Shameless plug..

If you're a worship leader, a christian, or you just appreciate a good bit of godly blogging you should go and check out my very talented father's new blog 'Confessions of a Worship Leader'. He's a very gifted and anointed worship leader and always has inspiring and thought provoking things to say so you should all go read what he has to say and then follow him!

Hope you're all having a lovely week.

Lexi xo

Point & Shoot - And they call the thing rodeo

I love the rodeo. There’s something about it.. the bulls, the horses, the manly riders..I honestly love it all. There’s even a part of me that daydreams about being a nurse on the rodeo circuit someday!

The love affair began last year when I attended the Kenilworth Rodeo. It’s just a small town rodeo but a lot of circuit riders compete making it an all day event. I’m pretty sure I sat in the same spot on the grandstand for most of the day just watching, trying to understand the rules of every event. And by the end of the day I was hooked.

I convinced my parents to take me to the Warwick Rodeo later in the year. Warwick Rodeo is known as ‘Australia’s Most Famous’ and it basically goes for a whole week, starting Monday and ending Sunday night. Last year we just went for the day on Saturday and a new tradition was formed. This year we arrived at about 11am and didn’t leave til 11pm. Man oh man was the day action packed. 7 ambulances (nothing too serious before you ask just some broken bones), countless riders and all the events that I love.

We stayed in Killarney (about 1/2 hour away from Warwick) Saturday night so it made sense that we did a little exploring in the morning. We started our exploration at Queen Mary Falls, literally right down the road from where we stayed. It was beautiful! From there we went to Killarney town and, being the huge McLeod’s Daughters lover that I am, posed for a photo in front of the town sign. After walking the main street we headed off for New South Wales. That’s right, it was just a 5km drive to the state border! We took the obligatory ‘straddling the state line’ pictures before the long drive home (long only because we travelled via Toowoomba!).

I can’t wait to do it again next year!

p.s. If you want to play along… head on over to Sunny & Scout and join in!

Point & Shoot – new camera, new baby & surprise visitors!

What an eventful weekend!

Friday - I was on the train to Uni bright and early Friday morning when my lovely youth pastor and friend, Michelle, called me to announce that she had given birth to her newest daughter in the wee hours of the morning. Little Macey Clare was born at 12.40am weighing 7 pounds, 8 ounces and measuring 51cm. I stopped in on my way home from Uni for an introduction and a cuddle!

     

(from left to right) First cuddles.                     Macey Clare.                        Mother and daughter.

Saturday - I purchased a camera of my own. I generally use my iPhone camera which, lets face it isn’t the best quality in the world, but with a Perth holiday coming up very very soon (which is sooooo exciting by the way!) I decided that I needed my own compact to capture holiday memories.

Sunday – Church and an afternoon of visits from friends and a surprise visit from the ‘Friends’. I always love when my sisters come home even if just for a few hours and we were blessed with a visit from Zoey, Pete & Mayana.

    

(From top right to bottom left) One of my friends from church, Amelia, and I / The boys – Jordan, Pete & Papa / Zoey and Mayana having cuddles / Mayana and her Opa.

Hope your weekend was as lovely as mine was. If you want to play along.. head to the Sunny + Scout to join in the fun!

I’ll leave you with my favourite picture from the weekend…

My gorgeous niece and I!

The photo wall.

I figure this is one of those things in my life that deserves a post. The wall of my bedroom.

 

It started with six framed photos of the beach. I was going through a beach phase and was determined to decorate my room beach style. Obviously I got over that obsession and at some point I changed the beach pictures to photos. From there the wall just grew. It’s kinda out of control now – it covers one wall completely and has spread to the opposite wall as well now. Some photos are framed, some just blue-tacked, there’s a couple canvases and one giant poster board of the Dixie Chicks (which is my pride and joy by the way). I think it’s probably reached it’s limit (size wise) but I constantly replace photos or move things around. I literally can’t imagine my wall without it and I dread the day that I move out and have to take it all down and start again somewhere new.

Easter Holidays

A few pictures of my lovely Easter holiday…

 

1. A few of us in line for Easterfest!               2. Church in the Big Top - Friday morning.

3. Stalking the Former Love Pirates.              4. Rapture Ruckus from the front row!

5. The Art of Sleeping from the mosh pit!       6. Mayana’s Easter present from ‘La La’.

7. My family.                                                8. My favourite little person in the world.

*Note my new hair!

10 things I love right now.

In no particular order.

