Unconditional love.

Unconditional :: not subject to any conditions;

wholehearted, unqualified, unlimited, unquestioning, complete, total, absolute

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

It's possible that I've written this all before, but it's only because I am totally captured by unconditional love - what it is, how Jesus showed us this love, and how we need to show this love to others. The verses above are from 1 Corinthians 13, some of my favourite verses in the bible. I love the description of what love is (we have a plaque of this in our bathroom, and I make a point of reading it every time I am in there), and I love how it says that love is the greatest.

Just recently I was reading a book called "When God Writes Your Love Story", an incredible book, and through it God opened my eyes and challenged me. I have been single since the day I was born, and it is now something that I am very thankful for, as I have had no heartache and have had the chance to have a love story with my Father in Heaven. Through reading the book God challenged me to start loving unconditionally - family and friends, and most importantly, my future husband. I know some people think I am crazy, but I can honestly say that God has started giving me such a love for the man that I do not yet know; and I am now determined to stay single until I meet him. Why? Because I want to be faithful to him and I want to give him my all. I also want to spend these single years working on my character, letting God prepare me for an important relationship, and spend more time getting to know the heart of God. I read this great quote once (can't remember where, or who said it) and it went something like this "A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man should have to seek Him first in order to find her."

That's pretty awesome. And I want that! Sure it is hard, and God constantly has to help me, because like others, I do have a natural desire to be in a relationship, to have a family, to have that companionship; but I have come to the conclusion (which God always has to remind me of) that I would rather be single my entire life and devote every day and year to God rather than be in a string of relationships that don't work out.

That's my thoughts anyway.

Boxing day....

Is chilled.

I'm trying to watch a movie, but I can't hear the TV because dad is vacuuming. Annoying. Who vacuums the house on Boxing Day?!

Christmas 2010

Christmas is once again upon us.

Christmas eve was a flurry of wrapping presents, visiting neighbours, cooking pheasant, and christmas traditions of stories and Polar Express.

Christmas day was a day of presents, laughing at the dog helping us unwrap presents, eating, family, relaxing, eating, coffee, walking, snow, movies; and remembering that above all the reason we celebrate Christmas is because Jesus basically was born so that He could die. And die for us to have freedom. Pretty awesome reason to be celebrating if you ask me.

Merry christmas to all, to family and friends near and far - wish I could be with every one of you!

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree

In Stratford with mom and Dylan before Christmas

Winter icicles

Christmas Eve walk with Dylan

Christmas Eve walk

Skye

Christmas Day tea

Opening presents

Christmas dinner - Turkey, Gammon, Duck, and all the other bits and pieces!

Christmas day walk

CaniX

This post is about a week late, I do realise this, but better late than never, right?

CaniX is my new hobby. It's basically cross country running with your dog. You wear a harness, and your dog wears a harness, and you're both connected with a bungee line. Then you run, and your dog pulls, a bit like sledding but without the sled.

It's a growing sport within the UK and certain European countries; and races in the UK are held in different forests around the country. They are beautiful locations, but often involve travelling great distances.

Our first race was at Cannock Chase, a wonderful Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty located in Stafford. Mom and I headed over there with the dog in a world of white, as snow continued to cover the UK.

Once there I was immediately bitten by the CaniX bug and look forward to the next race.

It snowed the whole time we were there, which was such fun I thought.

The race went a lot better than I thought. My dog was an absolute superstar and ran (and pulled) her heart out. I was so proud of her!

Had a good chat with a lady and her daughter, and their little brown Cocker Spaniel after the race as we cooled down and had a coffee. Something that Skye did that made us laugh was that she was sitting in the car with her jumper on drying off and keeping warm, and she refused to get out of the car. She just sat there watching us have coffee in the snow lol.

Looking forward to the next race!

Snow dusting.

Whilst the rest of the UK has been having a fairly decent amount of snow (decent by our standards. My Americans, don't laugh!), here in the West Midlands we have had hardly anything!! I'm really not happy. All we've had are the abnormally freezing cold temperatures and a cold house. Yay.

This morning we did wake up to a light dusting of snow (still not too happy with that). I took the pup for a walk at the canal. It was really beautiful, with the water frozen over, and the canal boats seemingly trapped in the ice.

Here are some pics.

