When novelty shaped is not so novel

Let me start this post by declaring that I have never been to a hens party before. Or a baby shower. Or a kitchen tea. So far I've successfully managed to avoid them. I nearly, NEARLY made it to my sister Michelle's baby shower a while ago, and I really wanted to go to that one but had conference on and couldn't actually make it even though I wanted to. But on the whole - I've been happy not going.

I don't like organised games at parties. I don't like people being humiliated at parties - why does this always seem to have to happen at hens nights?? When I used to go out a lot, so often we would see girls who were out on their hens nights and they would be wearing stupid things like veils with tampons and condoms hanging off them, underwear over the top of their clothes, stupid make up all over their faces, fluffy handcuffs or vibrators round their necks... I totally fail to understand how this could make a good night, or what significance this has at all to someone's impending wedding.

Does a party need to be tasteless and crude to be fun? Am I perhaps just a prude? Should I consider it desirable to go out with condoms stapled to a fake veil and a fluro lacy g-string on over my trousers??

Well anyway, I went to my friend Manda's hens party up in Newcastle on Fri night. Manda is a total champ and I absolutely love her to bits. She's a lovely Christian girl who I was with when I was saved. We started out the night with a pole dancing lesson - which I had expected to be a bit dodgy, but actually I really enjoyed! It was a lot of fun. When we walked in there was a big shelf full of slut shoes, which we all laughed at - and then laughed even harder when we found out that we were supposed to put them on!

They even had the catalog there in case you wanted to buy your own classy shoes!

I found some pink ones - they made me about a head taller, and when I walked I wobbled around like a weather vane. I used to really like those shoes - you know the ones with clear plastic straps, and clear pastic platforms - until one day someone told me that they were slut shoes, and that's what all the girls in Ralph and Playboy etc wore in their photo shoots! Not so classy at all :-)

Can hardly walk.... however can pose classily with shoes....

Some of the poles were fixed, and some of them spun. The fixed ones were hard to spin on, but the spinning ones - I kept getting too much momentum up and ended up spinning round and round uncontrollably until I managed to launch myself off and collapse in a heap of hotpants and pink plastic shoes! My legs are so bruised today!

This move responsible for several large bruises

Building up an astonishing amount of momentum!

The instructor was this tiny tiny little girl, who gave us a demonstration at the end of what you can do after you've been training for years. She was all over that pole like a monkey! Pretty acrobatic - but still mostly g-rated.

There was one point where she was suspended entirely by her armpit. This was pretty impressive - but we couldn't help but wonder how many times she'd fallen off trying to perfect that move! She said she has a pole at home, and makes up the moves herself. We all tried to pretend not to be impressed by this (but secretly we were).

Newcastle's version of the Pussycat Dolls ;-)

Everyone had a really good time - Manda especially!

The second party of the party - which I expected would be the actual fun part, was a party at a friends place (absolutely stunningly beautiful apartment!) with all the girls. Omg, I can hardly describe how I felt. There were, hmmm how should I word this? 'Novelty shaped' items everywhere. (Don't make me say the p-word out here in public on my blog!) Novelty shaped chocolates, pin the 'novelty shape' on the Brad Pitt, novelty shaped drink holders, even novelty shaped chocolate cakes! I thought I'd play it safe and have some of the pretty pink non-alcoholic punch - but no, there were novelty shaped ice cubes floating around in there too.

Am I a prude? Am I a snob? I was totally out of my comfort zone, but nobody else even batted an eyelid. I was so uncomfortable that I stayed for 30 mins exactly and then left, fled down to the Central Coast to my mum's place, which was decidedly and blessedly novelty shape free.

Ah well, at least it makes for an interesting blog. Word of warning though: to all of my girlfriends, prospective bridesmaids, sisters and acquaintances, if I see even ONE HINT of anything suggestively shaped at my hens night (albeit in the far distant future) I will immediately open up a can of whoop-ass and revoke all wedding cake privileges.

You have now been warned.

(But hello, did you check out the naughty glory of these shoes???!)

(You can tell from that smile that I've fallen in love!!)

A girl of many names

I've been called a lot of things.
Not just funny names that people call me, but I have a lot of actual names, and seem to attract a fair few nicknames too.

When my dad was growing up, his surname was Carolan - but when he was 21 he changed it to Carlan. So as I was growing up my surname was Carlan. Not a bad surname actually - pretty tricky to make fun of at school, which is an important quality for a surname to have I think.

My middle name on the other hand...

When my mum was growing up, her surname was Snowball. Yep, laugh if you like, we won't be offended, I reckon they've heard all the jokes. Well I have Snowball as my middle name - you should see the funny looks I get in airports when I have to show my passport!