1. The fact that I only have two assessments left until Easter break. A whole week of nothing coming this way baby.

2. The High Distinction I got for my first ever university assignment.

3. My favourite TV shows: Grey’s Anatomy (especially season 2 which I am currently re-watching), GLEE and Army Wives.

4. The joy in knowing that Easterfest is only four days away.

5. My new haircut. I’ll post a picture sometime soon for your viewing pleasure.

6. Juice. I can’t get enough of the stuff. Especially apple juice. Or orange juice. Or apple mango juice. Who am I kidding? Any kind of juice really.

7.  My iPhone. Hands down the best thing I currently own.

8. My midwifery class at uni.

9. ‘Who Are We Fooling’ by Brooke Fraser. If you haven’t listened to it do yourself a favour.

10. That Perth is less than 8 months away!

Point & Shoot

I figured, since my lovely cousin Louise from Sunny+Scout  is now the host of Point & Shoot, it’s about time I played along.

We spent the weekend celebrating my oldest sister's birthday. The original plan was to go to Woodgate and spend the day at the beach in the sun. But good ol’ mother nature had other plans and as it was raining quite heavily when we got there we decided to pop on over to Bundaberg and visit the Bundaberg Rum Distillery. Unfortunately we got there about half an hour too late to take the tour but one lovely staff member let us partake in the tasting section of the tour for free!

My sisters and I had a taste of an oh so lovely chocolate rum liquor. And then my oh so lovely father bought a bottle for us to share.

Oh and I didn’t do a single bit of uni work the entire weekend!

Getting my study on…

Well technically I’m listening to a lecture while blogging but whatever.

Bioscience.

Will be the death of me. I kid you not. I realise my brain is still growing and this is the opportune moment to fill it with knowledge but I don’t think I can fit all this biological knowledge into my brain. If you only knew how much they teach in one lecture (and how fast they go) you would feel super sorry for me.

My other classes are going great! I love Intro to Midwifery Practices. Even though it’s all theory and ethical frameworks it at least is about my chosen field.

More later, the lecturer just called an end to our very very short break : )

First Day.

Right now I am sitting in the air conditioned comfort of my university’s library. My lecture finished early and I have a plethora of time until my train home so I thought ‘what better to do in this time than to update my 19 lovely followers on my first official day’. So here I am. Updating.

I caught the train at the oh so reasonable hour of 10.00am. Had my first mini freak out when I realised there was no parking left at the train station and I had 10 minutes until my train left. I circled around, praying up a storm, until FINALLY I got a park.Thank you Jesus. With about 3 minutes to spare I raced up the stairs, onto the platform and into the train. Train journey – uneventful, except for a Spanish tourist who serenaded the entire train… for the entire journey.

So my first lecture. Not at all what I expected. The Lecturer was not boring, she didn't stand behind her desk and read off her notes and she most certainly did not make me yawn. Far from it. She was funny, entertaining and kept doing this frustrated-point-at-the-computer-and-yelp dance whenever the ‘next’ button on the remote failed to make the next slide appear.

It was mostly an introduction to the unit coupled with housekeeping type rules and an overview of assessments (no exams!).

The only thing I really learnt today is these two little piece of information:

1. You know when you have a gastro type virus and people suggest that you drink flat lemonade because it’ll give you energy? Well apparently that is not at all the thing to do. Here’s the thing - lemonade is full of glucose and sugar all of which, sits in your empty stomach. Your body recognises that there is a mass amount of glucose in the stomach to digest and sends every last piece of fluid (that you haven’t already gotten rid of) to the stomach in order to enable digestion thus sucking your body dry of whatever fluid it did have left, making you more dehydrated and lethargic. Not to mention the fact that your stomach is now full of more sugary goodness to… squirt get rid of. Not at all the desired result.

2. Any drink with caffeine or glucose in it does not count towards your recommended 2 litres of fluid intake per day.  Having, say, five cups of coffee and a few juices during the day does not suffice. When they say drink 2 litres of fluid… they really do mean water.

So yeah, put that in your pipe and smoke it, or whatever it is that they say!

Week in Pictures.

O Week. Lunches out. New boots. Farm time. Coffee with my mummy. Lovely teapots.

O Week

So today my friend Tayla and I ventured down to Uni for the beginning of O Week. We arrived just after 10.30am and headed straight over to the Student Centre to get my ID photo taken. Boy am I glad I’m a student again. I’ve missed all those lovely student discounts the past year! Hello cheap movie tickets, bus fares and train rides, it’s so nice to see you again.

A quick visit to the bookshop and library and we were armed with free t-shirts and the Uni’s guide to referencing and deciphering assignments. How nice of them.

