Today we're going to pick up the littlest one from her first week of overnight camp. I can't wait to hear about all her adventures! This camp came to be in typical QuirkyGirl fashion. Complete mishap.

When we moved into the city last summer, we had to basically start all over. We were at a new church, new neighborhood, new schools, new just about every thing. Previously, the kids had gone to camp with the church, but with moving and a new church I wasn't even sure where to send them at all. So I asked The Preacher's Wife. (Seeing as both of my besties are PKs I know this is not just the title but the official name of all spousal support in every church across the land.) TPW gave me the name of a camp they had just sent their kids too and raved and gushed about the joys and wonders of it all. She told me it was expensive so we might have to get scholarship info like they did. I was excited filing back the name of the camp until the following year.

Flash forward to the following year....

Sometime around March I start doing the research for camps and summer programs to keep at least the littlest one occupied. Pulling up the reserves from the back of my mind regarding the previous summer's camp convo with TPW, I set out on google. The name of the camp was Spring Mill...right? Sure enough Spring Mill Bible Camp in Mitchell, IN popped right up on the screen. I was confused regarding the scholarship remark for no other reason than it was a mere $100/week. Truthfully, I wrote it off because often times when people know you're a single parent they immediately assume their is financial hardship. Rightfully so 9 out of 10 times, but still....ya know? So I shrugged it off. Rejoiced in the affordability of it and proceeded to  look at the calendar.

Spring slipped into Summer. A week before Belle was set to go to camp Brandon and I had dinner with our marriage mentor couple who just happened to be the former youth ministers to The Preacher Man. As we were talking about the camp TPW recommended I said "Spring Mill" and Marty looked at mean and said "You mean Spring HILL".  "No. Spring MILL....in Southern Indiana." "Yeah, Spring HILL is in Southern Indiana." After a bit of the back and forth and a comment on the affordability of the camp it became apparent that I had mixed up the name and seeing as to how the camps are in the same region of Southern Indiana but the one is $400/week cheaper.....I registered my kids for an unknown camp. Because that's how we roll in this family. Flying along in a series of mishaps and misadventures. Yet, God has his hands on me (and my kiddos) with my haphazard ways because it almost always works out wonderfully. So this will go down as the summer the youngest was the guinea pig for summer camp.

We're hoping it was awesome and is a place to go back to over and over again. In fact, several people have asked to be in the loop about how it went as it's affordable and not so very far. Did I mention it's right next to Spring Mill State Park with a Pioneer Village and such? Cuz it is! I gotta hop off here and start packing up our stuff. We're camping tonight at Spring MILL State Park as a mini getaway with our motely crew. Maybe some pics later.

Kisses to Your Faces, Babies~

Rach

For me to tell a short story would be a Christmas in Almost July miracle. I couldn't even give a book report in under 15 minutes (true story). You see, for me, every detail is important. It's all a series of thoughts, comments, opinions, etc., that each link to the other. All of these things create the whys and wherefores of the culminations of our lives....which is why I almost don't even know where to begin because it all seems pertinent!

Here goes....

I've made a new friend. I don't know her well yet, but I'm quite certain I already love her.

Yesterday, I was sitting on Lenda's couch picking up a book that she so kindly bought for me when she mentioned she had read my blog.

My blog. An online diary of sorts. A safe place that got tainted and was put away on a low shelf tucked out of sight. I'd tried to re-name her. Dress her up in different clothes. Tried to make her and to some degree myself into something we were not. I tell the kids: It's too hard to go against your own grain. It hurts too much. So I let her have her name back, and then I packed her away once more.

About a year or so ago, my lovely friend Nikki from across the pond, sent me a quick note and said she'd been checking in on my blog only to find nothing new posted. "I'm guessing maybe you don't need it as much as you once did."  Those words stuck. I chewed on them a bit. Was there truth in it? Yes....and no. I'm not certain I can even explain the yes. The no is much simpler. I used to be able to say I was a writer. Because I wrote. Now, not so much. Yet, I watch Emma peck away at the keyboard and print off pages and pages of original work and something in me sighs. Is it time? Is it that I am no longer 'tortured' in the ways of writers because I am happy in my life? John Lithgow in the movie Orange County said upon hearing his son tell him he wanted to be a writer: "WRITER? You're not gay! You're not oppressed!! What do you have to write about?!"

I miss it. I miss the words in my head being pushed onto the screen by the laboring cursor. So here I am. Months and months later. But I am here. Not the same QuirkyGirl but QuirkyGirl all the same.

“Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.”
― Neil Gaiman