Stress Free Scrapbooking

I mentioned SMASH* books a few days ago in this post and since then I've gotten quite a few comments and questions about them. Since they are one of my favourite things I decided to make a post to share some pages from the books I've completed. 

I used the Pink "Pretty Style" book to keep things from my last year of university. To be honest I wouldn't even say it's 100% full. I keep meaning to take some time to stick in a few more things I have kicking around my room but I never seem to actually get around to doing it. There aren't very many photos in this book. It's full of ticket stubs, random things I cut out of magazines, quotes, notes and cards from friends. 

This page is full of movie stubs, a favourite quote, a random dinosaur that I liked and an "autograph" from a friend. (Just in case he ever gets famous.)

On these pages I taped in a friendship bracelet after it had fallen off, a list of the songs that we listened to on our drive to school each day, a post it note from my roommate and a letter from a friend that she wrote me to read while on the plane for a visit home at the end of the summer.

The second book I did was "Eco Style" it was perfect for camp! I had planned on using it during the 2012 summer but in the end I just put all those photos in a photo album. I knew I had to use it for the summer of 2013. I was much more intentional about taking photos and saving things. I brought the book and a rubbermaid container full of scrapbooking supplies with me to camp with the idea to do complete the book as I went, working on it during breaks and pasting notes at the end of each day. I should have known better than to attempt that though, I didn't do a single page over the summer. Instead once I got home from camp I printed all my pictures and spent almost a month working on the book.

In the end I'm really happy I waited until the summer was over to build the SMASH book. It was a wonderful way to reflect on the summer, remember the good times, move on from the not-so great times and I had time to really make the book what I wanted! I'm really happy with the way it turned out!

These pages are extremely simple, but I love them. I glued in my favourite pictures of sunsets and the moon over the river and added in a pocket where I put a particularly special note. On the side is a clue that was part of a scavenger hunt my secret friend made me one day. The clue is about a romantic spot to stargaze so it fit in with these pictures perfectly.

Back in my scrapbooking days these pictures would have all been cropped into straight lines, backed with coordinating card stock and arranged in parallel lines on a 12x12 piece of paper. Now they just got cropped into whatever shape made the most sense and allowed them to fit on the page. I threw in some dinosaur stickers as part of an inside joke and a particularly hilarious quote from the summer and that was it! 

I had originally planned on including more pages but I had a really hard time taking good photos. And some of the pages I took photos of lost a lot of their splendour once I very unsophisticatedly edited out people's faces. 

I've always been into scrapbooking but stressed about making everything "perfect" with the SMASH* books the point is literally just to smash it all in. Sometimes I organize my thoughts and create pages that do have layouts like you would see in a traditional scrapbook. Most of the time I just create a pile of things I want to include and stick it in where ever it fits! I have two more blank books that I'm not quite sure how to use. I really like the red one and have been saving it for "something special". (Saving nice things for special occasions is a habit I really need to lose.) And the purple one I bought during a really good sale and I was looking through the pages the other night and decided it would be perfect to use if my whole Texas plan happens. 

If you're someone who is a "saver" like me and hangs on to little notes and ticket stubs but has no idea what to do with them I really recommend this method. You can stick pictures along side your "stuff" and at the end of the day you create something totally unique that gives you just as much satisfaction as a scrapbook without the stress. 

**I was in no way, shape or form compensated for sharing this product on my blog. It's just something I happened to learn about, buy and totally love!

Two Thousand and Thirteen

I'm linking up with Shane & Whitney to share my 2013 Year in Review!

 I didn't start blogging until February of 2013, and I didn't really "get serious" about it until the fall.  I don't have any links to past posts in my look back on 2013, because for the most part they aren't things I blogged about! Hopefully this time next year my 2014 review will be full of photos and posts, but for for this year I chose a photo for each month and a sentence or two about life way back then. 

January// I celebrated my 23rd birthday by going to the city for a camp reunion with some of my favourite people. We drank lots of wine, laughed until our sides hurt and began the process of creeping the potential new staff on various social media accounts. 

February// I finally got a passport! I still haven't actually used my passport to go anywhere but I think 2014 will be the year I venture out of the country. 

