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On a day where my head cannot imagine trying to compose coherent sentences on a week that doesn't have anything worth reporting, I think it is time to watch another video!

Garbage Revealed

It has been a month, and today is the day that I show you all how wasteful I truly am. Here's the evidence:

The left hand side is all empty bags of flour and sugar and butter wrappings (evidence of my baking obsession). The middle section is mostly food wrapping and the right side is the section that is the most disappointing.

 

It is disappointing because if I were at home these items could have been recycled, but here they just become trash. Overall it did not change my habits too much but I did refrain from buying many single serving snacks that are a big garbage producing culprit in my life. This tells me that when I go home I can really reduce my waste by purchasing baking ingredients in bulk and avoiding too many packaged snacks. Can you buy butter in bulk? Maybe straight from a farm? I don't know about that. I guess I could make my own butter by using fresh cream (from a glass bottle). Oh the things that are possible. 

As evidence of my need to bake here is my Sunday morning:

The crew galley was quiet and there isn't much more I can ask for to improve my baking experience.

Yesterday was an amazing day as I got the opportunity to  join a group of women from the ship and go to a local church and minister to some of the women there. A foot washing was organized and there were about 50 women that were there and got their feet washed. It was really interesting to see many of them break down in tears while the process was taking place and see many of them have huge smiles on their faces when it was all over. We got so many hugs and so many thank yous; they were so grateful and I was very grateful to be a part of the whole thing.

As an aside: Mercy Ships founder Don Stephens is on board and I am spending my days taking the long way so as not to disturb him. I have been told he is a very humble man. I look forward to hearing him speak tonight.

Abnormal Weekend

Sorry for being late, but I have a great explanation. This weekend was a long weekend (we had Friday off). The chaplaincy team was holding a couples' retreat and for those couples who have kids child care was provided. That is where I come in. Along with 6 other "grown up" crew members we entertained the kids and fully tired ourselves out. I managed to give myself a reputation for being able to drag kids across the carpeted floor on their sleeping bags. It wasn't so bad the first few times but then I was hurting. Sunday was a no walking day so I could recover. It was really fun to let loose and be a little crazy. The kids were really good but just like home the girls and the boys can tease each other and the little ones got tired and cranky. I forgot to mention that there were 20 kids between 5 and 11 years old. The theme of the retreat was the persecuted church. That is a scary topic but it was presented in a really approachable way. The kids got to colour a map while praying for kids around the world, had to do a hunt for the secret church location, and watched some videos of kids their age in refugee camps. Apart from those activities there was lots of silliness and so much creativity and imagination, movies, pizza making, and friendship. Sometimes I get self-conscious around kids because I am not the most fun and zany and injuries that are my fault always frighten me. Anyway, I am thrilled I got to participate.

I also got some Valentine's treats from two people off the ship. I am kind of obsessed with this straw...

 

These tic tacs have words on them! Like conversation hearts.

I also got a cookie making kits to make theses beauties:

 And then, because I was bored, I made these:

 

And then there was church and, poof, the weekend was over! 

For those enjoying Family Day I hope your weekend has been extra wonderful and I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Bagel Time

Before I start I wanted to share this picture of the beautiful sky that I was looking at last Sunday from my hammock on deck 7.

Today was one of those days where I felt like there was no point in blogging. I looked at my last post and saw that only 31 people took the time to look at what I wrote. I had to remind myself that the number doesn't matter. Even if one person is interested, I will write for them. I am questioning whether you really want to hear about my bagel making but that was my Saturday excitement and that is what I have to share. I could share about my crazy emotional exhausting Friday full of ups and downs but that might be a little too much information because you never know who might be reading. So bagels it is...

