grounds.

tired legs

poor feet

I smell like coffee, just walked in from the closing the cafe

God is holy beyond measure, everyone is singing... and I'm holding a mug and singing

lifting prayers

bare feet on the carpet

laundry swaying outside (about to be soaked - I think)

suns down

I'll sleep tonight.

OSAP hates me, and I hate them back.

Sigh. Deep is my angst.

I wont be able to go to uni if I can't get student loans. I keep getting blocked from the site for no apparent reason. It sucks.

The worst thing that can happen is that I don't get OSAP, and can't go to school next year. I'm not even sure I care. I'd probably just do something youthwork or church related and work. I'd probably stay in BC longer. I don't know. Like I said, at this point. I don't really care. I'll try to get this all straightened out, but it's not like I'm going to get shot if all this hits the fan.

I slept all day. I hate sleeping all day.

Right. I'm going to eat a cookie now

never failed me yet.

I'm printing off the tabs for 'Hard Time Killing Floor Blues', I've been playing a simplified version of it forever and I'm bored of it. I never did get my day off on Sunday, so tomorrow is my first day off since I started work. I'm going to hang out on a dock in Fulford with Lindsay Lou and Andrew. I'll pack along a guitar and practice it there, drink some mate and enjoy the day.

On another note I'm tired of posting light little weather reports on the events of my day. Lets bloodlet for a second here. Lately I've felt a disconnect with God. I don't know how to fix it. Maybe it's not me who can fix it even, I try to fix things a lot. Make it all better and gloss over the point. I kind of wish it would all go away, I'm wondering how tight I actually am with God... maybe how tight I ever was. It's throwing me for a loop. I know God loves me, but I feel somehow uneasy, like I missed a boat somewhere with him. I feel like I'm fighting temptation with a bat and losing.

Maybe I'm just feeling down and out. But I don't know what to do on my end to mend this. I want to be tight with God, tighter than ever. I dont know what I'm missing here, only that I'm missing something.




I'm going to sleep.

(jesus blood, never failed me yet.)

cafe con leche.

I worked the opening shift this morning. Which means I was up at five. I haven't done THAT in awhile. The last time I saw five was an all nighter scramble to get my lifeteams assignments done, and that hardly counts.

My dear sister is back from the bush... hanging out in Peterpatch for a day or two anyway. I'm still three thousand miles away, but she feels closer to home for me. Now we can talk on the phone. Yeah phone.

I'm going to church tomorrow, then I'll grab a coffee and head to a reading of A Midsummer Nights Dream at Artspring... it's my favourite Shakespeare play, and I haven't seen it in years. I'm well excited. Then I might do some polaroiding, I've got to find a way to post some of these polaroids... sigh. I'll plot. In the meantime check out postsecret. It's my favourite.

In the meantime that early wake up is catching up to me, so I'm going to header. Goodnight everyone.

three hours of work demolished in ten minutes.

This is the nature of baking stuff.

I just made two loaves of bread and a pan of cinnamon buns, (in an act of quasi atonement for not prepping dinner tonight). Seriously though kids, three hours of work... with only crumbs, a few remaining dishes and a happy bread filled crew to show for it. It doesn't bug me though, because, well, they're a happy bread filled crew.

Second day of work was grand. Worked harder. Tomorrow is an eight hour day (wow. a full day of work)... so I need to be chipper. I also need to work on not being afraid of the rushes during the day... seriously, the place turns into a zoo three times a day, it's a little intimidating.


I'm off. goodnight

of singing and doing dishes.

I had my firstest day of work today. What joy. I had a GREAT time. I learned the ins and outs of working the floor of a busy fair trade organic cafe. I learn 'till' tomorrow, and I learn the espresso bar next week. Woohoo, I am a barista in training and I like it!

I get FREE coffee! I didn't know I got FREE coffee!

And mate! I can get FREE yerba mate!

Anyway, I'm looking up salmon recipes on the interweb... there's a massive fish thawing in the sink. Either Jimmy or Laura will steak it for me, and I'll cook it. Wowee.