When I was 21 a few dramatic things were going on in my world, and I decided to make a bit of a new start and changed my surname to Carolan. Much prettier I thought. Still relatively hard to make fun of. Except for this conversation which I seem to spend my life having:

Q: "Could I have your surname please?"
Me: "Carolan"
Q (with a clear 'you are such a dumbass' tone in their voice): "No Carolyn, your surname, your last name???"
Me (with an obvious 'I'm not the dumbass, dumbass' tone): "Yes, that is my last name!"

Actually a lot of people can't be bothered figuring it out and just call me Carolan as a first name. I'm okay with that actually - I'll answer to it. Randomly a lot of people call me Emma - I can't figure this out, but I guess it does kind of sound like Amy...?

Some people call me Snowball - they're usually giggling when they say it. This doesn't bother me either. I can pretty much win a 'I'm not telling you my middle name because it's silly' competition hands down.

Add this to the fact that I have two more first names, and you get a rather lengthy moniker of Amy Louise Snowball Carolan. Quite distinguised I think. Can you imagine if I married a guy with a double barrelled surname? Oh the hilarity ;-)

I also like the meaning of names. What does your name mean?
Mine is Amy: beloved Louise: warrior princess
Our family legend says that Snowball was from an albino German Viking (I occasionally doubt the authenticity of this legend!) and on the Carolan side (my great grandfather changed it from O'Carolan when he moved over from Ireland) we have a famous blind Irish harpist Turlough O'Carolan.

I have a rare talent for finding 4-leaf clovers (yes, it is a talent) and a lot of my friends call me Clover. I wear a lot of pink (it's the new black) and a lot of my friends call me Pinky. I'm okay with those too. There are other random nicknames that people call me, and I'm okay with everything really. I like nicknames! I like giving people nicknames too, so watch out for that. (Sunny Boy - you know what I'm talking about!) I don't like it when people get my name wrong, or forget my name. I do make an effort to remember people's names, and to pronounce them properly - I think it's disrespectful not to make the effort really.

The best name I've gotten so far turned up today though. The lovely Heidi Eileen (yes, I remember people's middle names!) emailed me the most hilarious spreadsheet, where you type in your name and it predicts what your job should be, based on your name. Well clearly this is an anointed spreadsheet of God (see below for my answer). I always knew, I always knew that I was marked out for greatness!

Fairy tale wedding!

Last weekend (or the weekend before I think actually) I flew up to the Gold Coast for Katie and Steve's wedding - it was so BEEYOOTIFUL!! Apart from the fact that I felt like a movie star because I flew up there, it was also so great to see how much in love these two crazy kids are. Altogether now: ahhhhhhhh.

The flight from Sydney to Gold Coast was ridiculously short. I barely had time to turn my mobile off, fall asleep a couple of times with my mouth open, and then they were announcing that we were beginning descent! (Actually, to tell the truth I forgot to switch my phone off - but clearly it didn't have much of an effect on the planes naviagtion guidance system, and we still landed okay!)

The church where the wedding was held was a cute as a button Anglican church where Steve's father is the pastor (sorry, I have no idea of the right title for your father Steve!). He had the most beautiful robes on - I reckon he came close to out-blinging the bride!





Katie and Steve are ridiculously in love, and spent the entire day smiling at each other. It was all just too romantic for me, I cried nearly through the whole service (apart from when I was trying to take notes - well done Steve's dad, great service!) however the happy couple didn't cry - they were giggling! Crazy kids...



Please check out the amazing wedding cake - which I was totally in awe of! (Mish I took some close up pics for you, you could totally create this masterpiece!)


It was a lovely reception too - there were about 75 people there I think, which was a nice amount of people. Katie's friends were all SO lovely, and looked after me. Plus I was hosted beautifully by the very wonderful Vicky "bridesmaid" Taylor. We had the most hysterical room that night too - for some reason we'd been given a conference suite. It was all set up with facilities for a small board meeting. I very nearly had a small heart attack and died with laughter upon entering the room :-)



I had the most beautiful shoes ever - borrowed from my fashion-tastic sister Katy. They made it very hard to go to bed at night, as I could hardly bear to take them off, such was their glory!



The beautiful bride the day after the wedding!


The next day we had lunch on (near) the beach. It was so great to get to meet Vicky and Katie's family, who are all very cool indeed. In spite of getting thrown up on by the youngest Taylor present, it was a really great day!



I flew back in to Sydney feeling like a celebrity again (albeit a slighty vomit covered celebrity, but it's all part of the glory really) and found that the wonderful Sarah had stocked my car with a bow of fresh Krispy Kremes and a hidden Toblerone. What a great weekend :-)

Dumbass of the Day

What a day. In our office there are 3 of us at any one time, and one of the girls is away for 3 weeks on holidays, so on Thursdays and Fridays there are now just two of us. We had to swap shifts around to cover her, also I swapped a shift yesterday to leave early for Jessie's birthday dinner, and swapped a shift tomorrow because I'm leaving for a weekend away - so it was all very confusing. This morning both Julie and I thought we were on late shift, my manager called when I was just about to leave and said "There's no one here!" panic! We both made it here pretty quickly, but had to log on and start taking calls before we'd even switched on our computers or taken our handbags off... drama!