March// I officially signed my contract to return to camp. There was never any real doubt it was just made official in March. I spent lots of time working on Staff Training, coming up with ways to recruit new counsellors and pinning up a storm of arts & crafts projects and games to try. 

April// I spent a lot of April watching the Big Brother Canada live feeds. I'm almost too embarrassed to even admit to my addiction, but it was ridiculous. At one point my best friend suggested I need an intervention and I don't think they were joking. Emmett & Jillian have more or less replaced Boston Rob & Amber as my favourite Realty TV Love Story. 

May// I bought my first car! I also went camping with a bunch of Girl Guides and spent a lot of time packing for camp, preparing materials for staff training and then heading to camp for the summer!

June// I celebrated the end of the first two weeks of camp (both training weeks) by going to a concert with H. & R. and discussing all the new recruits over some fancy drinks. June seems like a blur of teaching, learning and figuring out how all the personalities of the counsellors would work together.

July// Camp was in full swing which means that in the office I drank a lot of caffeine while dealing with the craziness of the job and outside the office I tie-dyed a lot of things and enjoyed being at camp!

August// I spent a lot of time under the moon and stars with someone who will always have a special place in my heart. And that's all I'll say about that. 

September// I moved home from camp and recovered from the post-camp hangover while trying to navigate all the paper work to make my job into something full time. Was ridiculously optimistic that things would happen pretty quickly and I would find myself moving to the City before the end of October.

October// I went on an autumn adventure to visit R. where we went for long strolls with seasonally flavoured lattes and spent the afternoon at an apple orchard. I also spent a week apartment & cat sitting in the City which involved hanging out with some of my favourite people. 

November// I bought my first DSLR camera and really discovered how much I love blogging and being part of this community! Over the past few weeks I've participated in my first swap, sponsored my first blog and tomorrow I will be doing my first guest post! 

Looking back I have mixed feelings about 2013. I was incredibly blessed to meet some amazing people who I hope will be in my life for a long time to come. There were also some things I didn't accomplish that I am disappointed about. December still has a few more days left but and 2014 is still a few days away but I have a feeling that things are starting to happen. I mentioned a little bit about Texas back here and I don't want to go into details yet but things are kind of starting to happen there (much faster than I ever would have anticipated!) so if you wouldn't mind praying for that opportunity. I have no idea if it's the right thing yet, or even if things will align to really make it happen. I just know that I feel like I'm being led there for some reason or another.

Also linking up here! 

So Long Sweet Summer

This is how the summer started. A long to-do list written out over coffee & bagels. When it was still cold enough to wear leggings, wool socks and touques as we went about cleaning and organizing the camp. When all we could was speculate about how the next 12 weeks would unfold, how interview personalities would mesh together and attempting to anticipate what problems would arise. 

This is how the summer ended. Piles of (dirty) clothes, miss-matched socks and half empty bottles of sunscreen and big spray. Crumpled pieces of papers with notes full of reminders to "tell counsellors to stop eating cheese from the walk-in" and "pick up construction paper, canoe paddles, ketchup and cinnamon." Lingering goodbye hugs between people who 12 weeks ago would have passed each other in a crowd without a second glance. 

And in between the beginning and the end there were a lot of laughs and a few tears. Because sometimes, when you need to make an emergency trip to town to get a blender (true story) and two counsellors quit in the same week right before a week with 45 campers you just have to laugh. And then cry from stress because while you're laughing another counsellor wanders into the office to let you know a camper is refusing to go to bed or is homesick. Or both, depending on the day. No matter how slowly the day seemed to go by it did end, and there always seemed to be just enough time between camper lights out and counsellor bedtime to stargaze or eat copious amounts of chocolate. Or both, again depending on the day. Outside camp life there were breaks spent getting dressed up to go to Wal-Mart followed by laying in bed for hours catching up on Big Brother. 

I feel so lucky to have experienced this summer. Looking back there were moments that were so intricately perfect. And more than that I'm (98%) at peace with the ending. I've still got some "I wonder if..." and "Maybe if..." thoughts but I'm okay with that. Things will happen as they're meant to happen and I've got a lot of faith they'll happen at the perfect time. 

