A busy day

I had quite a full and busy day today. First, I hosted the monthly Ministerial Association meeting at our church. It was supposed to be at the St. Catherine’s Catholic Church, but last week learned that a change of venue had to occur. I asked around to see if anyone else was able to host, but I didn’t get a response so it defaulted to me.

Not every church hosting provides lunch (which is when we meet), but a few of us do provide rather elaborate meals. I couldn’t let people down, so I got to work this morning. The menu was chicken curry, basmati rice, honey-ginger glazed carrots, salad, and milk fudge with dried apricot bits. It all came together quite well, though I forgot to bring out the milk fudge. Oh well, more for me! The Lutheran pastor particularly enjoyed the carrots. I think he must have had half of the bowl.

Much of the meeting was presentation and discussion with the Community Education Director from the medical center. She came by to describe some of what she wants to do and to see in what ways the churches might want to partner. All in all it was a good discussion, letting us know of a community resource and another way for us to get involved with people outside the regular faith communities.

It was mid-afternoon when it was all done. The rain started up again this afternoon, after staying away for a few days in a row. I returned home to put away leftovers and catch up on e-mail and such. Amy told me that Shelley was going to catch a ride home. (Shelley had drama class this afternoon.) I went to the hospital to visit a church member who probably doesn’t have too many more days left in this life. Since she wasn’t ready, I went to get the mail, returned, and then visited (really with her husband). Then I got a call from Shelley wondering where I was… So with a quick prayer, I drove out to pick Shelley up.

Shelley picked up, we returned to town where she withdrew some money, went to the Trading Union, where she got some items and I went across the street to the hardware store to purchase a replacement electrical outlet. The one in the dining room, which I had been using for the heater, was rather loose. This morning I noticed that when the heater was turned up to the full 1500W, the vibrations from the plug being loose was resulting in quite a bit of heat and was melting the plastic. FIRE HAZARD!

Upon returning home I set out to replace the plug. As family and regular readers know, I am NOT a handyman, so even something as simple as replacing the outlet is somewhat daunting for me. I turned off the breaker, checked it with a voltmeter, turned the breaker on, checked it, turned it back off, checked it again (making doubly sure I had the right circuit turned off). Even then, with trepidation I began work on the outlet. I did not injure myself in the process, and everything got hooked back together. I turned on the breaker, checked to make sure I had the hot wire on the right side (which it was), plugged in the heater and waited a while to see if the outlet was still cool to the touch (which it was). Success!

For supper because I still had quite a bit of rice leftover from lunch, because it was getting a little late, and because I didn’t want to prepare another involved dish, I considered using a curry mix from a box. But I decided against it and threw together garlic, ginger, jalapenos, turmeric, cumin, coriander, salt and pepper with some tomatoes and potatoes to put together a potato curry. The jalapeno turned out to be quite a bit hotter than I had expected. Oh well.

That was my rather full day.