Quickfire Reasons to be Cheerful - Birthdays, Anniversaries and Holidays!

Happy 10th birthday (not so) little ladies! I love the fact you are both so different but equally talented in so many ways. I'm proud to call myself Mum to both of you. 🎁🎁🎁 . Miss E, I love your tender heart, your creativity, your kindness and compassion. 💕💕 . Miss M, your confidence is a gift, you are so generous and loving and who can deny your friendliness? 💕💕 . Keep on rocking girls! Don't let anyone dampen your spirit or dull your light!

A post shared by Michelle Pannell (@michelletwinmum) on Jul 18, 2017 at 10:41am PDT

Good morning friends, how are you today?

All is good here, I am on countdown for the end of school and going away for a week to Poole/ Bournemouth from early Saturday morning. Hubby has to stay home and work but we'll have my parents and brother with us to keep us company.

In all it's been a good week and for this Reasons to be Cheerful post I'm going to do one of my quick-fire lists where I shout out about everything that is making me smile right now!

Christmas 2013 - the year of....

Santa coming during the day time and bringing one of his elfs too!

Indoor bouncy castle fun, yes I had a go too, much to Miss E's delight!

Home-made entertainment and fun and games with our community. Wii dance, board games, hide and seek and party games - it was good!

Classic Christmas morning fun with the kids opening their presents before Daddy cooked us pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon, all served with maple syrup.

All of Christmas on a large scale, big trees, enormous open fires and Christmas dinner for 80!

It has been a good one. 2013 has been a year of change that is for sure!

Happy Christmas all. Mich xx

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#Countrykids - tree climbing, hulahoops and bonfires

On Monday it was community day here and when I picked the kids up from school they were so excited to come back and join in with the fun. Apparently we have about four of these days each year and I already cannot wait for the next week. It is basically a day where everyone who lives and works here spends the day together and each person does about an hours work to ensure the day runs well and everyone gets fed.

Here are the highlights from when the kids came back -

Probably not your classic #Countrykids post but for us if we had not moved to the countryside we would not have experienced this and it was a blast. JJ and Daddy stayed at the bonfire later than us girls and they said it was fun to sit around and share stories, sing all the national anthems of the nations represented there (probably about 30) and generally have a laugh.

I'm linking up this post to Fiona's Country Kids - click on the badge to head over and see what others have got up to in their Country Kids exploits.

 

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Living in community #R2BC (week 39, year 3)

Whenever I mention to people that I live in community now I find I get at least a raised eyebrow or even a fully wide open mouth, as they start to conjure up a picture of a commune and me sharing my living space with dozens of others and never having a moment alone.

I'm glad to say it is not like that. We are a community of people who live here on the same estate and we all share our Christian faith, that is what drew us here but there are a variety of living arrangements. The young volunteers (aged between about 18 - 25) come from all countries across the world and spend between 3-12 months here, they live in shared houses and really embrace the word community. There are also full-time permanent staff who live here in single rooms and then there are some more senior staff and directors who have houses on the grounds with their families.

We are one of those families, we have a beautiful 18th century house and importantly we have a front door that I can close when dh comes home after a busy days work but it is also fabulous to have it open during the day and to say hi to those who pass by. We can go up to the main house and eat with all the volunteers if we want to and we do this at least once a week to make sure we spend time with everyone. There are regular opportunities to pray and worship with others and coffee breaks that we can join in with if we so wish. The kids particularly love the staff room and garden where they can play pool and basketball and chat with whoever happens to be there.

This week I got to experience my first community day.  There is where the conference centre is closed to external guests and we all spend the day together, having fun, worshipping the Lord and getting to know each other better. It was an awesome day starting with a cooked breakfast, some free time for coffee and chat, worship and word session, picnic lunch, board & lounge games, coffee and cake, team games, BBQ dinner with fireworks and then a bonfire and marshmallows and hot chocolate. The day was full-on and I was knackered but the end of it but it was truly fabulous.

Then yesterday dh and I hosted our first pastoral group, where we meet with five of the young volunteers who have been assigned to us. It was lovely to be able to share dinner with them and open our house. I'm looking forward to our bi-weekly meetings and getting to know our group better, in our small group we have volunteers from a variety of countries - Brazil, Indian, Czech, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan so I expect to extend my geography and cultural knowledge.

Then lastly for this weeks reasons - I'm going to start doing some volunteering this Friday and helping out in the bookings office. I'm looking forward to being of service to them and yes it may well be filing and archiving in the first instance but whatever helps them is fine with me.

It certainly is a different way of life being here but I have to say I'm very happy with it, and of course grateful too. Thank you Lord for bringing my family here and into this new way of life.

Over to you....
Why don't you have a think and remind yourself of all the things you have to be grateful for and write a post to link up. Add in the blog hop code (if you fancy) and link up here and then leave a comment or two on other linked up posts please. I'll definitely come and visit everyone this weekend as I'm pleased to be home all weekend.

I'll catch you soon, be blessed, Mich x

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If you like what you have read and want to stay up-to-date then subscribe by email for free and receive blog posts directly to your in-box - just click the link Subscribe to Mummy From The Heart... by Email or perhaps you like to keep all your blog reading in one place, if that is the case you can follow me on BlogLovin too!

Would you have helped? A not so #silentsunday post

I was sat watching the news on Friday morning and seeing all the sad stories of the people who have been affected by the freak weather we had in the North East and Midlands.  I saw reports from people who were stranded at Newcastle Central station; they would have to sleep the night there due to a landslide on the train route to Edinburgh and all trains had to be delayed as it was not safe to travel.

They showed a lady, who must have been at least 75 years old and she said how tired she was and it really touched me.  This woman was going to sleep on the train platform as every hotel in the city was full. Immediately my thoughts turned to where were the people in this, you know joe average, the ones that have a house within walking distance of the station or even a short drive?

My instinct was that I would want to go and offer a bed to one of these people for the night and a lift back to the station the next day.  If enough of us came together and did this then all the people would have been safe and warm for the night and just think how much good feeling there would be. For me this is a biblical principle - love thy neighbour, but for others not sharing my faith, is it not just a human responsibility to come together and look after each other? Certainly in the days gone by you would have found people helping each other, community was key but not so much nowadays and that really saddens me. What an individualist world we live in nowadays or the developed world anyway.

What saddens me also is that if this had been in my local area I would not have necessarily known about it, as I rarely watch or read the news.  This is not a planned decision to avoid it, I just rarely watch the TV and time does not seem to be kind enough to allow me to catch up with what is going on, both on my doorstep and in the wider world and I realise I need to change that.

Last September our family changed Churches and I now go to a small Church, very local to our house, as we felt it was important to be in our local community.  The church is not at all what I would have chosen if I was looking for somewhere that would satisfy my needs but actually I changed my thinking and instead of 'what can Church do for me?', I now try to look at 'what can I do for my Church?' and isn't that outward look just the right one?

What I adore about this church is that is is living as Jesus would have. It is a mission based Church and the people reach out to the local community in so many ways. We clean houses for those in crisis, one guy provides a bed for homeless people, others let those in need camp in their back garden, we all provide meals for the hungry, lifts for the less fortunate and love for all.

It is not always easy but it is so rewarding and just how community should be.

But what do you think?  Have I gone all hippy in my old age or would you like to see more community spirit in your local area? Or even, are you blessed enough to live somewhere where community is alive and well?