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Thursday, February 27, 2003 i'm down about the blog but i'll get blogging again if you let me know you care posted by Ant | 12:27 PM | Wednesday, February 26, 2003 With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person which went almost unnoticed last week. Larry La Prise - the man who wrote "The Hokey Kokey" died peacefully at home, aged 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in....and then the trouble started. posted by Ant | 10:46 AM | Monday, February 24, 2003 I went to Barnsley today cos it was someone's leaving do, and it's made me feel a bit weird. I went back last Monday, just to pop in, and I felt fine then but this time people were talking much more about me returning and about what I'd be doing and it freaked me out. I'm going back in 4 weeks exactly and it's suddenly hitting me that I've been away for a full year and I feel that I've forgotten everything. Laura (our lovely childminder-to-be) spent some time with us this morning. I'm so grateful that God's provided us with her cos she really is fantastic and I'm looking forward to having relationship with her over and above her childminding. Next Monday she's going to have some 1:1 time with Ben so he can get a bit more used to her so I need something to do........ anyone around? Mind you, maybe I should start reading some speech therapy stuff! I didn't go to Philadelphia last night but Ant did and told me all about it. I think the thing that impacted me most (or the thing I've most remembered!) is the conflict-resolution stuff about going to someone if you have a problem with them. The only thing I'm not sure about is when do you actually have to go to someone and when do you forgive them in your heart and not actually have to go to them in person. Ant said about Mike saying he has to forgive at least 1 person every day, so obviously he doesn't go and tell the person. Ant suggested that maybe it's down to whether you feel like you have to tell other people about what's happened. Anyone got any other thoughts on this? Right, I've got a hungry little boy at my feet so I'd better go. Oh yes, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABIGAIL. One of the most beautiful people I know. posted by Caroline | 5:04 PM | Sunday, February 23, 2003 just been to neill and lorna birchenall's wedding and evening party - it was cool! nice one guys :)
and this is a very special pic of our neill that i doctered slightly - hehehe 
posted by Ant |
12:02 AM |
Tuesday, February 18, 2003 just thought i'd let you all know that i really can't be bothered writing anything at the moment. check back in a week. sorry. (at least i'm honest) posted by Ant | 5:55 PM | Saturday, February 15, 2003 thanks thanks thanks thanks thanks to gnomes for looking after ben all night so caroline and i could have some peace - our first lye-in together for months! it was fantastic. shame we both still have this stomach bug and can't eat much - we only had soup and that made us feel dreadful. looking foward to having normail digestive systems again soon. can't wait for some major humiliation for neill as it's his stag do tonight but, due to this bug i won't be drinking and eating a stonking curry with the other boys *gutted*. hoping neill's humiliation will fill that hole in my evening ;) posted by Ant | 5:32 PM | Friday, February 14, 2003 God is amazing! after mikey b talked about money last sunday, we decided all of our things are God's and we've been praying money in (4k) to get back on our feet as it's been tough for the last 4 months. well God's done it! we got an unexpected 2k yesterday and i've been paid the full amount (incredibly fast) from a client who has terminated a contract at a late stage. now all we need to do is pray in the other 2k - no problem for God! posted by Ant | 12:14 PM | Thursday, February 13, 2003  ant's slip up of the week award goes to matt parkins.
