Girl Scout Camp: Year 4.

Another year at Camp Sylvester behind us. It was great to be in the mountains for the weekend with the most wonderful weather I could wish for. It was fun hanging out with so many little girls, and big girls who were not long ago little girls. Why does 6th grade seem so far away from 3rd grade? Sniff.

Getting to spend the weekend with my two + 90 other energetic girls is a treat all by itself but, there were two main highlights for me this year.

The Junior Girl Scouts hike around the lake, whereas the Brownies hike too, but just to the dam. It's about four miles around the lake and maybe one to the dam. The trails are natural [not paved] until you get to the very end/or beginning, and a lot of the hike is scrambling up and down rocks and boulders. Getting seriously winded is part of the adventure, no matter how old or what shape you are in. My calves have been, let's say on fire for two days, but in a really good and worth it kind of way. It was my first time, Emily hiked all the way around two years ago but I've been with the little girl troops my three prior years and trekked just to the dam.

The other highlight was something that we have not done before at camp. The theme this year was patriotism and the symbolism of the American flag, so the culmination of the theme/lesson was the flag retiring ceremony at campfire time. The well worn and tattered flag was silently cut along the stripes, removing them one by one and each girl participating held up her piece until only the block of stars remained. Then each piece was carefully laid into the fire to its rest. I think we retired seven flags in total but only the first was ceremoniously divided up like that.

It was a beautiful, solemn, and inspiring experience and it touched the hearts [and tear ducts] of many girls and adults. It was amazing to witness, truly a special and memorable night. So if you thought these things were reserved only for Boy Scouts, now you know!

Speaking of Boy Scouts, the funniest skit this year was the one where a gaggle of girls is sitting around talking and one by one a new friend comes up shouting "a bear! a bear!" to no reaction. Then another girl "a lion! a lion!" to no reaction. Other girls come up warning of even more fierce animals with all girls showing no fear until the last girl runs up on stage and shouts "Boy Scouts!" and they all rise up in a frenzy screaming at the top of their lungs and run away. We get lots of laughs when Boy Scouts are mentioned, it's so funny. I would imagine Boy Scout groups equivocally make fun of the Girl Scouts from time to time. Silly.

These were my pictures:Emily took better pictures of the scenery so I'll add to this a bit later. Update: see second slideshow at the bottom.



If you were a Girl Scout you might remember holding up your three middle fingers on your right hand and saying:

On my honor, I will try
to serve God and my country
To help people at all times,
and to live by the Girl Scout law.

Emily's pretty lake pictures for your enjoyment:

Holy Crap!

Yesterday, I was busy getting kids ready for school and Tony had just left for work. A few minutes after he left he called me and asks if he received some kind of such and such in the mail last week. I said no. He insisted that he must have received this something or other and he jogs my memory a bit and I tell him, "oh I thought it was junk mail and I tossed it." He fussed a little bit and suggested that I look through the can before the magic truck passes through our street and takes it away. I laughed at him and said "fine, you go have a nice day." Later, the urgency in his voice did somehow wear me down and I went to the street, pulled the big blue can into my garage and closed the door so that my neighbors could not see me going through my own garbage and after I found the plump bag of discarded paper, I hauled the can back out to the curb.

Long story short, he donated $100 to the high school volleyball team [which he neglected to mention] in return for the thing I thought was crap. Let me tell you that I am all about helping out and donating whenever we can for worthwhile and needy endeavors wherever they may be. It's just that I very much dislike crap.

This is the email communication between the two of us that followed.

------------------------------------------------------------

From: Mel
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 12:08 PM
To: Tony
Subject: how i have wasted my time this morning

hi sweet man,

i have spent at least 30 minutes today schlepping through our trash and finally found your great rebate garbage. let me say to you that i had ripped into pieces initially because it screamed SCAM to me when i read the first paragraph and that since you did not COMMUNICATE to me that we were waiting for this big windfall document i had no idea that it was meaningful to YOU.

#1 i have read the entire document and it IF it even works it is an ENORMOUS amount of work to get this supposed rebate

#2 i have done a little bit of research on the internet and all signs point to SCAM

#3 if you could produce for me, a real person, who has ACTUALLY received a visa card that ACTUALLY WORKED i would happily do all the crapload of work for you to get the $$ in visa cards for us.

#4 if you cannot produce a person for me, you may just write this one off to a donation to whatever or whoever scammed you into it in the first place.

#5 the mail contained TWO pages of instructions on how to claim your visa card, and NO secret code, yes i said no code was there, and you apparently need this secret code to register.

i love you sweetheart, hope your day is marvelous.

mel

------------------------------------------------------------

RE: how i have wasted my time this morning
From: Tony
To: Mel


I am glad to see you are cheerful and full of confidence! We will get $ 50/ month if we play this right and I will split them with you 50/50.

I will find a person that has succeeded with this and will get the feedback.

Love,

Tony

------------------------------------------------------------

From: Mel
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 1:50 PM
To: Tony
Subject: one more thing

ok fine, i did find a code...i would still like to talk to a person who has been successful with this!

xoxo

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RE: one more thing
From: Tony
To: Mel

Making progress babe !


