quick review of many events

A lot has happened during the past couple of weeks. I went home and visited my family. I went to my Auburn Hills home and visited that family. I mixed up Gaylord and Grayling in my head. I made it safely back to Camp.

We are now midway through the second week of spring cleaning here. Both weeks I have been assigned to the chapels. This means that I get to clean some of my favorite places at camp and that I have an overwhelming, and unexpected, desire to play ping-pong. I blame it on the fumes from the Murphy's Oil Soap.

This weekend was stuffed with guests and good times. Amanda, Nathan, Claire, and Zeke all made the journey up to see me. Well, me and The Hunger Games. We also went shooting early Saturday morning to celebrate Nathan's new pistol and Kevin's birthday.

Obviously, I was taking this picture very seriously.

I will leave you with a brief story. Today I was washing the East Side Chapel platform when LB came to join our crew. He looked at me, "We've been trying to get you on your knees at the front of chapel for years!"

Home for Birthdays

The last weekend retreat of the fall season was cut short by an enormous snowfall which took out the power at camp. While the Dining Halls have generators, none of the cabins have a secondary power source and the temperature was predicted to drop to nearly zero on Saturday night. The difficult decision to end early was made when the power still had not returned by three-thirty Saturday afternoon. The campers were understandably disappointed but my family seemed delighted when I walked into the house on Saturday night rather than Sunday afternoon.

Sunday afternoon we celebrated Zeke and Toby's joint birthdays. Toby enjoyed his birthday greatly - you can read more about it here. Zeke also seemed to have a good time, but he was understandably less vocal and less enthusiastic in his devouring of orange finger jello. I didn't manage to snag any pictures of Zeke - he cleverly distracted me with games - but here are some of four-year-old Toby.

He unexpectedly took a nap as part of his birthday.

He was exhausted.

When Toby woke up, he seemed rejuvenated.

Toby's energy gets transferred to his new bear - apparently it can't sit still for pictures.

Terrariums with Cherry

This afternoon, Cherry and I embarked on a terrarium-creating adventure. I embarked with a modicum of trepidation, as I am known neither for my craftiness nor my neatness. And terrariums have dirt as a main element - dirt, moss, and lizards (no reptiles were harmed in the making of these terrariums.)

Our ingredients await.

Dirt is amazing stuff. It's amazing how quickly it spreads.

We placed the dirt, more or less carefully, in the glasses.
One of us was more successful with the tidiness factor.
One of us scattered dirt across the counter.
I was the messy one.

We then took the moss and laid it gently on top of our soil.

Cherry's lizards lay peacefully on top of their moss, secure in their new homes.

My lizards tried to make a break for it.

Finally, all was completed. Pieces of springtime rest on the counter.

PG arrived home to be greeted by our terrariums.
He was intrigued, "Is this what's for dinner? Lizard pie?"

Cherry and I both, I believe, enjoyed our adventure greatly. The dirt resides within its boundaries, the lizards remain where placed, and all is well. All photo credit goes to Cherry. Read her blog post about our time at http://chirpchirpcherry.blogspot.com/2012/03/fun-with-friends.html
photo credit: Cherry

Mail Snippet

On Wednesday, I get the mail from town and then sort it into the staff boxes. Today I had a piece of mail addressed to :

Lee Brown

or Current Senior Pastor

I was fortunate enough to still be in the office when Lee came for his mail. He laughed delightedly.

Now he's on the phone across the hall telling someone about his mail and saying, "Look out, Paul Gardner!"

What do you do when you're home alone?

I don't really have much to say this week. It's been a fairly normal week. I cleaned, did the laundry, and said goodbye to Lydia. It was great fun having her visit for a week and very sad to see her go. Now my life looks like this:

This is me sitting all alone in my bare living room.

The Dalek and I notice an enemy in the distance . . .

Exterminate!

