My Green Thumb

I have declared this weekend to be my first full on gardening weekend. Tomorrow I am heading to a ``Green Thumb`` workshop; a workshop on gardening from seed. It`s free and offered by the local nature centre in the city. It wasn`t until after I signed up that I realized it is being led by one of the people I admire the most. A local agronomist, garden writer and food advocate in Richmond. I have worked with her over the years through various food programs in the city. I am SO excited!

This year I will have three gardens and I have them all planned out. The seeds are purchased and I`ve already won a free bag of manure. Yay! Next projects include building a worm composter and a potato growing bin. I love spring!

Travel in the works!

I am getting the itch to travel somewhere big. The last trip I took was in July 2009 to Guatemala. Last year, Israel was in the plan and then the car accident happened. For a number of reasons, the Middle East is not currently in the plan.

I am looking ahead to January 2012. I`ll take three weeks off and head somewhere in the world. Places on my list include France, Greece, Italy, Washington DC, China, India, New Zealand and Africa. It`s time to dream, plan, save and go! I`ll see what plan I come up with.

Family Week

Dad arrives today and my cousin Scott & his wife Christine will visit this weekend. I am BEYOND excited to have family in town. It doesn`t happen often as I am usually the one that travels to the USA. We are going to share some great meals, visit the local markets and on Saturday I will take my cousins to the BC LDS Temple of which I visited three times during its open house last year. They have yet to see its beauty. It looks to be a wonderful family week.

Japan

Tonight I participated in a multi-faith prayer service for Japan. About 70 people attended with only two days notice. 14 different faiths were represented and prayers (spoken and sung) were offered. Everybody lit candles and prayed together in one large circle prayer before leaving for the night. It was amazing, inspiring, holy and peaceful. We can only hope that what we did tonight will bring courage and help to encourage the people of Japan. Tonight was a great example of why I am so thankful to be living in the place I live - a significant multi-cultural, multi-faith community.

Living Lent

The Season of Lent began last night with a great Shrove Tuesday pancake supper followed by an Ash Wednesday prayer service. I love this time of year and could quite easily live through a Lenten type journey all year long. Perhaps I will. My personal challenge over the next six weeks is to remove TV from my life. I can listen to the radio or read the newspaper to keep up to date with news but I will not be finding myself sitting on the couch flipping channels to fill my time. Instead I plan on improving my life by reading books that have been sitting in my book pile for months and implementing more time for prayer. I really need to take this Lenten time to discern what my future will look like as there are so many exciting possibilities. Wish me luck!

Black Eyed Susans

I have a pile of gardening books stacking up on my coffee table just waiting for a block of time where I can draw out my garden plan for 2011. I need to start planting seedlings within the next week or so as I am already behind. The first seeds should have gone in about two weeks ago. This year I am blessed to have three gardening spaces; balcony, community plot and garden patch. My balcony will primarily be for berries, herbs and salad greens. Corn, beets, broccoli, onions, tomatoes and cucumbers will be in the community plot and carrots, peas and some more herbs will be planted in the garden patch. If all goes well I will be supplied all summer long with delicious fruit and veggies. This year I also hope to plant a bunch of flowers including my favourite Black Eyed Susans.

Children`s Retreat

I am getting excited! This weekend is the annual Children`s Retreat. A gathering of around 80 children and 30 leaders at a retreat centre close to Cultus Lake. The children will be between the ages of 8-12, many of whom have never been away from home before. Our theme for the event will be based on Jeremiah`s call. An opportunity to experience children empowering each other to use the gifts they have been given. In preparation we`ve asked some children to share their talents with the group. So far we have a cello player, a bagpiper, someone who volunteers in Guatemala every summer with her mom and a child who began a project to raise money for those who are homeless. It looks to be an amazing weekend and I look forward to learning from an incredible group of children.