On Saturday, we drove to Charlottetown. We went to the Farmer's Market first, and spent a few hours there. I'm not sure how... considering it's about the size of the produce section at Safeway. Krista and I were trying to discover two things: the three most common vegetables of PEI (not that we didn't already know the first...) and the coolest thing we could buy for a toonie. There was a friendly-looking guy working at a farm's produce stand who we went to talk to. He was actually really interesting. He told us about giant "Cowboy Cookies" that we could get for a dollar, how the market was more of a weekly social gathering for locals than anything else and sent us on our way. With hugs. A little later on, after wandering around the rest of the market, we ran into him again. Krista and I decided to buy some little mini pumpkin-things ("gourds", technically) as our under $2 item. He gave us four for a dollar! AND THEN he bought us a dozen Cowboy Cookies!!
The group had lunch in the van after that, and while Melina went back to the market to buy a few things, Krista, Lisa, Amy, Kyla and I wandered around the uPEI campus for a few minutes which is right across the road from the Farmer's Market. Then everyone drove downtown together in the van, and we had about an hour and a half of free time. Krista and I found a little vintage clothing and vinyl shop, and then wandered into a café for a bit. After that, we all went to an art gallery for two hours or so. We had dinner that night at the cabin of one of the guys in my group.His family had a barbecue there for us which was really night. The cabin was right on the ocean with a really nice view of the Confederation Bridge.
Sunday morning, we had free time like usual. In the afternoon we read french books (weekly french activity) and played street hockey (weekly healthy lifestyle activity). After dinner was the weekly House Meeting. It was definitely a little less painful than last weeks meeting. All in all though, Sunday was very routine.
Monday was the first day of the Krista/Erica-House-Manager-Power-Team! Melina took the two of us for breakfast at the Bakery/Café, and went through all our house manager duties with us, as well as the menu we had planned for the week. Then, we drove to Summerside to go grocery shopping. We stopped to pick up the Wellington group on the way, and spent most of the rest of the day with their PL and their two house managers. The six of us hit up a produce stand for apples and carrots and a few other things, then the Summerside Bulk Barn, Superstore and finally Salvation Army (to buy a bunch of blankets for the house). Melina, Krista and I didn't make it home until about 5pm, so dinner was a little late.
That night, we made potato latkas (or latkes? im not sure). Potato Pancakes. They were really good! It just took FOREVER to cook them. We have a griddle, which was cooking them fairly well, and we tried to cook some on the stove too but that didn't work. Maybe if more than 2 of the elements worked, and we had some real frying pans it would have been easier. Alas. We also made pumpkin-applesauce muffins which are flipping FANTASTIC. I love googling recipes.
Monday pretty much drained me. Grocery shopping for 12 people is intense, and since we have a pretty tight budget, it takes a lot of time and effort. It's quite stressful.
On Tuesday, we cleaned the house. We do that a lot. After lunch, Amy, Krista and I went with Melina to a local junior high school to do a presentation about Katimavik to a Grade 9 class. It was pretty fun, actually. You know how Grade 9's are...they think they own the world, but it went well, I thought. We can't actually "recruit" for next year since the funding is uncertain, but we can still let people know about the program, regardless. For dinner that night, Krista and I made Tandoori chicken, Naan bread (kind of) and a chickpea curry. I thought it was all fantastic, as did most of our group. It was. Actually, it was phenomenal. I'll make it for you sometime.
Wednesday was pretty chill. We cleaned again in the morning, picked up some more groceries in the afternoon and did a hell of a lot of laundry. There were everyone's sheets to be washed (everyone does their own laundry with the exception of bed-sheets, which house managers do on a weekly basis) as well as the mountain of blankets that Melina bought on Monday. The previous night's dinner was spaghetti. Simple? Not if you're the Krista&Erica-House-Managing-Power-Team! We made my mom's world-renowned tomato sauce, and attempted to make homemade pasta too. 
