YUMMMMY!

Before pesto pasta:



After pesto pasta:

Do you see what I see?

Work as toiling under the sun

This morning I attended yet anther breakfast seminar with Christian business professionals - today's topic was on Redeptive Work. The speaker talked about how we were created to work (God, after all, created the heavens and earth, and everything on it) and that work itself is good. but becuase of The Fall, work became toilsome. She touched on one thing that stuck with me particularly because I have been trying so hard to get these tomatoes to grow - becuase of the Fall, God made the ground cursed. So even though Adam worked and toiled, thorns and thistle grew as a result. I can see this firsthand and literally through my tomato plants but it also applies to everyday situations. Even though we put in our best efforts, it does not always result in successful or positive outcomes.

Anyway, I thought I would post a separate post about this even though it's related to the post i just posted about 5 minutes ago.

Impatience

I have been eyeing my tomato plants for days... weeks...!! The tag in the pot when I bought the seedlings said it would mature in 50 days. It FEELS like it's been way way more than 50 days. However, when I refer back to my original post about purchasing the plants, it's really only been maybe 3 weeks or one month max. So i have a few more weeks to wait. I get very anxious about living things because I hate to see them die while in my care. It is perhaps a paranoia that I have. So since these plants haven't been producing fruit yet, I have been looking up possible reasons for why it isn't fruiting (are they stressed out? not enough food in the soil? too cold? not enough stake?? ) and in turn, have been pampering my plants. I discovered that the type of tomato I purchased is "indeterminate". This means that they will not stop growing - they can reach a height of up to 9 ft!! The stackes I purchased for them were only about 3 ft tall. They are already outgrowing them. So yesterday I went to Freddie's and purchased some dowels, and used some twine to fashion out an extra 4 ft or so of stake. Then i researched about how tomato plants work and discovered that once flowers come, and become pollinated, the tomatoes will soon follow. I've got flowers everywhere on my two plants so i'm hoping this means with another few weeks of watering and adding food to the soil, i will have too many tomatoes to eat myself.

In which case, i may have to try out B's suggested recipe : http://www.honey-skunk.net/x/2007/11/09/tomato-basil-toast/ and invite people to come over to eat them. Cannot wait!!

My basil plant is thriving and I think it is ready to eat. I can smell the sweet basil when I come home from work.

Impact

Lil'o : this post is for you so I hope you read it. ;)

Sometimes we don't know what sort of impact we make on the world. We think our jobs are meaningless because we don't see the bigger picture. So we lament and we think, if only i could do something to change the world!!

Yesterday, I was at my Japan team meeting (go to http://amysan.wordpress.com for more details about my upcoming Japan short-term missions trip) and we were given a rough schedule for our time in Japan. I noticed that on the schedule, not just once but twice, there was mention of a "Costco party". I found this strange. They have Costcos in Japan?? Apparently they do. And apparently they are exactly like the ones we find in North America. Still I found this odd... what is a "Costco party"?? Here's what it is:

30 pizzas:


stuffed faces and happy smiles:

The Japanese people LOVE pizza!! On one of the Vacation Bible School days, we invite the parents to join us for a Costco pizza lunch. We order 30 full size Costco pizzas and not only do we enjoy the pizza for lunch, each family takes one whole pizza home with them. They did this last year and it was a huge blast. The families loved it and were very appreciative because not every family has a Costco membership so this is a special treat for them.

The second time we will be having a "Costco party" is during the closing ceremonies after worship service on the Sunday after VBS is over. We plan on creating a slideshow of the photos from VBS to show the families who attended and then present printed out photos of the kids to the families. Then afterwards, there is a feast of Costco foods - a particular favourite are the extra large American-sized apple pies.

So, for lil'o who has always wondered "how could designing and building Costcos possibly impact the world?" Well, now you have your answer - there exists at least one ministry out there that uses Costco to provides meals and special "north american" treats to japanese people as a way to minister to them and share God's love with them. Keep it up lil'o! ;) and for the rest of us, sometimes we just need to trust that God can use our seemingly meaningless job for something much bigger than we could have ever thought of.

Happy Canada Day!