And THEN all the stupid customers seemed to be calling me! We have a quota of 3 Dumbasses of the Day. This quota is always filled, and regularly exceeded. There are a few regulars who appear on this list, but it's always entertaining to get a promising newcomer. I got them all this morning.

Me: "Welcome to Customer Service, this is Amy"
Lady: "Can I speak to Customer Service please."
Me: "This is Customer Service, how can I help?"
Lady: "I want to speak to Customer Service!"
Me: "This is Customer Service!"
Lady: "Yes please."
Me: "You are speaking to Customer Service, this is Amy, how can I help you today?"
Lady: "Oh! You're Customer Service?"
Me (gritting teeth): "YES."
Lady: "Oh! Customer Service!"
Me: "How can I help???"
Lady: "I need to get a price for this item."
Me (taking code): "Price is $127.20 for a box of 20."
Lady: "It used to be $99.00."
Me: "I think that's an old price, the current box price is $127.20."
Lady: "Are you sure it's not $99.00?"
Me: "I'm sure!"
Lady: "So how much is it?"
Me: "Box price is $127.20."
Lady: "And that's for a box?"
Me (gritting teeth): "YES."
Lady: "So it's $99.00 for the box then?"
Me: "Box price is $127.20. That's $127.20 for the box, and if you would like to purchase a box, it will cost you $127.20."
Lady: "Oh! So has the price gone up?"

Oh.... you get the general picture.
My stress level was through the roof. I was perilously close to having a tantrum, perilously close. I had to break out the emergency rations.

It was ridiculous how much better I felt after having some chocolate! But the crazy customers kept coming, and there's only so much chocolate you can eat.
To add to my stress level, I had a relatively traumatic waxing experience at the beauticians at lunch time.

Beautician: "It looks a bit ingrown, I'm just going to pierce you with a lancet."
Me: "Hey, what? Will it hurt?"
Beautician: "Well it won't feel great."

Erk. Thursday was turning out to be a Very Bad Day.

Luckily, I work with a very beautiful girl called Julie who sorted me out with just exactly what I needed to feel better. Now the customers could say whatever they liked - but I was totally smiley, informative and helpful.

Sometimes you just need a bit of sparkle. Nuff said.

Steely Dan

During my travels on the web today, I stumbled across this *hilarious* open letter from the guys in Steely Dan to the actor Luke Wilson.
You know his brother Owen Wilson is currently in that new movie 'You, Me and Dupree'? Well apparently Steely Dan had a hit back in 2000 called 'Cousin Dupree' on their album 'Two Against Nature'.
So they've addressed the letter to Luke, saying that as Owen's brother, maybe he can talk some sense into him. The letter is hilarious, please check it out. My favourite part? "Your bro may be creating an extremely retrograde reality matrix for himself with his whole sellout moviestar game and there may be some righteous dues to pay, amen."

After a quick google (that sounds quite wrong on some level) I found a quote from Owen Wilson's spokeswoman: "I have never heard the song `Cousin Dupree' and I don't even know who this gentleman, Mr. Steely Dan, is. I hope this helps to clear things up and I can get back to concentrating on my new movie, `HEY 19.'"

This just makes me laugh so much. I love it when people have a sense of humour :-)

I will remain with Christ...

I found a great quote recently:

"If anyone proved to me that Christ was outside the truth and it really was so that the truth was outside Christ... then I would prefer to remain with Christ than with the truth."
Fyodor Dostoevsky

I like this! I had a close friend once who told me that he thought less of me intellectually when he found out that I believed in God. He told me that since he did not see any evidence of God, God was patently not true, and thus anyone who believed in a fairy story was clearly not very intelligent.

Is God real? I believe so! But I don't think you can convince people with facts. If you want facts, or evidence though, there is plenty of that. All over the place. But to seek God through facts, you need to be open minded - which my friend certainly was not. It wasn't facts that convinced me. I think for most of my life I sort of hoped God was real, but didn't ever really invest much emotion or energy into this notion. I'd never seen any evidence for myself, and putting myself on the line - making myself vulnerable or open to derision or ridicule if it wasn't true - was my biggest fear. One day my burdens and worries got too much for me to stand up under, and I cried out to God and - to my everlasting gratitude - he answered, and lifted my burdens from me. I'll never forget walking home afterwards, and it felt like previously I'd been carrying around a backpack full of books and now suddenly had just taken it off - the physical feeling of burdens lifted was so strong I felt like if I tripped or missed a step I might fly!

