Energy filled Weekend

Aaron at the playground!

Taylor, Rhys and Aaron spent the weekend at my place, it was an energy and fun filled weekend! Of course that much energy and fun also means that a few moments of quiet and deep breathing are required!

I love having them over: it is so much fun to look at the world through their eyes, to sit and read them a bedtime story and to do all the many things that they find excitement and joy in.

Friday night was low key... we had dinner, cleaned up and put on a movie and enjoyed one another's company.

Saturday was a very full day! It started my absolute favorite way; the way it starts morning when the kids are here. Aaron quietly sneaks into my room and whispers to me, "can I take your laptop?" I open my eyes, tell him that he can and then he picks up my laptop and sneaks back out the door... silently closing the door behind him. And then I sleep for about another hour. Why don't I just leave my laptop on the table for him? Because there is something beautiful about the oh so respectful and generous wake-up from him!

Pizza Making!

We went a saw "Mirror, Mirror" at the theatre, ran a few errands and then headed to the park in order to get rid of some energy. We got home and I started making pizza dough at which time the kids informed me that they wanted crackers, cheese, cucumber and strawberries while watching a movie. They decided that having pizza later would mean that they would get to stay up later. So I decided to take off down to the Cathedral to attend the last Holy Table, Holy Word service for the season - a service of prayer, scripture, silence, community and Eucharist. After a day of being with two roughhousing brothers this was exactly what I needed! And the kids having time away from me was also probably what they needed!

I came home and we made some amazing pizza's! They turned out great and it was so much fun to watch them decide what to put on it and how much to put on. And then to watch them enjoy the food that they prepared themselves... I love it!

Breakfast: Green eggs, turkey bacon and toast!

Sunday we got up and I made them green eggs and turkey bacon! The best way to make green eggs (I've since discovered) is to puree spinnach and egg together and then scramble it up! They come out so very green. And the kids loved it... Aaron was rather disgusted when he learned (after the fact) that it was made with spinach. We headed to church and then came home and decorated the twenty-two eggs we had blown out over the weekend. This too was fun to watch them be creative with...

Now that everyone is home and the second to last week of school is about to begin I am looking forward to cleaning the house, resting and then tackling the way to much homework that needs to be completed. I am also looking forward to the journey through Holy Week, the journey with Jesus to the cross and then into the great light of the resurrection!

Time for Creativity

Sometimes you just need to have your soul fully, delicately, and wonderfully filled. And sometimes you don't even know that it's what the deepest depths of your soul needs, but when the opportunity comes those deep depths of yourself just soak it all up.

This past Wednesday the staff at the Cathedral gathered to decorate Easter Eggs. This time to explore and be reminded of the creative side within me was just what I needed, it was just what we all needed.



Of course, the problem now is figuring out how to move from being creative to paper writing... or maybe accepting the creativity that can and should exist within the words on a page, yes even in academic papers!

But as this week ends and we soon begin the journey through Holy Week the opportunity to explore my creative side once again and engage in some repetitive and delicate work with good company filled with creativity and laughter is feeding me.

The problem with writing

Yes, you read that correctly... I said problem and writing in the same sentence. I know... writing if far from a problem, except of course when you have that paper due the next day, you are not interested in the topic and the last thing you want to do is write. (No, this is not the situation I am in this afternoon!)

Today though, writing is my problem. After spending the last week writing each evening my pattern changed and I spent time with my journal and scripture this morning. How is this a problem? Well, now *all* I want to do is write in my journal. I want to reflect and ponder, imagine and dream. I want to go back to my February 2011 entries and find out what I was writing about a year ago. What was on mind... what was happening in my life.

And I can't just sit and write all day, at least not today. Today I have to read some more of Milton's Paradise Lost and get a good head start on the paper that is due in the coming days. And yet, all I want to do is immerse myself in my writing... I just want to write.

New

Windowsill Candles 

I've always loved opening something for the first time... lighting a new candle, starting a new bottle of hand soap, smelling a new book, sleeping in a newly made bed, having dishes newly cleaned.

I love baking something new or even something familiar - it's the look of newly baked cookies cooling on the rack that I love so much. 

