Friday Favourites

I had a gift card for Starbucks so I treated myself to their special Clover Brewing System coffee.  It was really good, but I don't think I'd buy it on a regular basis. 

Q was being extra cute one morning so I took his photo at the counter.

I've made this recipe twice in two weeks.  It is perfect for fall.  I made mine with ground chicken though.

We had a lot of school things going on this week - Orange Shirt Day, Photo Day, and Cross Country.  I only got photos at the cross country race.  The Grade 3 boys were raring to go!

Here he comes!!

It's a 1500 m race and the top 50 finishers of each race (Grade 3 and above) get to go on to compete against other schools.  E placed 46!! Here he is checking out the ticket that shows his number.

His classmates did really well too!

Linking up with Andrea, Erika, and Narci.

Prayers on Thursday

Each week at church we have the Prayers of the People and there is a brief pause for silent reflection, but I find there is never enough time to get to everyone I want to pray for, so I thought I would do that here. I know "thoughts and prayers" get a bad rap, but I really do pray for these people on a fairly regular basis.

The Prayers of the People is structured into three sections - the first is to thank God for our blessings, I will be doing a post on what I'm thankful for next week (#thanksgiving) so this post focuses on petitions and intercessions.  Petitions are specific prayers for people that we know that could use some extra love and care.  Intercessions are prayers offered for the local and international communities, more general that petitions.

So this week my petitions are for:

(I would typically name individuals in my head, but will not do that here)
People who are living with an illness.
People who are dying.
People who are helping those living with an illness or who are dying.
People who recently lost someone.
People who are struggling to get pregnant.
People who are pregnant.

And my intercessions are for:

Our world leaders and my hope for them to focus on what we need to do for the future, not just ways to get back to the "good old days".
People in our city that live on the streets or in precarious housing.
Those poor dear children (and their parents) at the Mexico/US border.
Parents who don't know how they will feed their children.
The people who have been involved in the various shootings in our city over the past few weeks/months - both the shooters and the victims.

Lord hear our prayer.

Climate Change

I tend to get pretty discouraged about climate change and wonder what can I possibly do to make a difference. But something in the sermon at church this week resonated with me.  We will all have to make changes and if we do, we can fight this.

There are some things that we already do to help the environment, but plenty of things we could improve on.  I'll start with the things we do right:

I take the subway or bike to work.

We bring our own bags/bins to the grocery store, and rarely use the produce bags.

We don't waste a lot of food; we eat what we buy thanks to meal planning.

We use our green bin.

We have reduced our meat consumption.

We use energy efficient light bulbs and appliances.

But things we could improve on:

Recycling. I am really lazy at cleaning our recyclables because I have been told that they all get sent to the landfill anyway so what difference does it make?  But what if that is not true?  What if the "good" recyclables, like the ones that are cleaned out and dry actually do get recycled but it is the dirty ones that get sent to the landfill?  In that case, if I clean mine out, then mine will get recycled.  See what is acceptable in Toronto's blue bins here.

Using less plastic ziploc bags and paper towels.  We have lots of plastic containers and cloth napkins so I should use those more often than we do.  Any ideas for how to freeze things using reusable containers? Right now I wrap things in plastic and then put them in a freezer bag.

Eating less meat, or at least trying to find local meat.  We get a lot of chicken, ground turkey, and salmon from Costco, but it's a little discouraging when you think of the volume of products they go through, that level of consumption can't be good.  We could do better to buy local meat when we can.

Order less online. There is so much packaging that comes with Amazon and other online places.  Sometimes it's unavoidable, but if we can buy it in an actual store, perhaps that is better. 

Consume less overall.  Buy less things, use what we have around the house, buy used items if possible. A little anecdote on this.  It was Q's birthday on the weekend and we invited 11 of his friends to his party.  They each brought a gift, obviously, but I kind of felt bad about that.  We have tons of toys, and although the gifts he got were awesome and he really enjoyed digging into them and playing with each one, we didn't really need more things.  I tried to placate my guilt by saying, shouldn't kids get to have tons of presents just for them, isn't that the fun of having a birthday?  I remember that feeling when I was little and it was one of the best parts of having a birthday party (or at Christmas too).  But I thought further on it, and realized that just because this is how it used to be, doesn't mean we get to continue like this.  Perhaps the new reality is that there are not piles of presents, along with their packaging and wrapping, and instead we get to enjoy one or two things, or experiences.  I know that Q would have been happy with the first present he opened, instead of all 11, plus the ones from family.  I hope I am not sounding ungrateful, rather trying to be conscious of the unnecessary consumption.

So instead, I will try to think twice about consuming something. If I can make a better choice than the one I've always made, then I should. We can recycle all we want, but the focus should just be on reducing and reusing. We may not be perfect but we don't have to be.  It's better for everyone to be trying and executing imperfectly than not doing anything at all for fear of not being perfect and wondering what's the point. 

It's also important to become educated on the topic.  These are just some ideas I've come up with off the top of my head, but I know we could do more.  In fact I saw an article today about how Toronto processes its organics that was very interesting.

Thinking about their future. 

Weekend Recap

This little cutie celebrated his birthday at school with some ice cream.  He looked like he enjoyed himself.

After work I went to Costco to pick up a few things for Q's birthday party, and when I got home it was movie night!  Like last week, some neighbours joined us.  Lots of popcorn and some Big Hero 6.

On Saturday morning we were up at our usual early time.  I prepped some food for Q's party and then we all went to the Superstore to pick up Q's cake.

He also had his first session of Sportball.  This is something that E did too and always enjoyed it.  Now that Q is old enough for the drop off session we wanted to sign him up too.  He was not sure if he wanted to go when we showed up, and I was worried I wouldn't be able to leave.  But he warmed up to it, and was fine to let me go.  I was so proud of him.  And he said he had fun.  

I peeked through the curtains to see him when I came back to get him. 

Posing with his water bottle at the end. 

Home for a quick nap before heading to his birthday party.  And testing out the good camera.

We had the party at The Little Gym.  We have been to parties here before but never hosted our own.  This is a fabulous play for a party, they take care of everything - the decorating, the serving of the food, the clean up, and of course entertaining the kiddos in the gym. I could not recommend them enough.

Fun party room all set up.

Ready to play - the kids get some free time to run around and then there are some structured activities

Then into the party room for pizza (delivered from Pizza Nova), vegetables, fruit, and chips, and cake of course! 

Q opened his gifts when we got home and then played with all of them.

Sunday was Q's actual birthday so we had birthday pancakes (with chocolate chips) and bacon.

And then did family gifts.

Skye completes his Paw Patrol set :)

More playing and then off to church.  Dave took E to get a haircut and then to Home Depot.  They also stopped into a furniture store.  I think this ottoman is hideous but apparently they liked it (and I have "no style"). I included the photo so you could see E's haircut.  He is ready for picture day, happening today.

While they were gone, Q napped, I folded laundry and watched This is Us (still catching up on last season).  Then I took Q down for a walk by the river to see if we could see any salmon jumping.

We ran into a friend and she snapped our photo.  Thanks Danielle!

Birthday tacos for supper and then more treats - Bake Sale cupcakes and chocolate ice cream.  Q loves chocolate!

Then time for Sunday night showers, homework, lunch making, and general tidying up.  It is getting chilly so I made a hot drink and turned the fireplace on.  Dave and I watched SNL before bed.