I was catching up with another old friend a while ago, and he said to me "Amy, I hear you've found God! Where was he?" I just smiled and replied, "Well, actually it looks like He was there the whole time..."


I know that just reading lyrics doesn't really capture the spirit of a song, but this song has really captured me at the moment.

Worth It All by FFH from the album, Voice From Home
O Child you’ve never known
How I really feel
Cause you’ve never been shown
O child, you’ve never known
That my love is real
Cause you’ve never been shown
I’m about to show you for myself
So listen baby, You don’t need nobody else – cos:

You are mine, you are loved
You have always been thought of
When you hurt I feel it every time
You are mine, you are loved
And I’m never giving up
Till I’ve dried all the tears you cry

Long before you took a breath
I took your pain upon my chest
I knew your name, I heard you call
It was worth it all
It was worth it all
You are worth it all

O child, it wasn’t fair
How they walked away
Left you standing there
My child, I saw your tears
Was with you everyday
Through the lonely years
I’m about to bring back what they lost
So listen baby
Forget about the cost – cos:

No matter where you go,
I’ll come and find you
You are precious to me…
My everything
No matter what they’ve done
I will restore you
You’re a masterpiece to me…
Only I can see
That underneath the hurt and the pain
Is a picture of me

O child, where did you go
Please don’t walk away
I love you so
So here I come to say

You are mine, you are loved
You have always been thought of
When you hurt I feel it every time
You are mine, you are loved
And I’m never giving up
Till I’ve dried all the tears you cry

Long before you took a breath
I took your pain upon my chest
I knew your name, I heard you call
It was worth it all
It was worth it all
You are worth it all

Welcome to the Stage Part II

A big welcome back to my favourite fan!
Check out this hilarious email:

Hi Amy

After googleing for nearly half a day - I have finally found your website!
I tried so many different words:
Amy carlan random ( knew the website had random in it!)
Blog amy
Blog clover girl
Blog clovergirl
Amy carolin ( I knew it wasn’t carlan but didn’t know how to spell your last name)
Amy hillsong blog
Clover girl hillsong amy
Then I came across your old web site - Angel fire.
So then I tried it all over again with angel fire as the next word
Then after about seriously 100 tries I typed in:
Amy clovergirl and clicked the im feeling lucky button instead of search ( im sure you know what it means but it taqkes you the first website it finds) and guess what..
And it came up!!
YIPPEE!!

So for the last couple of days I have been reading what u have been up to for the last 3 months!

Don’t you just love to hate google!

Welcome back Sonnie!!

The Golden Child

It's been busy at work - BUS-Y!! We've been busy entering orders, responding to customers requests, chasing back orders and shouting at the courier company. Not kidding about the shouting.
So the unfortunate thing is that any requests from our accounts department have been being put on the back burner (ie ignored). This means that we have a whole heap of outstanding invoices that have not been paid, which is not a good thing. Especially when you have a bonus that hinges on the company making a lot of money!
So the idea was put forth that one of us from customer service would take the day off the phones and help the accounts team with all of these old enquiries. Closing down old enquiries involves searching through the filing cabinets for old orders; rabbiting through the archives which are in folders, in boxes, in the warehouse; chasing down old invoices; more shouting at the courier company; and putting the hard word on finance people from hospitals and telling them how good it would be for them to pay these old invoices.

Nobody wanted to do this. Heidi put it to our manager that she would do it if needed, but that she wouldn't be offended if he didn't think she was the best person for the job. Gold star for Heidi, what a great strategy! Could you guess who he chose? Yep, me. Being a good employee (and a very well trained host!) I said yes, of course, I'd love to do that, what a great opportunity etc. etc.

Check out the folder of requests that was on my desk this morning.

Yes that's my very own angel wings and halo!

Good one girls.

Yep, thanks a lot.

Surfing the information superhighway

I love spending time on the net. I don't think I could ever get bored if I awlays had the net around. Of course there's blogging - and you know I love talking, so that's perfect for me. I like researching things too, on wikipedia (which I still find it a bit suspect) but also on other more integrous sites. If I ever hear a word that I don't understand I look it up straight away. I read the news all day long. I check the slightly less integrous news sites as well ;-) But my two favourite sites to browse?

Engrish and Postsecret.

Engrish is so great. It makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. (and then laugh a little bit more)
Q. What is Engrish?
A. Engrish can be simply defined as the humorous English mistakes that appear in Japanese advertising and product design.

I've included a few recent pics from the site. They update it with something hilarious nearly every day, it's definitely one to be bookmarked. Beware if reading at your desk at work though, holding in the laughs can be difficult and, at times, embarassing! (I tend to snort!)








Postsecret is an entirely different kind of glory.
Q. What is Postsecret?
A. PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.
Sometimes it makes me laugh, sometimes I'm totally bewildered, sometimes it strikes very close to home, and sometimes it makes me want to cry - I'm always impressed with the creativity and honesty though. Postsecret is updated every Sunday with new images. Check out a few of this weeks secerets...

