Ruth Amos

Living a quiet life

Family

Ep 10: Bruce – a growing relationship with God

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Ep 10: Bruce – a growing relationship with God
A Quiet Life

 
 
00:00 / 00:43:01
 
1X
 

Bruce talks of God’s provision in his life and business and how in his family God is the head of the house. We learn about how God provided a unit for Bruce and Wendy to move into in Hobart, meeting some very specific requests, and how Bruce has had a very different retirement than expected. We talk about Alpha, https://alpha.org/ and the people whose lives have been changed through that ministry. And Bruce wonders, ‘what will our first words be when we see God?’

http://www.worldview.edu.au/ Worldview college where Bruce met Wendy at a Singspiration.

Ep 10 Bruce Transcription

No Bridezilla here

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DH has spent most of today washing, cleaning, and polishing my little Mini (Verdi) and his bigger Audi (Wombat) to within an inch of their lives. You see, tomorrow we are going to be the wedding cars for our friends’ wedding and we are pretty excited. Yes, the bride is going to try to squeeze her beautiful gown into the Mini. We’ll put all the bridesmaids into Wombat. Then after the service the bride and groom will travel in Wombat and we’ll work out the rest later. As my lovely MIL says ‘We’ll come to that bridge when we cross it.’

A couple of weeks ago there was another wedding in our church. Both the brides (tomorrow’s and last fortnight’s) have known each other since they were tiny (if not since birth) and have grown up together in the church. Both met their men around the same time and both decided to get married at approximately the same time.

This could have been a recipe for disaster, but it wasn’t. The two brides have worked together on timing – making sure one is back from her honeymoon before the other has her wedding. Making sure the first wedding was first because the second bride is moving to Western Australia immediately after her wedding.

They are bridesmaids for each other and I heard Bride no. 1 talk about how she was going to look out especially for Bride no. 2 this week and give her extra support. Bride no. 2 has talked about how grateful she is to have been part of a wedding already and therefore she knows what sort of timing things need – things like hair and makeup, for example.

They are mature enough to have their weddings reflect their own unique personalities without even the slightest hint of competition with each other. Bride no. 1 has had a bridal shower tea with gifts of kitchenware and this awesome game where we had six pots of different kinds of tea and we had to guess which tea was what. Bride no. 2 had a bridal shower picnic in the Botanic Gardens where she wore a veil and sash and we gave her photos and written memories so that she didn’t have to pack boxes of stuff into the ute that’s taking her to WA. Both brides were delighted with the parties (except for the part where the attention was placed on them).

These two lovely humble women are starting their married lives in what I consider the right way. The weddings are a reflection of who they (and their grooms) are, not a competition as to who can make the day the flashiest. They are still doing the dress, the flowers, the service and the reception, the cake, the speeches and the dancing, but they are doing it their own way as a celebration, and as part of a community, and it’s something I enter into wholeheartedly.

So I pray for them, long life and happiness. I pray that they can face the challenges of life with a commitment to their other half that goes way beyond signing a piece of paper. I pray that their wedding day will be a milestone in a journey that lasts the rest of their lives. And I thank God for the example of selfless celebration that these two brides are.Wedding cars

Micromanaging

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You know the situation. There’s a job that needs doing. You have a picture in your head about how it should be done but you don’t want to do it yourself. So you give it to someone else and they do it ALL WRONG.

This is what happened to me yesterday. I’ll tell you the story.

I am a member of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. The RACI is 100 years old this year so we’re trying to do all kinds of interesting things to celebrate and our Chair has come up with a great idea – 100 reactions in 100 days (here’s our first one: RACI 100 Reactions in 100 Days #1). The idea is that we (we being chemists all over Australia) create small YouTube videos describing a reaction of some sort. We need 100 of these videos so we are reaching out to all sorts of people to have a go. Starting with us here in Tasmania, and that means me.

Now, DS has made some really fun YouTube videos on a whim. They are called Caleb “Cooks” and I encourage you to look them up if you want a laugh. So I said that I could provide a video and I decided that DS should be the actual person to do this.

We don’t actually have a chemistry lab in our house (though believe it or not, I know a family that does) but I knew a cool experiment that can be done with red cabbage and various household chemicals (vinegar, bicarb, dishwashing detergent – they are all chemicals). So I suggested (strongly) to DS that he do that experiment and do a video for me. He was happy to comply.

DH and I decided to go out for lunch yesterday and as we left, DS was happily story-boarding his ideas and coming up with a good video of the purple cabbage experiment. He said he’d do the recording while we were gone. I thought that was a great plan.

