Cranberry Juice Drink

Once again I've been mislead to believe that I was buying cranberry juice but actually it's cranberry juice drink, the clue is the word 'drink' which means the first two ingredients are water and then sugar! Ah, I need to read labels IN the store, not when I get home...

I worked a night shift last night which means this blog entry will be slightly crazy due to my sleep-deprived mind. All the summer balls are going on right now at the colleges. The rich colleges have these really, really nice balls (basically a big, fancy party). They have fireworks, all you-can-eat-and-drink, amusement park rides, and entertainers. It's really cool. Churchill College (the college Jason belongs to) has a ball but it's in February (our college isn't one of the richest). Because February isn't the nicest time of the year, the college gets a discount and the ball ticket prices are a bit cheaper. Some of the big colleges charge £100 per ticket ($200 Canadian for ONE ticket). Anyways, this week I generally see students stumbling home at 6:30am when I'm on my way to work. If you are really hard-core, you stay up all night at the ball and then you go punting (boating) down the Cam to Grantchester for breakfast... I haven't done that.

Happy Anniversary to Brendan and Renny!!!

Summer BBQ's

We had a BBQ today with our small group from church. A "farewell" bbq for us. It was nice to get together. These are the people that we have really gotten to know in our church. They have become our church family and we have really enjoyed the time we have spent with them. This is a picture of Jason and Patrick.

The sermon at church today was on Jeremiah 32. One of the key verses was 41, "I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul". Our pastor spoke about how God delights in doing good things for us and in our lives, how it gives Him pleaure. This is a quote from Spurgeon that our pastor read.

'While meditating on this theme, I said to myself, “Come, come, this will not do—with such a subject as this you ought to sing for joy.” I felt that my preparation for the pulpit ought to be one continuous song. The Lord blesses me with His whole heart and with His whole soul, what better news can I hear? This sweet assurance is a bath of milk. Of the man who believes it we may say, “Butter and honey shall he eat.” You breathe the perfume of Heaven when you can get at the meaning of this text. Oh, the joy that lies asleep in these words, as odors hide away in flowers! Come, heavenly wind and wake the slumbering joys—constrain the celestial perfumes to flow abroad, that we may exult in them.'

I think we will really miss our church. The people and especially the pastor. He is really passionate and I think he thinks the same way as Spurgeon. If he could, he would preach as one continuous song.

Day Off!!!

I have a day off today, which is great because I have lots to catch up on. It also means that I was able to stay up and watch hockey last night. The game didn't go very well (Oilers lost) but it is always nice to watch a sport that we haven't been able to watch over here this year. Football (or soccer) is huge at the moment because of the World Cup being on in Germany. It's kind of fun being here while it's on. England flags and banners everywhere!! I was working at the hospital when England played their first game (against Paraguay) and none of our patients used their call bell for a whole 2 hours... it was great.

Time is ticking away here. We are frantically trying to fit in dinners, drinks, BBQ, etc. with people that we will be leaving. On Sunday, we had a BBQ with all of our friends from our flat building. It was a great time and it made me think about the blessing it has been to live in such a tight knit community for the last 3 years. And a multicultural community as well. We have enjoyed getting to know people from Mexico, Chile, Sri Lanka, Denmark, England and different parts of the States.

Tonight, I'm dining out at an Italian restaurant with the girls from our house group from church. A farewell dinner. Everything we go to is a farewell-something... Anyways, it should be fun.

Early Morning Hockey

Currently Reading
Moby Dick
Herman Melville

After months and months of listening to hockey games over the internet, we were finally blessed with watching the images with the sound last night. One of the tv channels here is actually playing the Stanley Cup playoffs! We were so excited about getting a chance to watch the playoffs that the time of the games doesn't even put a damper on the enthusiasm. So, in the wee hours of 1:00am, Jason awoke to his alarm and ran out to the tv. I, on the other hand, was having some sort of dream that prevented me from climbing out of bed until halfway through the second period. It was a great, exciting game, right up until the end. At the moment, my heart is sunk as the Oilers goalie is injured and after seeing the replacement goalie play last night, our prospects of getting the Cup are looking grim. I haven't given up yet. And I will get up again at 1-ish to watch the next game!



While I was up, watching the game last night, I thought it would be fun to call people and pretend that we were all in Canada, watching the hockey game together. I only managed to talk with my brother, who's informed us that him and Renny have bought a house! Congrats to them. They will be moving out to Sherwood Park (the 'burbs) at the end of this month.

The weather has finally turned nice here. So, we took full advantage of it over the weekend and tried to spend as much time as we could outside. That ended up looking like this: us, friends, patio. We did manage to take a walk to look at the "freak festival" going on. It's actually called the "Strawberry Festival" (And no- it's not called strawberry because that's the color all the British people turn after being in the sun!!! Ha, ha. Jason told that joke and it still makes me laugh, 'cause it's true!). Any ways, it's like this drug fest/food fest/music fest/any excuse to get loaded in public fest. We walked around the grounds, gingerly walking over garbage, people, dogs, bongo drums and really bad jewelry stands. That was Saturday.

Sunday, due to my neglect on filling up my scooter, I managed to have yet another adventure with it. This time called: running out of petrol. Silly me. I was actually in search of a filling station as I ran out. So I had to push this stupid scooter of mine for 5 blocks, thinking that this was a crappy way to spend my Sunday afternoon.

I'm beginning to distance myself away from my belongings here. Everything I look at, I ask the item "Now, will you be coming or staying?" And I really don't mind leaving most of it behind. Now, don't think for one moment that I've managed to separate myself from the desires of earthly belongings here on earth. Nope- I'm just tired of all the junk we have here. I really can't wait to get back to having a car, some proper furniture and all my old wedding gifts that have been in hiding for 3 years (where did that bread maker go?!). But fickle as we usually are, all those "things" that I miss stored up in Canada, will be old soon enough and I will be looking for new, bright, shiny objects to make me happy. What a sad state are we!