 

At this point it is unclear to me whether it was worth all the boiling and baking. There are no bagels anywhere in sight in Madagascar so I thought I would give it a go. They were fine but if I make them again I will make them with some sort of flavour,  like cinnamon raisin or garlic and cheese. I found some fennel seeds in the shared space in the crew galley so I toasted those just for a bit of flavour but they were still pretty bland. All in all they weren't that complicated it just took a lot of time because I could only bake 6 at a time. I also need to use parchment paper so they don't stick. Lessons learned. 

I recently had a conversation with a friend about jealousy and she prayed something that was a revelation for me. I should have been obvious but she suggested that I prayed for the person toward whom I direct my jealously. Genius! I couldn't believe after all these months I hadn't thought of that myself. That got me thinking about lent and what I might give up or take up throughout the 40 days. Facebook is a really challenge for me as it an important means of keeping in touch but it often hurts me a lot. So after some deliberation I have decided to really cut my Facebook usage over the Lenten season. I decided that I will only use messenger and log in when I see I have some sort of notification. Gone are the days of scrolling through the news feed and checking whether messages have gone unanswered after viewing. At this point I am unsure what else I will do but I still have a few days to decide what would have a meaningful impact.

Garbage update: This week was a bit better but there is still a lot that doesn't make it in the jar. Mostly it is paper from work but I do try to use scraps when I can. I have really cut my snacking though so that has reduced the snack bags in my office trash.

As a complete departure from the rest of this blog I need to say that the world is a scary place and there are many terrible people but if you or I can bring light into just one of those people's lives a difference has been made. No change is too small. No person is too insignificant to matter. 

A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood

Oh Mr. Rogers. Although it has been many years since I watched that show and it has been many years since Fred Rogers passed away, I can still hear the theme song playing in my head. When I thought about what to write I figured it would be nice to share a couple of pictures of my "neighbourhood", and beautiful it is.

These are from a trip I took last weekend and the full moon was just ridiculous. It was so bright; like a huge lantern hanging over the water.

 

The picture below captures a scenario that could potentially be a nightmare for my sister: a huge pile of cinnamon (my sister strongly dislikes cinnamon). I passed it outside the market yesterday and thought it was amazing. Huge cinnamon sticks laying out in the sun, filling the whole area with their sweet smell.

An update on my garbage. This experiment has increased my hoarding tendencies. That is not a good thing. For example, I took a Benedryl while I was at work (too many mosquito bites) and I had to keep the blister package to that I could deposit it in my jar later. Well, I forgot it in my desk, a couple of times. Eventually it got to where it needed to be and it was something very unassuming so it didn't cause too much of an issue. Other than that it is going okay. Even trying to cut down I feel like I still have a lot. Yesterday was a bad day as I was cooking and ended up with two empty cans and no where to recycle them. I want to say I'll keep them until Durban and find somewhere to put them there but I don't remember seeing recycling bins there. I also realized that I already had a heightened awareness of this garbage issue as evidenced by the fact that I collected all my cardboard waste last year and brought it home with me when I went for Easter. Yes, I am that crazy.

As an aside: Today is my mom's birthday! She puts up with a whole lot and care about all of her kids (biological and students) so much. She will do so much for everyone around here. She is an very hard worker and has proven that in two giant ways that I am aware of: 1. When she was very pregnant with my sister when she had a report due at work. Although the elevator was broken she climbed many flights of stairs to make sure it got there on time and 2. She was at work all day the day I was born and in early labour the whole time! Good thing my dad intervened or it could have been a very different beginning for me. In addition to being a wonderful mother she has proved to be an excellent principal and fantastic grandma. Yesterday she reminded me that I will always be her baby, no matter what. I am very lucky to have her. If you see her, give her a hug for me please.

That is all. Have a fabulous week!

