Hello Blog Friends!
The last blog post of July- doesn’t the summer go by quickly? Even though the past three summers have been so different from my former “norm”, they still seem to fly by so much faster than dark and frigid winter days.
This week there has been a bit of extra office work as Junior Youth Camp will be happening in early August and the last of our three Day Camps will be taking place the same week. I’m still waiting for some of the Police Records Check applications to arrive so that I can complete them and send them on to the SPVM and a sixth person met with me yesterday, so that form won’t be arriving until late next week. As mentioned before, it will take several months for them to be processed but at least, once they have been mailed, there is nothing more we can do at this end but wait!
The eternal task of editing older blog posts continues and has now reached the end of 2016. These posts are quite depressing as they recount the weeks when St. Stephen’s church was preparing to close. It seems hard to believe that 6 years have already passed since that sad time. We held our last Day Camp there in the summer of 2016 and I did enjoy rereading those posts and seeing photos of the camp 😊.
With our next DC committee meeting coming up on August 2nd I have also been following up on bits and pieces discussed in July so that I can offer some updates to my fellow committee members. Although the next Team Gathering is not until October, I have approached a potential speaker and am already compiling a list of possible chefs for the Christmas Cookies Cook-along 😊.
I have hesitated to touch the files for “Something to Celebrate!”, which would be the 2023 program, following the rotation we use as we cycle through the 6 CTM Day Camp programs. If the committee decides that it is time to inform the Board of a recommendation that Day Camps be discontinued it will mean my stepping down as Director and thus the Board members would then be the ones to decide if they wish to follow that recommendation or if they want to look at appointing a new Director. If the latter then it would be up to that person (and presumably a new committee) to make decisions regarding program plans for 2023. Of course all of this is extremely hard to consider but we cannot maintain the status quo so some sort of plan must be put into action if there is any hope of continuing this ministry.
Each morning, before beginning my daily office work, I head to the garden early, to beat the heat. We have not had the crazy temperatures experienced in the UK and Europe but the weather bureau still issues dire warnings of severe thunderstorms, which normally take place in the late afternoon, if at all 😊. We have had a reasonable amount of rain and so, as we enter the month of August, the grass is still green and the flowers are still fresh and full of blooms.
Wednesday afternoon I tackled my quarterly task of cleaning all the pantry shelves. Removing the many jars ,washing down the shelves, wiping each jar and then replacing them does take a couple of hours, but the results are well worth the effort and it is good to do an inventory to see which items need replenishing. That evening I welcomed Jenna to dinner and we had a very pleasant “catch-up” visit as she has been away on holiday in Eastern Québec and so hasn’t been to see me since mid-June. We enjoyed a meal of Spicy Tofu Burgers, Mint Limeade and homemade Ginger Ice Cream, suitable hot weather fare!
This afternoon I’m looking forward to a video chat with Sharon, a Team member from the very early years of Day Camps, who has been mentioned recently in a couple of posts. We reconnected several months ago after many years, but so far have only “chatted” via email. I must say I am also super excited to “meet” her new spaniel puppy, who looks darling in photos 😊.
This morning I made a point of getting the baking started before the kitchen became too hot. It is such a blessing to have a lovely stove that doesn’t heat up the kitchen but when the outdoor temperature is over 30ºC any additional indoor heat soon makes baking rather a chore. I was able get everything cleared up by 1130am, had a quick bite of lunch and then took Thomason for his second walk of the day. Now I need to get this pos published before my video call, so I’ll close off here with our recipe.
Since I have recently been experimenting with making my own Asian Noodles from scratch, this week I tried making wide wheat noodles and then used them in a Szechuan-style dish. You can buy fresh wide wheat noodles at Asian grocers but I found an excellent tutorial here , if you want to try making your own too 😊.
Wide Wheat Noodles with Bok Choy
- 12 oz. wide wheat noodles
- 4 heads baby bok choy (about 12 ounces), trimmed and sliced lengthwise into 4 pieces
- 4 small garlic cloves, peeled and grated
- 8 tsps. Tamari
- 4 tsps. black Chinese vinegar (or substitute Balsamic)
- 1 tsp. red-pepper flakes, plus more to taste
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
- 1 handful cilantro leaves
- 2 Tbsps. olive oil
Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add some sea salt and the noodles and cook according to package directions (if using freshly made noodles they only take3 minutes to cook). During the last minute of cooking add the boychoy, just to blanch it. Drain and divide between 4 bowls. Tope each bowl with an equal amount of garlic, chillis, Tamari and vinegar. Heat the oil in a small saucepan over high heat then pour quickly over each bowl. Toss with chopsticks and serve immediately. 😊 Serves 4 as a light meal.