October Coffee Chat

The end of October really snuck up on me, and it's been a weird month. Which is what I'll say when you ask why I don't have a photo of coffee for today's post and why I wrote 'coffee date' instead of the usual 'coffee chat' on the photo of leaves. Anyway, let's justify the leaves by assuming we'll drink our coffee outdoors so we can admire the leaves. When it inevitably gets too cold to be outside we can head inside, for more coffee. This has been a month that requires more coffee.

I'd tell you all about the chaos of Sparks and how much I hate paperwork. I'd also tell you that my little sparks are hilarious. Last night we decorated pumpkins and one informed me, "I'm going to decorate my pumpkin with ribbons! Ribbons are youthful!" So in case you're wondering how to make your pumpkin look younger, ribbons are the answer. 

I might ask for your opinion about my latest obsession, which is watching Project Life process videos on YouTube. It occurred to me the other day as I happily watched a nice lady from New Jersey record her grandson's birthday that watching other people scrapbook might be weird. I need some crafty friends. Not artsy friends, those are the hip 20-somethings who eat kale chips and take black and white photos while they listen to records. I want crafty friends, 30-40 year old women who drink tea and scrapbook while they watch the news. 

While we're on the topic I might tell you about how excited I am to venture into Project Life next year. And am being cautiously optimistic that it's a project I'll both start and finish. And then I might try and convince you that should should take up Project Life too! 

I would let you know that I don't care about Adele and am so glad that the country is done being interesting in baseball. Then we could get that out of the way and move on.

I'm hoping that November will be a more organized month. J.'s birthday is next week and next weekend I'm going away with Guiding. Originally J. and I had planned to go on a trip in November but we decided to postpone until January. I'm not the least bit disappointed because after a busy October I can't imagine planning a trip along with everything else, my do to lists were pretty full.

Now, I need to go finish reading the longest book ever written so I have something to blog about on Thursday. And you should go check out some of the other ladies linking up their October Shenanigans with the Blogging Elite. 

Blogtember 2015: Farewell Coffee Date

Today, I am breathing a huge sigh of relief as I wave goodbye to Blogtember 2015. My goal was to participate in 20 of the 30 prompts and I surpassed my goal, once I hit publish on this post I will have participated in 23 of the Blogtember prompts and blogged 26 out of 30 days in September.

I met a lot of talented, creative and lovely bloggers through Blogtember and found some blogs that I'll continue to follow. I'm also suffering from serious blogger burnout. I think what contributed to blogger burn out the most was that about once a week I found myself writing a post for a prompt that I didn't feel overly passionate about writing. I was able to skip some of the prompts because I had only committed to 20 in the first place but I think a smarter choice would have been to really think about the prompts farther in advance and figure out which ones I really wanted to write. And then if that wasn't enough I can create some of my own prompts to get to the number of posts I want to publish. 

September was a bit of a roller coaster. I felt like I took on a lot and had a lot on my mind. I still have a lot on my mind and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. I feel like I'm about to enter a season of change and I have a lot of beginnings and endings happening all at once. September was a month were I felt a lot of anxiety about a lot of of different things, which was exhausting. I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with that better in October but I know that I definitely need to make some adjustments. October is going to be a big month for goals, but I'm saving that for tomorrow. Today I'm giving myself a high five for Blogtember and then I'm going to take a break! 

Coffee Chat - Post Camp Edition

For the last four months this has been my view first thing in the morning (and often last thing at night). This summer was challenging. It challenged me to choose priorities, to carve out 'me time', and realize that sometimes I really need to say 'no' to doing more. I wasn't always successful with those things. My days started between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m., those same days ended close to midnight. 

One of the head counsellors summed up this summer best when he proclaimed that the highs were really high and the lows were really low. We had some spectacular moments when campers flourished and left camp with more confidence than when they came. There were also moments involving serious medical crises that made everyone sad, stressed, scared and sometimes angry at the world. 

I was fortunate enough to spend almost two months spending time with H. and R. next summer H. will be in school and only God knows where R. and I will be a year from now. I like to think we took advantage of our time together spending hours exploring the city, an afternoon shopping and another at the beach. Multiple nights sitting around a campfire and even more enjoying some good old fashion Girl Talk. Four years ago when I set out on my new camp adventure I never would have believed that two of the people I met there would become my closest friends. The three of us are different in so many ways that all seem to balance each other out and I love every minute of sharing my life with them. Even if most of the year we share it with a lot of help from iMessage and Skype and a little assistance from Canada Post. 

I don't have any "what comes next" plans and for the first time in my life I don't feel crushing and overwhelming panic/anxiety about that fact. I'm in the process of planning a road trip with J. in November. I'm working on finding a Girl Guide group to lead again and I've also been researching how to get involved in some camps that are closer to home. 

I don't have a mile long list of goals that I need to accomplish over the next few weeks. My priority is to relax, restore and re-energize after the summer. And let's be real, that means I'm going to watch a lot of Friends DVDs, try to sleep in past 7:00 (although so far that hasn't been successful), go to the beach and read a book and get back into a routine.

Eventually I will need to write my end of summer report and check off some things on a grown up for to do list but for the next week all that can wait. And I'm very at peace with the waiting.

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. - Lamentations 3:25

Linking up with Life of Meg for Mingle Monday.

Coffee Chat July

This is what my desk looked like Thursday morning (Day 7 of our camp session). To quell any confusion about the Starbucks cup on my desk, it's a travel mug, the nearest Starbucks to camp is 2.5 hours away. On this particular morning my desk was covered with a travel mug of coffee, Finding Nemo DVD from movie night, my work computer, my personal computer, a list of campers who ordered t-shirts and photos, a list of things I needed to get done and a pile of homemade crayons that needed to be distributed to the campers who made them. 

The month of July seems to have gone by in a flash. There are only two more sessions of camp left which means in less than a month another summer will be in the books. If we're going to meet for coffee this month you'll have to come to me. Hopefully the weather would cooperate and we could sip our coffee down on the dock. 

I'd tell you that the past few weeks have been full of high highs and low lows. There are moments when everything is going perfect and I feel incredibly blessed to get to work here. Then there are moments when the group collectively forgets to tell anyone we're running low on toilet paper...and then bursts into the office at 7:30 a.m. to declare that the entire camp is out of toilet paper except for one roll in each of the cabins...and so an emergency town trip was made for toilet paper. 

If we were meeting for coffee I'd tell you about all the things I have written under the "To Blog About" heading in my planner. I'd give you a list of all the books I've read this summer and ask for your opinions. I'd gush about how in love I am with the new planner I bought that goes from August 2015-December 2016. I'd tell you that I've discovered a love for puzzles and I've found a new hair product that is making life a lot easier.

I'm still worried about what happens in September when camp ends. Except that I don't really have time to be worried about it so it's like a little mosquito buzzing in my ear. I should probably get back in the habit of setting monthly goals but I haven't given any August Goals any thought. I'd love to get back to my old eating habits and I'm dying to make blogging a daily habit but neither of those things are realistic until August 23rd when camp is officially over for the summer. And at that point it's just as well to call them September goals. 

I'd love to stay and keep chatting but I'm off to the city for a couple of days with H. & R.. And hopefully that means that a real life Starbucks/Second Cup coffee is in my near future.