Everything turned out preeeeetty well. Keep in mind that we don't have a pasta machine (one of those things that stretches out the dough and cuts it) so we couldn't get it as thin as would be ideal. Plus, when we were cutting it and putting it on to trays, we didn't put enough flour on the noodles so a lot of them stuck together. It didn't help that our pot of water took AN HOUR to boil. Have I mentioned that our stove is a total piece?
Everything turned out preeeeetty well. Keep in mind that we don't have a pasta machine (one of those things that stretches out the dough and cuts it) so we couldn't get it as thin as would be ideal. Plus, when we were cutting it and putting it on to trays, we didn't put enough flour on the noodles so a lot of them stuck together. It didn't help that our pot of water took AN HOUR to boil. Have I mentioned that our stove is a total piece? The finished product looked...interesting. But tasted good! I'm not gonna lie...the noodles weren't as aesthetically pleasing as my dad's, but they tasted the same! Krista and I were very proud of ourselves.
Yesterday morning, I went for a run and right at the start, I ran into a guy named David, who lives across the street from us. He and his wife had brought us some baking when we first moved in, and a pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. We brought them some muffins to thank them and Lisa and I run into David every once and a while on our runs. Like yesterday. Melina went over to their house on tuesday night to ask if they would be able to billet one of us (and they can't, but that isn'r the point) and either offered or agreed to a few of us coming by Wednesday night to visit with them. David plays the accordion and a few other instruments that i've never heard of, and the idea was for Krista and Tyler to bring their guitars and we could all have a little ...jam session of sorts. The problem was...Melina didn't tell us. So David and his wife were waiting around for us to come over that evening and well...we didn't. His wife even made us a cake!! He told me that they waited until about 8.30 and then decided we probably weren't going to show up. I felt absolutely awful, and when I told everyone else, they did too.
Since we had free time last night too, six of us went over to their place. It was nice...David and his wife (who's name i never caught) are really friendly. Krista and Tyler played their guitars, David played his variety of instruments and the rest of us sang. Halfheartedly on my part, i'll admit, but still. After an hour and a half, a few of us were pretty tired and i tried to instigate us leaving but it failed. I said I wanted to call my mom and I only could until 9 our time (which was entirely true) but then David's wife was like "But you';; miss cake and ice cream!". I tried to politely say there would be other times but it didn't work and I ended up getting roped into calling my mom from their house to tell her i wouldn't be able to call.
Mom: "I hear hymns in the background... You can explain later."
Oh, I will. Don't even worry about it.
Yesterday, Krista and I were pretty much in the kitchen all day. We cleaned, as per usual, in the morning and then after lunch we made brownies, apple crisp, chili and cheese bread. The brownies are a little on the dry side because our oven SUCKS and cooked them too quickly. The apple crisp (apple and pear actually) turned out well. We had this left-over caramel sauce from this cake we had that is just pretty much butter and brown sugar so we mixed that with some oats and that was the crumble on top. Our chili was vegetarian, which apparently was a big issue. In Katimavik, we have a food budget which doesn't allow for meat every day. Most of us are ok with that, or even really happy about it. Other people aren't. This week, Krista and I planned for chicken twice and beef once. Last night was not one of those occasions. Personally, I thought the chili was pretty good. For a few though, it wasn't good enough. There's kind of an unwritten rule that if you really don't like what is being cooked, then eat some cereal or toast or something, and no one will be offended.
Note: this rule doesn't apply AFTER you've given the pot a dirty once-over, a look like you're going to be sick and then made some comment about how sick you are of not having meat.
I'm not gonna lie...I took it really offensively. Krista and I put a lot of effort into making the chili, and there was a couple individuals who wouldn't even try it. Know what? I wouldn't have even minded if they hadn't been so blatantly rude about it. It sucked, because those few looks and comments sucked all the fun I had had yesterday right out.
P.S the cheese buns turned out well :)
That's all for now. There won't be much happening today, until tonight. We're volunteering at the arena at their Haunted House, and then tomorrow from 8 to 2, we'll be helping out with their Children's Halloween Festival.
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