quoted from master parkins' blog: "The main entry this week for the blog slip up goes to Caroline (Ant's wife) when in a recent blog she wrote: "I want to reiterate Ant". I'm not sure what that means exactly but it sounds painful." well sir, i can understand your thought process but this is the meaning of the word: re·it·er·ate tr.v. re·it·er·at·ed, re·it·er·at·ing, re·it·er·ates To say or do again or repeatedly. so i'm not sure whether it counts as a slip up. she does have a degree in english - i just guess the rest of us mortals will have to keep our dictionary close! oh and by the way, caroline says "duuuuurrrr! you're thick" (and she said it in a very articulate way of course) posted by Ant | 12:38 PM | Wednesday, February 12, 2003 i love my wife! posted by Ant | 3:43 PM | I'm feeling much better too - thank you Jesus. Definitely didn't want a repeat day of yesterday cos it was very grim. I don't feel quite normal, but not at all sick or shaky. Been eating toast without anything on - it's actually quite tasty. About the money situation - Ant's just said that cos of this client falling through, if he does pay him the full amount, then we'll be fine for this month, so a case of God providing in a not-quite-expected way (nothing new there then!). It means that next month doesn't look good on paper, but we're trusting that God's got it in hand and he does seem to be providing bit by bit - I reckon this is about teaching us good stewardship (sigh!). God spoke to me about money during Mike's sunday talk; I was challenged in 2 ways : one was that although we tithe, I had been thinking of the other 90% as mine, and the other thing was that I had been hoarding Ben's clothes ready for the next baby (no, not immediate!) and so I'm now giving these away. On Monday I went to Morrison's and it was cool cos I walked around thinking "woo-hoo, this is all God's and I don't have to worry about anything". It was a very liberating and lovely feeling. The lady serving me on the checkout had a bad wrist and I was talking to her about it and I was thinking "I should offer to pray for her" but I didn't and the closest I came was saying "well, I hope it gets healed soon". Think I need to pray for more boldness. Lots more! I want to reiterate Ant and say thank you to everyone who helped out during us being ill. It is fantastic to live in a community where people are so willing to help and where people are freed up by God at exactly the right time! OK that's it. Ant usually complains that I write a MASSIVE blog whenever I'm on. We're off into town now. Catch you later Caroline x posted by Caroline | 3:39 PM | it's nice to feel so much better toady. if you're wondering what i'm on about then check out this text i wrote on the thing about it: "2 things. [1] caroline and i (and we think ben) are really ill with some stomach bug-type-thing and we just want to get better because believe you me, when you both get ill and there's something coming out of both ends, you don't want to have a child to look after. we're so grateful to our friends, james, abigail, rach, jen and hannah for helping us with ben today. we really couldn't have done it without you. we're not feeling any different yet but didn't sleep last night so a good night's sleep (starting now) should help. please pray we sleep. [2] other thing is that i've lost one of my clients. working for them has been hard from the start and they've never quite liked what i've created for them. i went to london last thursday and all seemed really good but they've written to me and told me they are going with someone else. this is hard because i've spend weeks on this job and it's been incredibly frustrating. they've offered to pay me for my time but when i tell them how much time i've spent on the job, i don't know what they'll say. please pray i get the fair amount - if i do, it'll help us financially." there that's it. we're not quite normal yet, still feel a bit quesy but we're coping with ben okay which is nice. having read andy and bea's and matt's blogs it seems appropriate for me to note something that God's done for us financially... ever since we stopped getting maternity pay (july 2002) i've been the only person in our household that's been bringing money in. this has been tough but not once has God let it go beyond what we can handle. things like my tax bill not being as large as i thought it would be and getting a grand back from inland revenue is fantastic and the availability of overdraughts for our bank accounts has also saved us from a great deal of trouble. we're praying for money currently as at the moment we're in a financial hole but God's never let us down before so why would he now? for example, the next email i got after the one about the job cancellation (see above) is about a potential job so that's very cool. you'll love this - it's hilarious. cliff beat james and me at this game. i wonder why... oh - i nearly forgot - even though i was ill we had booked brian and helen gray's studio out yesterday to get some drum tracks down for some new LOFTER>> songs and james was amazing. i just about coped with it through nausea and a stonking headache but having listened to the results, it's fantastic! we've just got to record the rest now... i reckon God's in this loads :) posted by Ant | 9:38 AM | Monday, February 10, 2003 guess it had to happen one day, huh? posted by Ant | 8:56 PM | new ben pics - enjoy ;) posted by Ant | 5:25 PM | very social weekend. loads of eating with friends. it was cool (even though i've been ill and still feel really rough (sore throat, snot and tiredness)). friday night we had gnomes round and i whipped up a masterpiece (which i managed to burn). saturday we went round to andy and bea's for a class brunch and there were loads and loads of cool people there! then on sunday we went round to joy's for sunday lunch - toad in the hole - it was lurvely! other news is that abigail and i finished off a song i've been working on last night and it's really great - we're recording it with el j'háiró (james) tomorrow - looking forward to that! si (wilkins) has left LOFTER>> which is a shame so now it's abigail and i but this is cool because we're both really up for it so i can see good things happening (mainly because God's well up for it!)