...er... trying to add the images but for some reason blogger isn't posting them. Check out the site for yourself, and I'll keep trying to persuade blogger that it's not stealing - it's just borrowing...

What are you hiding behind?

A few weeks ago at church, I met a lady with her face painted. She was maybe in her late 30's, with a big glittery heart painted on one cheek, and a sparkly star on the other. She had a little child with her, and at first I thought the child must have been painted as well, but when I glanced down I saw that his face was paint free.

"How funny is that?" I thought to myself, and noticed that nobody around me made any reference to the face paint, or smiled or laughed or even commented to each other, let alone to the lady. I thought that they were all very good for not saying anything, or joking about her. Privately I thought to ymself that she must be a bit weird.

I had a quick chat to her later in the night, not mentioning the face paint (although it was hard!) but just asking her what she was up to in the evening. She told me she was there for the SAFE course. Feeling like a bit of a dill, I didn't really know what else to ask her, and she made a hasty escape from me as soon as my attention was focussed elsewhere.

I felt really bad for judging her initially, and wondered if she was perhaps using the sparkly facepaint to try to cheer herself up. Maybe she'd had a sad life? Maybe she needed a bit of colour and glitter to like herself when she looked in the mirror? Was that so bad? I shouldn't be judging her, I should be feeling sorry for her.

Actually it took a while for me to realise that this was entirely the wrong thing as well. Who am I to judge someone else? I do exactly the same thing myself! I have lots of sparkly glittery props to cheer myself up when I'm feeling down. I don't even feel like I'm properly dressed without a sparkly accessory on. I actually have a policy of having at least 1 'special' thing on a day. Something fancy and beautiful that makes me smile when I look at it. I don't like to save things just for special occasions.



Left: not one, but TWO pink flowers for my hair. Not just reserved for special occasions - why save glam for once in a while?
Middle: glitter earrings, sent to me by Mandy, the perfect amount of sparkle
Right: the bargain basement beads - guaranteed to draw compliments, but also double as a beautiful wall decoration.




Left: my Wonder Woman wrist cuffs (wearing one generally cheers me up, but when I had a break up last year I needed 2 to feel equipped to face the day!)
Middle: I bought this for 1 pound, I love the sparkles but alsoI think I love it because it was such a bargain. I gesture with my right hand A LOT when wearing this ring!
Right: The bright red hair - yes it's back!




The glitter shoes, they make me feel special!

So that's it really isn't it - maybe I don't feel like I'm special enough by myself without having a bit of extra sparkle? So does this mean I'm a attention seeker? A bit of a glitter floozy? Does it mean I don't value myself unless I have something fancy on me?

A while ago I was going through a very low self esteem phase, and I kept getting random compliments from strangers - I love how God looks after me like this. I recall having a very specific tantrum with God while putting my old boots on one day and standing up and addressing him loudly saying "God this is TOO MUCH that I still have to wear these stupid old boots! I deserve some pretty new boots! I want some new boots! Lord, I need some new boots!" I left the house and on the way to the tube station, some random middle aged man with his wife stopped me in the middle of the road and said "Hey, those are great boots!" and then kept walking. How funny is that?

I used to get random people in Leicester Square whispering - "Great hair" to me, little old ladies would tell me "You have a beautiful smile!", young children would say "You're really pretty!" I once had a guy from a building site (and you know how crude they usually are?) call out to me: "Oi! That's a great outfit!" I love how God chooses to build me up through random people!

Walking home from work shortly before I left London I remembered allt hese funny things that used to happen, and I advised God (just quietly) that even though I was pretty okay self-esteem wise, it would be nice if I could get just one more random compliment every now and then. God does fast work :-) Not 10 seconds after I had prayed that, while running across a cross street, a van pulled up to let me pass and then the man called out "You've got a lovely smile love!" and his young son gave me a thumbs up!

Nice work God :-) Who says that London is a lonely city? If God wants to look after you, then you definitely feel the love. I'm going to try to stop hiding behind the sparkle and remember that God loves me just the way he made me.

Oh precious is the flow

I'm on early shift this week. I love early shift because I get to finish at 16.00! The only drawback is having to get up and get here before 8.00. Luckily I live very close to work, and I have my glorious Gina to get me there, so I don't have to get up too early.

I prioritised sleeping this morning instead of breakfast though, so check out the breakfast I had to grab at work!


Feeling pretty sick now though. Don't feel sorry for me though, it's entirely self inflicted. At least I'm not alone, I know Phoenix had a day like this too.

It's nice to help!

