I thought it wasn't possible, but...

I think I'm in a "relationship". Yeah, I was surprised too. It's like a real, proper grown-up relationship as well. Scary!!!!!!

It's (really) early days yet and it feels totally and completely surreal. But we talk. How crazy is that? A relationship in which we communicate etc. And stay out till 4am. I apologise if this doesn't make much sense, but I am so tired right now!!!

Also, don't tell him this...but he's completely amazing and very very hot. But I wouldn't want him to get a big head.

Heehee...I am such a girl!!!!

Lifes little distractions

I've been so distracted lately. It's not a good thing because when I think about it, there's probably a lot of work that I should be doing. Especially since now is the time to do so as I don't start work till the 8th of May. (Woot!)

Instead, I spend my days being bored out of my skull. (In a roundabout nice manner.)

Actually, I think my distraction is driving me insane. I just can't focus at all. It's like being in uni and knowing you have an essay due in a week or so and you just can't focus on it and get it done. I HAVE WORK THAT I NEED TO GET DONE!!!!

But no. Instead, on Monday I tell myself it's raining and gloomy and now is a nice time to be depressed with the weather and so I will watch a reality tv program about hairdressers instead. And after doing so I will whinge about my hair and how I want to do something with it.

On Tuesday I ran away to Hanmer with a boy and didn't return till 11pm that night. Thus writing off any work that could possibly have been achieved that day. Although it was raining then as well, so even if I'd worked the rain would have made me grumpy. PLUS it was Anzac day and who works on a public holiday???

Actually, said "boy" is probably the reason for all this distraction. Which isn't good. I like to live my life undistracted by boys. To be fair, distraction happens fairly unfrequently (which should say something about the men in my life...) but when it does it's just a pain in the ass. Although I must admit that this little distraction appears to be going well. So well, in fact, that I don't like to think of it as going well just in case I'm deluding myself.

It's logical in my head. Really.

Yesterday I procrastinated by meeting someone for lunch and then running away to my "brother's" (who texted yesterday saying "Get on the phone ma bestie!" as though he was black...when he's white as the driven snow...) girlfriend's house and getting bitten by her cat. I love them both, really. They've been in Dunedin the past couple of days so it's like I haven't seen them since forever. (Again, it's logical in my head...)

And today...well, I'm on the internet, aren't I????

Friendships

So, I was reading this particular post by my particular cousin. (Yes, it makes sense if you think about it...)

It's true about friendships, well, about "relationships" in general. I personally find female-female friendships really hard. I have tons of great guy mates (holla!!! lol) who I love to bits. Most of them I wouldn't date. (One of them I would...but that's another story...) BUT I don't feel close to a lot of my chick friends. I love them, but there's always a wall there, like I'm scared to really let them in. (Bar one, but she's my mentor so I have to let her in...)

Same-sex friendships are important things. I think they are anyway, and I know the author of Captivating feels the same way. I just can't seem to get over my issues and cultivate a truly healthy same-sex friendship. The person I consider my best mate in like the whole world is a guy and he's like a brother to me. I can talk to him about anything. I can't do that with my chick friends, and I guess that that's something to do with my own personal fear of getting hurt/rejected.

I'm trying though. I've made a new friend (teehee) who's a chick and we don't have all this history of past hurt and crap behind us so it seems to work out well. And she's fantastic, she's got two extremely gorgeous kids as well and I loff them to bits!!! I'm determined to be honest with her because she's honest with me. So there!

I guess I don't really trust girls NOT to hurt me. Don't get me wrong, I tell my friends things. I just don't tell them everything. I'm too worried they'll think I'm stoopid or something. (Which in itself is stoopid but hey, I never said I was logical) Which shouldn't be that way.

I guess sometimes I also feel threatened by other girls. Actually, especially this one girl. And that's to do with my own self-esteem issues. (Crap...all my issues are coming out in this post!!!) But we won't go into them here because at the moment my self-esteem is on the rise and I'm giggly and getting butterflies. (But only at certain moments...)

THAT was cryptic. Lol. Maybe I'll blog about the possiblity of my love life actually going somewhere some other time. It's a distracting side note and I could be SO WRONG about this that it's not funny....

And on that note, we (I?) shall end this post abruptly here.

The Kidnapping of the Band

As I've said previously, Easter is about God and what he did for us, his love for us and how he wants to set us free. If you live here in good ol' NZ, Easter is also about Easter Camp. Four days of insanity, good times, crazy young people, rock solid music, lots of hard core moshing, sleeping in tents, tiredness, the groove tent, coffee, hot chips, wedges, good chats, the holy spirit, awesome speakers, singstar and dance offs.

