The iLee Bird Gets The Worm

Today, this blog dies.
R.I.P. 'The iLee Bird Gets The Worm'.

But fear not!
Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end, check out my newly designed website.

Click here to visit me.

Or to go directly to my new blog click here.

And don't forget to update your bookmarks and links to my new page.

There is a button on my new blog to subscribe to my rss feed.

What do you do when everything you're gunning for blows up right in front of you??



Right now I grieve for PDBC.

To coin a phrase from a Godfrey Birtill song, you 'Stand up, shake yourself from the dust, and arise!"

"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion - to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor."

I have been called by God and I refuse to let man and the devil come between me and God's plan for my life.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, so I intend to use that anointing, I want to preach good news to the poor, I want to bind up the brokenhearted, I want to proclaim freedom for the captives and I want to see prisoners released from darkness.

This is the year of the Lord's favour, God is giving us a crown of beauty instead of ashes, wear that crown with pride!
Take the oil of gladness and the garment of praise and you will be called oaks of righteousness.
You will be a display of God's splendor!

The Lord is gathering His army, he's seperating the wheat from the chaff.

As one door closes so another opens.
The one thing I know for certain, is that God has a wonderful ability to take something bad and turn it into something wonderful!

As I've been praying all day and I will keep praying, Lord let your will be done.

The Lord says do not be full of shame, His people will receive a double portion, instead of disgrace you must rejoice in your inheritance. You will inherit a double portion and everlasting joy will be yours!

God has plans, and I say 'bring it on!!'

Today I was given a day off, so Sarah and I had a day out!

Well, our goal was to get Sarah some clothes for her ever expanding tummy, as I'm sure you're aware if you read Sarah's blog yesterday.

So we set off to Manchester, not having a clue where to get maternity clothes from.



I guessed Debenhams and M&S would be good starting points, so we headed into M&S and asked a nice lady wearing a bright green ribbon (that said 'how can I help?' on it) if they did maternity clothes. Marks and Spencer, the bastion that is nice sensible clothing that won't fail you, the store that covers every item of clothing from every possible angle, all except maternity wear that is!
However, the lady lived up to her green ribbon and was extremely helpful, she told us exactly which stores in the Trafford Centre did sell maternity clothes, so off to H&M we went.



I have to say, H&M had a very good selection of maternity clothes. So good in fact we headed for the changing rooms with at least 15 items in my arms! I think it took Sarah about an hour to try them all on, but we left that store with a bag brimming full of goodies! What a great start! Sarah and I were thinking we'd be doing well to come away with anything more than a couple of items, already we had almost a wardrobe full!

The pressure was now off, all we really needed to find was a pair of jeans, which we did in Dorothy Perkins. Debenhams provided underwear, as did La Senza, M&S provided new pyjamas, a dressing gown and a nightie, and I even got to spend a good 15 minutes in the Apple store exploring the new MacBook Pro and the joys of iLife'06 (I have to admit, I left with a copy of iLife'06, so you'll probably be seeing a revamped look to my website soon, and hopefully it'll make my life a whole lot easier when it comes to podcasting.
We played around with the different iPod speakers too, cranking up the volume and annoying anyone within ear shot.
But I have to admit, we got that idea from a deaf old man who we watched stick his ear right next to a speaker and then crank it up to full volume! T'was funny!!

Our shopping trip ended with the obligatory Starbucks, all together now, can you say 'Grande White Chocolate Mocha with whipped cream', mmmmmmmmm.

Bean has recently begun training to be an Olympic gymnast, or possibly a Premiership footballer (please please please!).




or












What I mean is, for the last week or two, Sarah has felt Bean moving, kicking, somersaulting and doing all kinds of wonderful stuff.

But until yesterday, I've struggled to feel it. But last night I definitely did!

We were lying in bed and I was singing to Bean, I think it was a rendition of the theme tune to The Gilmore Girls that got him/her moving! Perhaps I shouldn't admit to knowing that, but only my North American friends will be able to judge me for it!

I feel happy, my baby is getting big and strong!

A few of you have pointed out my recent lack of blogging.
Well, in my defence I usually wait until I stop getting comments before blogging again, if the comments are flowing then there's still life in the current entry, that's how I look at it.
But I suppose, since most of you comments are telling me to blog, it doesn't really apply in this instance.

So I am blogging.

Now I've been pretty busy lately, what with work and looking after the preggers Sarah, and leading worship (it involved a lot of practice and preparation time you know!) and DIYing and producing DVDs and podcasting and all kinds of stuff.
But nothing seemed really blog worthy.

With the help of Andrew (from work) I finished installing our new shower enclosure. I say 'with the help of' but it was really a case of Andrew knew what he was doing and I helped where I could. Still, our shower is finally finished and looks incredible!!

I made a DVD with the best wishes of PDBC to Covenant Church. It was a challenge turning it into something fun and exciting, but thankfully my mum's outtakes made that job easier! Apparantly it was well received in Florida.

With my dad sunning himself on holiday in Florida (he wishes!) I was in charge of the business too, all the caravans are still standing so I don't think I did too badly! There was a minor disaster with one flooding, but it was ok in the end!

I think my worship leading is coming along well, I got lots of positive feedback last Sunday, it seems it was my best to date! I even had a first request for my CD. Shame I haven't cut it yet.