I sponsor a beautiful little girl called Peace, who lives in Uganda. She's 7 years old and an only child, she lives with relatives as her mother died some years ago. One year for her birthday I sent her a gift of $10 and she wrote back to let me know what she'd bought with it - the list was so long! She even bought a hen, which she now makes some money from by selling the eggs. She writes me the most beautiful letters, and even says that she is praying for ME! It's so humbling.

I also donate money monthly to Mercy Ministries, a charity that I wholeheartedly believe in. The founder of Mercy, Nancy Alcorn, wrote an inspiring book called Echoes of Mercy, which I read and loved, and she also spoke at our Colour Conference in March. Her compassion, her courage, her vision - were so inspiring. I've met someone who has spent time in a Mercy home and she is an amazing girl who has really overcome the world to get to where she is now, and has done so through the support that she received and still receives from Mercy.

I give blood too - once every 12 weeks. The next trip is scheduled on my birthday! Happy Birthday to me! I'm a bit sad about that, but will still go. My blood type is B+, and only 8% of the population have this blood type. I found out that only 3-4% of Australians donate blood regularly, yet as many as 80% of us will require a blood transfusion or blood product at some point in our lives. They have these great pressue bandages now too, which means I don't end up with big junkie-looking tracks up my arm any more ;-)

I'm also doing the 40 Hour Famine this year. I'll be going without food for 40 Hours! This is to raise money for hungry kids in East Timor, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. So far I've raised just over AUS$500. Want to help raise the total and feed some kids? Click here to sponsor me.

So how holy am I??

Don't even start.

Yes, it's nice to help, but really, I end up feeling a bit patronising. In the developed world - we are so lucky. If the worst thing that has happened to me in the last 6 months is that I haven't been able to blog at work, well then I really should be thanking my lucky stars. I have a house to live in, my own room, a job that keeps me well above the poverty line, disposable income, enough food to eat (maybe even too much food to eat!), a support network who are all just as well equipped as me... It's so frightening to think that there are so many people who right now are close to dying from starvation. Not because they can't blog, or they couldn't afford a Hillsong conference hoodie, or don't have an iPod yet - all the problems that we think of as important - but because they haven't eaten in so long. What they are needing is something that we consider mundane, and standard, not even an option to go without. Food is such a normal every day thing to us that we throw it away, leave it in the fridge to go bad, leave it on our plate if we don't like it...

I heard someone say once that they considered it the responsibility of every person in the 1st world to sponsor someone in the 3rd world. I agree! I say get moving! Start now! Sponsor a child, donate to building homes for orphans, give blood, support a charity that you believe in, open your eyes and realise that just a little bit of sacrifice on our part can change someone's world. Be part of somebodies story - and be the hero!

When someone tells you that you can't do something

(a little something I was sent by an angel!)

When someone tells you that you can't do something...

Look around...

Consider all options...

Then GO for it!

Be creative!

Don't give up!

In the end, you will succeed and prove them wrong!

Always remember: Where there's a will, there's a way.

Random Glory

I've changed the blog's name! Not because it's not brilliant any more (clearly that is not the case) (right kids?) but just because glory is the word du jour, and really - couldn't everyone's world use a little more glory?

“True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read; and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it.”
Pliny the Elder (Caius Plinius Secundus)

“Glory is not a conceit. It is not a decoration for valor. Glory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself, to a cause, to your principles, to the people on whom you rely and who rely on you in rerun.”
John McCain

“Go where glory waits thee;
But while fame elates thee,
Oh! still remember me.”
Thomas Moore

“Glory is like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself Till by broad spreading it disperse to naught”
William Shakespeare

“Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall”
Oliver Goldsmith

“The deed is everything, the glory is naught.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“No man ever was glorious, who was not laborious.”
Benjamin Franklin

“Who pants for glory, finds but short repose;
A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows.”
Alexander Pope

“I am climbing a difficult road; but the glory gives me strength.”
Sextus Aurelius Propertius

“Popularity? It's glory's small change.”
Victor Hugo

“Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.”
William Butler Yeats

The oldest jokes ever

I work in customer service. I've worked in customer service for years and years - I love it, I'll be in customer service for the rest of my life! I love being able to help people with problems, give them answers to questions, and I even love the grouchy customers. I like the challenge of being able to help them out too and maybe even make their cranky little day a bit smilier :-)

But the one thing that really makes me weary? The jokes, the lame jokes people, they have to stop.

If a customer service person asks you a question? Just answer it, don't try to be funny, chances are they've heard it a hundred times before and didn't even laugh the first time.

I'll list a few of the (MANY) examples, just so you can strike them out of your repetoire...

Me, at the end of the call: "Is there anything else I can help with?"
Customer: "Well, not unless you have next week's lotto numbers...!!!"
Me: "Ahahah."
(This is entirely not funny.)

Me, while working on a pie counter: "Would you like sauce with that?"
Customer: "Don't you think I'm saucy enough??!"
Me: "Ahahah."
(This is not clever at all.)