We had a delightful drive, a delicious seafood lunch at the Inn at Kettering overlooking the yachts in the harbour, a delightful drive back. The weather was gorgeous – sunny but not too hot. We were peaceful and in accord with one another and we felt like we’d had a micro-holiday.

When we got home the scene was slightly different: the house stank of cabbage, the kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it, there were bowls and cups everywhere and there were two more whole red cabbages being put through our Kenwood juicer (one whole cabbage having already received this harrowing treatment).

This is not what I had planned!

When I have performed this experiment I have made the purple cabbage juice by cutting up the cabbage and then pouring hot water over it. DS made the juice by using a juicer which provided a much deeper purple colour.

I would have poured some juice into a few glasses, added the different chemicals, and watched the colour change. I was actually a bit worried that DS’s juice was so strong that there wouldn’t be any colour change at all. I was concerned that he was doing it all wrong and I was severely tempted to step in and change things.

But I held back. I took my books and computer downstairs and I tried not to worry. I could hear the video being made and the first two times DS poured chemicals in to the cabbage water there was no change in colour. I got more worried. I even snuck back upstairs and peaked in through the doorway, ready to give my advice if it was needed.

But the third chemical – vinegar – did what it was supposed to do. The purple cabbage juice changed colour to become pink. I was relieved. I went back downstairs, stopped listening, and left him to it.

I haven’t seen the final video yet. I will post it when it’s done. But I had a chat to DS after he had cleaned up all of the mess in the kitchen and this is what he told me, ‘It felt a bit boring Mum. I looked for other reactions to do but they were all a bit boring too. So I made it big so that it would be more fun.’ And I’m sure it will be. It definitely looked more fun than my idea.

If I had made the video, or made the process my process, then all of the reason for asking DS to do it would have been lost. We would have lost the joy, kept it safe, and kept it boring.

By allowing him full creative control the process was messier, true, but so much more fun. And mess can be cleaned up. And yes, DS did clean the mess up, basically by himself. There are consequences to our actions and we need to deal with that.

I think sometimes we lose a lot of joy in life by trying to retain control over processes that we should leave in other people’s hands.

Take from this what you will.

Here is the link to the finished video:

Celebrations

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In the last week I have been part of two major life celebrations.

On Saturday I went to a wedding of two lovely young people who are part of our church. They had invited the whole church, whoever wanted to, to come along, so I went. (DH wanted to come too but was stopped by a very inconvenient attack of hay fever.)

The couple getting married were young and beautiful. The bride (of course) was especially gorgeous. Thin, blonde, and radiant, she could have stepped right from the pages of a magazine. The groom was also a dashing young man, and the church was filled with the young and the beautiful, all dressed up to the nines. Now, I’m not that old, and I don’t consider myself to be ugly, but wow – I didn’t hold a candle to all this youth and beauty. But, you know, it was so great to have them all there, supporting their friends as they made their life commitment.

The service started with an announcement that I’ve never heard before.

‘Please, could you turn off your mobile phones’ I’ve heard that bit before, obviously, ‘the bride and groom wish to have all photos during the service taken by the official photographer.’ We weren’t asked to turn off our phones because they might ring, but because they didn’t want us taking photos during the service! That was the new bit. And then came this:

‘And while the bride and groom are happy for you to post to Facebook, please let them post first.’ Brand new. And oh so necessary.

So I’m going to have to make sure they’ve posted before I put this up on my blog, but that’s fine.

Anyway, the wedding was beautiful. It’s just so amazing to see people take the risk, take the plunge, commit to each other for life. And I realised, as they clearly (and a little tearfully) said their vows, that while I love individualised, poetic, beautifully written vows, for me there is something so special about the stock standard Anglican prayer book vows. And the something special is this: I said those vows. DH said those vows. And as I listened to another couple vow to love, cherish, protect, and honour each other for as long as they both should live, I could renew my own vow to my husband too. (It would have been more special if he could have been there, but we can’t have everything).

After the wedding we were all invited to share afternoon tea together, I said hello to people I hadn’t seen for (literally) years and renewed old friendships. I live in a small place and it’s guaranteed that you’ll meet with old friends at this kind of thing.

It was a truly special celebration. An absolutely joyous afternoon.

The other celebration in my week was the celebration of the life of DH’s grandfather. He was 92 and had passed away peacefully at his nursing home with his daughters by his side. We’re so used to having him around, it was hard to say goodbye, and there was so much to celebrate.

Pop had made it easy for us, he had written his own life story, so getting dates and names correct was not the difficult task it sometimes is. And both daughters and several grandchildren, as well as other friends and family, stood in front of the congregation and shared their experience of this outgoing, enthusiastic, energetic man. Even the great-grandchildren got involved – the youngest two stood bravely in front of everyone and sang ‘Down by the station’ as they had been taught to do by Pop.