OK, hey it's me again. However this plays out I will follow up and let you know. If you know about this kind of thing please let me know. It's part of a fundraiser deal. You sign up, send them 9.95, pick a store [Costco for us] and send in $100 worth of receipts each month, and you get $25 a month in visa card. Same deal for gas, so hypothetically we would get two $25 visa cards each month for one year. Here is the website if you want to peek and tell me what you think. I told him this morning "fine, next time make a donation but don't buy into any extra stuff." At this point I don't know if it's legit or not. And I know it's going to be more crap work than I need!

Two Hundred and Fifty.

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.
-Mary Jean Iron

Found this scruffy picture of moi on Emily's camera :) which makes it a special kind of cool.

This is my 250th blog post. I did notice the hundredth and the two hundredth but forgot to celebrate my bloggy milestones until many posts later. Now, here is one I can actually mention because I just noticed that my little blog editor page said that I had already 249 posts behind me! How about that?

Background: This blog is unlisted, which means that it's not supposed to be search engine material. You only get here [so she says] if I gave you a link, or if you linked from someone else [who I know] who linked to me, or you're a Facebook friend, or one in a million will find it from a comment I left on someones blog.

I created it accidentally one day.

I was reading my cousin's blog, at the time it was the Jer & Kris blog, and I curiously clicked on a Blogger button to make my own blog. I didn't really know what a blog was until about that time. Anyway, I was playing around with it and created a few posts and some links just for fun. I had never shared it with anyone and one day I got a comment from Kris who noticed that I had linked to her blog. It took my breath away. She outed me just like that, and made my little blog official.

Why do I do it? I don't really know why I do it, it's mostly a lonely enterprise and lots of times I think eeeeew, what the heck am I doing this for? I have to admit, I do like to write and I do like to read what I have written, sometimes I look back and think, oooh, I wrote that, and, um, hey it’s not really that bad! I am not dilusional though and am frequently humbled by the writers on blogs that I read regularly and I am in perpetual awe of them [yes, I am referring to you, Jerry, Kris, Kal, and Brenda].

It could be because I am too much in love with the computer and deep down inside I miss those long days at the office crunching numbers and writing accounting programs...or not. This blog also takes a lot of my time. I spend way too much time on this when I should be cooking dinner or playing with my kids or cleaning my house and I have to reckon with that too.

This may be the reason: With the exception of photos, I am not a very good memory recorder. My kids’ baby books are empty except for the first couple of pages, I apologize to you if you are among the ones who gave me those books as a gift, I had good intentions, I’m just not good at writing things down on paper [which makes no sense because I love pencils and I also love paper]. My poor recording talent sucks more because I have a bad memory. Tony is constantly reminding me of things and I think he must be making them up because I am often completely blank about the whatever it is. Sometimes, I even pretend to remember so he will let me off the hook and stop trying to help me remember. Oh yeah honey...that time.

For the last few years, I have pretty much recorded every major outing, every trip taken, countless occasions, birthdays, holidays and more miscellaneous matter than you probably wanted to see. And look at that, I have records! Two hundred and fifty attempts at records since I'm counting. Sure, I get in my funny moods and some of my posts have been purely fun fluff and clutter. But mostly, I think, I have created something good and meaningful.

This is also an excellent reason: personally speaking, I have never been a good share-er. I think I may have made my mom proud on the playground a few times, but with personal info, no. Giving you a window into my life was scary at first, I was afraid. I was also afraid of the internet and I am still wrangling with that fear, hence the eternally unlisted blog. But somehow, slowly, giving this little window to you has brought me out of my shell somewhat and I am so proud of my new sharing abilities, I have come a long way. This blog also gives me a fun little creative outlet and that is always good and necessary for me.

I’m thinking, hey, I’m alive, I’ll be here for a while and then I won’t. Why not live a little, let my armor slip and let a few people in, what could happen? Life is short, but my life is big, and my world is really small. That makes sense to me, or maybe it's just my kind of crazy.

The part I don't like: for me blogging can be a lonely business, I never actually know who I am reaching or who is out there reading, do you think I know you are reading this right now? Unless you have told me, or have left me a comment recently, I don't have a clue. It’s not always easy to write when your audience is a mystery, so I just try to write for myself and I don’t edit much so my thoughts just trickle out and get published. For the first year or so I wanted to find a way to tell people to leave comments without begging. I gave up trying and just kept sharing; savoring up each little treasure of encouragement and love in every comment you left me. I have recently discovered one way to get around all the blog isolation and its called Facebook! It is a magical place where your nice little ego can ask for, and pretty much receive on demand, all the social validation your sweet heart desires.

So I guess the real answer to why do I keep this blog going is, I do it for myself, because I am creating a record; memories and mostly regular life everyday things that I think are worth remembering and sharing. I even enjoy it. And you’re kind of nice to let me rattle on and on to you about how much fun I had here and there, how awesome my kids are, and how much I love Fridays and strawberries and coffee. Just so you know, every time you leave me a comment, I print it up and put it in a wall hanging frame and cherish it for three whole days. Not really, but I do archive them right along with my blog posts and they mean a lot to me.