But this year, we took it up a notch. We wanted our tent pimped this year and we told ourselves we'd get Adge where it hurts. Everyone who goes to camp knows who Satellite is. (How could you not???) They rock hardcore. They're and awesome bunch of people and play some fantastic music.

This year...we kidnapped the band!!! (And we have the pictures to prove it!!!!!)


<----- Here we have Dan, the illustrious drummer of the band, looking suitably terrified of the big, bad man who's holding him captive. MUWAHAHAHA.

Oh look, if it isn't ---->
Mel (far left), Ali (middle) and Joe (right) being held hostage!!!! (Gotta love the startled look on Ali's face...)Teehee. As we all know a good band can't survive without it's lead singer, bass player and guitarist/singer!



But just to be on the safe side:


<----- We got Mark too!!! Muwhahaha! How ev-al are we???? Taking not one but TWO guitarists!!!! For those who don't know, Mark's a suitably impressive guitarist, with mad rock-star skills and crazy mosh-worthy hair. Oh yeah...!!!!!

To be honest, we got a little power crazy. It wasn't enough to kidnap and hold the majority of the band to ransom. We wanted more. We wanted the big man himself. That's right people.....

WE WANTED PAUL!!!!! (And we always like to get what we want....)


That's right, we got Paul "frontman of the band" himself. It wasn't easy! He's like over 6 feet tall and well, we're not. But we grabbed him out of the World Vision tent, tackled him to the ground and managed to gaffer tape him to a chair. YES.

All of which proves that we - collectively - are the MAN. Haha. In the space of about three hours we managed to abscond with (almost) the entire band. We were missing Simon and Kat, but we got the majority of them.

We didn't get our tent pimped. (Strange as we were convinced Adge would be concerned for Ali's well-being...) But we sure as heck had fun trying. Teehee.

(Thanks to the band for letting us gaffer them up and take ridiculous photos by the way - they're such good sports!)

But stupid photos, extreme tiredness and silly behaviour aside...Easter was awesome. We had 64 in total with us and there were 3000 people at camp. It was Luke and Adge's first time running camp and they did fantastically. The speakers were top notch (Neville Street! Neville Street!!!), and the band - as always - pulled out all the stops and just rocked our world.

8 of our young people made commitments, which was awesome!!!! There was an amazing sense of community and there was this feeling that God was really moving. In fact, I know he was moving. It was amazing.

Oh....AND we got top 8 in the volleyball competition. Which just goes to show you - if your spoon is too big, you can do anything!!!

Of easter and camps

*ahem*

SEX

Now that I have your attention: I'd like to talk about easter. I'm sitting here, drinking coffee and chowing down on a slightly burnt hot cross bun. Mmmm...hot cross buns. And it strikes me that easter is incredibly soon and this is only the third hot cross bun I've eaten this year. (Or is it the fourth??? It's a remarkably low number anyway...)

How is it that easter has snuck up on me this year?? There appears to have be a relatively low level of commercialism surrounding easter this year. Or maybe it's just that I now tape
everything I watch on tv and so I fast forward my way through all those darn easter egg advertisements....

Admittedly if you walk through the warehouse right now you will find that they do have a gianormous easter egg selection. And not the nice handpainted pretty eggs - I'm talking easter eggs of the garish foil coloured variation.

I have a "thing" against easter eggs. Comes from working in a factory that churns them out and makes you hand-foil them...

The point is: easter appears to have missed me this year. Oh, I know it's here. How can I not when we're heading away on camp - as per tradition - in (as the girls put it) "three sleeps" !!!!

And believe me I am totally pumped, amped, excited and ready to go for camp. I love easter camp, it's one of the highlights of my year. I mean, where else can you get over 3,000 young people from over 30 different churches from all over the south island.

Oh, and did I mention Satellite will be there? Because they will be - and they will rock. I know, they played for our young people last tuesday and damn they were good. And oh, the drummer's hot too. With the cutest kids!!! Lol. A certain youth leader I work with might not be too pleased to hear me promote her husband in this way... But really, the drummer rocks. He's the best damned drummer I know and I know a lot of damn good drummers.

And, because I know the drummer and wish to promote the band in a huge way, I bring you downloads from the latest album. I know they won't mind. Plus, if you're living outside of NZ it's impossible to get their music and I say that all press is good press.

Here: Not of This World Who Are You? (if you can't tell, I highly recommend them)

There was a point to my post besides blatant Satellite and Easter Camp promotion. And that was, while Easter may not be as commercialised as Christmas, it's still incredibly easy to forget what it's actually about.

