Hello Blog Friends!
Tomorrow the Church celebrates the Feast of All Saints. This feast always coincides with the season of leaf-raking. which I accompany with lusty renditions of one of my favourite hymns- “For All the Saints” . It has lots of verses and keeps me going through the long hours of garden work! Monday evening, a friend joined me for dinner and I discovered shew is a kindred spirit in loving the magical sight of the flocks of geese, flying south, in perfect “V” formation.
After a pleasant Sunday, the workweek began with another nasty computer problem. Upon opening up Microsoft Word a notice appeared saying my Microsoft Office license had been deactivated, due to updates., meaning that ,besides Word, being disabled, one cannot create or edit documents in PowerPoint or Excel. Of course, there was a suggestion to upgrade to Microsoft 365, which must be paid for on a monthly subscription basis. A quick text was sent to the friend who had installed the Microsoft Office 2021 license (which is a one time purchase), unfortunately he is currently swamped with his full-time day job plus university courses towards an MDiv, as he is a postulant for the Anglican Priesthood. After sending him a screenshot of the notice, he said he would need to come over to reset the license and is unalbe to come until next Tuesday evening. Since I am EXTREMELY grateful for free “tech support” I am now in a holding pattern and trying to figure out workarounds in order to continue with all of my office and Day Camps tasks.
Tuesday, after pondering which workarounds to put in place and which items on the current “to-do” list would have to be postponed, work resume, albeit with some restrictions. It was still possible to update the Home Page of the CTM website, and by uploading last month’s DC committee agenda to Drive, editing it for the November meeting there and downloading it back onot my laptop, I could still send out the agenda and Meet link for next Wednesday’s meeting. That morning I also was, for the first time, chairing a meeting of the Bishop’s Commission on Ministry , of which I have just been appointed Interim Chair. Fortunately that meeting takes place on Zoom and the Vicar General kindly provided a meetiing link, although I had to use the same labouriopius work around to edit the September minutes, and the agenda, in order ro curcualte them to the BCoM members. Sigh.
Wednesday, it was time to see if I could continue preparing slide presentations for the Alumni Advent Program. Happily, the completed slides for Advent 1&2, had already been uploaded so it proved possible to make a copy of one of them, rename it, edit it and add it to the Drive folder. In the end both Advent 3 &4 drafts were roughed out so that was another task completed.That evening, I decided to try and see if a way could be found to rectify the software problem. After fooling around for a while and restarting the laptop, much to my surprise the software was ,once again functioning!! It is fervently hoped that this “fix” will prove to permanently solve the issue.
Thursday morning a chat had been scheduled with Gillian, a DC alumnus and former committee members. Gillian and her sweet young family, joined us for Episode #3 of the Cook-Along, the first time she had felt that the older 2 children (ages 5&3!) were big enough to enjoy it. Judging by the photos of happy faces, they seemed to have a good time! Gillian hopes to attend the Advent Program. Her husband is a hospital physician and often works weekends, so we will just pray that all the schedules work out! It was lovely to chat with her and to see her youngest baby too! That evening the quarterly task of deep- cleaning the pantry was undertaken and now all the shelves and jars are squeaky clean!
Outside of the office saga, a little bit more Christmas sewing was completed, as the dressed bunny soft toy, begun last week, was finally finished. Of course knitting also continues on what is the last pair of socks, destined for Christmas gifts. The hunt continues for a good soft toy monkey pattern, no success to date!
Yesterday, lots of invitations to Carols & Cocoa were sent out, as it is now only just over a month away (EEK!!!) and, this coming Monday, another round of badgering will need to take place for presenters, as we still have pitifully few volunteers. It seems the last issue of Networks was only just published but the next one comes out at the beginning of Advent so ,also next week, my to-do list includes contacting all the Board members in order to glean some content; hopefully, they will submit their pieces in reasonable time. AGH!!!! Yesterday, Anna was welcomed for lunch. She is in town for a few days, from her home in Halifax, to help. her mother, who is packing up her belongings. and moving to Halifax, to be closer to family. It was so good to see Anna in person, as she and her sons stayed here, in the summer of 2025, at the time of her father’s death.
This morning, it was outside for a round of raking.It was most exciting to discover the Autumn Crocus are in bloom; can you spot them, above, in the final photo? Next, I’m deep into the Bake as Mae Anne is coming for our monthly lunch visit and a new recipe is being tested- Butternut Squash, Pearl Couscous & Feta Salad. The squash has to be roasted so that is also factored into the Bake roster! The recipe seems to be successful so one hopes you will ,also, try this very Autumnal dish!
Butternut Squash & Pearl Couscous Salad
- 5 cups cubed butternut squash
- 2 cups ground cherries ( or red grapes)
- 5Tbsps olive oil
- salt & pepper
- 1cup pearl couscous
- 1 1/2cups-2cups vegetable broth
- 2Tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1Tbsp maple syrup
- 1Tbsp lemn juice
- 1/2rsp dried rosemary
- 1/2 cup Feta
- 1/4cup toasted sunflower seeds
Preheat oven to 400F. Place squash on a large ,parchment-lined baking sheet, drizzle with 2Tbsps olive oil and season with salt & pepper. Bake for 30minutes. Meanwhile, cook pearl couscous in vegetable stock , until tender.In a small jar, combine the remaining olive oil, vinegar, maple syrup, lemon juice, rosemary, salt and pepper, set aside.Place roasted squash and grapes and couscous in a large serving bowl. Shake the dressing well, pour over the salad and toss. Garnish with feta and sunflower seeds. Serve warm or at room temperature. Serves 4-6.