This little patio set (which I got for FREE) has become my new sanctuary, my breakfast and reading nook.  How perfect it is that the mini-yard of this townhouse only gets sun from about 9:30-11:30am, when the birds are chirping, the breeze is light and traffic has not yet begun it's stirring.

The cherry blossom tree has now littered the green grass pink and the pedals threaten but have yet to drift into my coffee cup for a forbidden sip.

This spring has been one that I have truly witnessed newness of life, with all the anticipation that it brings and the joy which we have yet to fully understand.

I keep using the word "yet"... hmm... I think I see a theme here...

Time to get back to reading.

Okay this is what I've done this morning... I think it took longer to type this all out than to do it!

• made coffee
• 3/14 = pie day
• found 2 cans of peaches in the cupboard
• started moving all the cans from top to bottom cupboard
• reorganized other cupboards to consolidate coffee/teas and spices
• got a chair so i could reach top cupboards
• moved the chair to clean the inside of the microwave from the chili i heated up yesterday morning and splattered everywhere
• surfed the internet to rest my arms and looked up peach pie recipes... here is my "rookie" recipe:

Jo's Leftover Peach Pie

Strain juice out of 2 cans of peach halves you found in the back of the cupboard.
Dump into bowl and squeeze the juice of a half a lemon over it.
In another bowl, combine the following:
 1/3 cup crushed walnuts,
 1/2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice (didn't have nutmeg so this was the closest I could get - else it's 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, maybe)
 1 tbsp brown sugar

Arrange peach halves (center up) in the  one Tenderflake frozen crust you had leftover in the freezer - take one at a time so you don't pour in the bit of juice leftover in the bowl. 
Add a spoonful of cornstarch to the bowl to use up the juice (probably 30ml cornstarch with 30 ml juice?  I don't remember) and mix to thicken.   Add walnut mixture in and toss. Oh, add a few drops of vanilla extract too. 
Evenly sprinkle crunchy mixture over the peaches in the pie.  Bake for 30 minutes at 400 F on the lower rack (I don't know why, but that's what I did).  Remove to cooling rack and let it sit for 45 minutes at least.  Then take a few pictures and dig in. 



I actually baked it at 350 for about 10 minutes, then cranked it up to 425 for about 20 minutes more after checking some other recipes.  Do whatever you like.  I don't know if this even qualifies as a pie because there's no top but peach halves look very pretty with the walnuts inside. Maybe more juice and cornstarch if you want the filling to be more gooey but the peaches stayed more intact this way and I kinda like it.  Quite sure I'll never make it same way again... that's the way it goes!

So by this time it's maybe 10:30 and I'm getting hungry.  My awesome friend Eva had made me  chicken satay that needed to be grilled so then I fire up the barbeque and get started...

Open fridge door and get out marinated chicken satay, the bag of red peppers. 
Look in cupboards for skewers, then change my mind because it's too messy. 
Get distracted by cupboards and reorganize a bit more. 
Notice the experimental yam* bought on Wednesday and go online to look for bbq yam recipes.  Here is what I came up with:

Aromatic BBQ Yam Steak Fries
Cut yam into wedges, think a little bigger than steak fries. 
Drizzle and toss with olive oil (a.k.a. e.v.o.o.).
Add sprinkling of salt, dried basil and dried rosemary and toss some more. 
Place on bbq and turn every 4-5 minutes over medium heat for about 20 minutes or so.
Drizzle more e.v.o.o. as needed about halfway through and sprinkle with brown sugar too. Remove from bbq onto one of those super cheap ikea plate/bowls and sprinkle with brown sugar and dash of cayenne pepper.  Cover with foil so it melts the brown sugar and doesn't dry out. 
Eat at your leisure as you blog about your food-adventures.

That was a good one. Had the bbq on pretty low heat and it worked out well because I cooked the chicken satays on the left, yams on the right and had one red pepper in the middle.  Fell in love with grilled peppers over the Weber-Q episode 1. Something to salivate over, messily eat with hands, sweet like candy, smoky rich flavour... *makes Homer Simpson drooling noise*

 

So it's only 11:45 by the time I turn off the propane and I'm super stuffed right now on pie, chicken, and yams. The pepper has been ignored because I can't type with messy fingers.  I drizzled honey over the chicken because it got a bit dry and then swiped peanut butter on the side of the bowl to dip. 

My morning of fasting, cleaning and praying has turned into a crazy feast. 

Why does this always happen to me?

* I like to buy different food products I don't usually eat so I can learn to use it.  I bought canned crabmeat (like canned tuna) from Costco ages ago and finally made a crab-pesto cream sauce with pasta on Tuesday - that was awesome.  Come to think of it, the little jar of imported pesto was bought even longer ago! 

I think the gap between generations now happens soon than later as the newer bunch of youth change more rapidly than before.  I grew up with VHS and making mixed tapes for my friends,the kids these days exchange information in hand-held video format and play interactive games online.  I talked on the phone, maybe even had a 3-way conversion, on the extra-long phone cord dragged into my room.  My dad would simply unplug the phone on me if he thought I was talking too long (how rude, eh).  Something like 75% of highschool student have their own cell phone.  A good percentage of them probably have Blackberries or iPhones or other web-capable devices. Things change as rapidly a information is exchanged. Communication is brief and streamed constantly - twittered, if you will. Lives change.

In such a transient society, how to you maintain relationships and build them deeper than 160 characters long?  Is it possible to meet on a weekly basis?  More than that even?  How are we to live in community?

Although the task is daunting, I am hopeful.  I'm about 5 years into youth ministry now and am seeing my first string of grade 8's quickly approaching graduation.  I hope to reflect with them how the journey has been the last half decade and look forward to growing with them for decades to come.  It is not an end but a question of where do we go from here? 

I had a brief image today of how a pastor goes through something like 40 years of ministry and the changes that are witnessed, the hundreds of lives that cross your path and the people you see grow up and die, the life-long friendships and the hardships that are endured together to ultimately see your community grow and mature.  That glimpse helps to give me patience - the lives I want to see change may not happen this year, or even in five years.  We walk and pray together over decades - Moses has to lead a bunch of complaining Israelites for 40 whining years.  And he didn't complain. Well, he did but he only to cry out to God directly.  I think that's called praying and doesn't count as whining. 

Whining is when you don't bring your problems to God and just cry about it to yourself or to a friend.  That's useless.  If you're going to bitch and whine about it, at least bring it straight to God cuz then He can actually do something about it. Go straight to the top if you need something done. Duh.

What was I talking about?  I don't know. It's late and I'm about to lose another hour cuz of daylight savings.  Still thinking about a morning run... God willing. :)