Wow September 1stand here in North America most people are outside somewhere celebrating the last official holiday weekend of summer- Labour Day.
I guess I’ve already done my “celebrating” over the last couple of days in the form of stripping the house and decks of all the summer decorations followed by a big house cleaning and finally the arranging of the Pentecost/Harvest decorations.
With all the Feedback packages safely sent out to the host communities my Day Camps work has mostly shifted to initial planning for summer 2019 😊
Of course some final payments and evaluations are still trickling in but we actually received our first 2019 Community application this week. Woo hoo!!
We are also gearing up for the Praise & Thanksgiving Gathering on Saturday September 15th It is happening at 3pm that day and will be followed by a Spaghetti Supper fundraiser. My main task for that is assembling the PowerPoint and also badgering the Day Camp Team Members, reminding them to come to the Gathering!
The following day is our CTM Board meeting and the evening after that the Day Camp committee has invited some guests to join us at our monthly planning meeting in the hopes of picking their brains as we strategise around new ides for recruiting Team Members. Unfortunately at least two of those invited have already said they cannot come, hopefully some others will be available. Normally at our September meeting we start to allocate parts of the Program to those who have special skills in certain fields and we also make up a chart so we know who will be leading devotions and acting as secretary for each of our monthly meetings. I’m not sure we can wait until October to do all that work so maybe we will need to end the larger meeting a bit early and just do committee stuff for half an hour or so at the end. We’ll see. 😊
Outside of “office time” I spent Monday afternoon baking with 11-year-old Malachi (brother of Seren who came for a sewing tutorial last Saturday). It was unfortunate that we were again experiencing a high heat and humidity warning that day making baking a rather sticky occupation but he still had a good time mixing up a batch of Lemon Raisin Chocolate Chip cookies and a Rhubarb Coffee cake made with fresh rhubarb picked from my garden that afternoon.
Tuesday afternoon Jessica and I spent a couple of hours unpacking all the Day Camp Teams supplies and shelving them back in all the bins where they spend 10 months of the year! We were delighted that no Teams had left moldy grass (for Lamb 😊) or mildewed sponges (it happens!!) in their bags nor had any bottles of glue or paint exploded on any airline flights (yes, that happens quite often too). It feels good to have all the supplies put away, another final task checked off my list!
Wednesday and Thursday afternoons were devoted to the “Changing of the Decorations” which just left space yesterday to mow the lawns in my “spare time” Ha!
This weekend I’m once again looking after a friend’s cat and I’m hoping to get some extra garden chores done today since rain is forecast for tomorrow and the holiday on Monday. But before I head out to edge the flowerbeds let’s close off with a recipe.
The aforementioned cookies that Malachi and I baked are a family fave around here and since I already typed up the recipe for Pippa (Malachi’s Mum) I thought you might like to try them…
Lemon Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup margarine
- 1/3 cup lemon juice
- 2 cups flour mixed with1 tsp. each baking soda and salt
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 2 cups brown sugar
- grated rind of 1 lemon
- 1 ½ cups rolled oats
- 1 cup raisins
Beat eggs and sugar with electric mixer until mixture ribbons. Gradually beat in margarine, a bit at a time, lemon rind &juice, flour mixture, oats, raisins and chocolate chips. Drop by heaping tsps. onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake in 350º oven for 15 minutes.