Illusions

I was sent the below image with a load of other 'illusions' that freaked me out!! I find these sort of things facinating.

The instructions are as follows...

1. Stare at the four black dots in the center of the image for 30-60 seconds.
2. Then look at a blank wall or surface.
3. You should see a circle of light developing.
4. Start blinking your eyes and you will see a figure emerging.
5. What or who do you see?

Film Review

This is all film reviewers can talk about and all prizes are awarded to right now. I was supposed to see it on Monday, but the snow prevented me from doing so! Once again I had read no background on this film, only going by what the title gave away.

This film was narrated through the life of Jamal. The three main characters were portrayed by three different actors at different stages of growing up in India. It really opened up my eyes to the bleaker and corrupt side to the country. The theme throughout the film is love, between brothers and lovers. Each question of the quiz takes us through the life of the characters and the reason why this boy from the slums knows the answers.

It was a quite sad film for most of the duration, with only a small amount of humour. I did expect the happy ending to be ruined, but gladly it wasn't!! It is well worth a trip to the cinema to see what all the fuss is about.

Splat!

Originally uploaded by Roothie

Mr Kingham threw this at my window to scare me today! Such an adult example to the rest of us!!

Snow Day

SNOW IS MY FAVOURITE THING! Hooray for snow days! I had such fun today. I did not want to attempt to drive to work, and my Mum (even though I am almost 28!) phoned and said that I was not allowed to! With Boris cancelling all of the buses I had no way to get to work! All that left me to do was go out and play! I spent all day with my friends Jaymie & Steve. After pelting me (as the poor defenceless girl) with snow we set about to make a snowman! I have never made a giant snowman before. We took over the shop garden. I was proud of our efforts, until the boys carved breasts into it and made it a top heavy snow woman! Jaymie set about building an igloo in my little section of garden. It looked really good, but as the garden is a concrete paradise I am concerned about melting and flooding issues!! The Enfield Oasis threesixty team came over in the afternoon and after more snowball fun in the concrete paradise we headed up to Hilly Fields armed with one ikea tea tray!!! It made for bad sledging, so the boys made a massive snowball. It was going well until it got stuck in mudball and when we did push it out the force of bumping down the hill towards the river caused it to break! Never have I seen grown lads so sad about a ball of snow! All in all it was a fun day.

More snow pictures can be seen by clicking on this photo and going to my Flickr site.

Film Review

I had heard this was receiving quite bad reviews. But I did want to find out for myself how good or bad it really was. I had read nothing on the film beforehand, so I went along with no idea what the film was about. Only trying to make a link with the Shakespeare phrase, 'seven pounds of flesh'.

The film was made up of a lot of flashbacks and at first I had to get used to this style. But they helped to build and create an understanding of the main character. It was a very emotional film and did manage to slightly crack my tear ducts, which most films don't these days! The end of the film was fairly predictable in my opinion, but then not everyone would agree.

It is well worth going to see, even if it is so you can form your own opinion of it!