You're My Summer Jam

You and Me we're like a simple song
Yeah so damn easy to sing along,
I don't need a guitar or a band,
Cause baby you're my Summer Jam

- Jake Owen, Summer Jam

***

  

  I feel a lot of obligation to write a detailed and meaningful reflection about camp now that it's official over...but I have no idea where to start or where to end. I wish those Facebook survey/questionnaires were still a thing, copying/pasting 100 questions to answer about my favourite/least favourite summer moments, songs, food, smells, everything and anything that will forever remind me of this summer. (maybe they are still a thing? I'm out of the loop.)

I had so many great moments this summer. And I am thankful for every millisecond of each moment.

What I miss most about camp in the off season tends to be the nuisances of the summer; plaid shorts & tie-dye t-shirts, soup, 'Heart of Gold',  Bob's guy... It's funny because the things I miss the most are the ones that are guaranteed to be different next summer.  The staff will change, some of us (potentially even myself) will move on to other places and other jobs. There will be new campers and campers who won't return. We won't listen to the same songs or laugh about the same things. 

The hardest part about the transition back into the real world is going from spending literally every minute of everyday and night surrounded by people who you love to going months without seeing them. And although I am confident it won't be too long before I see H. & R. there are others who have the best intentions of keeping in touch but I may never cross paths with again outside of Birthday greetings on Facebook.

The moral of the story is I am so happy with how this summer played out. 

It was the answer to prayers that I didn't expect to be answered in 1000 years.

Sneakin' out late, tappin' on your window

Last week was full of all the best things about camp - quality time with friends, late night conversations, stomach aches from a combination of eating too much junk food and laughing too hard and stargazing with a summer romance. 

During session break I spent one night sitting around a bonfire, listening to country on the radio, making s'mores, discussing life's big questions and drinking wine with three of my favourite people who over the last year have transcended the line between 'camp friends' and 'friends who I met at camp'. 

Yesterday was the start of our last camp session, it's hard to believe the summer is so close to being over. As far as goals go I have really been focusing on staying in the moment, appreciating the little things and even in chaos remembering that come January I will miss even the most stressful parts of camp. 

The Days Come Easy and the Moments Pass Slow

In an attempt to keep up with my blog 3 times a week goal I've set a timer for fifteen minutes to write a quick post even though today has been one of the most ridiculous days at camp all summer.

In the last 24 hours I've found out that a major program isn't going to happen this week because somebody backed out at the last minute which left me searching Kijiji for alternative special guests that are equally as exciting and equally as free. So far no luck, but it's still on my to do list. Ten minutes before boating was supposed it happen it started pouring rain...and then thundering. This morning right before swim was about to happen the guy who cleans the pool showed up to do that...all things that need solutions now. At the same time cabin lists need to be made for next week and there are campers on a waiting list for next week that we need to contact.

...

Okay so I started writing this yesterday and then things happened and I got way distracted with camper issues and then by the time I had a chance to get back to it I was ready to eat cookies and spend some quality time with some people who in a few weeks I won't have the pleasure of seeing everyday. So, for the sake of argument, my defence is that aside from blogging three times a week I also really want to focus on 'being in the moment', and last night I was most definitely in the moment. Last night after campers had gone to bed counsellors who weren't sleeping in the cabin just sat around a table in the dining hall and chatted and laughed until late. 

I've realized that my two goals are pretty contradicting of each other, it's hard to be in the moment when I'm also supposed to be in front of a computer blogging! But everything is about balance and I'm slowly figuring out how to make it all happen!

Goals!

I've spent this morning drinking my coffee and catching up with all of the blogs I haven't been reading while at camp. I will fully confess that I was relieved to see so many posts about other people feeling a little uninspired and stuck in a bit of a blogging rut. I've been feeling the same way. There are so many stories I want to shareI but I can never seem to find time to write them all down. And when I do set aside some time for blogging I end up staring at a blank screen for 15 minutes, making myself write something down, deleting it and finding something else to do. 

A blogger I've followed since I started this blog, Erica Ashley is hosting a Monthly Goal Link-Up which I am super excited about joining! I'm really going to commit to following through with some things this month and do my best to make August wonderful!

Blog 3x A Week

I may have a hectic and unpredictable schedule during the week but I know that if I really make it a priority I can find the time to post three times during the week! 