One of the grandchildren had written her part of the eulogy but there was no way she could read it to us, even through her tears, so her husband read it on her behalf. That led to a fun moment where he told us about the time he was pregnant and Pop came to his rescue. There were a couple of other fun times in the service, particularly when Pop’s poetry was read out. He had so much fun writing his poems, he was quite serious about it, and if rhyming couplets are your thing, then these are the poems for you! But they make pretty hilarious reading.

Once again afterwards we had a morning tea, and then the family went out for lunch. We shared stories and caught up on each other’s lives. I met people who were connected to us through Pop that I probably will never meet again. It was such a joy to meet the pint sized Elsie (Pop’s sister-in-law) who is a tiny woman with a personality as big as a house. “I’m the small one!” she said when we were introduced. And it was good to catch up again with Pop’s elder sister Betty, who is still going strong. One of the great-grandchildren found out that she was the second cousin once removed of one of the teachers in her school. And even though the service was in Launceston, we met Hobart friends there as well.

I love being part of community. A part of a family tree that branches out through parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, and down through the children, and grandchildren. A part of a church community that shares each others’ lives, that celebrates together and mourns together, and helps each other through tough times. A part of a friendship group that has been close for over 25 years and that knows each other almost as well as cousins do. And a friendship group that is new and growing as we meet more people that we make a special connection with. I feel connected, established, supported.

Sometimes the community means that you have to put up with irritations, with personalities that you just can’t stand, with little quirks like Pop’s poetry, or with being around people so shiny and beautiful that you have to wear sunglasses. That’s all part of the deal. But I am so grateful for the traditions, the celebrations, the people, that make me who I am and for the reminder of that in the celebrations this past week.

Holiday Adventures

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It is the time of the year that we go on adventures. We take a little time out and see where we can travel to. We’ve gone to Vanuatu, once. And to the north of our beautiful state several times.

This year we went to Adelaide. We thought it was time. My brother has lived in Adelaide for 17 years and I’ve only been to visit him once. There are reasons, I’m not just totally slack, but this summer we decided our holiday would be a trip to Adelaide.

We decided it back in November of course. We sat down and said to each other ‘what adventure will we go on this summer?’ This was back when we were still stressed from work and unsure how the summer would play out. ‘Adelaide’ we decided and we contacted my brother. He was not real fussed about which weekend so we booked one in. I decided to go with Friday through Monday and have just a little extra time.

In the end, the timing was pretty perfect. Losing Kat (our cat) on the Monday before was a whole lot better than having her put to sleep on the weekend of. And the week after has been a great recovery week – Thursday being a public holiday and the fact that I don’t work Fridays meant that I only had a two day work week.

We had a fabulous weekend in and around Adelaide. We had hired a car and most of Saturday and half of Sunday we went driving through the hills and into the countryside. We saw Murray Bridge and the mouth of the Murray River. We saw salt flats, ads for cow racing (yes! Cow racing!), vineyards, dead fish (heaps of them at the mouth for some reason),  bush and paddocks and lovely towns. And that was just Saturday.

Saturday night took us and my brother and his partner into the city. We had a delicious dinner in a Chinese restaurant and wandered around a bit just looking at the various shops and pubs and places where restaurants and pubs used to be but had now shut down or changed to something else. And the big inflatable bike in the square – bikes were everywhere – the Tour Down Under was happening.

Sunday after a gorgeous brunch with our cousin and her husband, DH and I went for another explore. We visited the National Automobile Museum – that is – DH visited the museum and I found a handy cafe nearby and worked on my novel (yes, it’s still coming along, slowly) and then we wandered around the town. After that, we decided to turn the SatNav off and keep going in the same direction for a while so that we could find a new way home. That’s the exciting thing about the big north island/mainland of Australia – there are many roads, many different ways to get home. There’s only a couple here in Tassie.

So we wandered away, making sure we were going in the right general direction. Our road took us past the Big Rocking Horse which I’d only seen on postcards before. Then we were directed to take a detour along Gorge Rd. It was a beautiful driving road. DH enjoyed himself so much. I tried to not worry about the excess on the hire care and just enjoy the scenery. DH knows what he’s doing, but I like to be sure.

The scenery was incredible, we followed the bottom of a gorge, right along a river, hills rising on both sides. Then we came to Kangaroo Creek Dam and ended up going up to the top of a cliff and then driving right back down again to the river. I’m having trouble remembering specifics, there were crazy rock walls, huge heights, complete u-turns, wildlife parks, all sorts of fun driving experiences and then, suddenly, suburbia. We were back to driving through flat Adelaide and making our way back home. It was a fantastic adventure.

