woops - i was messing with the template and managed to lose all our personal links! we will try and restore hese because they were probably some of the best bits!

(bea) check out a new link http://www.nobodyhere.com/justme/index.html which is really thought provoking and beautiful to look at.

well, found out yesterday or maybe saturday from the knowledgable abigail that the root words of theory and theology are actually different, so the words are not really related at all. oh well. made me think for a bit though...

(bea)the weekend has been good although i don't feel particularly rested. it's been great being in our new house and my asthma is holding up well. people have commented that on the phone i sound breathless which is not a great sign, but i'm still praying.

andy and i had our first ever planned msn date this weekend with out wonderful friends trish and danny in houston. it's a weird concept to be making a date to chat accross the internet but it was really cool - slower than a phone conversation but more interactive than an email. i still miss letters though - no one seems to write anymore (including myself). i sat down to write a letter not so long ago and found it really hard. i wonder whether it is actually a real skill. we watched possession at the cinama the other night - it's amazing, and the language and eloquence just puts our skills of communication to shame!

the weather is getting really windy and cold - it's really excitng that autumn is here although the leaves seem to be blowing off the trees before they get a chance to have their new colours displayed in all their glory. jen bought us round a beautiful leaf that she found in the park - she did that for me last year too. she is so precious.

just saw this on the internet!

Among the more daring indigenous national games (from a September ABC News report): fish-fighting in Thailand (just like cockfighting but with specially bred fish in a tank); competitive kite-flying in several Southeast Asia countries (kites with sharp edges for contestants to try to shred opponents' kites); and "pato," which is now played in Argentina with a partially buried ball with handles, but which originally was played by burying a duck up to his neck and attempting to yank it up while on horseback. [ABC News, 8-30-02]

for more stuff like this, check out http://ucomics.aol.com/newsoftheweird/

(bea)we are about to move into our new home - yipee! lovely life at the lovells had to come to an end at some point but i'm really glad to be finally making an attempt at living in freedom road... if only i could get freedom from this asthma and allergies!

people around me are talking about christmas presents already - one person even asked me to remind her to wrap them tonight! i don't believe that this is happening and october isn't even over. i am still deciding the best course of action on christmas presents - to buy early, to buy in a last minute but very exciting dash or to make my own. i always really enjoy getting a home-made present or even a well-thought out present. there's no point in gifts for the sake of gifts. I'd much prefer someone to spend some quality time with me, such as go out for a christmas eve coffee somewhere nice than to get me a present just 'cos.

we are off to the mighty 'nam this year for christmas and then hopefully to geneva at some point (or italy) to visit andy's dad and step-mum. once we're moved in and settled i will start the exciting task of bastilling all my christmas cards.

BASTILLE/BASTILLING (sp?) - a term brought into use by viv. related to the german verb meaning to hand-craft out of paper and stuff.

fancy doing a bible study on saturday morning? - doing one at mine at 10.30am. only come if it flicks your switch - no room for religious and legalistic rituals in my life!!

st augustine said "LOVE GOD AND DO WHATEVER"

this is a good quote for today.

(bea)i think andy should use this space to be able to rant and rave - his rantings are great late at night! they go straight over my head and i have been known to leave him talking to the ceiling while i drift off into la la land.

the lovell's is still a beautiful hotel set in the midst of broomhill. we eat breakfast together which is wonderful.

going to the healing sessions at church in the evening - hope you believers are still praying, and if not, then can you be practical and come and help us clean the house!

(andy) i was walking home from work last night and what looked like a news team, complete with video camera, stopped my and asked me what i thought about the fireman strike this weekend. i replied "i know nothing about it" and went on my way. as i carried on walking i thought about it quite a bit and whilst i was in some way shocked that i didnt know anything about it, i did have plenty of opinions on the matter.

i then i thought about writing about it on this blog site. and then thought that blogs are a perfect place to be really opinionated about everything.

so i've decided to not say anything about it after all.

(andy) i was in a lecture about computer databases today, and noticed the word theoretical starts with the same element as theology. one means "a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena; a belief that can guide behavior" (WordNet 1.6 online dictionary), the other simply meaning the study of God coming from theo- (meaning God) and -ology (meaning study of, as in biology). so why do the words have the same beginning implying a similar root or origin of words?

a theory is a concept that is not shown to be true but would explain an otherwise ununexplained result. does this work in the same way as theology, or more the point, God?
on one hand theology is not God, merely the study of God, and so should not nessecarily taken to be The Truth, and yet it is something that describes an aspect of God, but one that cannot be/ is not yet proven. it's looking at the Word of God, and with a mixture of experience and Gods revelation through the holy spirit, becomes a theology (although that belief itself is a theology of course as some people would say that God does not show things in that kind of way, that the Holy Spirit does not work in that way these days but God communicates to us by the Word alone).