Be in the Moment

I'm going to break the rules and be a little vague about this one. I will say that September and the end of camp shouldn't be a big dark grey cloud looming over every moment of August. I need to enjoy the present and not worry about September. I can be realistic and manage my expectations but just because something is going to end doesn't mean I can't appreciate it now while it's happening.

The sun keeps settin', the days go fast

This past week was our kids session at camp, campers 6-13 with disabilities ranging from mild Autism to the rarest of progressive neurological disorders. It was so full of highs and lows that I'm not even sure how to process the week in general. 

It's that time of the summer when things are starting to wind down, even if there is still a full month left of camp when you factor in breaks there are only two full sessions. September seems a lot closer than it did in May. I'm still figuring out what my post-camp plans are right now there are a few options, but I have mixed feelings about all of them. 

I originally had a lot of stuff I wanted to write about in an attempt to process it all but right now the more appealing option is to climb into bed, get a good nights sleep and go from there. 

July! July!

The end of last week marked the half-way point of the summer. We've done four sessions of campers and have four left until the end...but I'm not ready to start thinking about the end of summer yet! I'm quite content to live in the now and appreciate the moments as they happen. 

My favourite words of reassurance this summer seem to be "Don't worry - this will be funny tomorrow". If I've learned anything over the years I've spent at camp it's that in the middle of a crazy chaotic day when you're dealing with 100 different things (none of which are on your to-do list) it can be hard to find the humour in the situation. BUT the next day (or even 8 hours later) when you're sitting around discussing the days events it's hilarious.

I had originally planned on blogging during breaks so that I would at least be updating once a week. The problem with that plan is that I really didn't account for the fact that on breaks I don't necessarily want to sit on my computer. Breaks have been full of shopping adventures, swimming, reading, and occasionally (this might be the most magical) laying in the sun and doing nothing. 

One of our male counsellors is American so he baked a 4th of July cake last week to celebrate the occasion.  A lot of our break activities revolve around food.

There are few things in life that make me happier than freshly tie-dyed clothes hanging on the line drying in a summer breeze. 

 

I've had quite a few moments this summer when I've been really angry/upset over losing "my" camp. It's been 7 years since we lost the actual site and this will be the 3rd summer that the camp didn't operate at all. I didn't anticipate it coming up all that often this summer but it's hard to escape. And the silliest things trigger it for me.  Like sunsets and rainy days and giant puddles. I've only cried about it twice though so I guess that's improvement. It's a bit frustrating at times because I am happy and I am having fun with these campers and these counsellors but at the same time I would give anything to have just one more day back there.

June

My beginning of summer goal about posting every few days and writing heartwarming entries full of camp stories and happiness has clearly been a fail. To be honest I'm not sure what I was thinking when I made such a goal. Camp days start at 7 a.m. and technically end by 11 p.m. but it's a lot more fun to hang out with the other staff than seclude myself with my computer somewhere to blog. Plus, the internet situation at camp is rough. We finally got the wireless working half way through this past week but it only works as long as you are within 5 feet of the office. 

So far we've made it through Pre-Camp, Head Counsellor Training, Staff Training and 2 weeks of camps. One for adults with intellectual disabilities and one for adults with physical disabilities. Both weeks went so well. I am so happy with the counsellors this year, they are all amazing. It makes life so much easier when the counsellors are willing to try new things, listen to feedback and take suggestions on how they can become even better. 

During our first break from camp I went to an Old Crow Medicine Show concert with two of my best camp friends and another girl who worked with us at camp last year. During the second break RE, and I went to her house where we spent the majority of the break laying in bed watching Nicholas Sparks movies and consuming ridiculous amounts of junk food. 

I came home this break since it's over a weekend and I needed to pick up a few more hoodies and take home some clothes I haven't been wearing. Plus it's nice to just lay on the couch and enjoy dependable wireless and satellite TV.

Training!

The first two weeks of training were pretty hectic and busy but we accomplished a lot and its shaping up to be a good summer!

This weekend is our first real break between training and and session 1, but I'm spending it with my best camp girl friends so a detailed post is not going to happen today! 

Here's some pictures to tide you over and I hope everyone's summer is off to.a great start! 

