Today was productive. I felt better than I did yesterday.

Yesterday I had the "Day-Off Blues" where you feel bad because you don't do much. I did have lunch with Mum though. That was good.

And commy dinner went well. I love caramel mud cake.

Today I went for a run. I want to "get back in shape" after slacking off since getting sick a few months ago. I did badly, but I'll work my way back.

And at work I was productive almost all day. I did lots of little things that needed to be done and it felt good. I only worked an eight hour day too. Woohoo. I'm almost a proper worker.

One of the most exciting things was that I got the cd sermon business fully operational. I even put last week's controversial sermon on cd. It was good. I got to listen to it and see what all the fuss was about. And now we have a week's worth of sermons on cd. Fantastic. I've been excited about it all day. I love things like this.

And I'm feeling pretty organised for once in my life. It's great. I love being organised.

Tonight we went to the Pub and had chats. Was still good. I do enjoy the pub. And we sat around at Coles. Good old Coles.

Priscilla came too. Yay for her.

Life is a little strange at the moment.

It just has the strange vibe. Things are happening that I wasn't planning on. People are saying things that I wasn't expecting. I feel like there's a train coming that I have to catch, but I'm not sure where the station is. Everyone else does, but I've not been let in on the secret yet. I don't really want to miss the train.

It seems like there are God things happening, but I don't really quite have a grasp on the situation. Not that I ever really know what God is doing, I just feel like everyone else is in the loop more than me. That's not an unusual feeling, although, I don't often feel as lost as I do now.

That said, I'm feeling pretty good. Perhaps I'm feeling positively and apprehensively curious.

One day I may catch on.

Or maybe there's nothing to catch.

I just rang up to get piano lessons. I was told to call back after the holidays. But I'm excited. I made a move. Soon I'll be Mr Piano.

Maybe not soon. But one day. You just watch out, Mr Freeman.

I had a dream last night that I got lost at Sydney Theatre Company. I got lost in the wharfs there, and walked through rehearsals and un-used stages. I spent a while in the props store and that was cool. It was a great dream. I was having the time of my life. The magic of theatre. There were actors, and crew people, and dancers, and make up tables. I took lots of photos on my digital camera so I could blog them, but they weren't there when I woke up. I just walked around looking official and hoped that no one would stop me and ask me what I was doing.

Today I went to lunch with the Swans, Junior and Senior. Marg cooked a fantastic bunch of vegies and John did some good lamb on the barbie. It was a genuine home cooked meal. Woohoo.

For youth today we went to visit a retirement village. After getting terribly lost 5 minutes from church (how you do that, I'm unsure) we arrived. Some of the young people played musical instruments for the retirees then we went and talked to all the old people. I talked to three women who were all 90. They was cool. One kept asking me what high school I went to. I had a lovely time. I think it may have been one of the best things we've done as a youth group this year. I had so much fun. It was really nice connecting with people who weren't in the same boat. I'm not sure what the young people thought, but I loved it.

Matt and I had a chat after church about creative things. We both want to be friends, and that's good. Matt is worth being friends with. All the creative stuff though? We're working on it...

Next week I'm preaching. I'm feeling the pressure again. Preach well. Teach the Word. Touch the people. Entertain the masses. Don't flop.

Oh well, that's life. I love preaching. I just hope I can remember to preach Christ first. We can have fun after that.

I had lots of fun last night.

Lesley and I went out for dinner. We ate at a cafe in the mall. We spent a long time looking for somewhere good. We rejected a few because they weren't "romantic" enough. Not that we were looking for a romantic night, but I thought it would be more comfortable if the place could be romantic if that's what you wanted.

Anyway, it was fun. I ate a lot. I ate the grilled chicken. I picked it because it had mashed potato with it and I wanted to see what real mashed potato tasted like.

It was good to catch up with Lesley too. She's a tops person. I'd been looking forward to our night out for weeks and it didn't disappoint. Yay for Lesley and Yay for good food in Hornsby.

After dinner we met David, Anmol and Chris for our Shrek 2 experience. This involved buying tickets at the cinema and chocolate at Coles. I finally bought the chocolate I've been craving all week.

Mars bar. Ahhh. Lovely.

We met Mil just before the film and went in. There was an ad about downloading movies illegally off the net. It amused me.

The movie was fine. Nothing special. The best bit was the Counting Crows song that they started with. There were funnies, but it wasn't anywhere near the first film. I think they should leave it at one most of the time. But alas, this world is driven by money, and if you can make a bucket load off a sequel, then go for it.

