Hello Blog Friends!
Welcome to the last week before ADVENT 😊. If you have been around here for a while, you will know that Advent is my favourite season. Yes, I actually look forward to Advent more than to Christmas so in the coming week I shall be “Changing the Decorations” while listening to my annual Advent soundtrack CD. But for the moment, I need to contain my excitement and talk about the week just past…
Over the week, as usual, I’ve been dividing my time between general “office” tasks and the work that is dedicated to Day Camps. The Advent/Christmas issue of CTM’s Networks newsletter is slowly coming together although, of course, I’m waiting for content, sigh. With the Board meeting happening tomorrow afternoon, some time has also been taken up preparing the template for the minutes and writing my own ministry report.
Guylaine has now been able to complete the fillable Day Camp application for host communities, soTuesday I set that up on the home page of the Day Camp subdomain on the CTM Website. I plan to also email the link to a bunch of potential host communities when I send out the next reminder about Carols & Cocoa. I’m still doing intensive badgering for that event. It is so difficult to find enough “presenters” to record videos and we want to present a full hour of programming. To date 3 individuals have committed to doing a recording and about 4 or 5 others are still in the “maybe” category, with only 3 weeks to go before the date it is getting rather stressful.
Early next week I will be contacting everyone who has expressed interest in being part of the Advent Study Program as that series begins on Sunday November 27th. I have put together some notes for participants so they will know what to expect and what supplies to gather in advance and am very much looking forward to spending time with this group of alums.
This afternoon marks the final episode of the Christmas Cookie Cook-Along. Mariejoy will be our Chef and I’m hoping we can match last week’s record attendance of 12 children! Several families have already asked to be notified as soon as Season 5 has been organised and I think we will probably aim for a February series since, in 0223 Ash Wednesday falls on February 22ndand we need to get in ahead of “March Break” when families might be travelling away from home.
This week we had our first snowstorm, ugh!!! Wednesday morning I woke up to heavy snow falling and it continued relentlessly until the evening .I had several rounds of shovelling to do and finished that winter chore on Thursday after first greeting Team alumnus, Emmanuel, who joined me for a breakfast visit as he came off his nightshift. The high today is +2ºC so probably most of the snow will melt but I couldn’t leave it sitting on the deck as the water leaks through into my garage.
Well most of my baking is now in the oven. This morning I’ve been making my first batch of Stöllen to squirrel away, ready for Advent and Christmas eating 🙂. I also made the 6thvariety of Biscotti for my Christmas gift baskets and some Dutch Rusks, to enjoy right away!
Thomason now needs his second long walk of the day so I had better wrap up this post with our third November Soup. Last evening I enjoyed a Vietnamese dish, nice and warming on a dark evening…
Curried Tuna Soup
- 4 Tbsps. butter
- 1 large onion, roughly chopped
- 2 tsps. mild curry powder
- 2 cups water
- 1 tin full fat coconut milk
- 2 chopped potatoes
- 1 carrot, thinly sliced
- 2 baby bokchoy, cut in chunks
- 1 tin water packed tuna
- 4 Tbsps. chopped cilantro
- 2 Tbsps. lime juice
Melt the butter and sauté the onion until softened, stir in the curry powder and cook for another minute. Add the water and coconut milk and bring to a boil. Add the potatoes and carrot, reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes or just until the veggies are tender. Break the tuna into small chunks, add to the soup, along with the bokchoy, and simmer until heated through. Stir in the lime juice and garnish with the cilantro and serve immediately. This is tasty served with steamed Bao. Serves 3-4.