Ok, so my life is not quite like that, but doesn't that look fun? Living alone this season has been a little different, and often, a little too quiet. However, I do leave the house occasionally and socialize with others. And sometimes people come and stay with me on the weekends. The past two weekends have been packed with friends, fun, and very late nights. This upcoming weekend brings two friends - Claire and Clara (yeah, that won't be confusing) - so the fun continues.

There are only two winter retreats remaining, so thoughts have begun to turn to summer and summer preparations. HIS-Ability week is already completely full and Lee Brown has had me start to work on the oodles of necessary paperwork.

Staffing interviews for summer are in full swing. I believe we have over fifty applications that have been submitted. We're still praying for male counselors - we only have about eight applications - and piano players - zero applications. However, yesterday at Staff Fellowship, we were told that the need for female counselors has been met by an influx of applications and that need has about been filled at this point :)

Where on Barakel property can you spot this fellow?

an assortment of stories

My apologies for the lack of a post last week. As a traditional procrastinator, I kept putting it off from day to day until I ran out of days. Since this was brought to my attention, I have kept careful track of my weekend in order to have the maximum number of amusing incidents to relate to you.

My Friday evening in the Skate Hut was brightened both by the arrival of my sister, Lydia, and the amusing statements of a staff kid who has asked to remain anonymous. I offered a name change and the offer was eagerly accepted, so for the purpose of this blog post, the staff kid in question shall be known as Wendell.

Wendell eagerly informed the Skate Hut occupants of the susceptibility of Native Americans to our diseases. At first, we were in complete agreement with this. Then, we realized that Wendell meant their current susceptibility, not their historical - i.e. when European settlers brought over smallpox. We attempted to explain that the reason for the vulnerability was due to the isolation of the Native Americans from the Europeans.

Wendell apparently accepted this, but then queried, “What about in Montana?”

Laughter.

Wendell waited for the laughter to die down. “Canada?”

Saturday afternoon brought guests to my house. Having been trained in proper hostess behaviour, I offered them beverages and snacks. Kevin accepted a muffin. We carried merrily on with our conversation until it was interrupted by gagging sounds from Kevin.

I spun.

He held out the muffin, missing a single bite. The bite was missing both from the muffin and the surrounding wrapper.

My failures as a hostess instantly became clear. Always remove the muffin papers. It will help your unwary guests.

As mentioned earlier, my sister is visiting me for the week. She, Naomi, and I enjoyed a cosy sleepover on Sunday night. A regularly intermittent beep provided the only strident interruption. We endured it throughout the night. However, when morning brought no cessation, our sanity became threatened.

The great beep hunt began.

The first suspect was the smoke alarm conspicuously situated, white against the knotty pine, on the paneled ceiling. It demonstrated its silence quite convincingly.

We spread throughout the house, and even into the connecting hall of the triplex. Nothing. The beep continued. We listened intently, casting about for the source and finally met by the back wall. Nothing was there. No sign of anything that could beep.

Inspiration flashed across Naomi's face. She reached out and opened a cabinet, formerly hidden, disguised by the pattern of the paneling. She rooted through the cabinet and brought out the culprit - another smoke alarm. There was much rejoicing.

And that was pretty much my weekend. I did the usual work. Campers had the usual amount of fun. A good time was had by all.

Teen retreats this weekend!

As of approximately ten o'clock this morning, I am ServSafe certified. Everyone who eats my food can now rest comfortably knowing that I am aware of food safety regulations.

Also, I have been gently informed that I must blog about my birthday. Last Thursday was my birthday. My friends, Nathan and Amanda, made the trek from Auburn Hills to shower me with cake, magnets, and broken TARDIS mugs. The brokenness of the mugs, I should say, was no fault of theirs. The mugs were shipped improperly and rightly protested such rough treatment. I missed being home for my birthday and being with my family. But Nathan and Amanda are family - generous, loving family that remembers my fondness for tiramisu. It was wonderful to have them here - I am so grateful for them.

This is a delicious tiramisu cake.

I won't specify my age - that would be unlady-like. But if you pay attention to the pictures, you just might be able to figure it out.