Customer: "I need help with my mobile account/mobile bill/mobile phone"
Me, while working for a mobile phone company: "May I have your mobile number?"
Customer: "Oh.... I don't remember it... well, I don't phone myself do I??!!!"
Me: "Ahahah."
(You probably don't write to yourself either but I bet you know your address)

Me, while working in a call centre: "Welcome to C0mmonwealth Bank/Testra Shop/B@rd Australia, this is Amy, how may I help you?"
Customer: "What? What do you mean? How did I get through to AAMI? I called the bank!"
Me: "Ahahah."
(This is taking stupid to a whole new level)

So now here's my plea: have your details ready; know your account number; tell me quickly but clearly what the problem is so I know how to direct your call or help you - I don't need your life story first; don't shout at me that you spoke to someone else and they were rude to you - odds are I'll side with my colleague and immediately judge you as a tosser; be polite - it will probably get you further; speak clearly; don't ask me if I can 'do you a deal' on a price - because that's likely to make me try my hardest to put the price up; don't make rascist remarks while on the phone to me (the number of people who say 'Thank God you're not Indian!' used to PERPLEX me); don't talk over me; don't ask me a question and then not listen to the answer; when I say my name at the start of the call write it down - there's nothing more annoying than someone calling back and saying 'I don't remember who I spoke to, it was some girl' and I have to say 'Er.. that was me remember??'; if I don't know the answer I'll find out for you so DON'T JUMP DOWN MY THROAT STRAIGHT AWAY!

Right - so got that?

Good, now you're equipped to call me ;-)

Hillsong Conference (a small update)

The glory of conference is going to be very hard to put into words! Have you noticed that I've been putting it off? I still haven't gotten all my pics from my digital camera, but I have a few on my phone. First up, check out the glory of the Acer Arena filled with 26,000 Christians...

The cutest people there were this youth group from Queensland sitting up on one of the elevations. There must have been about 60 of them, all in matching red t-shirts, bless their little cotton socks. There were a few other large groups who we could spot too, we were sitting right in front of another large youth group, but they didn't have matching t-shirts on. One of the nights a friendly little worship competition developed between the two youth groups, I was nearly on the floor gasping with laughter! The first group would go: "We love Jesus yes we do! We love Jesus how bout you?" and would all point in unison at the other group, who would then retort "We love Jesus yes we do! We love Jesus how bout YOU?" and point back to the first group! All the way across the arena! They tried pointing at other random sections of the crowd, but apparently none of the other sections were really that into Jesus, because nobody else would play the game!

There was a group of very LARGE men in black t-shirts sitting together too, and one night before the rally started they all stood up and did the haka! Resounding applaused resulted... (we were all too scared not to clap!)


Some fabulous people were there also... not just the speakers (although they were wonderful!). I literally bumped into my beautiful, beautiful friend Rachel. (I look crazy in the picture, can't figure out why) (no smart comments please!)


I got to hang out with the very talented and inspiring Sarah, who now LIVES in Sydney so we get her ALL THE TIME HOORAH!!



And, what post would be a complete without a picture of my fabulous new glitter shoes? They might create small amounts of pain, but honestly, the glory is so worth it.

Things my body has said to me lately...

* Go back to bed, I'm exhausted
* I know you've just woken up, but really, go back to sleep
* Let's have another Tim Tam Slam, you can do it!
* That was too many Tim Tam Slams, I feel sick
* No really, I feel sick
* Nah, feeling better now, are you really going to leave that Tim Tam sitting on the plate?
* I'm tired, can you go back to bed please?
* I feel sick, take some medicine
* I'm thirsty
* That was too much water, too soon after the medicine, I feel even sicker now
* Still TIRED! Please lie down.
* I want to lie down, don't make me threaten you
* Fine, I'll pass out, is that what you want?
* Ah, bed, thanks, now let's sleep for a hundred years
* Okay, night time, I'm awake now, don't feel like sleeping!
* I want something healthy to eat
* I said HEALTHY not boring
* I'm not eating that, I'm not hungry any more
* Can you go back to bed, I'm exhausted
* Sinus pain, where's that nasal spray
* I SAID PAIN MOVE NOW NOW NOW!!!
* Do you have to go to work? Couldn't you just sleep for a while longer instead?
* Really? Work? You just try it sister.
* Ah, bed, thanks, now lets sleep for another hundred years
* I'm cold
* I'm hot
* I'm tired
* I'm thirsty
* I'm too full of water I feel sick!
* Did I mention that I'm tired?
* I'm bored, I don't feel like sleeping, let's watch tv
* I've got a headache, don't watch tv, but don't sleep
* I've got no energy, don't try going out anywhere or I'll strike
* Bored!
* Tired.