We then ventured off the the Gardens Point campus which is only a 10 minute free shuttle bus drive away from the main campus of the uni. Gardens Point backs onto the Brisbane Botanical Gardens and is situated right next door to Parliament House. The entrance and first few buildings were part of the original University and are so lovely and old. I only have one class over at Gardens Point (a bioscience practical lab eeek!) but I can already tell it’s going to be one of my favourite places.

I attended my first lecture. Granted it was on overseas study/exchange programs and nothing of earth shattering importance but still, it made it seem real. I tried my best to learn my way around but the lay-out is confusing to say the least so I think it may take me a while. I bought my first drink from the Kitchen. I found the Uni Lolly Shop. I scored a bunch of freebies from the Student Guild. I bought a duffel bag and a travel mug because I’m cool like that.

It’s just beginning to daunt on me I think. As of next week I’m a full time Nursing/Midwifery student who is going to be in Brisbane four days a week. I’m a little scared and nervous but super excited at the same time.

But I think I’m going to like it.

Well that was fast!

Look what was waiting on my doorstep for me when I got home! And this is why you choose the 'courier' option when it's free! This is technically only 2 of my textbooks but in reality its three books and one interactive CD. That's one class booklist down and three to go.

preparation & ponderings

Uni books are expensive. Seriously. Today, in preparation for the ever approaching Uni start date, I spent the greater part of my morning searching out the best places to buy my prescribed textbooks. I'll interject here and say Uni bookshops are a rip off. I've bought 4 (2 of them being second hand) so far and spent just over $350.00. My poor bank account. But I've managed to save just over $70 and I'll be able to sell the two I had to buy brand new for a reasonable price later on. I know the money spending is necessary it's just a little hard to part with the money that has taken me so long to save.

I've been registering for classes and reading course outlines and have maybe begun to freak myself out a lot just a teeny tiny bit. My classes look hard. And while I know I'm only going to be a nurse and not a doctor or anything I still feel like I don't know a whole lot (thanks to a not so great senior biology experience) and I'm going to struggle for the first few weeks. Plus my class lists are huge and my competitive side is starting to worry that it's going to be a lot harder to be at the top of the class.

I have many, many assignments coming up in the near future so I'm taking this opportunity to enjoy my last bit of free time to indulge in some Grey's Anatomy. My lovely cousin/best friend, Emily, came to visit all the way from WA for the past three and a half weeks or so, and (among various and numerous tourist activities) managed to get me 100% obsessed with the show! I figure it's at least medically based so obviously not a complete waste of time. I may just be learning something by watching it.

Still on my to-do list before Uni commences:
- Buy the rest of my textbooks
- Stationary shopping (which I LOVE doing by the way)
- Sort out accommodation for a few nights a week during the semester
- Finish Grey's Anatomy seasons 3 & 4 so I'm not distracted one iota when I start studying!

New year. New blog.

2011 has been a highly anticipated year for me since I decided back in grade 11 that I was going to have a gap year. I so wish I could have continued onto Uni as soon as I finished school but because I chose to go to a Brisbane Uni rather than the local Uni I had to take a one year break from study and earn some serious money. Having finally completed this task I am SO ready to begin my higher education experience.

I am officially enrolled in a dual degree of nursing and midwifery with classes commencing on 28 February 2011. I've selected my first year, first semester classes, I've had all three Hepatitis B vaccination needles (a must for any future nursing student) and I'm slowly forcing myself to think seriously about my accommodation situation for this year. I know I want to be at home as much as possible and I know I'm not ready to move out full time. But with a hectic schedule for at least two, possible three, days of the week I know I'm not going to want to travel back and forth from Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast and I'll need some place to stay on those days. I've just been keeping that particular issue right at the back of my mind. Probably about time to drag it to the front.

But first things first. I started a blog about a year and a half ago because I was inspired by a few people I know who not only blog regularly, but always have the most entertaining/thought provoking/lovely posts (namely Ramblings of a Wife and Mama, Sunny + Scout, and 3 Little Cuties). I did not however feel I had anything entertaining/thought provoking/lovely to write about. I wrote about my year 12 life and put up, what I realise now was, an overload of pictures which probably interested no one but my mum. Then I graduated and started working in a law firm and stories just didn't seem worthy of being written on the internet for all to see. Therefore my blog became a chore-like activity and eventually fizzled into nothing. Literally. My last post was in August.

But now I'm a Uni student I finally feel like I have something to write about that people might actually read and be interested in! Hence the name change, the new design and *fingers crossed* more regular posts. I plan on using this blog to relay stuff I learn at Uni, things and people I'll discover while on pracs and to keep certain family members (who I know read this blog) informed about the general things in my life.

I hope you like the change. It's made me excited.