So to continue part two of many of this series of blog posts... FOOD! Recently, I have found out that I love to cook. I probably have spent countless hours cooking since I have been here. I have made tons and tons of baked goods everything from chocolate chip cookies, to Oreo pie, to brownies, to cake, to cup cakes, to homemade pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie. I think i have come to a realization that baking and cooking to me is relaxing and a way that I have found puts my mind at ease. Not only have I baked though... I have cooked meals for those in my household and the other Yav's. I have had baked ziti dinners, chicken dinners, and even made two different soups.
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| Baked Ziti I made |
I have recently been learning to cook more and more things and just recently have not had much time to do so but hopefully I will be able to cook some more traditional dishes and might even share some recipes with everyone. Harvest is a huge deal here (will talk more about it later in this post). Well below is the picture of the harvest baking I did. I did not remember to take a picture of my lovely pumpkin pie but this is the pumpkin bread and cupcakes and soup that I made. It was quite interesting for me to find out that most Nothern Irish have not tried anythign with pumpkin in it. It is not a typical food that most would cook with.
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| My cupcakes, pumpkin bread, and potato and leek soup |
So now that you know what I have been doing in my spare time... I should mention the main reason that I had time to do so much cooking would be the fact I was so ill. So me being the lucky one must have caught something on the plane ride over. I was trying for the longest time to just take sinus medication to hopefully get over it but that did not happen. I have made three trips to the doctor and after a sinus infection, respiratory infection, stomach infection and needing to be on 7 different medications I am back to my normal self. I think this made it very hard for me to adjust due to the fact that I was not feeling well ever. It is lovely to finally feel like myself again and be able to do my jobs to my fullest potential.
One of the many activities that I have been lucky enough to be involved in is ten pin bowling (our regular bowling) with one of my house mates church. Every Monday night I am lucky enough to go and bowl with around 12-15 older people at the bowling alley. This has been great fun or in Nor Irish great craic. We all bowl one game and its just a fun time to get to know others from other churches. One of the things this group does is give out the spoon (for the "loser") and the cup (for the "winner"). These are both things that I have not had the luxury to win yet but are fun to keep up with. The way it started was that the loser gets the spoon the winner gets the cup well now it has changed and it is whoever won the spoon the week before bowls and during the following game whoever gets the closest to their score wins the spoon and it works the same for the cup.
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| My two house mates shaking after passing off the spoon. |
One of the recent changes that has taken place is a lady from the ten pin bowling mentioned she was a retired hair dresser that travels around to peoples house to cut hair and offered to cut mine since I had said I needed it cut. So a few days later she came and cut my hair.
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| Before, Not the best but had long hair! |
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| After... all gone!! |
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| All my hair.... EEK!!! |
Oh and by the way the dates on my pictures are not right. So that was only two weeks ago. So now I will move on to the Harvest service. This was an absolutely beautiful service. Harvest is a time in the church sorta like our Thanksgiving. It was put in place to celebrate the abundance of crops and how thankful the people were because of that. In the church its a time when they all come together and decorate the entire church. There are all sorts of fruits and vegetables and bunches and bunches of beautiful flowers. This is a time when most of those who do not attend church regularly come to hear all the wonderful music, and give thanks for all they have. After the evening service where it is also packed, everyone comes together to put everything in bags and put bunches of flowers together to take to those who cannot make it to church. They bring the order of service and fruits, veggies, and flowers to those in need. This night was a lot of fun because the Youth group that night got to deliver harvest goods to those and learned what an important part of the church life it is to see those in need. So all in all this was a very amazing time in the church and I was really thankful that i got to experience something this profound.
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Window in the church at Harvest.
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| The vestibule decorated for Harvest |
As I did in the last blog post I think I will end here for right now. I am doing well and enjoying life... I went to Dublin yesterday so that will be in a blog post to come! Miss you all!
Liz