Ducks on the frozen water

Skye

Locks

Frozen water

Photography.

Was fooling around with a photography site builder thingy.

This is what I came up with:

www.wix.com/amytrollope/simplicityphotography

German Market, coffee and cold

Spent the evening walking around the German Market and other shops with mon and brother. Had some good food and a hot drink. Very enjoyable indeed! Everywhere is starting to feel christmasy.

Maybe...

...I should become a snowboard instructor. Just a thought.

Trees, chainsaws, and firemen....

Last night we looked out of the window to see a police car and a fire engine in the road right outside our house. The police and firemen are walking all over the place.

A policewoman starts walking up our drive, so we ask is everything ok?

Turns out a pretty big tree has fallen across the road (oh, did I mention that there are gale force winds racing around?).

My puppy and I sat for ages watching the activity through the window (disappointed to say that we couldn't see much!). She was so funny, woofing and 'talking' in protest of the firemen walking around, the fire engine, and the blue flashing lights.

Just before midnight, we lost power. Great.

Went to bed and woke up at 3am to the sound of the fire engine driving away.

Woke up again at 4am, and noticed that there were still flashing blue lights. The firemen were still outside trying to defeat the mighty tree! Went to bed to the sweet sound of chainsaws, and then woke again to hear the firemen driving off just after 4.

In the morning (still no power!), mom and I went and looked at the (remainder of) tree. It was BIG. And there were branches everywhere. And red and white Fire and Rescue tape fluttering from trees where it had been tied to section off the road. Then the 'wood people' came along and shredded all the unwanted branches.

I must say, the firemen stayed until after 4am to clear our road, but you don't see the electricity people around trying to get our power back (then found out later from the guys who came to fix our power at the end of the day, that they had been working since 5am because the winds had caused so much destruction!)

Very interesting night and day! Most excitement that we've seen around this village in a long time! I did enjoy it all though. It was very cool.

This whole thing has really made me appreciate firemen a whole lot more! Most of the time we associate firemen with putting out fires or cutting people out of cars, not jobs like this. Jobs that last until 4am in the morning, in blustery conditions, whilst trying to remove a fallen tree.

While we all slept, they worked to make our road safe. In the morning there were many people who didn't know what had gone on.

I really appreciate what they did while I was in my warm bed. So thank you!!

Starbucks and Apple....

....go hand in hand. Oh, and with some good music on the side. Sitting in Starbucks with a mocha waiting to start work. Feeling cosy and christmasy.

First pheasant day, as told by Skye

Today was the first pheasant day.

I was very excited because mom took with me with her again! It was fun to spend the day with her. She was very proud of me because I wasn't that scared of the other dogs, and I didn't run away from them.

It was very exciting going new places, and sniffing all the new smells. I didn't really like being on the lead, and loved it when she let me off so I could run.

On one of the drives we went through game cover, which was really just a tangle of beans (which mom got in her wellies! I thought it was funny), and it was really hard to get through. So because mom was already walking through it in front of me, I just decided to follow in her footsteps and follow the path she was making.

She told me that she didn't think that's what a gun dog was meant to do, but that she thought I was very smart anyway. I think she was secretly impressed with my cleverness (and to be honest, I think she thought it was cute!)

I'm starting to get the hang of this now, the whole thing about flushing the birds out. It's all so very exciting! And I love watching the birds flying!

On one of the drives, a lot of birds got up right in front of me, but mom wouldn't let me chase them :-( I was a good girl though and listened to the whistle and didn't go running after them. Tony (who has the pointers) told me that if it hadn't been for me, a lot of those birds wouldn't have got up and flown! Everyone kept telling me what a good girl I was and how well behaved I was (even the keeper said I was very good!) I think mom was very proud!

One of the drives went through the woods. I wasn't too keen on the briars in the beginning, but I was a brave girl and tackled the briars just like a good little Spaniel should. I did try and follow mom on this one as well, it made it easier! It was fun though going through the woods with mom.

It was a very exciting day, yet also tiring, and I curled up on the backseat of the car and went to sleep on the way home. I heard mom say something about the final number being 148 birds, which apparently is good. One of the last things I remember is Tony telling me that by the end of the season I was going to be a good little beating dog :-)

So there's this place....

