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- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
It was a perfect combination of circumstances that led to me trying a hair mask for the first time last night. It all started when both avocados in my kitchen were overripe and my lunch plans had to be adjusted. I tried cutting all the brown out of one avocado, but it was pointless and I just ended up with a mess that had to be thrown out. On the second avocado I was smarter, and when I saw it was too streaked with brown to eat, I simply set it aside.
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: home birth
This article tells a great story, but I wouldn't want it to be me!
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
It is a cold, snowy day (says the internet; I haven't been outside), and I think the Truck is making a last-minute attempt to renovate rather than move out and has been pushed up against my ribs all day. Anyways, with my limited energies I have been deleting old emails, and I came across a post that I typed up and saved but never put online. It's from December 2011, and although my personal situation has changed I wanted to post it because the lesson still stands:
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: pregnancy
Daylight finally came and I got Kristen to take a bump picture for me.
And then I applied x-ray vision technology and found out that the Bump is actually right!
I had a very lazy day altogether, stayed in bed with a sore back, threw up my lunch, watched a movie, napped with Nimoy and edited that picture. Oh, plus I made Shepherd's Pie for the first time! That was tasty. When Matt gets home I plan to see if he will take me on a date for ice cream :)
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: pregnancy
It seems that my days of sleeping at night may already be over. I'm 38 weeks now, technically (because it's 1 in the morning), and for the third night in a row I am up up up. Two nights ago I blamed the nap I'd taken around dinnertime for the fact I couldn't fall asleep until 7am, although it was okay because then I got the bed to myself ;) Last night I managed to fall asleep on the futon after making myself warm milk around 2 and again moved back to bed once Matt left for work. Tonight I felt sleepy when I went to bed, but no matter how much I let my mind drift, it just never shut down. So I tried the futon again, and now I am working on another favourite strategy when I can't sleep - eat something.
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
I feel very fortunate to be entering the season of motherhood with many friends and sisters in Christ who are also expecting/new moms. When Matt and I got married, I only had one close friend who was also married, and she lives FAR, so we don't get to visit and chat and share. Getting married is wonderful, but it is also a huge adjustment, and even though I didn't really confide in anyone about how I was going crazy, it could have been helpful to have someone around who was adapting to a similar change. Now that I do have more married friends, it is so nice to commiserate about even just the little things.
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: pregnancy
I'm still three weeks shy of my due date (so don't get too excited :P), but today marks the milestone that the Truck will not be born pre-term. From this point forward (up to 42 weeks), the baby will be considered full-term, so we are in a new phase of waiting, knowing that we could officially be parents any time but I could also still be posting pregnancy updates a month from now.
A man at our church offered the use of his timeshare to Matt and I for a few days this week since he only comes to it over a weekend, so we have enjoyed two nights away as not-yet-parents in a really nice timeshare for free! Matt spent yesterday snowboarding on the hill next door while I took it easy in the room and got some writing done.
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
Matt preached on Sunday, and his sermon tied in so nicely to my thoughts from Saturday, it really helped me do more processing and kind of settle my spirit in terms of home and belonging and all that jazz. His main focus was 1 John 3:1 - See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
I love this verse (and translation, thanks NIV) for that word lavished. It reminds me that belonging to God instead of the world is not something to test my mettle or something to toughen me up or a way to earn Heaven; it is an amazing gift. As believers in Jesus, we are not foreigners because the world rejects us - what makes us different is that we've been adopted, miraculously accepted, into God's family, and that brings a change that sets us apart.
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
I have been slowly making my way through Psalm 119, reading it just a stanza per day. I think taking it so slow is allowing me to savour passages I'd normally skim over, and it is gradually rekindling my appetite to read Scripture (because that has faded the last little while).
Last night the passage I read included verse 19: I am only a foreigner in the land. Don't hide your commands from me!
One of the themes in Scripture and Christianity that always resonates with me is the concept that Earth is not where ultimate fulfillment is to be found. When I was preparing to do a semester in Brazil I wrestled with the fact that I was hoping to connect with people there but then leave after a few months. I had already come to terms with the fact that by living in Toronto I had to miss family and friends in BC, but going to Brazil would further extend the stretching of my heart, add yet another home that was not home. Well, I went, and it happened, and now there is a group of people in Brazil who I treasure - who blessed me so much just by who they are, who I was lucky to build relationships with and be loved by, and then the semester ended and I came home to Canada.
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
The only reason Matt and I have a landline is because our building requires it in order for us to buzz people in. We both have cell phones, and while I sometimes make calls on the landline to save my minutes, it is rare that we receive any incoming calls other than visitors needing into the building or telemarketers.
Tonight the phone rang, and we aren't expecting anyone over, but you never know, and our landline is in the church directory so occasionally church people call us there instead of our cells. I waddled to the kitchen and picked up the receiver only to hear silence.