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- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
I gave the student reflection at my grad ceremony on Sunday, so for those of you who couldn't make it or who want to relive the magic, here it is :)
[Salutations]
It is such an honour to be asked to speak on behalf of my class, and also a huge responsibility. Tyndale is such a rich and diverse place, and I know that it impacts everyone who spends time here in different ways. We have all been impacted though; Tyndale has changed each of our lives, whether it was plans for our future, the type of relationship we have with God, or the kind of person we want to be. As I have reflected on my experience of Tyndale and sifted through what would be worth sharing, a theme emerged, based on Hebrews 3:4 “For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.”
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
Matt and I decided to give our grain mill a spin last night, and some amazing bread is in the process of being made!
Matt is showing off his speed here - although it is pretty easy to spin. The mechanism definitely does all the work of turning wheat grains into powdery flour, but it gets a little tiring turning the crank.
Here's a view from the top: wheat on the left, and the bowl collecting the flour as it comes out of the mill.
And here's the end result! A bowl of FRESH whole wheat flour :)
The bread turned out kind of crazy, but I think it might be because Matt braided it instead of just cramming it in a bread pan, and he says next time he will try blending in some other kind of flour. Now I kind of want to try grinding flour the next time I make muffins!
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
Okay, so this hike was just Matt and I with our dog after my parents had headed out to visit family and friends this week, so it was a Mother's Day hike only because of the date, not the people! It was a much more adventurous hike than either of us expected, but it was very fun and a refreshing time together.
We drove down to Scarborough Bluffs and walked a gravel trail that ended at the beach. Or so we thought. But then we decided to make our own trail through the woods following a tiny stream of water. We ended up climbing through a whole bunch of muck and dried up stream beds up almost the entire cliff and enjoyed the view from up top. Nimoy as usual, just loved life and was scrabbling around like a scruffy mountain goat.
Once we got up as high as we could, it was so funny because we could hear people talking on the path way down below! Also, we freaked out some people hiking up at the top of the ridge, because I think they thought we climbed down (which is impossible lol, look at how steep the cliff is! We climbed up to the bottom part of that steep cliff).
My pants are muddy, and our shoes are all muddy, and we both almost fell pretty epicly, me down the side of the cliff (I basically skied down it on my shoes), and Matt in a marshy river bed. What a great adventure :)
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
Our voting station is an elementary school very close to our apartment building. When I was walking through the hall after voting, I heard two little girls talking, and their conversation went like this:
Six-or-seven-year-old #1: Do you have play-doh?
Ditto #2: I have play-doh! I have so much play-doh!
#1: I have red and orange.
#2: I have rainbow!
#1: Gasp.
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
Saturday was a team-building, mission-trip-prep day for Matt and the youth going to New Brunswick this summer, and I was happy to be able to join them! It was a really great day, with a delicious breakfast (one of the girls made crepes!!), a really helpful talk/discussion on engaging culture in our city and living "on purpose," plus fun activities and good volunteer experience helping to promote a community event later this month.
Then, when we were just about to head home, I realized that my keys were not in my coat pocket or my purse. Somehow over the course of the day I had misplaced/dropped/lost our only keys to the car (and kill-switch), and we were stranded. We managed to break into the car to check that the keys hadn't fallen somewhere inside (which was hilarious, but also a little concerning, since nobody really questioned us, even with a giant screwdriver and coat hanger in the door).
It could have been much worse, but it all worked out in the end (more or less). Even without BLAT, we had enough seatbelts in the other vehicles to get everyone home; one of the other leaders for the trip, a dad in the youth group, had CAA, and we were able to get the car towed to Scarborough under his card; Youth Sunday went great even though we weren't able to practice the music as planned, and Matt had less time than he hoped to polish his sermon; I am going to get a new key from the Honda dealership for $10.
Most amazingly of all, everybody stayed kind to everybody else through the whole process of looking for the keys EVERYWHERE, trying to figure out what to do when we couldn't find them, and generally having nothing to do for three hours. We have such an amazing group of youth, and everybody worked very hard to not get cranky and to make the best of a really sucky situation!
Most amazing for me was how great Matt was - really proactive in trying to solve our problems, but he never made me feel bad (I felt terrible, but I was so grateful that nobody felt the need to tell me how dumb I was for losing the keys or what a loser I was for messing up everybody's plans for their Saturday night).
For this reason and many, many more, Matt is the best, and I hope I can be as lovely a wife to him as he is a husband to me!
In other news, the oil cleansing method is going well, as is making kefir! No miracles to report, although kefir may have contributed to curing Nimoy's diarrhea last week. That. Was so gross.
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
I will be writing the last final exam of my B.A.
Back to studying!!!
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
Couldn't resist - movie theatre still hasn't bothered to fix their sign :)
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
I am heading to bed... have been heading to bed for an hour now. But for reals - I just needed to let it be known that I just pulled a grey hair out of my head... It was pure white actually, as the driven snow. Matt teased me that I shouldn't stress so much about life (first of only two final exams on Wednesday!!! I'm stoked to be so close to the end).
Now, to my beauty sleep!
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
My bus was stopped at a light near a movie theatre sign and I was slightly amused to see that a column of lights was burnt out so not all the letters showed up. Mars Needs Moms was listed as "Mars Needs Mo"
Then I was truly amused to see the board advertise Red Riding Ho!!
Let's all go see it on cheap Tuesday :)