I try to keep it in mind, but when it sneaks up on me like this - and it has. It's hard not to ignore it or think that it's just about chocolate bunnies and eggs. (Which I don't really like anyway)

Incidentally, I'd like to know where the bunnies came into the whole equation, eggs being the symbol of new life makes sense, but rabbits???

Easter is about the cross. It's about the son of God who lived, took upon all my sin (and all your sin too) and died for me. Died for you. For all my crap, my issues, my stupid mistakes and regrets. Same goes for you: he died for your crap, your stupidity (and don't say that you haven't done anything stupid in this life) and your mistakes.

And you know what?

He'd willingly do it again if he had too.

Willingly.

He wants to be with you that much, so much so that he'll face the humilation, the shame, the horror of the cross all over again.

I'm taking a walk through Journey Towards Easter on wednesday night. Church has been pretty crazy with all the prep for it: I believe this year I feature as a little demon voice in the Judas room. We're taking the youth through on tuesday, but wednesday is just for me. And I hope that as I walk through all the stations - make my way through the garden of gethsemane, see the tomb, walk in Judas's shoes - that I'll just be reminded about what Jesus did for me.

Y'know, it's such a huge thing and yet I forget it so easily.

Why is that?

I want to talk about alcohol. No kidding.

Firstly, I'd like to say I quite like alcohol. There's nothing quite like a glass of wine - especially if it's Monkey Bay wine. I'll admit that I occcasionally (only occasionally) use alcohol as a mood elevator. Like, specifically for that. If I've had a really bad day and am really, seriously hurting, I drink more.

Which isn't good.

And I know it isn't good. I justify it by telling myself that I never get drunk. And I never do. I don't like drunken-ness. Why lose control of your facilities? Why would you want to find yourself hugging the toilet bowl? I mean really. Ew. I've seen people like that, people throwing up on the street - it's not attractive. And I have vowed never to be one of those people. I like being in control of my facilities.

I don't see anything wrong with alcohol. Some Christians do. I know plenty of Christians who don't drink. My mum's one of those people. And I have friends who - for one reason or another - have gone without drinking for a period of time, or have just stopped drinking.

Props to them. Seriously, good on them! It's a drinking culture over here. People get drunk and high just for the heck of it. Just because it's "cool". There's not a lot of responsible drinking out there.

In fact, the latest ads for ALAC run the tag line: "It's not the drinking, it's how we're drinking." And it's true.

What I don't like is when people get on their high horse about alcohol. I was talking to a good friend of mine the other day - and casually mentioned something about the weekend prior. Specifically, I said something along the lines of how I and another good friend had (combined) possibly consumed the most alcohol out of all the people we'd known at the party.

She said she wasn't impressed. After which point I wasn't impressed.

See, we weren't drunk. I'd had three drinks within the space of two to three hours. I wasn't drunk - full control. I talked to my other (supposedly alcoholic) friend and he agreed. He wasn't feeling the effects and he certainly wasn't acting drunk. I remember the night quite clearly, so I actually do remember both of our behaviour, and I don't think that we were in any way out of line.

I like the ALAC tag line: It's how we drink that makes it good or bad. It's the reasons behind why we drink. And sometimes my reasons aren't quite right - I'm the first to admit that. But even with "bad" reasons, I don't get drunk. I came close once - but put me, an ex boyfriend on a bus trip with lots of free alcohol and you're bound to get a little tiddly. Especially when said ex-boyfriend is sifting on a friend of yours.

But I digress.

Drinking itself isn't BAD. And I hate it when people who chose not to drink get all up in arms about me drinking. Because not drinking is your choice and drinking is mine. What happened to loving Christian community???

I have a new friend: she's 23, a single mother with two of the most gorgeous little girls in the world. In the wild days of her youth she got drunk and smoked pot and had sex.

So what? I don't care - we're all entitled to our mistakes. (I am a little jealous because I'd like to have sex...but whatever) She's making good now. In fact she's awesome, she loves God and she's going hard for him.

So she goes into town on occasion. So do I. So do a number of "good" Christians I know. I love dancing - and I can do so in town. (I don't like sifty guys in town...but you gotta put up with crap like that sometimes)

Yes, we're accountable for what we do. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that. I'm accountable for a LOT of what I do. But I hate the idea that floats around out there that Christians don't get to have fun. I have plenty of fun. Without alcohol mostly, but occasionally with alcohol.

I leave you with the following as proof of Christian silliness when NOT being under the influence: