A Long Overdue Update

As I sit here and type this now, I glance to my right a soft chuckle escaping me as I watch the white furry outline of Dizzy chase a march fly across the window sill. His front paws patting the glass, before his nose moves in to nudge the fly lightly before attempting to devour it in one smooth motion. But alas the fly escapes out the open window.







It's been a rather large weekend and I cannot help but feel slightly exhausted now it all being said and done.
Thursday the 12th of October saw Timmy and I heading to Queensland to stay with his Mum and Step-dad for the weekend.
Tim was sharing a 21st party with his cousin Jess on the saturday, thus why we had made the 6 hour car treck to be there. I absolutely adore Tims Parents and therefore felt completely at ease spending the weekend in their company.
By thursday night we were to tired to really do anything and so just pottered around the place. Gere and Richard (The folks) live on this beautiful property where you wake up to the sound of birds, and regularly see koala's napping in the trees. , yet only need to travel about an hour to get to the very heart of Brisbane. It was nice to be able to enjoy the quiet and rest easy for a while.
I knew it was going to be a biggen weekend, I already felt slightly nervous at the prospect of meeting Tims extended family in their entirety.

Friday saw us heading across to the Direct factory Outlet, for some retail therapy. It was just a really nice day of leisurely walking about with Timmy and his mum. In fact can I say it was one of those days when I just felt so relaxed, so comfortable to and happy. The conversation was free and fun - full of playfulness and joy. By the end of the evening, as Tim and I sat in his parents loungeroom - They bid us goodnight and headed to bed while timmy and I sat and chatted and laughed, and there was definitely alot of the long glances into each others eyes as I tried to remember the last time I'd felt that happy!
Tim stood with the words "I'll be right back" and headed into the kitchen. I heard him rustling about in the bags and convinced myself that he was grabbing a couple of Freddo frogs for us. He wandered back into the room, shoving what I thought were the Freddo's into his back pocket. He came and stood just in front of me, and leaned over to give me a soft kiss on the forehead. "How much do you love me?" he asked, to which I responded "Heaps" He then reached into his back pocket, and I expected him to hand me my Freddo, but instead a small Navy blue box comes into view. As he gently opens it, he sinks onto one knew and asks, "Will you marry me?"

...Shock...

For at least the first minute or so all I was able to say was "Oh my goodness...I didn't even see this coming...how could I not have seen this coming?..."
He must have been so nervous and my failure to answer the question must have only added to it :P
running through my head was the question "What would mum and dad think?" their opinion on such things means the world to me.
Knowing me too well Timmy says right at that moment "And don't worry, I asked your parents permission about 2 weeks ago and they're pretty excited about it..."

it's crazy, it's all crazy. All this coming from the guy who I boasted on the fact that he could never surprise me...I've since been forced to eat my words. He surprised me big time, plus add to that, my parents, brother and sister, his parents all knew about it....

So yes, as of 10pm Friday night I am a newly engaged woman. Timmy and I sat and prayed on the friday night, that God would lead us through this transition and as we head into this new stage of our relationship. We're both headed into unchartered territory, so we'll both be learning and growing together, it's all rather exciting and I couldn't be happier. I love Tim so much I trust him completely and we're easily the best of friends.



The ring some of you may be asking...is a Triangle cut blue sapphire with a string of diamonds lining 2 of the 3 edges, in a band of white gold. It's beautiful, and a perfect fit - Timmy did well. :)


Saturday saw us heading to Tims 21st at his Auntie Maureens place. Had an absolute blast, his entire family took me in straight away and were just too adorable and lovable. The engagement was announced at the end of the evening, quickly followed by the men giving timmy a firm handshake and slap on the back while all the woman running to me for a hug and squiz at the ring. This has proven to be a fairly consistant behaviour. :D






Sunday Tim and I headed to Dreamworld, and after months of planning I was able to return the surprise factor by taking Tim on his Tiger Photo session. We got 15 minutes with the opportunity to actually pat a real Tiger, complete with the "Now remember while these tigers are tamed, they ARE still wild animals, so at no point should you touch their face, head or paws, instead give them plenty of firm pats along there back" in later discussions we both chuckled over the fact that they hadn't mentioned anything about the testicles and decided that if there was any way you were going to be booted from the park, then grabbing a tigers testicles was definitely the way to go. Assuming you survived the encounter then it would make for a pretty handy ice-breaker/conversation starter, Of course being mauled was probably the more likely conclusion :P
We ended up getting to spend our time with Mohan, the king of the pack and lets just say it was amazing...Timmy was stoked and I got the warm fuzzies just by looking at the absolute Joy on his face.

