Shrove Tuesday = Pancakes!

Yesterday (Tuesday) when Helene dropped us off at home we all went to our room to chill a bit. I went to my room to pretend that I wasn't upset about my computer crashing and having nothing to do. Really, I guess I was hosting a bit of a pity party for myself. I decided that it would be best to go to the game night at Helene's house with a young adults group from their church, rather than sit and sulk. It turns out I am glad that I did. Timing is a little difficult because the Buses only run hourly in the evening so we had to decide whether to be early or late if we were going to take the bus. Then there was the issue of supper. We decided we would take the bus down to an area where there is a shopping center and a couple restaurants, which is about half way to Helene's house. We had fish and chips at Red Rooster, which is similar to KFC/Long John Silvers. It has a poster that boasts that it is Australian, unlike those "American chains that flocked" here. Hilary and I both found the poster amusing. We ate outside, which was actually cooler than inside because the building was mostly made of windows which had a greenhouse effect. When we finished we walked the rest of the way to the house. We made it in good time. We went upstairs and met a couple new people who were visiting upstairs, not having chosen any games to play yet. A group of four decided to play a game called Blokus, which is a game where you take turns lying out 1 tile at a time, trying to use as many of yours as you can before you run out of places to put them. The game was only a four player game so the rest of us watched and had a chat. After a game I had kind of lost interest and was excited when someone mentioned making pancakes, and I asked if I could help. I spent the next 45min or so making pancakes with Simon in the kitchen. The pancakes here are made with a thinner flour and are a bit more like crepes than our fluffy pancakes. It was amazing to be able to cook, though, and really helped me realize how much I've missed it. It made the idea that we're moving to a house where I'll be able to cook even MORE exciting. Helene helped us cook a bit and even demonstrated how to flip the pancake without a spatula. I was sure we were going to make even more of a mess, but it actually went pretty well. Simon showed me how to top the pancake with sugar and lemon juice. (I'm sure some of you will know that Lemon Juice is about my favorite flavoring to add to anything so I was quite excited about this.) Because the pancakes here are treated more like crepes, when eating them they get rolled up, which I did try, but was not very successful at. While cooking I had a nice chat with Simon about our upcoming move, which he was excited for us about too. After seeing Hosanna Heights recently he made his own judgements about the place, and to be honest, he didn't think too highly of the place. When all the pancakes were made we took the plate up and I got to try my own with a bit of sugar and lemon juice on it. Yummy! Shortly after most of the other people who had come decided to head home. That meant that it was time to start playing table tennis! So as it turns out, surprise surprise, I am not a stellar table tennis player. However, I had a whole lot of fun. We played in different pairs for a while and just had some fun. It ended up being 1:30am by the time we left. It was definitely time for bed when we got back.

The reason that we had pancakes was because it was Shrove Tuesday (Fat Tuesday as I would call it) and Lent begins the next day. Thinking about Lent I decided that I did want to do something, but something that matches up with my views of the true meaning of the season. I think that often times people spend a lot of time focusing on giving something up for lent, as a temporary thing. My plan is to actually add something to my routine. My goal is to find something/someone different to be thankful for every day, and try to use that positive thing to focus my attitude throughout the day. I'm planning to use blogging to hold myself true to that and put it in my writing. So for today, Wednesday (Ash Wednesday), I am choosing my health. I am very thankful to be a (relatively) healthy and fully functioning person.