Hello faithful blog followers!

I've snuck the laptop into my room finally to debrief about a few areas of my life to you...

I sit here on a Wednesday, 10:30 at night - finally having a moment to type. Tomorrow night I am holding my Frocktober event (7-9pm at The Point, Ballina, $10) You should totally come!!!

I woke up at 6am to go for a walk with Molly and pray. As I was praying this morning, I had a slight inclination that there was going to be some good surprises today, and there was!!! Let me tell you...

I went and caught up with our Operations Pastor, but also my friend Annaliese, while chatting with her my friend Taryn was trying to call, but, my phone was on silent so I missed her. As soon as I left Annaliese I called Taryn back.
Taryn works for the guy that runs Bluesfest & she phoned to tell me, that her boss wanted to donate 2 tickets to my frocktober event. A 5 day Bluesfest pass, valued at $410 and a 3 day pass valued at $305! I was blown away...like, seriously!!! I thanked Taryn, a plethora of times, and all she said was, that she wanted to help me out somehow, and she definitely has... what an amazing friend!!

I then met my friend Aliska for our irregular, regular catch up - whilst walking down the main street, shopping and sipping our diet cokes we went into one of my favourite shops... not because of the clothes, but beccause of the owner, Nel. Nel is one of the kindest human beings on the planet, and I was chatting to her about this event and she went away for a few minutes, came back with a hug, and placed in my hand quite a large donation to support what I was doing... what a great egg she is!

God has been so faithful to me the last few months (not that he hasn't been previously!) but the sense of peace and favour I have felt from him over this journey has been beautiful. I love God so much. When you take a step out and want to see justice in an area... he will come running to help you in your time of need.

Frocktober is all about raising awarness of Ovarian Cancer, the money raised from tomorrow nights event will go towards research into an early detection for this cancer. As I am well aware, ovarian cancer is a silent killer, every 10 hours, one precious mum, wife, daughter, sister or grandma, is taken from somebodies life. Now that it has effected me, I want to do something about it.

It's A Frockin' Good Cause!

.mum.&.me.in.our.frocks.

On Saturday, dad and I were at the local IGA in Mundubbera looking at the notice board where we saw a flyer for 'Frocktober' - I read on because it had cool graphics... The only cafe in Mundubbera (La famille) was holding a fundraiser every Friday in October where you get your girlfriends together, wear a frock and have a coffee/tea together - the cafe then donate a percentage of the days takings to support Frocktober. I liked the sound of that!! Nothing better then getting together with my girlfriends, chucking on a frock and eating and drinking together... and helping a great cause!

.girlfriends.&.frocks.=.good.times.

I wanted to find out more, as I had never heard of Frocktober before (am I the only one?!) So, I got home and googled it straight away!!!! Frocktober aims to raise funds for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation (OCRF) One woman dies every 10 hours from ovarian cancer... for many women with ovarian cancer, the disease is already well advanced when they are diagnosed. Unfortunately, there is no screening test for ovarian cancer. Frocktober aims to help improve the outlook for women with the disease by supporting the quest for a suitable, early detection test through fundraising for the OCRF. For more info on this initiative please visit http://www.frocktober.org/

I haven't told you this yet.

Dad recently went to our family doctor for a check up, about 8 weeks after mum died. During his consultation they talked about mum and her very, very, extremly short fight with cancer (19 days). We never really got any answers off the doctors after mums death as to what cancer mum had as her primary, and not knowing has been really difficult. I know naming the cancer won't make anything better or whatever - but what I do know is that if I know, then I can keep an eye on my health, to make sure me and my future family is looked after.

Our doctor, had looked over mum's tests and blood work from those few weeks and he told dad at this consultation that the test and markers show that it was probably ovarian cancer. Blah. Which is the cancer she had been originally diagnosed with. The doctor told dad what Kirsty, Clare and I can do to make sure we don't have to fight the same battle my beautiful mummy did.

I want to help bring awareness to this horible, aggressive disease and help other women and their families, not have to endure the pain of losing someone so quickly through ovarian cancer.

Sooooooooooo....after speaking with my friends, and having their support - Ballina will be having a Frocktober event!! Date is to be confirmed tomorrow, so locals, clear your diaries in late October, because ladies, it's a frockin good cause!

.frocks.

EXCITING NEWS!!!

Yes! Us Tyson's had some great news the Monday after mum's funeral. On the Sunday night, all 13 of us were having dinner at Kim & Bethy's. Daniel for some reason was having egg's on toast, Adele (my sister in law) has never been an egg fan and got one whiff of Daniel's eggs and had to leave the room...ha!

The next day Danny and Adele found out they were expecting baby No.1! Mum and dad's 4th grand baby! We were/are just alllllll soooooooo ecstatic.

.the.lovers.

Going through mum's stuff we found one of her most recent prayer journals, with many prayers written in it, but most predominantly the prayer for Danny and Adele to have a baby. We also found a little "my first Christmas" size 0000 that mum had purchased last Christmas, ready for this baby (Faith without works is dead! Go mum!!)
Baby Tyson IS a gift from God, so wanted and is already so loved and blessed. We are all so excited for this baby and it's future. We are also very sad that this baby, along with my other future neices and nephews and my babies to come that they will never get to meet their Ginny...

.baby.tyson.=.bt.

BT is due late March 2011... so excited!!!!

Until next time!

Big love & hugs,

AJ Xx

I'm sitting in my sister's lounge room on her brown leather recliner in Mundubbera, QLD as I type this next blog out. I'm on holidays with my dad...


The last few weeks have been a whirlwind, which is why you have hardly heard from me. I've been working 4 days a week and absolutely love being back at school, it's been incredible, getting into some sort of routine, seeing young teenagers chase me in the playground and say 'AJ, I want to be a christian' (yes, seriously!) and being able to tell of young people of the reality of life and death and tell my students of the peace that my mum had when facing death. What a testimony. BUT, oh... my... goodness it has been exhausting, grief is exhausting...