Omg talk about getting sick of listening to my body's demands! It's like a difficult child throwing a tantrum! Well last night I had a showdown, and it went something like this:

Me: Listen here body, you may not like me and I can tell you I'm getting pretty sick of you...
Body: I feel sick
Me: That's enough out of you! No more sleeping! No more coughing! No more sneezing! And if that nose is runny just one more time so help me-
Body: *sniff*?
Me: NO MORE!!

So today I got up early (only 2 snoozes, good start) took my vitamins, ate my NutriGrain (Iron Man food) and went to work. Small step maybe, but quite an achievement in my world. So I've gone through nearly a whole box of tissues since I've been here, nobody can understand my stuffed up little sentences, and I feel like I'm floating in a world of my own (someone sympathetically offered me a Soother, which was nice) but at least I'm here! And not being held captive by my sickness anymore! Halleluiah!

BURRRRRR... it's cold in here! There must be some Clovers in the blogosphere...

Following the blog chain... I love blogs. I love blogging and I love reading funny blogs by people I know. When people I know haven't updated their blogs lately (no hurry guys, really) I like following the links on my friends blogs and seeing where I end up. It's usually quite far away, but somewhere interesting!

Started out at The Adventures of Sez which is my current favourite blog (sorry Phoenix) but doesn't have enough pictures
followed her link to The story so far (hello Bronwyn, I don't know you but I like your blog!)
jumped almost immediately to Snacked which was very good looking
got attracted over to Literally which I really liked! But sometimes you feel a bit funny reading thoughts of people you don't know -
so I skated on over to My life sucks but the special effects are awesome which seemed to be a different format and nearly fooled me, but I found a link to...
The Chicken or the Egg (and I'm thinking that I'm really far from home now)
where I followed a laugh and ended up at !Viva Chuck Norris! which - well I'm not really a Knight Rider fan, so it was a bit beyond me, still I noticed a link to
K.I.T.T is the one which turned out to be in, er, Spanish? but nevertheless quite entertaining and from there I surfed nonchalantly on over to
La Stella Nera but when I saw the pics there I realised that it was in fact ITALIAN as there were pics of the football team who won the world cup... feeling a bit uncomfortable as clearly I was going for AUSTRALIA to win the world cup... starting to feel a bit threatened...

I'd like to say that this post has a point to it, but you must know that I could surf all day if given the opportunity and this is where I stopped today as my lunch break was over!
Anyone else found anything interesting in a blog chain? Ever notice how a word sounds funny when you say it too often? Like blog?? Although to be fair, it was already pretty silly to being with. Much like this post I must admit. (Did you get the title?)

Driving Miss Amy...

We went on a trip to the Blue Mountains a few weeks ago - it was so amazing! As soon as I get my cd with pictures on it I'll post them and you'll all be as excited as I was of the glory!

This email is totally worth posting though, I received it the Monday when I was back at work, sent from my 'friend' Darren...

>Good Morning Amy Snowball,

>It was a pleasure to to be your nominated driver yesterday. I took the liberty of snapping a photograph of you yesterday....enjoy!

>Darren ;-)

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

I keep an eye on this every year, and this years entries have just gotten better again!

Since 1982 the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels. The contest was the brainchild (or Rosemary's baby) of Professor Scott Rice, whose graduate school excavations unearthed the source of the line "It was a dark and stormy night." Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

Conscripted numerous times to be a judge in writing contests that were, in effect, bad writing contests but with prolix, overlong, and generally lengthy submissions, he struck upon the idea of holding a competition that would be honest and -- best of all -- invite brief entries. Furthermore, it had the ancillary advantage of one day allowing him to write about himself in the third person.

This years winner:
Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.
Jim Guigli Carmichael, CA

Winner: Children's Literature
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe who had so much equity (because our story, dear children, is set in Miami's hot real estate market) that she upgraded the exterior to blue suede siding as a tribute to her idol, Elvis, moved her kids to a bootee out back, and then reopened the place as the "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" motel (but you'll have to wait until you're 18 to read any further).
Barbara BridgesSierra Madre, CA

Dishonourable Mention: (and my favourite!)
Christmas Eve fell upon the piazza, and the pealing, the tintinnabulous pealing, (perhaps not a pealing but an incessant tinkling, albeit an appealing incessant tinkling) of the street performers reached my ears, masking the shot, which would have rung out had not the tintinnabulations raised such an incessant tinkling that the sound died as dead as the musician who fell like Christmas Eve at my feet - his bell having been rung.
Ben RossLexington, NC

Definitely worth a look. The above blurb about Scott Rice also raises a great idea for a game that I heard about a while ago - referring to yourself in the third person! It's great. Might sound easy, but actually it's harder than you think! Every now and then Amy gives it a shot and ends up feeling a bit silly, but she perseveres and finds that it's fun in the end :-) Amy dares everyone to try it for themselves! Amy bets nobody could last a full hour, though she'd like to hear stories from anyone who does!