So it was a brilliant weekend, and I haven’t even mentioned the food yet. I put on three kilos or so – my brother and his partner know how to provide! It was all good food, very good food, both bought and the deliciousness that was created and eaten at home. And brilliant conversation too.

The final adventure waited for us as we tried to get back to Hobart. We knew we had a very long wait in Melbourne between flights. It was supposed to be about five hours. We had looked into going to a nearby hotel and paying for lounge and pool access just to get out of the airport space, and we were all ready to do that.

We left for the airport in plenty of time to take the rental car back and be in time for our flight. Everything went super smoothly so we had time to eat a bite of lunch as well. We were sitting at the cafe table watching the departures board. It said to go to the gate and we were just discussing whether we would wait where we were until it said ‘boarding’ or whether we would go and wait in line, when the board changed.

Delayed.

Doom.

No problem, we thought, it’s only delayed half an hour or so, we’ll find something to do. So DH went to the newsagent across the way and bought some cards, and with the help of a counter on his phone we played crib. I won.

We’d had enough sitting by that time so we decided to head to the gate, just for a walk, something to do, and see what we could see.

When we got to the gate we watched planes for a while, and we watched people for a while, and then the dreaded announcement came. Our plane was broken, we would need a new plane, that new plane was coming from the Gold Coast and it had itself been delayed and we wouldn’t be going anywhere until 4pm.

So we cracked out the cards again, and I won, again. DH didn’t want to play anymore after that. (He may just have been tired.) So we read for a bit, and chatted for a bit, and then headed down to our new gate and got on our new plane.

Turns out we only had two hours in Melbourne. So the whole hotel plan will have to wait until next time. But we were so grateful for the time between planes that meant there was absolutely no stress about catching our connecting flight.

At the end of the day se were very ready to get home and get into bed. We were simultaneously tired and refreshed. This was a weekend away that we didn’t even bother dreaming about when we were poor uni students with children. It’s the type of holiday we hope to have more of.

Once we got home we knew that this weekend had marked the end of the summer break. It is now time to get back into work with a vengeance. DH has spent all week doing his online professional development courses and I have, well actually, I haven’t done too much work but I’ve also done a fair bit of pottering around the house. I’ll get back into work with a vengeance next week, I promise!

Thank you, brother dearest, for a wonderful weekend getaway. And sister dear, when you’re rich and famous, you can pay for us to come and have a getaway in LA with you (I know you’re on your way after you won that award for the music for Gold Balls – us poor teachers will never be rich!).

Our next adventure will probably be somewhere exotic… like Ouse. Stay tuned!

Kat

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Yes, this blog post will essentially be a eulogy for my cat. If you are not a cat person, or not an animal person, then that’s ok, I am very happy for you to pass over this blog post. I’m really writing it for myself.

My family had a dog adopt us once but essentially we are cat people. My parents have a cat, my brother has a cat, my sister has two and we had one up until today.

When DH and I decided that our family was complete and there were no new babies coming I really needed something small to cuddle. We jokingly told everyone that the offer was ‘either another baby, or a cat’ and DH chose the cat. He had never had a family pet before and he was willing to give it a try. Turns out, he’s not a family pet kind of guy and he has graciously put up with the cat but she’s really been my pet and not his.

I really REALLY wanted a cat. I was seeing a cat wandering around our house before we even got one. We went to the pet store and chose the food bowls and the litter tray and the collar and everything. Then we went to the cat home and found that it wasn’t the right season and there were no kittens to be had. We put off the acquisition for a couple of months.

When we went again there were plenty of kittens. We sat in the little kitten room and tried to choose. There was an absolutely gorgeous kitten, just like the picture on a cat food box, but I was sure that one would find a home. I picked up a dark tortoiseshell kitten – all black and gold – and gave her a cuddle and she started to purr. Then when I put her down she just sat under my legs and continued to purr and purr and purr. She chose me. I couldn’t say no to that!

DH says she was the ugliest one there and we called her Katisha after the daughter-in-law elect in the Mikado who was famed to have a right elbow that men would swoon over. Katisha neatly shortens to Kat, which we thought was sensible because cats don’t come when you call anyway, do they? Well, Kat did. She came when you called, she came when you put your hand down to patting distance, she loved company.

When she first came into heat she loved company VERY much! She would coo her way up the hallway in the middle of the night. There was nothing we could do to stop it. And then the day came when we had guests over and a two year old boy was playing pretty roughly with her. Did she run away? Put out a claw? Not a bit! She shoved her bum up in the air, ‘bring it on, I’m ready!’ We took her to the vet.