... it's looking like si will be joining our community so i'll still get to see the lovely geezer. last night at church, mikey b talked about money. this was great. it was really helpful to hear some of the stuff he said. it was good to understand the differences between tithes and offerings. the best thing was that we could just let go of our financial troubles: at the moment we are over £1000 into our overdraft (it all started when i had my appendix out in september - we haven't been able to recover financially since.). over this next month i will be getting a quite a lot of money but i've figured our budget out and in a month i reckon we'll be in exactly the same place and that's if we don't spend any money on nice things. this means that we need God to do a miracle so that's what we're praying for. posted by Ant | 3:55 PM | Sunday, February 09, 2003 another blogging addition is ruth dellar's sneaky "6380" blog that nobody knew about. cheeky posted by Ant | 9:29 PM | Saturday, February 08, 2003 have added a couple of new blogging pals on the left there. there's cathers' brand new "the rose princess" blog and derek and amy chapman's long running blog "sion bubbles" that i should have put there yonks ago. i love it ;) posted by Ant | 9:15 PM | Friday, February 07, 2003 phew! i went to london yesterday to see a client. i was dreading the journey, especially coz i felt really ill but it was cool and we got loads done. i've been writing loads of songs - it's been so cool! ever since LOFTER>> took it's new direction it's been really hard to write anything in the new punk rock style. but now that i've been listening to bucketloads of it, it's starting to come out thick and heavy!!! HOORAY!!! next week we're recording some drum tracks with james so we can record some of our new material - WOOHOO!!! watch this space... posted by Ant | 3:03 PM | Monday, February 03, 2003 Hello, caline clifford here. I am well tired. Ben hasn't been very well (nasty cold and cough - lots of snotty bogey) and so has been waking up a couple of times in the night and doing full on crying, so I've had to go in and comfort him. He does go back to sleep pretty quickly but it means a broken night's sleep for me and also that he's grotty the next day. He doesn't seem to have grasped the concept that if you're ill, you sleep more! Nice weekend. We went round to the Plant's house on Friday night with Dan and Gail. Gail is the lady who's got a 3 month old baby who Catherine Plant put me in contact with and Dan is her partner. Saturday night was Gnomes's birthday bash at the Clay Oven and then Sunday was a scrumptious Sunday roast round at the gorgeous Cather's house. Forgot to say: on Friday morning I went to look after Gail's little boy, Josh, so that she could go to the doctor's without him, and I had to take Ben and it was flippin crazy man. I was there for about 1 and a half hours and was shattered by the end. Josh is a pretty easy baby and generally just lay there, but he did get upset a couple of times and I had to pick him up, and at the same time keep an eye on Ben who was climbing the stairs, opening Gail's cupboards, eating stuff off the floor, trying to climb up my leg etc. etc. I'm glad I've just got the one (for the mo anyway). Had mother and toddler group today. Not bad, but prayer still much appreciated (see earlier post). Saw Kate Cooper this afternoon, and she played and sang a song for me - flippin amazing! OK, I'm going to go cos I am just so tired. Please pray for good sleep for all of us! Byeeeeeeee. posted by Ant | 8:56 PM | Sunday, February 02, 2003 I am utterly facinated by what's happened with P.R.I.D.O.T. as i've had an interesting reaction from someone i don't know: late this afternoon, Andrew Pafitis (whereabouts unknown!) wrote the immortal words, "f*** you" in an email to me. short, simple and to the point this phrase was a reaction to the site P.R.I.D.O.T. that i created a month ago or so. the point of this site is to market the band i'm in, LOFTER>> by creating a controversial slogan that attracts punk rock fans. P.R.I.D.O.T. stands for "Punk Rock Is Destroying Our Teenagers" and this guy was obviously upset. now this is the reaction that i wanted but the site isn't finished, there's just a holding page there and it's held on my business site's server which means it's currently associated with that (with a small amount of tracing the address for the site is actually www.dfour.co.uk/pridot rather than www.pridot.org) which isn't a good thing. i am very confused how the guy found the site because i never submitted it to any search engines and he's come across it some how. so i thought i'd try google and see what i found... well for some unknown reason it's actually the 3rd flippin' link if you type "punk rock teenagers" (see yourself with this link) - amazing. this means i have to do something fast. at the moment there is no mention of LOFTER>> on P.R.I.D.O.T. so it appears completely genuine and even though i want people's curosity and annoyance to lead them to the site so they eventually discover the band, download an mp3 and buy the album, i don't really want them to find out about it before this is all set up. whoops! unfortunatley we now have no drummer so until we get one and record some of our new punk rock material there's nothing much i can do either!! my original thought was to make this a hoax so that people would believe it's a true organisation. my plan was to be subtle about the band promotion but now i'm thinking i'll make it obvious because i don't like this guy Andrew's reaction. i reckon people's initial reaction will easily be appeased when they see what it's really about. we all love practical jokes - i mean, this is the jackass generation, right?! so i reckon it's heading for the obvious solution... may P.R.I.D.O.T. live for ever - hahahahaaahahahaaaaaa!!!! *wheeze* posted by Ant | 10:32 PM | Saturday, February 01, 2003 
i just went round abigail's to meet her new bass and here she is... beautiful eh?!!! kinda point but very cool. it sounds fantastic as well. i'm looking forward to getting my electric guitar out and playing at full volume with the new bass (has she/he got a name abigail?) and a new drummer (hopefully)... posted by Ant | 6:55 PM | |
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