This morning I woke up at the crack of dawn again to drive my sister to the airport. Then I had breakfast with my other sister to see if a cup of coffee would wake me up. It didn't. After dropping her off at home so she could go back to sleep, here I am, getting ready to jump start my work day. Except that I can't quite get myself to wake up. My other sister and mom leave after work today (dont' ask why they didn't book the tickets together....) so I'll have to return to the airport later this afternoon. I has been just over a week that they were here and yet it feels sooo much longer. It was nice to have them visit - the house was full and sometimes my laundry was done for me. Still, i'm looking forward to having some personal space again.

Japan comes at the end of this month - in just 4 very short weeks. i have to catch up on work meanwhile and next week there arrives yet another visitor.

Happy Canada Day everyone!

Wedding in Vancouver

Congrats to my cousin and now, cousin-in-law?, H and C!! They got married in Vancouver yesterday. What a wedding! It was super fun and different from the usual 200+ person wedding extravaganza. She had her ceremony on the "Spanish Bank Extension, on the western-most point, under the tree before the rocky strip" - no map was included with the invitation. And then after the short wedding ceremony, we had the afternoon to explore Vancouver - we went to Aberdeen mall and bumped into every possible chinese person we knew in Vancouver, ate a Beard Papa's cream puff with a fresh mango sago shake, had a light meal at a Shanghainese restaurant (authentic because of the incorrect spelling of their name: Shangnhai Cuicine), and topped it with bubble tea. Then we got on the M.V.Hornblower "located at the north end of Denman St" - again no map - and enjoyed a dinner reception cruise around Stanley park and English Bay.



I have been fortunate enough to attend two weddings now on cruise boats and while they only really work for weddings with up to 50-60 guests, so far they are the most enjoyable and memorable becuase they are so intimate. Sure, the thought of being stuck on a boat for a few hours with a group of people that you may not know and like may sound like a disaster waiting to happen, but actually it seems to work out just fine. I believe it is because wedding guests tend to get along for the sake of the couple getting married :P. I was bummed out that I couldn't take the wedding favour home with me - a lavender seedling - because I had to cross the border back into the US and you can't bring live plants across the border. :( It was a long day yesterday - waking up at 5am in Seattle to get to the beach in Vancouver by 9am and then running from the boat once it docked at 11pm and driving back down to Seattle and getting into bed by 2am. All well worth it!

family in seattle

my two sisters and mom are in town right now. they are kinda visiting me. actually we have a cousin's wedding to go to on sunday in vancouver. they came early to stay with me for a week but i have to go to work so it's been fairly busy. it's too bad that work is in high gear right now. i've been trying to balance time to work, spend time with them and spend time preparing for VBS. so far it's been mostly working and spending time with them. i think that we have gone to Target EVERY day this week. Each time i ask them - is there anything else we are forgetting because i don't want to come back tomorrow and the next day there is always something that we need to get that we didnt need yesterday. how does this happen??

my mom likes to clean things up so the apartment always looks in tip top condition but then i don't know where she put things. i was going to grow more basil seeds but she did them already for me this morning.

for the past three days i had to draw maps of how to take the bus and where to go for ju to follow but since shirley came back from her camping trip, she's able to take care of them and lead them around the city. now i can just sit back and work without calling them every couple of hours to make sure they are still alive.

the apartment is packed full. i have my two sisters staying with me in my room. there's no space to walk. and my mom sleeps in the dining room. i would never have thought it could accomodate so many people but so far it's ok. it's nice to have people over i guess.

maybe my laundry will magically clean itself like it does when i'm in Toronto... how does it happen? I still dont' know... hehe :P

Sweet Basil

I somewhat started a summer hobby. A few posts ago, I talked about wanting a herbal garden. I was at Target one day and they had these basil seed, soil and pot kits for $1 so I decided to try it out... who knows, maybe they'll grow. I thought that the seeds were probably dead though so I planted a few in the pot and threw out the rest of the seeds. After a week though i noticed little seedlings popping out of the soil!! Well it's been quite a few weeks now and look how far they've come! I'm a little bit worried though because the instructions say you have to spread out the seeds 1 inch apart and clearly you can see my basil is all clumped together. I'm afraid they will all die now!! :(

I've also bought a couple of tomato plants and left them on my balcony to grow. I can't take much credit for those however because i bought them already grown - not from seeds. They have just started to flower and hopefully the tomatoes will follow shortly after.