I have new Saltspring friends too, I made them so FAST today. I am pleased. Not making too much sense I'll wager... but I am pleased.

More later skaters...

tuscany roasted greens... and a silly day.

Well, I had a silly sort of day. I showed up to work at the appointed hour only to find that I'm not on the schedule until tomorrow. Sigh, sometimes I wish that I could be IN the loop. I should've called when I didn't get my schedule via email though, so it's my bad.

Then I ran into Andrew on HIS first day working as a painter. He called me over and we chatted merrily while he worked for about fifteen minutes... until his supervisor came over and chewed us out. I felt badder than bad. But I pretended I didn't and said thanks and goodbye and scampered into pharmasave... I bought a cooking magazine to make myself feel better. It helped. I'm sensitive like that sometimes, don't know why.

Thus bringing us to tuscany roasted greens... cooking magazines, with lovely, exotic, original, beautifully presented food make me want to make lovely, exotic, original, beautifully presented food. I guess that's the idea of the magazine... but still. The problem is that the ingredients are often expensive and hard to find... 'specially on a small island. So I'm just left hanging...

All the same. I am forking out money for some of these recipes... and for fresh herbs... I love fresh herbs. The Saturday market is good for finding rad ingredients, and I mean seriously... who could turn down a menu of fresh salmon with rosemary, with peach mango mint smoothies, roasted baby vegetables, and fresh buns... with strawberry chocolate shortcake for dessert? Really? I mean who?

Watch God do something crazy... like call me to be a homemaker - martha stewart style! Except you know... without insider trading.

A silly day indeed, but I have biblestudy tonight, so either that will put my heart to rights, or it will keep me thinking all night... we'll see.
Work tomorrow, the schedule even says so!

::on baristas and books::

I got the job at the SaltspringRoasting Co. I start Monday morning. I am so pleased. Phil, the manager called and said 'well Meaghan, you're loved. You got the job'. I even have options for full time (or close to it) now... and that IS serendipitous news.

The rest of this post is about books. Mainly the eight books that I packed in my suitcase when I came to Saltspring.

I've never really done a top ten list of my favourite books, I'm not actually sure I could. I have more than ten favourite books. However, when the rubber hits the road (or when my library gets shipped to Ontario) there are some books that I keep at my side as essential reading. This short list is also very similar to the list of books I initially brought to British Columbia from Ontario. So here goes.

1. The Bible. - I bring this little hardback with me everywhere. I have had it for about three and a half years, Chris Vyn bought it for me. It is beaten up from heavy use and a lot of travelling with little mercy. It is bookmarked with business cards from piercing studios I have visited across the country (a habit I have dropped of late) as well as notes from yfc staff and scrawled out prayers.

2. This is For the Night People by Ralph Alfonso - I bought this book at Chapters a few years back, it came with me to Montreal and has been one of my read over and over again favourites since its purchase. It's a book made of a compilation of the first few years of Ralph Magazine. A funky little free 'zine that is one of Canada's best kept secrets... Coffee, Jazz and Poetry. Bookmarked by scraps of steno pad paper, but the spine is bent to open to my favourite pages.

3. Le Petit Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery- My french copy of The Little Prince. I gave my much older english copy to Iona, with love. The Little Prince is one of the books that has meant a lot to me over the years, since I was little actually. I'd guess that I've read it well over a dozen time. I've read it in french five or six of those times, but my french copy is very new. It was a gift from my mother this past Christmas. I know my favourite passages off by heart.

4. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller - Easily one of the best books I've read. Chris Vyn passed me Jeremy Gabriels copy almost two years ago. Shortly thereafter I picked up my own copy, but had to give it away to a friend (it was that good). The copy I have right now I picked up at Emmaus bookstore in Peterborough, it accompanies me most places. This spring I met Donald Miller in Vancouver... he signed my copy, so I guess I'll have to hang on to it. Read it. A good story about journeying...