In-Tents!

I made it 17 days into the Blog Every Day in May Challenge! 18, if you want to count today even though I'm not blogging about the assigned topic.  However, tomorrow morning I leave for camp and I can guarantee I won't be able to blog everyday. I'm not entirely sure what blogging will look like over the summer, I'm going to keep up with it as much as is possible when basically working 24/7 and having a very undependable internet connection!

 

I spent yesterday at and this morning at an annual Girl Guide & Scout Camp for our area. It's one of my favourite Guiding events and I look forward to it all year. I'm leaving bright and early tomorrow morning for the camp I actually work at so this year I just went out yesterday to help set up and left today around noon. It was pretty cold weather for camping last night (-2 at the lowest temp!) so when I got home I enjoyed a warm shower and had a nap in a cozy bed. 

When I got up from my nap I got ready and met up with one of my best friends for our trademark Iced Coffee & Wal-Mart dates. It was good to catchup with him. I was thankful I was able to see him before I left. We went to different universities and then when I moved home he moved away to work on his master's degree so it's been almost six years since we lived in the same province! When we're both away it's not often are schedules match up where we're in the same place at the same time.

On that note I am off to bed! I'm hoping for a really good nights sleep so that I feel awake and refreshed for the long drive tomorrow (7 hours!)

My Apologies

Dear Future Donna,

I'm sorry that instead of hauling out my suitcase that is currently hiding in the closet behind 3 old prom dresses and really starting the packing process I am leisurely watching Live with Kelly & Michael, sipping on some Pepsi. I realize that if I want to be fully packed for camp on Thursday night so that I can go camping with the Girl Guides Friday and Saturday and hang out with D. Saturday night before leaving for camp early Sunday morning, I should not be sitting in front of the TV/computer. Unless I am working on PowerPoint presentations for Staff Training or watching TV as background noise while I finish assembling staff welcome bags. This is turning into more of a guilt trip than an apology...which is good, because now I am feeling the need to rush this post and go be as productive as possible before I have to leave for Brownies at 5. Let's see how much I can accomplish in 3 hours (including getting dressed in something other than jogging pants & tie-dye t-shirt.)


Love,
Present Donna

As usual linking up here!

Who Would You Be?

 If you couldn't answer with your job, how would you answer the question, 'what do you do'?

 I do lots of things...drink too much caffeine, watch too much Reality TV, get too attached to "characters" on said Reality TV shows. I hang out with a fantastic and adorable bunch of 9 year olds once a week, I babysit, nap, text, eat, craft, walk, yoga...but to me those are all interests and hobbies (and bad habits). My passion is camp, yes it's my job, but really is what I love.

I am incredibly thankful that I am able to work at something I love. And that work rarely feels like work. Maybe that's an exaggeration because I assure you that last summer when the director and I had to get up every hour during the night to do laundry because the dryers broke and we didn't have a laundry attendant yet, felt like work.

And right now when I just got an email that we still haven't found a cook, it looks like a counsellor is going to quit before he starts, another counsellor is MIA, as is the assistant nurse, they were both hired but haven't made any effort to get their contracts signed or reply to e-mails and we're moving to camp in 2 weeks (i.e. 2 hours away from the main office) which makes hiring and other office work difficult.

But it's the kind of chaos I enjoy, and afterwards it makes for great stories (which all of my real life friends are tired of hearing. In university I did one work work term that wasn't camp or working with kids and it was 4 months of what I imagine hell to be like. I worked in the university gym and organized intramurals for students, it was almost 2 years ago now and I still can't talk about it without getting angry and yelling.

Even though I could answer "what do you do?" without referencing my job, it wouldn't be a very accurate or truthful answer. Even when I'm not working I'm reading up on what other camps are doing, searching Pinterest for fun craft ideas or just talking about camp. Camp is a huge part of who I am and it's what I love to do!

Blog Friends...?

