Our HOME!

This is James. He and the shower are having a disagreement. Now I'll begin the virtual tour of our cozy little "bachelor pad". After hustling up 2 flights of stairs, you will hang a sharp left and see this. Our "entrance way".

If you make the connection from the previous picture, you'll see the same pot with a lovely green plant in it. Take that as your point of reference. To the left of the entrance way is our living room. Furniture is compliments of my grandma, who spotted these beauties on the side of the road. Excellent find. James is there in the corner setting up our "T.V" which quite conveniently operates as our source of music and emails and everything else a computer lets you do. Genius, really. If James were to stand up in the above photo, and look out, he'd see this. Part of our kitchen, a bit of a book shelf, and his laundry. Now, if that laundry basket would take three steps to my left, it would be in the proper spot- James' clothes closet. To the extreme right is the radiator- which seems insignificant, really- but I point it out because to the right of that we have placed our incredibly comfortable bed- which is represented somewhere below.
Directly across from the kitchen, visually, and about 5 paces literally, is our dining room. We eat three healthy meals a day here, unless we have lunch at our schools, and Audrey Hepburn has faithfully attended each occasion-along with "Heppie"- our wooden Mexican turtle. That's Heppie on the sugar jar, James and Audrey. A tad crowded at times, but for the most part, a really good time.

This is me, standing in front of the kitchen and pointing at my unfinished painting which is standing on my Opa's art easel. I really should finish that soon...

Self explanatory, really. A familiar sight. Also, quite familiar :)Ah, and now we have the radiator to the left, and as I promised, the bed located beside it.




And the disagreement has been resolved.

And there you have it folks. A quick tour of the apartment. It still needs a few touch ups, but for the most part, it is quite livable and lovable. It's quite bright, and cheery, and so far, well visited. I hope that aspect never changes! And now that you have seen it, specifically family in BC, feel free to drop in to say hello! James' makes fantastic coffee.. and my baking isn't terrible. We'd love to have you!

I can officially say that next month, I am getting married.
Weird.
And incredibly exciting.
But as exciting as all this wedding planning has turned out to be :)I would like to take a moment to share how my summer has panned out since classes ended at my beloved university, and I made the transition back under my parents roof.
I always find that by the time I finish school, I am ready for the grunt labour job that awaits me at my papa's farm. However, I always promise myself to continue educating myself by the means of a hefty reading list, which I make every effort to plug away at over the course of the summer months.
As usual, the reading list gets shelved for the million other things I want to do that demand way more physical exertion- and all things considered,the trade off is worth it. I can read more when I have osteoporosis.
And so I have enjoyed many lunch hours (45 minutes each) of showing off my "home" to the girls I work with, and exploring God's green earth.
And there is no better time than spring.
It happens every year, but every year I am amazed at the amount of wildlife that seems to burst out of the ground and sprawl across my path. Baby birds galore, hills with coyotes packed inside, a bald eagle even! Seriously- just awesome.
And when nature isn't just happening, we are sure to make things happen, because life is always a little more thrilling when you try to live it on the edge. Not right on the edge, but you know, a step away or something.
Anyways, the incredible thunderstorms that bubble up from the lake and spit lightning around metal carts gives our crew that perfect burst of adrenaline to finish the day off right.
And a lunch break on the train bridge, accompanied by said train, is another one of those "grab life by the horns" moments that Robyn described in her blog. Not to mention we're about 60 feet off the ground with a five foot deep harbour to break our falls.
Just beautiful.
So yes, life back home this summer, so far, has been fantastic. The girls are fun and refreshing to be around, the job keeps your hands occupied, and your mind free to wander above and beyond the menial labour your body is bound too, and the money that rolls in is as welcome as the energy injecting thunderstorms.
Complaints are few.

And on a different note, I have picked up my two year old nephew as a roommate, and although he is probobly the most adorable kid I have seen in a long time, he finds his happiest moments to be alive are at 3:00 am. God bless him- and his new baby brother, Caleb Theodore Dykstra, born 23 hours and 45 minutes into Canada Day, 7lbs, 15 ounces, with a load of black hair,and a crinkly newborn disposition. He's wonderful.

Well, there is still way more on tap for this summer before the big wedding day, but I'll post them as they unfold, because that's the right way to tell a story. No sense getting ahead of myself, now is there?

Fond Memories

I have whipped off my last paper, whether or not I have done it successfully is yet to be determined by Ben Faber, but it is done. That, folks, was the last paper of my undergrad. And as gruelling as it was to write on Northrop Frye's theory of archetypes, the feeling of my brain being stretched and strained is as rewarding as an eight minute abs workout.
But I still feel somewhat sad. Maybe it's the rainy weather, or Nabi Loney's music, but I have a hunch it's the overwhelming sense of finality creeping up and threatening to put an end to my undergrad. I'm pretty sure that's it.
See, with the abs workout, there's always a looking forward to the next one. With a final paper--there's no next paper to dread, or anticipate.