5. The Found Book - Compiled Finds from Found Magazine. This big paperback was a gift shipped to me from Thom Unrau. I was truly touched. The pages are filled with notes and photos that people have found and submitted to the brilliant guys at Found Magazine. Little scraps of humanity. I love this kind of stuff so much. I pour over it for hours. Fittingly, my copy is bookmarked with my own finds... A crumpled five with a prayer on it, a polaroid of a set table, a crinkled suprise birthday invitation, a bright pink post-it with a desperate call for repentence ... the list goes on..

6. What's So Amazing About Grace? (visual edition) by Philip Yancey - Also introduced to me by Chris Vyn, I borrowed his copy. My mother was touched by it and bought me my own. I gave it away to Brian Rideout when he was searching for where he fit with God. Before I left for Vancouver my mom bought me a new copy with a letter to me written in the front cover. It is one of my treasures. This book is beautiful, it has little stories, snapshots I guess, about God's grace... his love and acceptance of us in spite of ourselves. The book is very visual, the images in it are absolutely superb. I have a hard time describing the impact of this little book on me. Pick it up.

7. At the Back of the Northwind by George MacDonald - This is the only book on this list that I have not yet finished. It was a birthday gift to me from Iona, it is her favourite from her very own library. I am reading it now. A childrens book, with a beautiful story. And one of the best gifts I have ever recieved.

and finally,

8. there is something terrible about a collection of guitars an anthology of Peterborough writers - I found this slim paperback wedged in the bookshelf at Bluestreak Records on George St. It was June, the month before I headed to B.C for the summer, and I was flat broke. So I stuffed the book in behind the rest and hoped that it would wait a couple of months for me to return with some summer job money. It did, and I gladly handed over the fifteen bucks it cost. I bought the book because I love Peterborough. I wanted to have it while I lived across the country. It assuages my moments of homesickness, with its author photos taken on the Hunter St Bridge, the market hall and the Only Cafe... it's a bit of culture in book format.


There are notable books with prominent places on my shelf that are not mentioned on this list, but if you dont know what's on my whole shelf, at least now you know what's in my carry-on. More on books later. Now I sleep.

Goodnight.

Well, if it's quite alright...


(as a note this text was copied from an email I just sent to rob and iona, I didn't feel like typing it twice... I am a lazy kid, I know)

hey, it's almost midnight and laura is on the bigger island with jimmy... so I've got a bed to myself, but I dont feel like taking advantage of it.

I had my second interview today at ye old Saltspring Roasting Co. this morning. The purpose of this interview was kind of odd, my would be supervisor wasn't even there, I was just supposed to go in and have coffees with the staff on their morning breaks to see if they liked me.

If I don't get the job, it wont be because they dont like me. I made at least three new saltspring friends this morning, which I was much enthralled with. The first girl tamara, and I, hit it off so well that she stopped our 'interview' mid sentence and said 'hell I like you! I'm giving you my number, so if you don't get this job, we can still hang out.'

It didn't feel like an interview at all! I just laughed uproariously for an hour over fair trade dark roast with rad people. Yeah. ten points for coffee!

(okay, that's it for scammer text)

I'll post more tomorrow I'm sure. I just wanted to update on the job sitch. I just finished playing two and a half hours of Euchre with Michelle (jim's stepmom) and Sevio and Stephen, jimmy's brothers. I've not been able to teach anyone to play it out in BC (and I have TRIED), but Michelle (also originally from Ontario) loves it, and has not played it since she got to BC. So the two of us set about teaching the boys and now they're addicted too. Whoohoo euchre, best card game ever.

okay. I've gotta sleep. Up in seven hours to clean the kitchen. I'm out polaroiding tomorrow too, man. I like writing letters and taking polaroids. It's an expensive habit, but dang it's cool.

round two...

I got a second interview with Roasting Co on Wednesday morning, to see if the staff like me. Hurrah! I've never heard of such a thing... a whole interview to see if I meld with the team? That's sort of cool.

