Finally here is my Fun Monday post for today.

M is for Misanthrope set our assignment this week and it was…

The piece of jewelry that I’m sharing this Fun Monday is my wedding and engagement rings.  They are white gold and I think they’re beautiful.  They aren’t the most expensive or the most ornate of rings, in fact my wedding band is a single white gold band.  But they mean so much to me.

I was 17 when Rob & I got engaged.  17.  Most people can’t believe that, but it’s true.  They scoff at the idea that a 17 year old can make that kind of decision.  But I did, and I’ve never regretted it. We’ve been married for 4 years, 3 months and 10 days today.  And I’m looking forward to spending all the years God gives us together.

My engagement ring I’ve had for more than 6 and a half years.  We picked it out together (Rob had planned to propose to me before I left for uni, but plans rather changed…) and it’s beautiful.  It’s not a traditional sort of engagement ring (no big sparkly stone) but I think it’s delicate and lovely.  There’s a small diamond in there, but it’s well hidden.  I know it’s there.  It definitely goes one way up (the way I’m wearing it) which took me a little while to decide which way up it went, but now the other way up looks wrong!  

Thanks for taking the time to read my Fun Monday post, now head over to M is for Misanthrope for the other lovely entries.

Today I put bread in the toaster, put it on and then while it was toasting went to brush my hair.  This required finding my hairbrush which caused me to forget about my toast.

I was half way to work before I remembered I hadn’t had my toast.

Fail.

Janis has set our Fun Monday assignment this week

Since Next Tuesday is Veterans Day, I thought it would be nice to salute our Veterans and show our appreciation. Photo requirement of something patriotic.

In the UK we celebrate Remembrance Day on the Sunday before the 11th November.  This is a nationwide celebration of remembrance for those who have served the UK in war and those who are currently serving.  Many people go to church services dedicated to the day, some of which are held at war memorial sites.  They almost all involve a 2 minute silence.  

A tradition has developed soon after the First World War that poppies (see the poem In Flanders’ Fields, John McCrae, 1915) were made and sold to remember those who had died and raise money for the survivors.  It was extended by the Royal British Legion and now people buy a poppy (made from paper and plastic) to wear in remembrance and donate money to the charity who support ex-service men and women and their families.

Our service this morning featured a “Drum Altar” (unsurprisingly, an altar made of drums - apparently common in the field when altars are hard to come by…) covered with a Union Flag, a Bible and a wreath of poppies.  I really wanted to take a picture of it but it was taken down before I could get there.  

So my patriotic image of today is my poppy.

This year Remembrance Day has been even more significant to me as a friend in the Territorial Army has been serving in Afghanistan this year.  He has just come back home, but a number of his regiment lost their lives in this tour of duty.

And after that somber thought, I have one complaint about Veterans Day.  My birthday is 11th of November.  In England I have to go to work (or, one fairly special year I had 3 church services on my birthday - normal morning service, Remembrance service with the Girl Guides then something in the evening which I had to go to for some other reason).  In (I think all of) the, US Veterans Day is a national holiday.  So my birthday is always a day off.  And the year I was living in California - my birthday was a Saturday.  RUBBISH!

People seem to be having a big problem with toilets recently, do people need more instructions?

Today’s work of genius.  Well done that man.

Man’s arm trapped in train toilet

TGV toilets are equipped with a powerful suction system A passenger on a French train had to be rescued by firemen after having his arm sucked down the on-board toilet. The 26-year-old victim was trapped when he tried to fish out his mobile phone, which had fallen into the toilet bowl, and fell foul of the suction system. The high-speed TGV train had to stop for two hours while firemen cut through the train’s pipework. The man was carried away by emergency services, with the toilet still attached to his arm. “He came out on a stretcher, with his hand still jammed in the toilet bowl, which they had to saw clean off,” said Benoit Gigou, a witness to the man’s plight. The incident happened on Sunday evening, aboard a train travelling in western France between La Rochelle and Paris.

Host for Fun Monday next Monday is the lovely Sayre.

So today’s Fun Monday host is me Here’s the task I set everyone:

I would like you to take your camera (or your artistic talents!) on a day tour with you. I want to know where you go, what you get up to on a “normal” day (disclaimer - it doesn’t have to be “normal”!). All the details you would consider boring! You are free to make your FM posts as long or as short as you’d like!

And here is everyone:

• Swampy
• Equoni
• Aoj & the Lurchers
• Wendishness
• Faye
• Sayre
• Hulagirlatheart
• Survivor
• Grace
• Rayne
• Chrisb
• iPost
• Jo Beaufoix
• Margaret (the misanthrope)
• Lala
• Tiggerlane
• Hootin’ Anni

And a couple of late submissions

• Storyteller
• BeeDancer

Here is my submission, don’t forget to go and visit the other FM participants as well!

If you would like to host Fun Monday next week please let me know. I’ll post the next host here when there is one.

My “day” was yesterday, Sunday 19th October.

It started in a lovely relaxed way, with a bacon sandwich in bed with my cat and the Chinese Formula 1 Grand Prix on the TV (early - 7am). Now admittedly this isn’t the normal way I start a Sunday, as Rob was away with the church’s men for the weekend. Normally my Sunday mornings are snuggly lay ins and we get croissants on the way to church.

Then I went to church, intending to stop on the way to drop off the recycling as the council don’t pick up recycling from us as we live in a flat and even though the recycling truck picks up stuff from the houses opposite they won’t collect from us. (Humph.) But as I was running late that job didn’t get done. Instead had lovely cup of tea with nice ladies at church and then went in to the service. Our church doesn’t have a building at the moment so we meet in two local schools, on in the morning and a different one in the evening.

