another lazy Sunday

The quilter's guild has finished their weekend of fun and fabric here at Camp of the Cross. The Women's Weekend Away, where women came to be pampered and relax is also over and it's Sunday again. Time to relax, renew, refresh, restore. And start all over with another busy week!!

a bright spot

I was accepted into the Urban Servant Corps.

sliding in the mud of self doubt

Funny that I live in a place intended to foster community and yet I just want to hide in a corner with a book. My introverted tendencies seem to get stronger by the day. The rest of the staff here is burned out, down to core. This is a retreat center, yet where does the staff go when they need to get away? They need to retreat from retreating. I'm the fresh new face on staff. I should be the glue that holds us all together, the community builder and peace maker for a community designed to help people build relationships. I should be picking up the slack and helping the overburdened carry their weight. And yet I'm screwing up at every turn. My pitiful attempt at community building failled miserably. You see, this community is in transition and as with any transition there are a few bumps along the way. I should be good at transitioning by now. Afterall I've been in transition for roughly a year. It was just over a year ago that I buried all my neatly laid plans and a silver engagement ring beneath a rock somewhere in the wide open empties of Montana. I stood on that hilltop on that windy January day, arms outstretched, I could see forever and I was so sure I was going to fly. But on the way back down to solid ground I slid and fell in the slippery Montana clay. I washed those jeans but the mud of self-doubt is harder to wash away. I've been trying to fly ever since, but that mud is just weighing me down.

...and I've never been to Boston in the fall!!

The title of my post has absolutely nothing to do with anything, it just happens to be what's stuck in my head at the moment. That's because I convinced Carrie and Amy, my cohorts here at Camp of the Cross that we should undertake the mission of becoming "Pirates that do Something!!" They were pretty excited about it. We're all easily amused and due to the sub-arctic temperatures here, most of the retreats scheduled for this weekend were called off. There hasn't been much happening out here by the lake. However I have accomplished a few odds and ends the past few days, such as cleaning and inventorying the Canteen and cleaning the Craft Shack. We've been doing a little woodworking too. Larry and Pauline moved a house onto the property and will be moving into that, so Amy and Carrie are moving into Larry and Pauline's old house, but first we're refinishing the doors and woodwork.

one down, a million to go

Well, I did it. I just e-mailled an application to the Urban Servant Corps to Rev. Barb Martens. Maybe I'll be accepted maybe I won't. I guess we'll see.

sometimes ya just gotta go camping

I can now say I've been camping in January...even if it was in a tent in Matt's basement. But hey, there weren't any mosquitoes and we didn't even need to put the rain fly up. And now I guess I sort of am camping, or actually just living and working at a camp. My first day of "work" included cleaning cabins, attending Joshua Crowder's first birthday party and creating, um.."potato art" on a wall of Larry and Pauline's house. There's a line in "We are the Pirates that don't do Anything", a Veggie Tales song, that goes "..and I've never thrown my mashed potatoes up against a wall!"
Well, that line no longer rings true for me. Now I just have to paint some daisies on a big red rubber ball, lick a spark plug, sniff a stink bug and go to Boston in the fall and I'll be well on my way to be being a Pirate that does stuff!! Anyway, there's plenty to do here at the camp. We have four different retreat groups this weekend. I'm in charge of finding games, stories, lessons, songs, etc to keep a group of various aged youth occupied for an hour and a half next weekend and later on this winter I get to organize a retreat for returning National Guard members and their families!! Busy busy busy busy busy.