New, new, new. New life, new friendships, new challenges, new adventures, new questions, new answers. Newness can be exciting, very exciting. But the familiar - yep, that's often what I get drawn back to.  

Tonight though while surrounded by my familiar routine I greatly enjoyed lighting a new candle and struggled to keep myself from trying a new recipe. Some newness needs to be saved for another day! 

A clean house, glass of wine and triple chocolate chip cookies!

My reading break started today. This is the break where many take off to warm places or back to home to be with their families and find some time to rest. I started my break today with a 9am meeting with my professor so we could sort out my graduating essay details (let the research begin!) and then finished up a paper I needed to hand in. And that will continue to be the pattern of my reading break... I will actually be reading this time around. 

Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

Don't worry... there will be some time for rest, kitting, napping, and the start of all things Lenten (I get to make Mardi Gras masks with children and the young at heart at our Shrove Tuesday Pancake supper this year!)... and yes, that will all be great and well deserved. Just don't let me get too caught up in it all that I forget about my studies... okay?

Tonight though, after the school work and catching up with my mom and brother... I cleaned my whole house! I've been wanting to clean, clean, clean for the last week and it feels completely wonderful to have it all done. What a great way to start the break. After all... a messy house begins to make a grumpy and stressed Melissa. 

TRU Campus during our recent snowfall

So, after all the cleaning was done I really wanted to bake with my almond flour that had arrived that afternoon. So I went to the store to purchase my missing ingredient and ended up also picking up a bottle of wine. The rest of my evening consisted of making Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies... as my first almond flour baking experiment I must say they are amazing! I'm going to have to freeze some so that I don't consume them all at once. And probably share some with friends so they can enjoy the small bit of heavenly like delight. 

So, an evening with a clean house, delicious chocolate goodness, a delicate glass of wine and some time catching up with a good friend via amazing technology means that I'm pretty content! 

Side note: we got another dump of snow yesterday... 12cm of unexpected beauty. Today it started melting... the world will soon be a bit sloppier! 

Sorrento Centre - Join us for Summer 2012

Bring your children and your grandchildren! Bring you and your amazing family and join us for a week of Summer Programming at Sorrento Centre this July! 

You can find our program guide on the website: www.sorrento-centre.bc.ca and view the video below to catch a glimpse of what a typical week of programming from the experience of children, youth, families and staff might be. 

Words heard for the first time...

Cousin Maggie's baptism in 2008

This Sunday at church we had a baptism. The welcoming of a wee baby girl into God's family forever. It was powerful, it was amazing, it was a baptism.

Now, I've been to a number of baptisms... many for little babies, some for adults and my own in grade three. And yet yesterday I heard words in the baptism service that I've never heard before. These words were spoken in the prayer after this little baby was baptized and signed with the cross. These words were: "Give her an inquiring and discerning heart" and the prayer continued with: "the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen."


It always amazes me how I can hear words over and over and over again and then one day really hear them. Almost like I have never encountered the words before. Like my ears, my brain and my heart heard them for the first time.


Give her an inquiring and discerning heart


These are the words that will stay with me, these are the words that I heard yesterday, these are the words that have so much power, hope and emotion.

Maybe I heard them yesterday because I find myself inquiring and discerning so much right now (not that I haven't before!). It's become part of my week, day, hour, minute. Discerning God's call and what my heart is yearning for... both these things together. Listening for the wisdom within myself and from others around me. Changing my mind over and over again. Questioning everything and then having moments where I can see my passions and my call come to life.

And maybe it's also that fact that I realized during the service as those words were spoken and the tears begin to fill my eyelids that someone once prayed those exact words over me... for me... Maybe it's the realization that these words have been part of my life for more years then I've realized. That this has been part of me and who I am and what I'm doing. That years ago it was prayed for me the great hope that I may have an inquiring and discerning heart.

The words prayed over this infant child are the same words that were once prayed over me.
Words that have been spoken for years and yet only just heard.

Holy One, we thank you that by this water and the Holy Spirit you 
have bestowed upon this your servant the forgiveness of sin, and 
have raised her to the new life of grace. Sustain her O Lord, in 
your Holy Spirit. Give her an inquiring and discerning heart, the 
courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, 
and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen.



Prayer from The Book of Alternative Services of The Anglican Church of Canada page 160.