Today is uneventful. I really feel like watching Garden State, but this household doesnt take kindly to anything over PG for movies... so we watch a lot of cartoons, veggie tales and Billy Graham flicks. Oh Garden State... maybe I'll read a wistful book instead.

I've gotta go help with spaghetti and meatballs, Laura cooks tonight.

Pray oh people, soon I may even become an honest hardworking woman... with an income to show for it!!

and the pendulum swings...

I had a very productive day today... perhaps in remorse for yesterdays sloth. I was up at seven and I pretty much stayed in the kitchen all day. My accomplishment for the day was dinner.

Dinner was...

Herb Salad with a tangerine mint vinaigrette dressing
Potato Salad with bacon
Spiced Chicken Breasts.

And... two homemade pies.
one was strawberry... with a lattice top.
one was fresh peach.

They were good. The crew ate and enjoyed, which made it all worth it. Heheh. I'm so domesticated, it makes me laugh how quickly my life routine has changed from youthwork and hiking to vacuuming and pies. Ah well, I throw myself into both with vigour.

I'm going to kick back now. I'm going to motocross nationals tomorrow. It should be fun. Peach Pie anyone...?

a day wasted.

I didn't have to do morning shift (with jimmy and kathy, the special needs adults) today... so I slept in far too late. Just past noon, it sucked.

I tried to redeem the day by working in the afternoon, but I had zero energy so I just ended up going back to bed. I slept till six. Sigh. I hate this feeling. I just feel sort of off. Not sick, just off, with no will to do anything. Thus today I have been a non-contributing member of the Severn household. An eater of food and a taker of space.
I might need to make cookies or bread tonight just to assauge my guilt. Maybe I'll dust the livingroom... or give the dog a bath. The possibilities really are endless.

I'm making sure I do the morning shift tomorrow. At least that'll prevent me from accidental excessive sleep. I may post later tonight... bread takes awhile to rise.

:[ home ec goddess ]:

The rest of the world went hot-tubbing. I am making a cake. I am a home ec goddess.

In other news.. today was low key. Tried to figure out OSAP stuff... failed miserably.

I'm looking at my good friend Matt's webcomic... Ridiculously indeed. some of them are super hilarious... I mean really... that guy has an odd yet genius sense of humour. Then again, Matt is a bit of an odd genius, so I guess it suits quite well. Check it out if you're bored... or even if you're not.

I've made a couple of new friends... notably the awesome Lindsey Lou... I call her Lindsey Lou Who. I am discovering that I call many of my good friends by nicknames I have given them. Desiree-duck, Andre (my brother), 'Da, Joshua Giraffe, Fayder, Jo-Do, Paulie-Paulie... the list goes on. In addition to that there are more generic ones like 'Peach' and 'Babe' that I use on numerous people. I like nicknames and terms of endearment. I actually just like calling people by their names too. I think I use names more than a lot of other people do.

Yuck, it's late and this is a bit of a timekiller post. I've been on Saltspring for a week, I like it a lot. I will post tomorrow. I will ice my cake now.

if Jesus drove the General Lee...

So I was in Sunday school a couple of days ago helping out with the grade ones. About a dozen rowdy, gap toothed six year olds made up the class. They made a rather large room seem very small.

They were very friendly considering I was a stranger. One girl came up to me and introduced herself as Molly.

I'd heard of Molly.

She was very outgoing, was missing her front teeth and had freckeles and mouse brown hair. She asked me if I knew her big brother Ryan . I did (he's Andrew's best friend) and I told her so. She grinned and after that we were friends.

We did listening prayer with the kids. It's pretty cool, the idea is that God speaks to us and if we listen to him, we can hear in our hearts what God has to say to us.
So the excercise was that in our minds we entered God's throne room in heaven. Then we asked the kids to tell us what they saw. The kids wiggled and shot their hands up. 'Gold!' one little guy said, 'Angels!' said another.

