Time for more camps! This week Clare went off to our church girls camp and Wyatt went off on high adventure (also a boys scouts/church camp). This year, I got tagged to go to girls camp too and help in the kitchen.
I busted my butt every day making meal after meal. I only saw Clare when she came through the chow line. Thankfully, I worked with really wonderful women in the kitchen. We laughed and talked and worked. It was great...and exhausting.
A couple of thoughts I don't want to forget about working the kitchen at girls camp.
First: kitchen helpers are called "cookies" like the cute version of "cooks".
Second: the dudes who do the dishes are amazing. They just wash dishes all. day. long. We dirty around a bah-jill-ion dishes a day (that is an exact and accurate dish count). These dudes just plow through the dishes like it ain't no thang.
Third: it was exhausting but also restful?
Exhausting because the work never stopped. We were making the next meal and prepping for the meals after the next one constantly. When we weren't cooking or prepping we were serving the girls, cleaning, or taking three minutes to feed our own faces. At one point we had about 30 minutes before we needed to start the next job. The level two girls were in charge of lunch so we had some time off. The other camp leaders kept coming into the kitchen and asking if we wanted to try archery or one of the other activities. My answer? No, I don't want to do anything! If I have 30 minutes can I just sit down and do nothing? Do I have to go do something somewhere else, even if it is a fun something? I want nothing? I finally agreed to go tie quilts because I could sit down to do it. But as soon as I started a girl came over to tie so she could earn service hours. I handed over my needle and thread and headed back up to the kitchen to sit and do nothing!
Restful because I only had to think about one single thing: making and serving food. I had no cell service or wifi. I had no way to check emails, texts or phone calls. I had no free time, it was just service time. I didn't have time to think about scheduling doctors appointments, getting a kid to a place for a thing, menu planning, or any of the million other stuff that runs through my mom brain all the time. It was kind of glorious!
Fourth: I like to put on a good skit. I can make a fool of myself with the best of them. I do not, however, enjoy looking deranged. And deranged is exactly how I looked during our skit. We performed a lip sinc to Weird Al's "Just Eat it" see the picture above for proof.
Fifth: I never want to be out with the girls for girls camp. There is way too much girl drama going on out there. They are running on hormones and an hour of sleep. They are pushed into manufactured faith experiences that leave them bewildered and emotional. They have a million little traditions that are meant to make the girls feel super special but I could see how they could make some girls feel left out. No thank you, I'll stay in the kitchen and eat M&Ms when the drama gets high.
Wyatt came home from high adventure and we took him out to catch up. He said the wildest thing about high adventure (they went white water rafting) was that the boys were fed three hot meals a day. Wild. This kid doesn't get fed at home. It is true, true, true.