I think I'm afraid that I'll fail in the years ahead to push myself like I have this year. As much as I have been equipped with the tools to educate myself, I am stepping out of an environment that I love.
And so I'm torn between the love of being a student and the reality that I can't be one forever. Unless I'm Doug.
But so it is. Time moves on...a series of ends and beginnings, and we roll with it because we've been made to. There's no time to stop, and besides, I don't really want to.
A few days ago I said goodbye to my Opa. He died a week ago today--the first death in our family. I can't describe what it feels like to lose someone that's been a steady presence in my life. I know the right answer--that I should be happy, but my mind still can't make sense of the finality of it.
There's something very sad about it, even if I know that I, like my Opa, am moving on. And people tend to try and remedy my sadness by resurrecting fond memories, or by anticipating new, better ones, but it doesn't really work.
Thinking back makes you remember days that are gone, and looking forward only reinforces your awareness that you have to leave.

House 333, with Robyn, Trine, Ally, Kristin, Erin and myself, marks my family of fourth year. Ally left yesterday--the first 'breaking of the fellowship' and my Opa left last week. And it won't be the same again.

That's why I grieve. I know that I can still be happy, and I'm sure the future holds even more happiness than I've ever been aware of before, but that step involves leaving something, or someone behind that I hold very dear.

I'll miss them all, but I'll thank God for the fond memories.

Invisible Children

Check out www.invisiblechildren.com and join the rescue on April 25 in Toronto.
This is a huge chance for us to be a voice for the thousands of children abducted in Uganda and turned into child soldiers in Africa's longest running war.
The video can explain what's going on a lot better than I can, so check it out. It's worth it.

I just want to graduate.

Some people write better when they are pressed for time. Take Katrina. She can have a substantial assignment due at 8:00 am, not start it till 8 pm the night before, and pump out a fantastic paper by making herself a few cups of coffee and working till the sun comes up. How does she do this? We're not sure.

Me--I take a long time to commit to words. There are a lot to choose from and I want to get it right. Post midnight, words just start to do their own thing on my page. They slip out of me, unchecked, unregulated...and I can almost hear their squeels of delight when they do it, especially the older ones, because they've waited a long time for this moment. To catch me off guard, and be out in the open, splatted on paper so that they can actually validate themselves in the big wide written world.Curse words are known for this.

Self respect. That's what it's all about. And when I blog past midnight, with a laptop battery that only has 25 minutes to go, I see two problems. One- I am not a Katrina. Time crunches hurt my abs. And two: I write about nothing. I write because my laptop is on my lap, and my fingers are on the keys, and I'm so comfortable in my mass of pillows and blankets that it just seems like the right thing to do. And I don't have a clue what to say, other than that my battery is fading about as fast as I am, and yet I'm still here.

It's because I'm in that cozy phase...the one everyone loves and hates because it's the pinnacle of comfy, or at least it could be, but your mind keeps poking you annoyingly, because it wants bed.

Low Battery signal is now poking me. I'm altogether too uncomfortable now to even write about being comfy. Already a thing of the past.
And one point goes to the words that escaped me on this little random post.

Baaaahhh

Since the conference hosted at Redeemer at the beginning of this semester, I have become more aware of the gap between the church calender, and the one hanging on my wall in all its academic glory.

We've entered the post reading break buzz-- where you literally walk through the Redeemer halls and catch snippets of individual conversations that somehow blend into a united chorus of the student body- screaming "I'm BUSY". It's bazaar, but I almost wonder if I stood in one place long enough, if the student body might actually burst into rebellious song- like some sort of fantastical high school musical (with some slight choreographical tweaking). HA. Wouldn't that be funny.

I just wonder why the busiest time of the school year lands itself in a time where it seems we are least likely to deal with it. A week off, a sun that has snapped out of hibernation, and the smell of a thawing world is not exactly conducive to excellence in academic performance. But I speak for myself. For those incredibly self-disciplined, the sight of green grass and running water might have the opposite effect. But those people live in libraries.

The general consensus seems to be that the season of Lent also brings a season of stress and hyper academic activity. I simply wish we could align ourselves a tad more appropriately to the church calender- so that as Easter approaches, our minds might not be so frazzled, but rested and refreshed.

But until that day of calender co-habitation, I will continue to drink coffee and meet deadlines.

It is still a joy to be alive.