We had coffee before home and talked politics. I walked home feeling cold.

I am reading a book at the moment called Ten Great Preachers. I tend to read it at night before I go to sleep.

The book has a sermon delivered by one of the "Great Preachers" followed by an interview with them. It's very inspiring. I'm really enjoying it. It's like I get good preaching, good preachers and then good sleep. And it makes me excited about preaching. The problem is though, that when I try and sleep I start thinking about my next sermon. I don't feel nearly as "great" as them.

There's this bit where Tony Campolo says that he preaches cause he enjoys it. He does over 400 speaking engagements a year. If I didn't have to write stuff, that could be cool. I think preaching is fun. It doesn't feel like it should be fun. It feels like it should be all serious and important and certainly not fun. It shouldn't be fun to handle the word of God. It should be serious business. It is serious, but it is fun too. Once you get there, and you're at the lectern (I'd love to say pulpit there, but I've never preached from a pulpit) and you have everyone ready to hear what you're going to say. You know you could sink, you could swim or you could blow everyone out of the water. It could be fantastic. You tell jokes and people laugh, you tell stories and people connect, you get serious and everyone goes quiet.

But that's not the funnest bit. My favourite bit is where I get to talk about the Gospel, especially to Christians*. When I get to stand up in church and tell people about the death of Christ and his glorious and amazing resurrection, that's fantastic. I can tell people that we're forgiven, we're new creations and we've God living in us. That's cool. That's fun. That's what it's all about. That's when you're soaring, because as good as anything is that you can pull out of the bag, as funny as your jokes are, as involving as any of your stories may be, or as potent as your wisdom is, the Gospel is always better. God's stories are better, his wisdom is timeless, and his Word brings life. And when it's God speaking, that's preaching, that's fun and that's a privilege.


*I do like preaching the Gospel to non-Christians, but it's harder work. You know they aren't onside with you and you have to explain it in their terms. So it's fun, but not nearly as fun as preaching to the converted. Then you're all agreeing and you can revel in the Gospel together.

At small group yesterday we had masses of chips. Because I was sick last week I told the guy who was on food to bring them this week. When I talked to the person who was on food this week I forgot that we already had food organised. So I told him to bring some. Then the sister of the boy who's house we were at had a party that day at pre-school or something and brought home a few packets of chips. So it turned out we had 8 packets of chips. There was enough for a packet each with on left over. It was massive. And the was such joy within the room when people realised they could have a whole packet of their favourite chips all to themselves. It was a chip abundance. We had some left over (only about a packet though) and I felt like we'd fed the 5,000. Baskets left over and everyone had their fill. It was great.

I love chips.

After small group I went and picked Jo up and we headed down to Manly for Gem and Mil's birthday which was good fun. The pizza tasted nice and the company was much pleasurement. I laughed lots I think. And I didn't feel sick. It was great. I really wanted a hot chocolate, but I retrained myself. I thought it might be bad for me stomach.

We talked road trip and I'm getting excited. It's interesting seeing David at the moment because I'm aware that he's going to be gone soon. I'm enjoying seeing so much of him. He's got an "I'm about to go away to a developing country" aura about him at the moment. He's good to spend time with.

Today I've sat around. Mum made me some lunch because she's fussing over me. Kaia rang me before to get a phone number and it was good to talk to her. Tasmainia is so far away.

I might go flying somewhere next week, when I get some free time.

When I saw the doctor he gave me some pills. Yay.

And I'm feeling better now than I did this morning.

While I was lying on his bed and he'd just finished poking my stomach and knocking on it, he noticed something about my finger nails. He got me to show them to him, and he spent a minute or two examining them from all angles. Then he said, "Hmm, there's a few things that could cause that, but I'm not going to tell you what they are because I don't want to scare you."

Brilliant. Lucky I thought it was funny because I might be worried otherwise.

Tassa got busted

I just answered a knock at our door and it was a man from Hornsby Council saying that someone had made a complaint about Tassa. She barks too much. If she wasn't our dog, I might have made the complaint myself.

Tomorrow I'm going to the doctor. Yeah baby.

"What's wrong Mr French?"

"I'm sick"

"Ok, take two if these you'll be better in 20 minutes. Oh and stop eating mashed potato and toast. Go eat ice cream, chocolate, and a fatty, juicy steak with a side order of deep fried chips."