The best compliment I received was when, a few months into it I decided to share it with my friend Nena. She told me she really liked it and that I was the hippest person she knew. No kidding, she used those exact words. After these two + years of writing this blog, I would not dare ask how hip she thinks I am now!

Just for fun: My favorite post and my tied for favorite post, oh how much I enjoyed that one! Read the comments, they are simply delicious.

Gonna go play with Eva now. After that, I will finish cleaning the house, then pick up kids from school, then soccer practices, then dinner, then...just a normal day.

Moving Right Along.

If you hear Kermit the Frog singing at this moment, then you are like me. I have the Muppet movie on VHS; what a classic. Funny though, it's one that my kids don't ask for more than once. You know how our kids can watch Finding Nemo three thousand times and still keep asking for it, it's not like that with the Muppet Movie, wonder why? They find it every other year or so, put it in for a few minutes, don't finish it and don't ask for it again. I think it's great, pure magic even, which probably explains why I bought the VHS in the first place before I even had kids.

I have been just sick enough for the last ten days or so. Just sick enough to be sick but not sick enough to be really sick. Just not good, all over, day after day. It seems like everyone is in just such a boat as me. I am happy to report however, that Jim is doing much better; back to normal you might even say.

It is a beautiful stormy day here today [not so much if you are out in it, or watching your trees fall down, my apologies if that is you]. If you are lucky to be inside with a four year old sweetie like me, it is a very beautiful stormy day, comforting even if you are part sickly. Beautiful even if you are safe and warm at work and it is your birthday maybe? Happy Birthday Nena...I miss you.

Through my half-sickness though, I have accomplished a lot. In the last few weeks I have started a new walking regimen with my sweet friend/cousin-in-law Monica. We have been walking twice a week in the morning, alternating starting points [her house, my house]. She is a great person to walk with because while I, after 20 minutes or so am ready to head for the home stretch she pushes us on and we go for miles and miles. Seriously. An hour and a half later we will have four miles or so behind us and she still wants to go one more around the block! She is a good influence on me. If you know Monica, you know that there is never a break in your conversation. This is also good because it keeps my mind busy and I don't worry, in fact could care less, how far we are walking or how long I have been away.

Another major development: I have finally finally FINALLY f i n a l l y...begun to repaint my [apparently not more ugly than I could bear] baseboards. A task I have put off for 2.5 years longer than I should have. The short version is that we took all of our carpet out, put down wood floor, nailed baseboards back up on walls and then stopped. Ugly yes, yet motivation zero. And then one day [Friday if you insist] I picked up my paintbrush and my blue tape and got started. Guess what? It so not a big deal, I could have done this eons ago. It's not done yet but I just know that I am rolling. towards. getting. it. done.

Intermission: I just enjoyed a 1.5 hour power outage. Eva and I lit candles, [for ambiance] made hot tea because I figured out that I could light my gas stove with a match, then sorted an enormous questionable pile of outgrown/underused girl clothes and now I am back to the computer, but not for long. I can't afford the luxury of a giant time suck today [read: I am not going over to Facebook for a peek], I really have things to go do.

When Eva looked outside this morning she exclaimed "who painted our fence?" because of the new color it has become with the saturation, very pretty really. The pool is quickly filling with leaves and my charming decorative turtle that Renee gave me in July just blew off the fence. I need to go outside and get him under some protective cover.

I took some pictures at the pumpkin patch over the weekend and I will get them up in a few days. Hope this is a good week for you. Yes, I mean you whoever you are.

Mooo-ving right a long...

Hello October!

I don't think we could have planned a party on a better day. It was, or so it now seems, the last super-hot day of the year. Yeah, it's fall already, but don't tell last Sunday who rolled in here and gave us another 95+ degree day. Tony has such an awesome family, they gave our birthday girls plenty to smile about. And, thank you Janet for bringing your girls and taking lots of pictures for me!

It does make for an incredibly chaotic weekend though. Our Saturdays are consumed with soccer games and other busy things and then party day is always crazy. Lucky for me I have Tony who does not have micro-breakdowns like me and nudges me through my moments of "I cannot freaking do this!" So I am typically a great big ugly mess until party time, then Tony hands me a beer and I calm down significantly. He is a good man and puts up with a lot from me. I'll say no more, trust me you have to admire him for that!

My folks couldn't make to the big tandem bash because Jim is not feeling so hot these days. He has had some back troubles and a flu or something like it has kept him unusually sedentary. If you know him, you know exactly why I say unusually and italicize it! Anyway, if you are of the praying sort, please add him to your list. If you are not, good thoughts and vibes and wishes are helpful too. Thanks a million.

Just like I predicted [amazing I know], fall has landed abruptly. For weeks, we have been hanging on to our 90 and 100 degree days, then yesterday it was barely 75! Suddenly we are scrambling for sweatshirts as we leave for school in the morning and watching the wind play its little games with the swirling leaves. I'm ready. It's time.

Hello October 2009, you are so very beautiful! Now tell me, just what do you have in store for us?