Elf myself!

Okay, so these last few days have been more like halloween than christmas for me. Not only did I get roped into being the elf at the last minute for the work Christmas do, but Patrick thought it would be fun for me to dress up as Miss Santa for Christmas day as well.

As to why everybody wanted to dress me up like a christmas tree this year, I have no idea. But I hope everyone else had an equally interesting time this Christmas and I wish you all the best for the new year!

Merry Crimbus!

I'm not sure how often I'll be able to get online next week since things tend to get pretty hectic around christmas. On christmas day me and my sister Daniela are cooking christmas dinner for eight or nine people, which should be an interesting experience. As long as we don't burn the house down I think we can count it as a success.

So anyway, I'm going to wish everyone a very merry christmas in advance, and remind you to be thankful for small blessings; like the fact that I'm not cooking your christmas dinner.

Taken in Hand

It's confession time, everyone. There's an important reason why I started this blog and invited you all to read it. Hopefully you can read this without judging and understand why Patrick and I wanted you to know about this.

There are some aspects of my relationship with my husband that some you have admitted to finding a little strange. But you don't know the whole truth about it. You know that I have a habit of agreeing with Patrick, and turning to him for guidance. I did, after all, take a vow to love, honour and (shock horror!) obey him.

The truth is that I have given myself, mind, body and soul, to him and I have great faith in his judgement. This means that I accept his will and, when necessary, his discipline. Yes, you read that right. If I do something wrong or behave badly I fully expect Patrick to turn me over his knee and promptly administer physical punishment. We don't just do it for kicks though like other couples might; it's the discipline itself which is an important part of our relationship.

I'm going to leave it there for now. Patrick thought it was important for me to put it out there, anyway. So there it is. Hopefully some of you will give us your feedback on how you feel about us having this kind of dynamic in our relationship in this day and age. I'll post more about it later and try to address any issues or concerns that crop up.

Crimbus tree, oh crimbus tree ...

After work today I ended up having a nice unplanned gathering with a few of my old friends from school. It just kind of came together at the last minute when I got a call from Natalie asking if I was doing anything and inviting me down to the pub, where I was greeted by my very own Goonies gang.

We probably don't get together as much as we should these days. It's difficult to organise as we never know when some of us are going to go galavanting off around the globe to places as diverse as Australia, Hawaii and Darlington (didn't forget you, jen!).

Me and Natalie got into an argument about Christmas movies. She can't stand them, but I think they're great. In fact, some of my favourite movies are Christmas movies (It's a Wonderful Life,
Nightmare Before Christmas, Home Alone ...) and to be honest I think she was just being a big ol' scrooge cos she'd been lugging round bags of christmas shopping all day :P

Anyway guys, here is a photo I found from our action-packed outdoorsy weekend reunion in summer last year. Very christmassy, I know ...

Me being a Gymnast

Christian Music That Doesn't Suck

It's difficult to know what to post about on this blog. I think mostly it's going to be any random stuff that goes through this crazy brain of mine. I do have a post coming up that will probably surprise a lot of you, but first have something a bit less contentious.

Since returning to the church I've been rifling through my CD collection trying to find some decent christian singer/songwriters to relate to. It's a well known fact that the majority of christian rock music tends to, well, suck. And if you yourself are a church-goer I'm sure you'll agree with me that 90% of hymns could have been written by a monkey.

But it doesn't have to be like that. There are some christian musicians out there who happen to be extremely talented and acclaimed. Here are the ones I've found so far:

Sufjan Stevens

Whether you're a christian or not, this guy is awesome.

Nick Cave

Nick Cave is what people call a "troubled christian", which means he isn't afraid to touch upon tricky religious questions in his music. Conservative christians will probably find a lot of his stuff offensive, but he wouldn't be a rock star otherwise.

Brand New

Brand new started out as your average punk-rock band who sang about punk-rock type things, but on their last album "The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me", lead singer Jesse Lacey let his faith come to the fore and as a result the overall feel of the band developed a lot.

Low

I haven't really managed to get into these guys yet, but they seem pretty neat. They're mormons, but I try not to hold that against them.

Elvis Presley

Can't beat the king! His gospel music is awesome.

First Post

Okay, okay, I'm here now so you can all stop bugging me about trying out this blogger thing :P

For anyone who stumbles across this blog I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Laura, I'm 21 years old and I live in Yorkshire, England. Me and my husband Patrick have been married now for three months. In my spare time I enjoy dancing, singing, and heck pretty much any other kind of performing.

I'm an amateur actor and like to get involved with local theater productions when I get the chance. Recently I've started attending church again after being absent from my faith for about five years. This is all down to Patrick and his love and encouragement.

I've been meaning my whole life to start keeping some kind of diary, but I've never quite had the follow-through. This is probably the closest I'll get, and hopefully I won't abandon it after a few weeks like every diary I've ever owned ...