"Thank you doctor, will do"

I would really like to eat some chocolate.

Because I'm just the smartest...



Chris could have done a better job anyway.

I've had a good day today. Work was fun.

We played games in Scripture today which was jolly. I hope they learnt stuff, but it was fun even if they didn't.

I did stuff at work. I set stuff up so we can record sermons on cd rather than tape. Now our church will be most technological. CDs have only been around since the 80s.

Rach came and visited me and we ate some mashed potato that Mum cooked. She's good, Mum.

Small group was very small. Only one boy turned up for the second week in a row. Hmmm. May have to re-think that one.

And the Pub was fun too. Lots of people. Regulars, newbies, oldbies, and otherbies. Most were women, but that's just the way it goes. I'm part of the generation raised by women (thanks David) so why not hang out with a few? Mil and I walked there and back together. Fun. We had frank discussions which would have made me blush a few years ago but I'm all grown up now.

Tonight I will write a Bible study. Then I'll sleep.

Now that Helen is gone I'm the king of the Upstairs. Infact, when Belinda goes home I'll be king of the Church centre. Helen and Steve are on holidays, so I'm holding the fort. It's kinda fun. I'm doing work. I'm feeling productive, sending emails, making phone calls, organising, writing theological things and blogging. This is what work should be like.

If only I could eat pizza for lunch.

From last weeks Bible Study (written by Helen):

"I need to not explode next time my mother asks me to vacuum"

You'd have a lot more than vacuuming to do after that mess.

I sowed a button on to my pants this morning. I'm learning new tricks every day.

Whoever marries me is going to be a very happy lady. I can sow buttons and cook porridge, what more could a woman want?

Yesterday was a good day up until the point where I got sick again. Actually it was good after that, but deteriorated.

I woke up late. And went slowly. I was struck by the idea that I could have porridge for breakfast. It was a great idea. My diet lately has been pretty much vegemite toast and mashed potato (although I reckon one of the best things about being sick is the mashed potato). So I had porridge. I cooked the instructions that served 3 and ate the whole saucepan. The porridge was fantastic.

Then I found out what time The Punisher was on up at Hornsby and called Chris to see if he would go with me. Luckily it's exam time, so he was willing to ditch study for a movie.

The movie wasn't very good. Very violent, and didn't make you feel very good. It was all about revenge (although the main character said it wasn't revenge, it was punishment). Silly, silly film. I enjoyed watching a movie, but this one wasn't really worth watching. It was just un-pleasant really.

I came home and was very hungry. I cooked myself some pasta. I was getting adventurous and I was still hungry. But alas, the pasta was my downfall. I think it may have been something to do with the sour cream and cheese that I added to the mix. It didn't sit well with me.

Mum and I went over to the Castle's and I wasn't feeling great.

It was fun visiting though. Ryan, Jem and I hung out in the kitchen. Then after dinner Jem and I hung out in the lounge room as I got progressively worse.

Last night was horrid. I think it was the worst night I've had so far. I couldn't sleep at all between 2:30 and 4:30 because I was in too much pain. I watched TV but even with 45 channels there was nothing worth losing sleep over. Eventually I managed to fall properly asleep at around 6am and spent the rest of the time dreaming about Student Alpha.

I want to vomit.

Perhaps that would solve my problems. I haven't vomited for days. Sometimes when you vomit you feel better. I want it all to go away. Maybe it'll come out my mouth and I'll be fine.

Hooray.

"Bwwwaaaaahhhhhhhhhhllllllpllpllppllpplll"

I went to work today because I declared myself better. But alas it wasn't to be. I felt pretty rotten at the beginning, and deteriorated as the day went on. By the time youth was finished I didn't think I'd be able to sit through church comfortably. So I slept. I went into my office put some couch things on the floor, grabbed my pillow (which I had brought as I am always prepared), turned on my heater and fell asleep to the melodic sounds of Chris and friends singing about Jesus. It was a more comfortable way to do church.

Mike suggested today that we install plush couple chairs at church like at Gold Class. I'm all up for that. They wouldn't be fun to move, but how comfy. Ahh.

The good thing is I'm in a better mood today. I think spending the day with people has made me happier. My feelings of self-worth go up when I'm productive. Isn't that a shame.

I hope I sleep tonight. Nights are so boring. I might go the Foxtel route again tonight. I wonder if there are any movies on.