Waste Not

I want to try and live waste free. Seriously. What does that even mean? It hit me midweek when someone asked me where you take your trash from your cabin. I explained that there is a big trash container on the dock and you just throw it there. But where does it go from there? Into someone's backyard or an animal's home. Then I started using the internet to research this thought process. Turns out there are other people who hate garbage as well (perhaps even more than I do at this moment). I feel like I saw a link with this young lady on it but I can't remember where. Maybe it came from these ladies. Anyway, trashisfortossers was the first site I explored and thought "I could do that... maybe". Then there is this lady who has made her living being a "zero waste guru". This is really cool. So why I am sharing this with you? I have two reasons. One of them is not that I have run away from the ship and intend to live in the wilderness of Madagascar for the remainder of my life.
1. I am going to start a 30 day challenge to reduce my waste and I want to be accountable to you
2. I thought if you knew you might try it too (yes, I know that rhymes)
So, every plan has to have actionable steps to be successful. Here it goes. In considering the type of trash I usual have, I think that my biggest culprit is food wrappers. That should be pretty easy to reduce; stop buying anything from the ship shop. Check. Thankfully the ship already has a composting program in place so organic matter is done. On to plastic and paper products. Grrr. Unfortunately, Madagascar doesn't have a recycling program in place. However, I can certainly try and reuse plastic bags and bottles where I can and not buy them going forward. I can also choose to use my glass container to save food instead of using a plate with cling wrap over it. Small steps. I can't do much about the products I have already purchased such as spare shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and toothbrushes. Once I get home I intend to leave some of those things behind and embrace more environmentally friendly alternatives. No, I am not becoming a hippie just in time to attempt to reintegrate into Canadian society. There are so many fantastic products available, why not take advantage? Yes, I know, it can be more expensive but in the end you might see that it is worth it.

That is my plan and here is my jar:

I would encourage you to join in and see where you can make some changes to reduce your waste. Sunday we start. Thank you for reading. Really, thank you.

Comfort Food

So I had this can of pumpkin...

No, this is not the beginning of a bad joke. I had this one can of pumpkin that I got on the container months ago but I wanted to make a very specific recipe. Unfortunately, I did not have any maple syrup, so I held off until now. What's most convenient is that I got the cutest little bottle of syrup while I was home, as a wedding favour (thank you Teresa and Dan). It was especially perfect because it was small and plastic (excellent for transportation from Canada to Madagascar).

 

 With the aforementioned syrup I successfully made the muffins. During the course of my muffin making another crew member came up to the crew galley and was walking around as though they were looking for something. The second time this person walked around I asked what they were looking for. When I heard it was parchment paper that they were after, I knew they wouldn't find any in there but I did have an extra box in my cabin. So we walked downstairs and solved the problem. Easy. Later on the evening I come to my cabin door and saw something sitting outside. I rarely have anything waiting for me but my cabin mates often have notes and other things so I assumed it was for one of them. But wait! It had my name on it. When I unwrapped it I found this perfect little loaf of bread with a note saying I had saved the day! It made me so happy! It also looked so similar to my Nonna's Easter bread that I couldn't help but smile.

What may seem like a small gesture can end up providing so much comfort. Thank you!

After the muffin making, I was left over with quite a bit of pumpkin but I wasn't prepared to stay in the crew galley any longer so I put off making pumpkin pancakes until today. They turned out fantastic! Now my box in the freezer is full of delicious breakfast options! I really love breakfast food but I don't look forward to breakfast on the ship, so having some exciting options might give me some more incentive to get out of bed in the morning. 

My weekend was very quiet, so other than cooking/baking and going to the market I have nothing to report. Oh, that is untrue. When I was walking to the store to buy pasta on Friday (it was bratwurst night) a man with terrible English skills was trying to talk to me, and eventually asked if I was celibate. Of all the English words he could know, why is celibate one of them? Oh dear. That pasta was delicious by the way. I had Nonna's sauce to put on it and some chickpeas to mix in. Yum! 

So now that I have made you read about food for 5 minutes, you now know it's importance in my life, especially on the ship. 

Happy Sunday! My niece is being Christened today. Good thing I will be home soon, so I don't have too many more milestones.