After church I was intending to go home, wash up and stick another load of washing on. What actually happened was that I got invited back for lunch with a lovely couple from church who didn’t like the idea of me eating on my own (I would have had a sandwich but I wasn’t going to turn down a lovely roast meal!), so I went back to their house and had a lovely afternoon with them. V nice roast pork, with all kinds of vegetables (carrots, potatoes, parsnips, cabbage, sweet potato) and lovely gravy. Yum.

Rob got home about 3:30 and I got home not too long after - to find him laid out in the bath trying to soak away the aches he’d picked up from the weekend! He’s still aching in unexpected places… (I’ve not found out everything he got up to - not sure I want to know!)

Rob and I help to lead one of our church youth groups - the one that most resembles a “church” rather than a youth club - so Sunday evenings are taken up by that. Yesterday I was leading and started (after half an hour of a game which seemed to combine netball and basketball) with a discussion of Psalm 42.

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.

Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him my Savior and 6 my God.

My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.

By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”

My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

We do this as an alternative to sung worship - it’s usually written out on a board of roll of paper and the group share the areas of the psalm that they particularly like or relate to. It is good to see them get talking together and sharing ideas with each other. We particularly liked the paragraph about being led to worship with a big crowd - this really reminded me of our summer experince where we took the group to a festival called Soul Survivor which was really amazing. The whole group came away having been challenged and changed. After the Psalm they got in to pairs or threes and I gave them a series of passages that dealt with characters involved or present at the death and ressurection of Jesus. This got them talking even more and at the end of the session each group was able to feed back on their discussion. They all seemed to have had interesting discussions which was good.

At the end of the evening we usually have a chill out time, with snacks and more games. Today we were playing frisbee. One of the girls decided that she would do this with a box on her head.

We finally got home about 9:45pm in time to collapse on the sofa, have some toast and then curl up in bed (I do like it when my husband is here. It’s lonely without him.). Sundays are usually very busy but one of the most fun days of the week

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading a little in to my life. Now please go visit the other FM participants!

Fun Monday hostess for Monday 20th October is … me!

And your task is..

I would like you to take your camera (or your artistic talents!) on a day tour with you. I want to know where you go, what you get up to on a “normal” day (disclaimer - it doesn’t have to be “normal”!). All the details you would consider boring! You are free to make your FM posts as long or as short as you’d like!

Please leave a comment and I’ll add you to the list (I don’t think I’m intelligent enough to make the linky thing work, but if you comment I’ll edit this post)…

Fun Monday Participants 20th October 2008:

• Swampy
• Equoni
• Aoj & the Lurchers
• Wendishness
• Faye
• Sayre
• Hulagirlatheart
• Survivor
• Grace
• Rayne
• Chrisb
• iPost
• Jo Beaufoix
• Margaret (the misanthrope)
• Lala
• Tiggerlane
• Hootin’ Anni
• Maybe you?

Here’s the game…

Step 1: Put your media player on random.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Let everyone guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Bold the songs when someone guesses correctly.
Step 5: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING!

1. You can be right and I’ll be real, honesty won’t be a pain that you will have to feel
2. Here I am in that old place again, down on my face again. Crying out I want you to hear my plea, come down and rescue me. - Correctly guessed by Rob
   
3. Men of faith rise up and sing of the great and glorious King - Correctly guessed by Rob
4. Your heart is for the broken, your ears are turned to those in pain
5. You build me up, you knock me down. Provoke a smile and make me frown
6. This European air, it always warms my face, I wish I could pass on
7. You’re cold that way, and thats why you say the things that you say
8. She gave her heart for a wealthy man, a healthy child and a healthy tan
9. We took a walk that night, but it wasn’t the same; we had a fight on the promenade out in the rain
10. **************** ************** rain is falling, steal some covers share some skin - Correctly guessed by Rob
11. Hallelujah there will be no other, hallelujah there will be no other
12. I can see a time when I wont be able to feel the pain no more, and I can leave this town for other shores.
13. What good is sitting alone in your room, come hear the music play -Correctly guessed by Stu
14. My gift is my song and this one’s for you - Correctly guessed by Rob
15. See you’re with her and not with me, I hope she’s sweet and so pretty
16. *********** *********** ******** ************* way up high, there’s a land that I heard of, once in a lullaby - Correctly guessed by Stu
17. Nothing, nothing is going on in my mind, all that I know is that I’m getting nothing done - Correctly guessed by Rob
18. There are times that I should try to be so much more alive
19. When I call on your name you answer, when I fall you are there by my side - Correctly guessed by Rob
20. Over the sea and far away, she’s waiting like an iceberg, waiting to change - Correctly guessed by Rob

Good luck! There’s quite a variety there…

Today I got up (a good start, particularly at 6:15am).  Now this isn’t particularly unusual.  What was unusual was that normally by the time I’m dressed and down the hall there’s a miaowing at the living room door.  The cat hears me get up and demands feeding.

Today there was no miaowing.  This starts to worry me.  By the time I get to the living room door I can hear an odd noise from inside.  Definitely didn’t sound like the cat.  I could hear voices with Australian accents.  How odd.  So I open the door and the cat is sat on the sofa watching Neighbours.  And he does a bit of a double take when realising that I’m in the room.  It was really quite bizarre, though he didn’t seem to mind when I turned the TV off and fed him.  I just wonder how long he’d been watching!