Ten on Tuesday

Ten on Tuesday... Fall is here!

1. I'm beyond excited about tomorrow... about staff meeting, community, love, home. About conversations, preparations and planning. Tomorrow is the start of fall routine and I'm happy that is is here again.

2. It's quiet here at Sorrento Centre... here at home. The youth staff have left, the guests have left, the place is quiet. I miss the people who had gathered here, I miss the staff who are also my friends, but I'm also very excited for for the quiet and the slower pace.

3. I'm in teacher mode... and in sticky note planning mode... This is how I imagine planning children's ministry, youth ministry and young adults... will I still be using this organized and colourful system in a months time? Who knows...

4. I received an email this afternoon with an invitation that has me feeling like I can't say no (and I say this feeling honoured, not limited!). It sad the following, "I am writing to you today to invite you to accept to be nominated to serve..." and at the end of the email, "By this letter I am requesting you accept to service on the assembly..." Hehe... oh dear... I doubt I have a valid reason to say "no"!

5. I am waist deep in 2014 planning for Sorrento Centre... Summer has just ended, my fall programming soon to begin with 2014 already in the middle of it's planning. Wow!

6.  I have to decide in the next few days whether I'm going to a gathering with colleges, for a while I was thinking that I wouldn't because I'm already going to be away so much... but now I think that I might need that college time!

7. I spent my Saturday sick on the couch. But after one day I was back to (near) full functioning. It took: Emergen-C, Echinacea Water, cough drops, two boxes of kleenex, VapoRub and season 2 of Call the Midwife.

8. I discovered how lovely it is to have my radio in my living room rather than bedroom... CBC radio all the time! (yes... sometimes I'm like a 65 year old!)

9. I'm back to meal planning, life scheduling and ministry planning and dreaming. Love it.

10. 51 day until I leave for Busan...

Oh, Hello September

Woah - Hello September! When did you arrive?

September will always feel like "back to school" time. Time to bring out the pants and socks, the new notebooks, the pens and the backpacks. Time to leave the flexible summer days behind and enter into the schedule filled with school, extra-curricular activities, and youth group. It's time for packed lunches, late night paper writing, Saturday sleep-ins and life being organized by the agenda book.

For the second year, September does not have me going back to school (although late-fall may see an online course). September now means cooler days, a more relaxed schedule and the next set of projects and deadlines approaching alongside a very full schedule. September still has the joy of bringing out the fall wardrobe (I'm one of those people who love fall and winter clothes!) and doing some preparations for children and youth ministry in the church... which is sort of like school preparations!

My work has the summer months as the most full and most busy months of the year. The summer months are filled with some of the most joyful and holy days as people gather together to form community, to pray, to play and to learn. Which means that when the fall days come I have both a more relaxed and more flexible schedule alongside a more full schedule as commitments beyond Sorrento Centre come back to life and the meeting commitments I have made fill up many days and weeks of the year.

At the Cathedral everything starts up again in September: Sunday School, Youth Group, Young Adults, Staff Meetings, Bible Study, Parish Dinners, and the list goes on and on and on! And I am so excited and so ready to continue the planning and get back in touch with everyone. Alongside this my National Church commitments begin again: meetings, readings, writing, gatherings, traveling. There is much new for this year, namely - heading off to the World Council of Churches in South Korea as one of the handful of delegates representing the Anglican Church of Canada. Excited. Terrified. Honoured.

For me, the fall days also are the days when I get back into my cooking and preparing of meals. And I love cooking and baking - so when the time comes for me to get back into the kitchen I find myself filled with peace.

Fall means planning, traveling, preparing, cooking, resting.
Fall means new challenges and opportunities.
So, as much as I am surprised that September has already arrived I am also so very ready for it!