The rest of the day was spend wandering about Dreamworld, enjoying each others company and having laugh after laugh as we relaxed in the glorious Gold Coast weather.









And so at the end of the busy weekend, here I am back in Armidale, happy, contented and already receiving excited phonecalls from mum with suggestions for wedding and reception...

Rough date, the 6th of October 2007, pencil it in ;)

Melancholy

I'm back in Armidale.
I'm definitely hitting a low point. I feel so flat, so tired and on the verge of tears so much of the time.

I think my head and heart knows that I have some huge decisions to make within the next couple of months and it scares me.

I know that God has my teaching position already waiting for me, but I still worry.

I'm tired of giving...
Tired of feeling walked on and yet as exhausted as I am I still put myself in a place where I allow it to happen.
It doesn't seem to matter what I say either...the trampling continues.

I had a dream last night...

I was standing in the middle of a crowded shopping centre, the people were moving past me, some of them pumping me lightly as they passed. I started to scream, to scream as loud as I could, till it burnt my throat. And yet no one responded, everyone just kept on with wherever they were going and whatever they were doing...

I woke up feeling as though perhaps that isn't so far from the truth.

I don't want to sound like a whiney victim. Because I'm not.
I'm not a victim, I am redeemed and restored to victory.
But life and emotions still get hard sometimes.
They're hard now.

Angels En Masse

Every so often life decides to add some excitement to my dreary day to day exsistance :P
Nah, who am I kidding, life keeps me on my toes all the time, and life with God should really do nothing less.

Lets just say that on Monday afternoon, there was a small army of angels watching Tim and my Back.

Saturday night Tim headed down from Armidale to once and for all prove that he was capable of something spontaneous while also proving me wrong in the "You could never surprise me" department.
It worked, I was surprised and had no idea at all.

He brought his dad with him, they both rode on seperate bikes and stayed the night at our place. On Sunday Tims Dad, Russel headed back to Sydney, while Tim stayed on another night here in Forster.

Saturday was spend hooning around Forster on Dickies Sportsbike [which Tim had borrowed for the weekend]. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face as we screamed down the road at 150ks...was awesome!

Mum and Dad headed off for the weekend, leaving us kids with full run of the house. Grabbed at case of Cruisers and Carlton Blacks and sat around the place having a good yarn and a laugh. Invited Belle around but the woman Piked on us! Shame Belle! SHAME!! :P

Monday, Timmy was set to head back to Armidale, but before he headed off we decided to take one last ride round Forster. Right as we were about to leave Dad and Mum arrived home and in true father Braybrook fashion, out came the camera and captured a couple of these happy snaps.


With that, Tim and I headed out on the bike.
As we headed up towards main Beach, there was this little Mazda sitting in the middle of it's lane, no indicator, no breaklights, no sign of what it was going to do, Tim slowed as we apprached, but it gave no indication at all as to what it was doing, so we headed to pass it, and right as we sat side by side, it started to turn, hitting the bike.

All I can say is that Tim was Amazing. We should have fallen over, but he managed to re-balance and keep us upright. But more than that God was definitely watching over us.

We pulled over and the guy in the other car was adament that he hadn't done anything wrong, he even went so far as to claim that he was indicating...funny that two of us missed it.
And yes...Yes he was a tourist. Anyone who knows me well, knows how I carry on about the tourists who overrun my hometown on a regular holiday basis, they annoy the bejeebers outta me. And now, I'm fairly sure Tim will be joining me in my annoyance. ;)

Can I just say here that I was so proud of the way Tim handled the whole situation, the other bloke was standing over him, doing everything he could to try and intimidate and never for a second admitting that he had done anything even remotely wrong, yet Tim kept his cool, never acted disrespectful just took the needed information and swore to sort it all out and get in contact soon.

Though others may have seen his behaviour as being totally in control, I knew him well enough to know that he wasn't holding it all together as well as he seemed to be. I could tell he was stressed and he was feeling fairly flustered.

I had a good chat to his mum about it later and as it turns out, after he left Forster to head back to Armie, he had to pull over to throw up, coz he's been so worked up about it all.

After talking about it since, Tim says that it was because he couldn't believe he'd put me in so much danger, but as I explained to him, he never forced me to ride with him, that I've always and still always feel safe with him because he's a great rider and if anything it was my fault because I was the one who wanted to go for the ride that day.

The damage to the bike isn't too bad, couple of hundred to have it resprayed, and things are being sorted out with the other bloke.

we've all agreed that God definitely had his angels out watching us on Monday afternoon...
The only injury was my foot.
Tim hasn't seen it yet, because I know he'll feel bad (when it's not his fault)
But to be honest I'm kinda proud of my bruise...afterall, how many people can say that their foot has been hit by a car?!!