So much has been squashed into the past week that I find it a bit hard to cycle back to Monday, when we held our October Day Camp Committee meeting, so that I can dredge up some decent things to report!
As I think I mentioned last week, we were a bit shorthanded at the meeting because Jill’s baby, Owen, was sick and Josiah was swamped with homework and Alexander has just switched from evenings to day shifts!
But 5 of us gathered and managed to put our heads together on a number of subjects.
We seem to be making a bit of progress on the various Program Manual Chapters and Jessica has offered to review the Explorer and Pathfinder materials which had not,previously, been allocated.
Janice reported on her findings around producing new illustrations for the Slideshow stories and I have since been sending out enquiries to round up some other artists who might like to take on the task of illustrating one or more “Days”.
We also talked about possibilities for linking with the sleep-awayl camp in Manitoba and some very helpful points were raised. I have passed them on to the Camp Director and am awaiting feedback.
The whole Committee is concerned about the lack of interest in the planned Coffee House. We are going to make a decision this coming week as to whether we will move ahead or cancel this event, which was to take place on November 3rd.
And what else have I been up to this week? Well…….LOTS of raking!, sewing the button bracelets for the possibly non-existent Coffee House, and Thursday, Friday and today, attending our Diocesan Synod, where, as Lay Secretary, I’ve been taking pages and pages of Minutes!!!!
So somehow in the coming week I need to squeeze in time to take a selection of disastrously confusing notes and turn them into something that the Clerical Secretary and I can finally feel proud to submit as a worthy archival account of the proceedings of the 153rd Synod of the Diocese of Montreal.
On Monday a small group of us will be meeting (over Brunch) to review Anna’s designs and content for the new “Prayer and Share” Brochure and package. I will report on this next week. I’m excited to see these new resources which will hopefully be of real help to potential Team Members. Speaking of which, our contact (Brett) at the Theological College in Bristol UK has emailed encouraging news of several students who are considering applying as Team in 2013. WOOT WOOT!!!
And so I’m about to crash after being glued to this keyboard for far too many hours.
Tomorrow I’ll tidy this up and plug in the photos!!!
All those who attended the Day Camp Committee meeting seemed to really enjoy the Carrot Cake I had made for dessert so here is the recipe!
Wagonwheel Carrot Cake
- 1 cup raisins
- 1 ½ cups grated carrots
- 1 1/3 cups water
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- 1Tbsp butter or margarine
- 1 tsp each-cinnamon, cloves & nutmeg
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 ½ cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
- In a medium saucepan, mix together the carrots, sugar, raisins, butter and water. Bring to the boil and cook over medium heat for 5mins. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand for 12 hours. Next day, combine dry ingredients and beat into carrot mixture. Grease a 10 inch tube pan and pour in the batter. Bake in a preheated 275F oven for 1 ¾ hours or until a tester comes out clean.Cool 10 mins, on a rack ,in the pan, then turn out and leave to cool completely before frosting.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 2-3 cups sifted icing sugar
- ½ cup butter or margarine
- 4oz.. cream cheese.
- 1tsp vanilla extract
- Place butter and cream cheese in a medium mixing bowl and leave to soften. With an electric mixer, beat until fluffy, then gradually beat in icing sugar until of a spreading consistency. Beat in vanilla. Serves 12
Sunday Coda…. And now it is Sunday Evening. Klara has just returned from a weekend at home in the country and Scott is out speaking at Crossroads.
Mandu is curled up on my lap so I have to type with the laptop perched on the arm of the sofa! My day started off with an early morning call from my Dad’s Cousin Ron who phoned me from England. This dear old man calls every few months to see how I’m doing, which, considering he is in his late 80’s and looks after an invalid wife, is quite amusing because really I should be the one checking up on him! It is always sort of miraculous to hear his voice as he is the only living relative I have in the whole world ( well maybe there are others but I do not know about them!) His call made a very special start to my day.
We had amazing worship music at church today. Nick had brought his drum kit and Paul played piano and sang and Tanya played guitar and ukulele. Nick continued his preaching on James 4:1-12 I actually ended up walking all the way home from church (a brisk 45min. hike!) because I had taken the bus down instead of biking, as it looked like rain, so I had ample time to reflect on the teaching and to re-sing some of the Worship songs. Except for the fact that I was very late eating lunch, it was a great way to end my Sunday Worship time! I baked this afternoon as I had no opportnity ofr baking yesterday.
All in all a pretty good Sabbath!