Molly couldn't contain herself. We asked, 'Molly, what did you see in God's throne room?'

Wide eyed Molly stops and then pipes out - 'The Dukes of Hazzard'.

I nearly bit my tongue off. Trying to regain some composure, we asked who they saw on the throne, Molly pauses, ten squeals 'God... and Daisy Duke!'

Maybe Jesus drives the General Lee...?

barista?

I am a little perturbed. I just had my interview with the Roasting Co. It went well I think. He didn't ask me many questions, just mostly gave me job descriptions... I'd work weekends and so it'd be part-time, I'd have to either sell a lot of beads or get another job... and the other job thing might be hard. To work at the Roasting Co. I need to be as available as possible for anything that comes up during the week. Ick. I'll know if I have the job by Friday.

The work would be really stupid fast paced. I hope I can handle it. I'd be trained to be a barista. That's a universal qualification and a ridiculous asset for finding jobs... the training alone might make the job worth it. It's just that I'd have to be GOOD at it. I'm sort of afraid. I need more good references on my resume. I wish I could skip the cafe work and just be a youthworker as a summer job, I'm better at it.

I have no experience in cafe work. I have no experience in retail. I've had a couple of great government jobs that haven't given me enough experience in real world student job skills.

I don't know whether I should take this Roasting Co. job even if I get it, or whether I should try for full time elsewhere. This feels very dramatic and complicated right now. I now officially hate job and househunting.

Maybe I should just busk all summer. I bet I could make decent money.

My one beauteous saving grace is that I have a work-stay thing going at the Severns, so food, housing and transportation are looked after for the summer. I just need to save some money for school and an apartment... after that I'll be alright. I kinda hope I can strike gold somewhere, but from the looks of things I'll just be slogging it at an undisclosed location at this point... sigh.

Every thing is going to be fine. I'ma go knit for awhile.

chips and drinks.

I'm killing time before church. (and really, who kills time before church?). In other morning news I realized that the hours between seven and nine go by like nothing. I mean, I turn around and - I've been awake for two hours. Wee-odd.

Jim the challenged adult is all dressed up for church, I tied his tie for him... who knew that learning to do a tie would come in handy? He looks pretty spiffy. I should probably follow suit... new church and all.

I want to start a hippy church on Saturdays here. I think that'd be great. I'll head out next saturday with my guitar if I'm not working. I checked out the Saturday market yesterday, I loved it. I might as well have been wearing a sign that said 'Kick me, I'm a tourist', but it was still cool. Locals here don't like summer residents that much, and being as I'm living here for the summer, I'm part of the problem - not the solution.

Whew. I could use a midmorning nap. Instead I think I'm going to enter the fray and see if I can snag the bathroom for ten minutes.

.I got an interview.

Woohoo. I'm currently researching the benifets of shadegrown coffee. The reason?

I just landed an interview with the Saltspring Roasting Co. One of the pioneers of fairtrade organic coffee enjoyment. Cheers... I am very pleased.

I need to figure out how to work really really fast. I mean really. This place is just booming with happy hippies.

So now I need to know Roasting Co philosophy inside out... and plan a really good interview outfit... I really do want this job. Pray for me, for those who pray. Those of you who don't... well, you can call me up and quiz me on coffee ethics.

Later folks.

On saltspring.

You know it suckah. I just moved here yesterday. Said goodbye to all the girls except Laura... who's staying at jimmy's here.
I found out my housing situation... sharing a basement room with Jimmy's younger sister appears to be the plan. There are currently thirteen people living here... busy houses appear to be a recurring theme in my experience.

The post is short. The internet is dialup, and I'm tying up the phoneline... which is always annoying to the residents of the household. I am genuinely pleased to be here, and very pleased to see Jimmy and Andrew again... it's only been four days but it really does feel like a bit of an eternity.

I'm drinking tea, there's a puppy at my feet, I've already been to a bible study this morning and I'm learning to knit. Life is pretty alright as far as things go.

Peace.