(where was i?...)
so if a theology is a theory about God that cannot shown to be true (because that probably means you could prove God exists!) i guess it still only remains a theory and not a proven fact. not that i'm saying this is needed to believe it and is "a belief that can guide behavior" as that is what faith is, "being certain of what you hope for and sure of what you do not see", ie taking a theory to be true even if its not (yet?) verified.

and similarly, if a theory or theology is verified to be not true, can it therefore be taken to not be the explanation of that specific set of phenomena (as reworded from the dictionary definition)?, not to say the phenomena did not happen but that the theory is not the explanation for those phenomena.

so then, should a theology be shown to be true by verification for it to fully explain something of Gods character?
well no, in that that is what faith is as mentioned earlier - often the "stumbling block" of many scientists including myself until i was shown this.

but, if a theology says something is true, but can be verified to not be true, then it surely ceases to become a correct theory and hence true theology.

if you understood any of that, well done, and if you disagreed with the argument, please email me (at: moosh95@hotmail.com ) as to why.

of course the 2 words sharing the same element could all be coincidence and the theo of theology is completely unrelated to the theo of theory, and so forget all of the above.... but it did give a small insight into the way my mind thinks. now if i can only get my head around the meanings of for- in forgive, forget and forego...(!)

(andy) i think the vaguely cryptic names for us may confuse a few. smelly pumpkin... fluffy bunny...

(bea)have just been looking at some of the most recently edited blogs - there's some weird stuff out there! i wonder what our blog says to the unsuspecting public who happen to stumble upon us!

(bea)i've been messing around with the template and somehow we've lost the paragraphs to our text. does anyone understand what may have gone wrong - ant?!!

we'd love to hear from you.

(bea)Morning!

The weather in sheffield this morning was amazing - all misty and wintery. i love it - in fact we both do! Andy didn't like the drizzle that accompanied it but it reminded me of hot chocolates in front of the fire and being all snuggled up.

A realisation about my relationship with film

Last night we went to see Red Dragon at the cinema. It was really great - it gave me a really interesting insight into how films affect me. Ages ago I made the decision that I would stop watching certain films because they freaked me out too much - these were psychological thrillers in particular. However, i still wanted to see hannibal and Red Dragon and neither of these freaked me out at all, even though the content is pretty revolting at times! Anyway, my realisation is that the Hannibal Lecter films don't mess with your mind - they kind of walk me through the process of what is being investigated so I don't feel like like anything is about to be sprung upon me. A bit like a really good book, I feel like I am within the story and in relationship with the characters and for some reason, this means that I really enjoy the film. In contrast, I was encouraged to watch 'Don't Say A Word' a few weeks ago and hated it - if it wasn't for the fact that I was watching it with Sam and Suzie Lovell (both teenagers) and didn't want to appear pathetic (!) I would have walked out!

We stayed at the Lovell's last night which was as amazing as staying at a plush hotel. The drugs are starting to work and yesterday I managed to spend an afternoon in the house without doing a darth vader impression! Loads of people have apparently offered their services to come and vacuum and clean in the house - we need to wash all the walls down and make sure it is as clean as possible. Hopefully we'll move ourselves in at the weekend!

Viv brought an amazing card round to our house yesterday which she had bastilled. It has a picture of a house with us standing out the front (with wicked dreads!) and in the sky is a red heart, raining down rays of love onto our house - I love it! Hope that God keeps pouring his love onto our house and into our home.

(andy) well, we have now moved in, beating the time limit set by cathers and tony/gee so we have now won ourselves a free meal out as reward for this feat. good news indeed.
on a slightly more depressing note, we discovered on our first day in the house, whilst unpacking all our belongings, that bea is in fact allergic to our new house! more specifically the cat hair that is in every nook and cranny of the house turning up in clean glasses and even the oven! so the next step would be to get the carpets shampooed, failing that rip em all out. after that, i've no idea.

(bea) a gp friend of ours has dosed me up on every inhhaler possible to get my lungs in order. we still haven't slept in our new house - kipped at the mitchell's last night and we're going to see if some friend's of ours could put up with us for a week or so. this would give us time to de-allergise the house we hope! God's not healed me yet so for all you believers reading this, pray and pray hard!! No room for the enemy in my life...

(andy) this isnt like it is in the movies is it? the newly weds are supposed to move into their house and live happily ever after, not have to sit outside for fear of hospitalising themselves. allergic to your own house? i mean come on...!

Good morning bloggers!

people have already been reading - it would appear that ant clifford gets the prize for the first person ever to experience the world of a fluffy bunny and a smelly pumpkin via the blog. i am very excited about the many possibilities this blog opens up to us. i read a really great one the other day set up by a homeless guy called kevin. i don't remember the address right now but i think it's on www.blogger.com site. anyway, he has a chat space, a message board and loads of stuff.

we have hired a van for tomorrow for moving - if anyone is able to help us do this that would be great - men in particular as we have some heavy items. the house is amazing - we have this massive corner bath which you could swim in if you were really small. also there's loads of wood been left in the cellar which, as jen pointed out, will be fantastic for making canvas frames. let me know if you want any.

at work at the moment and about to go and take notes in a planning for towns and countryside lecture!
back to packing later on though!

today we completed on our beautiful mansion. it is two up and two down but has a vast attic extension in which you could disappear for centuries. we went round this evening with the loveky glitter jen and did church. the front door was open and probably has been since 2nd august. good job we checked this now rather than when our tv and dvd were being sold off the back of a truck!

if you are reading this then you may be one of the first ever people to read it!!

back at home and trying to fathom out this blogging business. somehow our blogspot is restricted.

everyone else is blogging so why aren't we?!

the roman umbrella is a world that is rapidly changing at the moment.
we are being taken to new domestic havens and adventures are abounding.

we are in love and married.
we thought we would share our world with anyone who is intersted.

welcome!!