Hello Blog Friends!
Here we are at the last weekend of January. It has been quite a full week around here with plenty going on in the world of Day Camps.
I wish I could report that there had been some activity in the area of host community applications, I regularly check the Fillable Form on our shared Google Drive but sadly “0 Reponses” are waiting there.
This week I thought of sending the promo article to a large group of Team alumni in the hopes that some of them would be willing to advocate for Day Camps, either in the churches they currently attend or amongst family and friend groups. I think my next promo foray will be to send the article to ALL the clergy whose names are in my Contacts list. At the risk of people getting fed up with my emails, I shall include a line asking them to opt out if they do not wish to receive further missives 😊.
There has also been a fair amount of badgering going on in the hopes of more families signing up for the cook-along. We still only have 3 registrations and with 1 week to go before the first episode I’m hustling to improve the turnout.
Having recently procured a speaker for our Lenten Day Retreat I plan to create a flier for it next week and start posting it on FaceBook and Instagram as well as hounding alumni via text messages and emails.
Meanwhile, the Manual is always on my radar screen. We are still missing 3 sections all of which are part of the first 5 chapters that contain all the content for the morning portion of the program. Of course I have sent pleas to the people writing these parts and fortunately 2 of them are committee members so I shall be connecting with them at next week’s meeting. The deadline for content was December 31st,so we are now almost a full month behind schedule. Sigh.
Of course I am also still plugging away at editing links in the close to 900 posts of this blog as, once the Lamb on Day Camps blog has been taken down any links that currently go to past posts there must be updated so that they link to the same post but on the WordPress platform. I don’t get a lot of time to do this extra task but I have progressed backwards from the first posts in 2011 to the middle of 2015 so a reasonable amount of progress has been made.
Outside of office time (when not shovelling!!) I did spend a couple of hours on my quarterly “cleaning of the pantry”, and was pleased to see all the jars shiny and lined up symmetrically😊. In other news, I have done a first test run on my new sewing machine! This amazing acquisition is a Christmas gift from a group of kind CTM friends who joined together and presented me with the funds so that I could do the research and choose a model that would exactly suit my needs. I ordered it in mid-January and it arrived a few days later so last weekend was its inaugural run., woot! woot! My friend Jill was supposed to come for supper on Thursday but we have had to postpone to this coming Monday as she ended up needing to attend a workshop at the school where she teaches. I am very much looking forward to discussing all things sewing with her as she is an amazing quilter and seamstress and a like-minded advocate of Slow Fashion.
Then, last evening Mae Anne, from the Day Camp committee, came for High Tea before heading to a young adults group meeting on the South Shore. We had such a nice visit over Angels on Horseback, stuffed eggs, cucumber sandwiches and trifle, catching up on all sorts of topics as we had not met in person since just after Christmas.
Monday afternoon a friend came for coffee so that I could offer her some advice about the final project she is working on as part of a Spiritual Direction course and this afternoon she has asked if I could join her again on Zoom as she works on the project from her country home in the Eastern Townships. Thus I need to hurry and get the baking finished so that I can be free to discuss how to create a triptych from foam core board 😊.
I’m stocking up on extra baked goods that are suitable for High Tea as some friends will be joining me for one two weeks from today and, as of next Saturday, my bakes will be very hurried since we will be holding the next season of the Day Camps Cook-Along the first three Saturday afternoons in February.
I think it is high time to close off with a recipe so I can put some oatmeal sandwich loaves in the oven 😊.
Hoping you will try another item on today’s baking list, my Mum’s recipe for:-
Prize Butter Tarts
- Pastry for a single crust pie
- 1/3cup butter
- 1cup brown sugar
- 1 egg, beaten
- 2Tbsps. milk
- ½ cup raisins
Roll out pastry and line 4-6 4” tart tins. Mix all filling ingredients together and fill shells 2/3 full.Place in a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment (in case they boil over 😊). Bake in a preheated 425ºF oven for 8 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350F and bake for a further 15 minutes. Cool completely before removing from tins . Makes 4-6 tarts.