I wasn't going to blog today because the topic for the May Challenge I've been doing is favourite blogging friends...and I don't really have any blogging friends. I've got lots of favourite blogs but I'm pretty new to the blogging scene. I've "met" some people who I really hope to become blog friends with I haven't quite achieved that goal. All that being said I like making new friends so you should definitely comment and introduce yourself if you happen to be stopping by! :) 

Friday I got some super exciting mail! Last year was my first summer at a non-faith based camp and I really under estimated just how much I would miss that element of camp. This year I decided to be pro-active and find some sort of daily devotional for me to use. I searched and I searched to find something specifically for camp staff, or even 20-Something girls, just something that had daily readings. Which turned out to be a near impossible task. Finally I came across Character Building Ministries who have a 10 week devotional specifically for camp staff! Factoring in breaks between each session I'm actually at camp for about 14 weeks, but I can make it work and I am super excited about it!

I am also super excited that 2 weeks from today I will be at camp! Enjoying beautiful sunsets like the one below. Or at least making an effort to really take the time to watch and appreciate the sunset a few times a week in the midst of the various camper and staff happenings. 

A Confession

I LOVE reading. I was always that kid reading under the covers with a flashlight and have been known to finish whole books in under 8 hours. But, I've got a confession, the past few months I have been horrible at finishing books. One of two things keep happening: I buy the book, take it home and it sits on my desk/bookshelf/bedroom floor for all of eternity or, I buy the book, read a few chapters and for whatever reason never get around to finishing. I'm determined to change my ways though and summer is the perfect time to make that happen!

I don't have much free time over the summer but last summer during session breaks when there weren't any campers around I read a lot. There's nothing else that melts away a stressful week quite like sitting on in the sunshine on the dock with my feet in the water and a book in my hand.

So far my summer reading list looks like this:

• A Year of Living Biblical Womanhood - Rachel Held Stevens
• The Patron Saint of Butterflies - Cecilia Galante
• Crazy Love - Francis Chan
• Bumped - Megan McCafferty
• The Fault in Our Stars - John Green
• 7 - Jen Hatmaker
• In The Land of the Blue Burqas - Kate McCord
• The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

I'm sure that there will be more to add, and I always love book suggestions!

I also love suggestions about what to blog about so starting tomorrow I'll be joining in at Story of My Life for the Blog Everyday in May Challenge! You can read the rules and the topics here. I'm not sure how well the blogging everyday thing will work out once I move to camp, but I'm going to try anyway!

Happy Monday!

My Monday got off to a really great start thanks to the Blog World!

On Friday when I linked up with Kelly's Korner for SUYL she shared a link from Beth Moore's blog that prompted 20-Somethings to post a comment about ourselves and our worries and in return a Non-20-Something would reply to the post and volunteer to pray for the 20-Something. I thought it was such a sweet idea so I commented and refesed the page for an hour in anticipating of somebody replying. After an hour I realized I was being crazy and decided to leave it until Monday.

Which brings me to this morning when I went through my usual morning ritual of checking e-mail, Twitter and blogs and remembered to check back with Beth Moore. And I was greeted with this comment. I was so happy to see that and I love that the lady who commented was kind enough to also leave her e-mail address. Things like this are such a refreshing change from the usual cattiness of girls and are such an encouragement!

For those of you wondering (which I'm pretty sure is nobody, but I digress) Operation Homemade Lipgloss with the Brownies went really well! The only hiccup was for some reasons the girls who used purple Kool-Aid to colour their gloss ended up with a grey-ish colour. So that's a lesson for the next time. But other than that they were all pretty happy with how they turned out, which made me happy too. 

The last week of April/first week of May is off to an excellent start!

Weekend Update

I had a pretty low key weekend, but in an attempt to update more often I'm going to blog about it anyway. 

Saturday I baby sat the Tiny Human from 9-5, being in a rush to leave her Mom forgot the bag of toys she usually brings with her, so we had to improvise. We spent a lot of time playing with fridge magnets followed by some good ol' fashion wooden spoons and plastic bowl time. Between make-shift toys, naps and lunch we manged to pass away the day.

Camp is less than a month away and now that 99% of the staff is hired I spent some time this crafting fun door signs for everybody. I used the Create-A-Critter Cartridge and kept with the animal theme for everyone. At first I tried to stick with campy animals...but with a staff of 22 and usually have a couple of volunteers each week too that plan ended quickly.

Tomorrow night at Brownies I'm attempting to make homemade lip gloss with the girls. It's one of those situations where I have high hopes and low expectations.