....called Mexico. And I miss it so much. So many people who touched my life, and I just wanna see them again!!

2 down

Been turned down by 2 unis. Don't know why, wish I did. 2 more choices left. God, I'm glad you know what you're doing, because I sure don't!!

Abraham :: obedient and faithful

Read Genesis 22 this morning - the story of when God tells Abraham to take his only son (and note how God says 'the son you love') and sacrifice him. The thing that struck me was that Abraham was so obedient and had so much faith in God that he just did it. God only had to give this command once!! How many of us, had we been told to do that, would've gone 'are you sure God? I mean, is this really necessary?!' I know u would've done that! But Abraham gets told once, and he does it. Now that is a challenge!!

Testing

So this is a test to ensure that this blog iPhone app that I have works well, mainly so that I can update my blog when mom and I are in Norway n

Coffee

Dylan's away, so went for coffee with mom and dad. Went shopping, bought some jeans. Good morning.

Proud mama am I!!!

I am so proud of my little dog today!! Took her along to beating with me, and I couldn't have asked for a better dog. She was absolutely brilliant. She behaved so well, kept close to me, and responded to everything I said. Above all, she enjoyed herself, and kept me company. Everyone commented on how well she had done (which made me so proud). At one point she couldn't see where I was, and was frantically looking for me, and then when she found me, she came racing over :-)
Another thing that I was pleased with, was how she dealt with the other dogs. She was attacked when she was a pup, and is now very wary of other dogs. I was a bit worried about how today would go, but it actually went better than I could have imagined. The other dogs were very quiet with her, and pretty much ignored her, so in the end she relaxed. By the end of the day she was happy to run around the field with the other dogs (having realised that they weren't there to hunt her down!!), and sit right next to them. Such progress was made today, so I'm really happy with that.

On the way home she curled up on the backseat of the car and went to sleep. When we got home and she had had a bath, we both crashed on the bed (it's absolutely exhausting beating whilst working the dog!!)

All in all a really good day.

And so we head home....

Well Mexico is out of the World Cup.

We screamed our lungs out for them, and they played their hearts out for us.

But after a tough game between Argentina, and a somewhat unfair goal scored by them, Mexico is heading home. Dreams of progressing further shattered.

It was a very sombre mood as the final whistle blew and we knew that it was over. The entire nation was gutted.

Well done boys, and here's to next time!

Watching the game. Brilliant atmosphere and time

Homes of Hope - Day 2

Day 2. And it was a scorcher in the sun. We sweated. Like majorly. My shirt was wet, I was wet. I touched my chest at one point, and my hand came away dripping. Gross. I know. But I want you to get a sense of how hot it was and how much we sweated.

Anyway, I'll just put the pics up so you can see for yourselves the day's work.

Putting the dry walling up on the side

Drywalling

The day's work. It was so hot doing this because the sun just bounced off the wall!!

The song Steven wrote for me. The team is trying to get me to say 'Holy Spirit' because they love how it sounds with my accent, but I'm refusing to say it, so Steven wrote a song filled with 'Holy Spirit' so I could sing it!! haha

Homes of Hope - Day 1

Today was the first day of the build. It was super awesome!! Had an amazing day with the team, and it was super cool to be building with Amber and Edgar again. Not only is it awesome being able to build again, but to be able to build with the team that I built with last year, is a real blessing as we share so many memories from last time and it is great reliving them!! It really was God's timing how this all worked out!! These are people who I never thought I would see again, and then wham! here I am with them again :-)

I'm really not going to write a lot, as in this case the pictures will speak a lot louder than words!!

P.S. Not too sure why this writing insisted on being underlined, but I can't fix it, and it is driving me absolutely insane!!!!!!!!!!!! Grrrr

The current house, infested with ticks

Ikea, Amber & Edgar's Border Collie (with paint on her nose)

Me (obviously)

Brian, one of the new team members

Amanda, one of the old team members

Steven, one of the new team members. He loved his tool apron!

The foundation

Building the framework

Completed framework for the walls

Standing the walls up

3 walls up!

A completed framework house

Unloading the siding

Putting up the siding

Siding very nearly completed

Lunch

Amber. Love this girl.

Edgar. Love this guy.

One of the local kids helping with the drilling

He was so pleased when he got the hang of it

Riding in the back of the truck

The boys