At first she was an inside cat. I am totally on board with the amount of damage cats, domestic and feral, do to our Australian wildlife. We kept her indoors, except for the times when she slipped through our legs and out the door as fast as she could. Which was any time she saw the door open. DH had the job of running after her, scruffing her and bringing her home. She never learned, and DH never enjoyed the experience.

We mad her a cat yard, an enclosed space in the back yard that she could access through a little tunnel. It had a sandpit in it – that made life easier for me. But she much preferred the freedom of the great outdoors. We tried the whole ‘cat on a leash’ thing but as soon as we put the harness on she would flop down on her side. She just would not walk, not with that thing on.

One time she caught a bird in her little cat yard. I thought that was the silly bird’s fault. Another time she caught a mouse, brought it inside, and lost interest. I can picture DH with Kat’s head in his hands, pointing her at the mouse cowering under his desk. She eventually caught and dispatched the mouse.

She got better at mouse catching though. Once we moved to our new house she became an outdoors cat. We weren’t prepared to do the work really, we were lazy. And she was older. But she became an amazing mouser and even caught rats. One time she brought a reasonably large rat in and dispatched it. We left her to it and went to bed. The next morning, no rat body was to be found. That was until DH put his jacket on and found that she had thrown the rat into his jacket pocket! (I’m maybe beginning to see why he didn’t like her so much).

There was one story about Kat that DH likes to tell. It was the time when she was fighting another black cat outside and the fight came through the cat door. DH was jerked out of sleep to the squalling of fighting cats in the house. He got up to see what was going on and the cat-hurricane swept past him into the bedroom, clearing the whole of his bedside table and racing over the bed. DH decided to open the back door to allow them to go outside again but before he could get there a black cat shot past him, up the wall, somersaulted off the ceiling and came at him claws outstretched. He ducked. The cat (we’re really not sure which one – two black cats in the dark) missed and DH opened the door and turned around and they had disappeared. No cats to be seen. DH pulled himself together and went upstairs. There was no noise. There was Kat, sitting on the step. They both weren’t sure where the other cat was and they moved downstairs together, step by step, both of them relieved when the other cat didn’t materialise. It took DH quite a while to calm back down to sleep that night. I’m not even sure that he did.

Kat loved company. She would sit patiently in the car port waiting for all of us to be home of a night before she went back inside. She would sit on my lap on the couch for a bit, then when she decided she’d had enough she would get up and let me know it was time for me to move – she wanted the warm couch. If I didn’t move, she’d start to dig behind me to make me get up. It suited me actually – I’m not much of a long sitter – I fidget and I get up and fix things and make drinks and things. I liked the short cuddle and then the signal that it was time to move. When she was young and sitting on my lap she would stick a claw into my leg, just to make sure I didn’t move. I’m glad we came to a more sensible arrangement.

At one stage it seemed that all of DD’s friends were allergic to cats. They would come over and we would hand out the antihistamines like lollies. And of course we had the friends that we like a lot but that don’t like cats. Cats are attracted to those people. Kat was no different. But we were pretty ruthless. “Kick her away” we’d say. People come before cats, that’s just the way it is.

When DH got up to make a morning coffee for me and bring it down to bed, Kat would come too. She wasn’t allowed in our bedroom, one time she accidentally came in while playing and when she realised where she was she exited backwards. It was hilarious! So she wouldn’t come in to our room of a morning, she would sit outside the door and wait, looking longingly at me through the crack in the door. When I finally surfaced (after coffee magic had happened) she would ask for breakfast and I would have to go and feed her before anything else happened.

She would make a fair bit of noise in the mornings but most of the time, no matter what she was asking for, she wouldn’t meow, she would just purr. She had a very loud purr. At one stage when she was keeping me company while I gave an online tutorial she was purring so loudly that one of the students asked, ‘is that a cat?’ Yep!

Even near the end she lay on the floor and just purred. No complaining, just a lovely purring.

She loved her food, but she loved ours even more. I guess every cat is like that – preferring steak and fish to tinned cat meat. It makes sense. All of us, especially DS, would give her scraps of whatever we were cooking. Bacon, steak, fish – oh and her reaction when a cooked chook was brought into the house!

She hated having her photo taken. DD tried to take selfies more than once, and Kat knew, she would change position, walk away. She loved to lie flat on her back on the floor but woe betide anyone who wanted to pat her tummy – she was not that kind of cat.

She was 14-ish years old. It’s not a bad life for a cat. And it’s a good long time to be a part of any family. I am very grateful to have spent that time with Kat.