The biggest, bestest news of all is that I felt Bean moving around for the first time!!!
Sarah gets to feel him/her kick all the time, but he goes still when I try to feel. But I did feel him move, and I know I'll feel the kicking soon! It's so cool, our baby is big enough to make him/herself felt now! It's awesome!!!

To finish, I will wrap up this incredible blog entry with a link for you to visit...
click here if you like The Simpsons.

Now leave me alone for a few days!!!

Yesterday was pancake day.
Sarah and I didn't make any, but we made up for it today.
My parents came round carrying eggs, flour and milk and we cooked it up good!!



I may not be the best when it comes to whipping up the mix, but I can toss with the best of them!

My computer told me I act like a 22 year old, I took a test and everything!

You Are 22 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

Since we've bought our own home, I've been busy getting looking the way we want it to look.
This has meant lots of easy jobs like changing the door handles so they all match, painting the bath panel white to get rid of the nasty wood look it had before and putting up curtains.

But I've also had to turn my hand to more adventurous jobs, and I don't think I've done too bad so far! 

I've removed a sink and used the plumbing to hook up our washing machine. 
I've put together a fireplace, stained it, varnished it and put it in place (after removing the old one). 
I've put together lots of flat pack furniture, from desks to wardrobes to futons (with help from my glamorous assistant, Sarah on that one!).
I've installed a new fire in the living room.
I've set up a wireless internet connection and made sure nobody else could hack into it. 

These last few days I've embarked on my biggest task to date, replacing the shower and shower enclosure. Now, I won't pretend I've tried this one all alone, I had the help of Andrew, who I work with, to install the shower itself, I helped, but he definitely did the tricky stuff.

But I'm now part way through replacing the enclosure.

It was quite a job getting the old one out, but I managed it. The glass itself wasn't the problem, in fact one whole wall was held up by a single screw, it's no wonder it leaked and wobbled! It was the base that didn't want to leave!

I then took off some old white tiles and cleaned off all the old tile adhesive, preparation is important!

Eventually I'm ready to begin, my first job was to replace the old tiles with new ones that match the rest of the bathroom tiles. And this is where I'm at, the new tiles are in place and they look fantastic, even if I do say so myself! Tomorrow I will grout them, and then it's installing the new shower enclosure itself. 

Please pray I can do it!!!      

I've been tagged.



Unlike Sarah and Tara I hate these things, but for the sake of a quiet life I'll do as I'm supposed to...

4 JOBS I'VE HELD

1. Various finance jobs, including Caravan Park Finance Manager, Regional Finance Manager for a national car finance company and a few others.
2. Various bar jobs, these never seemed to last long, but I do remember I was serving alcohol before I was legally allowed to drink it. That probably means I wasn't legally allowed to serve it either!
3. Various retail jobs, including B&Q and Woolworths
4. Various rubbish jobs including the obligatory MacDonalds (for a whole day and a half), selling ice cream at the end of the pier in Llandudno and working as a waiter in the club on the caravan park for a whopping £1 an hour!!
Wow, I've had a heck of a lot of jobs!!!

4 MOVIES I CAN WATCH OVER AND OVER

1. Napoleon Dynamite - Heck yes I can!
2. The Incredibles - 100% machine washable darling, that's a new feature!
3. Usual Suspects - awesome, just awesome movie!
4. Ghostbusters - who ya gonna call?

4 PLACES I HAVE LIVED

1. Deganwy, North Wales
2. Bristol, England
3. Manchester, England
4. Toronto, Canada

4. TV SHOWS I LOVE TO WATCH

1. Lost - but I'm getting sick of waiting for new episodes, what are Fox (is it on Fox?) playing at!!
2. CSI - I just watched Quentin Tarantino's series finale where a guy gets buried alive, great tv!
3. Little Britain - computer says no, but I say yes!
4. I hate to admit this one, but I suppose I have to put Gilmore Girls, I never thought it would happen, but it has, I'm officially hooked!

4 PLACES I HAVE BEEN ON HOLIDAY

1. Caribbean - cruisin' baby!! It's the only way to travel!
2. Tunisia - honeymoon fun
3. Florida - Not ony seeing my favourite little bro, but also DISNEY!!!
4. Several Mediterranean Islands - they're all pretty much the same... sun, beaches and very fat, very ugly topless women, eeeewwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!

4 OF MY FAVOURITE DISHES

1. Steak
2. Roast Lamb and mint sauce
3. That traditional English dish, curry.
4. Spaghetti Bolognaise
Mmm my mouth's watering just thinking about them!

4 PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW

1. I'm with Sarah right now, so there's no place I'd rather be! Is that answer sickly enough for you!?!
2. Ok, I'll give a few better answers, but bear in mind they're all with my beautiful wife. I would say Canada visiting Sarah's family and our great friends there, but I'd be lying because I'd rather wait until winter is over to do that one. So I'll say West Palm Beach, Florida to visit Alex and Tara.
3. Anywhere I can swim with sharks, I really want to swim with sharks.
4. In Sarah's womb, hanging out with Bean. I'm not sure Sarah would be too pleased though, imagine the stretch marks!!

4 PEOPLE I AM TAGGING

I think most people have been covered, but I'm going to repeat because they haven't taken up the challenge yet.
1. Mum & Dad
2. Alex (Tara's off the hook because she's done it)
3. Kelly
4. You!!!

So, that's it, I've done it and now you all know a little more about me, even if they are all useless facts.
Now get going, you've been tagged!!!