When I'm not at school, I'm with this guy...

.my.dad.

We hang out quite a bit, I see him every day. I have all the time on the planet for him. We go out for coffee, have daddy daughter dates, we take Molly for walks, I make him dinner at Kim and Beth's, he comes over to my house for dessert, we travel and we cry together - just to name a few things!

This guy is amazing and so precious. He must be going through the most horrible thing on the planet at the moment and he has every reason to not get up in the morning, but he does! Go him! What a great man of God ... he just keeps on going!


I'm not going to say this road I'm traveling is easy, it's hard, very hard and people seem to treat me now like everything is back to normal. It's not. I snap easily, I cry when I feel anything more then everyday pressures, random things upset me, I find it hard to make decisions... that wasn't AJ before my mum got sick and passed away. Things have changed. But, that's grief. But, I also know who I am still. I'm still God's precious daughter and want to serve him wholly and completely. God gives me grace each second of every minute of every hour of every day, I need it, now...more then ever.

Each Thursday since my mums funeral I have continued to go to our youth and young adults prayer meeting from 6:30-7:30am at our church. this is where we pray for our town and the incredible people in it, followed by coffee at the Coffee Club, where beautiful Helen the proprietor serves and makes us the best coffee on the planet! Ever since the funeral I have made this prayer meeting a priority, because in this storm of emotions that I am facing, I know prayer will sustain me, heal me and give me break through as I pour out my requests to God in this season. Yes, you can pray on your own and in isolation, and God will hear you, but I love the discipline of this prayer hour, praying with people I am doing life with is the most powerful thing you can do to encourage a community of believers.

.for.where.two.or.three.are.gathered.together.in.my.name.there.am.I.in.the.midst.of.them.
.mathew.18:20.

Don't you worry! I've had some fun and exciting things happen as well in the last few weeks ;) will fill you in on those things in future blogs!


Just to let you know, I'm not ready to write about July 29th 2010 yet... I've tried to write it on several occasions, but nothing I write seems the right way of writing it and no words express the broad spectrum of emotions that were felt that day. So watch this space, one day it will be on this blog, but for now...bear with me...

Big love to you all

AJ Xx

P.s It's 9 weeks today since my beautiful mum passed away....

I haven't forgotten about this upcoming blog. It's in my head and mind 24/7. It IS coming.

How am I going lately? Life continues. It's hard. So hard. I wake up every morning knowing that I won't hear from my beautiful, precious mum today. I go to work, I go to church, I go shopping, I hang out with friends, I go out for dinner and I feel like something is missing, it's my mum.

I had a good weekend though...

My sister came down to Ballina and spent the time with dad and I, yesterday we saw my Aunty Helen (mum's sister) and Uncle Gary for lunch. I never realised that my mum and Helen had such similar eyes... I kept looking at them and tear-ing up. So nice to see mum's sister, mum loved Helen so much, they used to work together, they had a special sisterly relationship. It was so lovely to see her. So lovely.

.clare.helen.me.

Big love to you all!

AJ Xx

I was having a good day today...

Then all of a sudden I wasn't.

Grief is hard. You NEVER know when it's going to hit you, and then all of a sudden it does. Bam.

I miss my mum heaps today. Her smile. Her laugh. Her soft hands. Her Facebook instant messages. Her tweets. Her blog. Her random texts. Her wise words.

.mum.i.miss.you.today.

That morning, Wednesday 28th July, as I waited in the waiting room, with Daniel, Adele, Kim & Beth, mum summoned each of us individually to her room to have a chat with us. First cab of the rank was little Kimmy. Then me.

When I went in, she was so tired and weak, so very weak. I was probably in her room for about 20 minutes, just me and her. How lovely. She was so exhausted. So sick. Sooooo sick. I cried and sat with her and prayed while she rested. Nothing major was said, we knew we loved each other and she said she was at peace. More was said, but it will remain with me forever.

My most precious time with my mum other then that 20 minutes with her that morning, was the previous Saturday when I was with dad. Shes spoke some things that I will never forget. She was so proud of her AJ.

Two weeks previous whilst in Charters Towers I had a conversation with mum and she said the two things that she was so gutted about if she was to die were, one, not seeing her grankids growing up and two, not being at my wedding. Yep, the first night I found out about mum's cancer, that was exactly what I was so devastated about. Mum and dad have prayed so very faithfully for this Man of God to come into my world, and the thought of her missing out on not only my wedding day but my whole love story, THAT crushes me, so much.

I left the room, so sad but hoping things were going to be ok with mum.

Mum rested most of the day as we knew Kirsty, Michael, Natalie, Sam and Charlotte were arriving later that afternoon.

Check out the waiting room views! You may be able to see the GABBA?!

.samuel.natalie.charlotte.

Kirsty and all the kids had time with mum. She was exhausted.

That evening we waited, waited, and waited....

Late that evening the head of renal department came in to explain mum's cancer to us 'kids.' It went something along the lines of this....

"A spaghetti plate cancer on top of her oven bag"

Ha!

No, it was a rogue cell cancer. A very common cancer in transplant people 5-10 years after their transplant. He explained that if mum tried chemo that she would be able to have much better anti-nausea medication. We honestly knew mum wasn't going to try the chemo, but dad had spoken to mum and said that she sleep on it over night.

On the way home that night, Kim got Subway for dinner, Kirsty and I had the worst Nando's on the planet. We got back to my sister Clare's house. This was so not fun, this was actually really crap, really crap this whole situation. We all went to bed relatively early as we wanted to be at the hospital early the next morning.

Stay tuned...

Big Love

AJ Xx