My tax return money came through this morning. It's quite a bit. I'm trying very hard though, to not think of it as mine. Rather, God has given it to me in trust: stewardship. I need to use it wisely and for good. I was thinking about this in my shower and I thought the best thing to do would be to come up with a list and run it past a friend to see if they agree/disagree with any of the items on it.

I had already intended to use part of it to buy a laptop. I've asked my friend Matt L - who works as a tech salesman - to help me find a quality one that suits my purposes and isn't too expensive, I don't want to get ripped off because I'm naive. But I'm looking forward to finally having a laptop in my exclusive use, so I can take it to uni and get more study and work done there - because I'm not very good at doing that at home.

While I was in the shower thinking about how I'm a steward with this money, it also occurred to me that I'm a steward with time. There's this great song called My Heart is Filled with Thankfulness. The relevant verse is such:

My heart is filled with thankfulness
To him who reigns above;
Whose wisdom is my perfect peace;
Whose every thought is love.
For every day I have on earth
is given by the King.
So I will give my life, my all,
to love and follow him.

( a story from last night that I hope will encourage )
I jsut remembered my dream last night. I was with a group of people and some were telling others that they needed to read the KJV only, because any other version was wrong. But I totally interrupted and told them that we need to stop arguing about that and that judgement was coming!

And friends, judgement is coming! Every bad thing you've done will be punished by God himself who can melt mountains! There is no escape from judgement! However, Jesus has already taken my judgement from me when he died on the cross. He has also given me new life now so that I can work to please God. But you need to believe, trust, have faith that Jesus death was sufficient to rescue you from judgement and from the life you're living that continues to reject/dishonour/insult God. You need to run to Jesus and turn away from that life.

God has told us all we need to know about salvation and himself in The Bible. Please, read one of the Gospels! Don't wait because we don't know when judgement is coming - but it is! Don't delay any longer!

How can I use this time now for myself when I should be pleading with people to turn to Jesus?

Yesterday I visited Lisey and because I'm very low on petrol, I decided to ride my bike/catch the train. So I rode into Fremantle, but on the way I went over a bump and my back tire decided to deflate. Just around the corner though, was a gym. So I stopped in and asked if they had a bike pump. They did and the woman at the counter graciously let me borrow it. But there must have been a hole in the tire, because it wouldn't keep air.. :P

I remembered seeing a couple of bike shops in Freo, so off I walked with my bike at my side. I don't really know how far/long I walked because I had my music and time passed pretty quickly. I walked passed a henna art shop and stopped in to inquire about it. So I've decided to get a henna tattoo in about a week to see if I like the design/placement before I decide to get it permanently.

The lady at the henna place also gave me easy directions to the nearest bike shop on the way to Freo, so I stopped there and spent my last $15 on getting my tire replaced. After that though, the riding was nice and smooth! :D I visited Lise without much hassle, took the train back to Freo and rode back home. I'd had a really lazy morning prior to the bike ride, so I felt much better when I came home. :D I like riding my bike. I wish I could ride it more often.

I FINALLY got around to uploading these commercials on to YouTube for my Uncle's music store. The internet has been way slow because I downloaded too much stuff, so I haven't been able to, then there were other complications... bleh. But now is done!

I am working today. Hurrah! So I'm going to hurry off and get ready for that. :D

oh my goodness, best thing ever = after a 20min bike ride in 35 degree heat, jumping straight into a very cold shower. I almost died from the cold shock, but man it was SO SO SO refreshing! Now I might go eat the very last of the ice cream if I haven't already. :D:D

I've had this little idea in my head for about a month and I thought I would put it out there and if anyone's interested, they can raise their hands and lemme know.

I want to go on a small, 3 day bike riding trip in April. If there's the possibility of nabbing a car with a bike thingo, or a ute/FWD whatever, then we can drive out somewhere, park the car, pack the bikes with camping stuff, ride out to a location, camp for the night, ride someplace else, camp, then ride back to the car on the third day and head home. Kinda doing a triangle of camping spots. Or even on the 2nd day not camping at all, maybe hiking around the area instead, or just enjoy the change of scenery.

Anyway, would anyone be interested in this?

So class didn't go as badly as I thought it would. Sensei asked me a question and I blew the answer, but it wasn't that bad and I did that heaps last year. Now that I have homework and things to revise, I'm confident that I'll remember everything. It was just the first leson I was scared of.

Riding to uni went well today. It takes 20minutes all up, with another 5 mintues to get to the bike racks, of which there's only one set slightly near me in the Education dept. Which is really convenient(!) :P I have to ride my bike up a big hill to get to it. Thankfully I have remembered that it's ok to change gears a lot, so I'm doing better with hills now.

I think my asthma is coming back. Riding up hills, unless I take care to moniter my breathing, leaves me a breathless and gasping. The gasping takes rather a while to go away. But I'm feeling better about getting the regular and hard exercise and am confident that my breathing will get better as I get fitter and more accustomed to riding.

I was going to do some kanji revision, but the program I was intending to use on the computer has been removed during the holidays (which was dumb), so now I've time to kill, pointlessly, until my lecture in 45minutes. I'll probably go early because I'll be bored.

Edit 1:15pm: Lecture wasn't too bad. There was a girl there from last year's unit whom I sat with and we got on well catching up. Lecture was pretty interesting. EDU260, Learning Through the Arts. It engaged me and had me thinking, so w00t! The ride home wasn't too bad, I even made it up that terrible hill that I had to walk up last time! I was on my lowest gear and standing on the pedal to keep them moving. I reckon that if I'd stopped, I'd be dead.

Also, the chain on my bike kept stuffing up sometimes when I changed down from one gear to another, just on the one particular sprocket. Instead of moving down, the chain would get caught on the upper driving sprocket and not want to turn anymore. This causes me to panic, trying to get my feet out of the pedals asap, so I can put down a foot or two to make me stable, then turn the bike over, fix the problem and get on my way. I did this TWICE! :P

Well I'm looking forward to uni starting on Monday, and I'm looking forward to making my lunches and riding my bike. It takes about 20-25 minutes to ride to uni, then 25-30 minutes to ride home as there are some terrific hills that are awesome to go down on the way, but terrible to go up on the way home. They are so big I have to get off and push my bike up them. Terrible! I think I will have to carry a can of deodorant and a spare t-shirt with me when riding my bike.

Today I intend on vacuuming, sweeping and mopping, making pie and altering my 1920s dress so the edges aren't scrappy for Jake's 21st tonight. :D