Finally caught up to me...

So... the ridiculous amount of dampness that we have been experiencing here in NB has finally caught up with me, and now I have the Madre of all colds. I'm exaggerating because I'm tired, but there is some serious ickyness going on. Luckily, as the resident herbal medicine chick, I can treat myself with fresh herbs and plants that are growing in front of my cabin! I've spent the past few days harvesting some fun plants to make teas and to infuse some oils.

Yurrrrrrt

I received my not-so-long awaited package from http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/ and now I'm just waiting for my comfrey and my calendula to infuse into my sunflower oil so I can make some magic voodoo healing balm. I discovered a patch of lemon balm growing in the overgrown herb spiral on a day that I was feeling kinda blue. It must have been some kind of sign from mother nature that I needed to cheer up. If you've ever smelled lemon balm, you'll understand. It is known for its uplifting effects, similar to st-john's wort, but less intense. I harvested a yogurt container full of leaves and made tea for everyone.

This past weekend was very quiet. My roomie had to go to the states for a week and I miss her terribly. There's a dance-party sized hole in my life right now.

Friday night was my night to cook with J and D and I decided it was time to make burgers. Veggie burgers. I loosely followed this recipe http://angrychicken.typepad.com/angry_chicken/2011/04/homemade-bean-burgers.html but I didn't add oatmeal and used a chickpea and black bean mix of beans. D made buns and they were PERFECT! We finished them up on the barbecue out at the Rec and made sweet potato fries on the fire. My goodness life is wonderful.

The weekend was pretty quiet, we were all very low key and I got a lot of work done on my GIFTS project, which is soon wrapping up.

Portable Pizza Oven

Kite flying in the rain

Sunday was the annual kite festival in the field. Unfortunately, following the trend of the season, it was pouring. Somehow, that didn't stop us from getting soaking wet, running around in the rain, trying to get our kites up in the air. I flew a kite (very briefly) for the first time ever! There's a video, but I won't be posting it. Just imagine me, running at full speed through a field of yellow dandelions, laughing hysterically (which slows down my run), holding a ball of string, followed by a big brightly coloured dragonfly-shaped kite, while 6 people cheer on and tell me to run faster once I slow down due to a laughing fit. Add to that image lots of rain and wet jeans.

It was a good day. I made curried butternut squash soup for dinner and A made an amazing quinoa and feta salad.

This week, we are apparently getting a brand new intern so that should be an interesting addition to our group dynamic. The director of the centre seems to really enjoy stirring things up so that we never get too comfortable.

In spanish news, we have boosted our spanish nights to 3 times per week and full days as well. We are coming along. One of the Ms will be teaching one hour of spanish every week since he has the language teaching background. His style of teaching is wonderful. Very comfortable and interactive.

Well, that's all the news that's fit to print for now.
I'll try to keep the updates coming more often, but I must say... It feels wonderful to be slightly disconnected from the world wide web. Even if it is only in my mind.
Ciao for now.

My First Time