Beauty from Ashes

Might as well jump on the bandwagon!

1. What is in the back seat of your car right now? A lot of junk. But since I don’t have my own car, and I usually drive one of my family’s vans, it’s not my junk and therefore not my fault!

2. When was the last time you threw up? Last fall when I had a nasty stomach bug.

3. What’s your favorite curse word? I don’t curse. I do say bother, however…that’s pretty much it!

4. Name 3 people who made you smile today? Michael, Kevin, Moreso, my brother Chris, most of my sisters…ok, that’s more than three, but who cares?

5. What were you doing at 8 am this morning? Sleeping!

6. What were you doing 30 minutes ago? Eating lunch

7. What will you be doing 3 hours from now? Good question. I’ll get back to you in 4 hours. [later] I was baking.

8. Have you ever been to a strip club? No, and I doubt I ever will.

9. What is the last thing you said aloud? Poor Abby

10. What is the best ice cream flavor? Coffee, peppermint, pecan praline

11. What was the last thing you had to drink? Water

12. What are you wearing right now? Green skirt, blue shirt …white flip flops…glasses…two hair pins.

13. What was the last thing you ate? Macaroni and cheese

14. Have you bought any new clothing items this week? No

15. When was the last time you ran? Yesterday

16. What’s the last sporting event you watched? Women’s gymnastics

17. What’s the last thing you attended that required a ticket? Hmm…I think it was when I went to see Prince Caspian a couple months ago

18. Who is the last person you emailed? Someone I met at camp. I was sending her pictures.

19. Ever go camping? Yes, tents and cabins

20. Do you have a tan? *sigh* No. I don’t tan. I either remain very pale or turn bright red. It’s not fun.

21. What do you prefer: Natural Sun or the Tanning Bed? Um…never having used a tanning bed, I’d have to say the sun. Not that it works for me.

22. What’s the best way to tan? You’re asking me? See above…the best advice I can give is to not be me.

23. What’s your favorite drink? Probably water.

24. Do you drink your soda from a straw? I don’t drink pop.

25. What did your last IM say? “I’m trying to decide what I should work on next

26. Are you someone’s best friend? I don’t know. I hope so. Maybe. *wonders*

27. What are you doing tomorrow? Working

28. Where is your mom right now? Running errands

29. Look to your left, what do you see? A printer

30. What color is your watch? I don’t have a watch. My cell phone substitutes when necessary. It’s pink.

31. What do you think of when you think of Australia? People I know who have visited there, the 2000 Olympics, the Great Barrier Reef, Australian accents, Adventures in Odyssey, and more. But I’ll stop now.

32. Would you consider plastic surgery? Probably not

33. What is your birthstone? Peridot

34. Do you go in at a fast food place or just hit the drive thru? I almost never eat fast food.

35.How many kids do you want? A houseful! As many as God sees fit to bless me with.

36. Do you have a dog? Yes.

37. Last person you talked to on the phone? My mom

38. Have you met anyone famous? Um…my uncle once dated Madonna’s sister…does that count? I’ve met my state representative…and Kevin!

39. Any plans today? Nothing very exciting. I’m enjoying my last week of relative freedom before life gets crazy!

40. How many states have you lived in? Two. Michigan from 1989-2006, and New Jersey from 2006 onwards.

41. Ever go to college? Not yet. I’m going to take a couple classes starting next week.

42. Where are you right now? At the computer! Which happens to be in my kitchen.

43. Biggest annoyance in your life right now? People who read over my shoulder! (you do mean right now, correct?)

44. Last song listened to? Darkest Hour, by Rescue Music

45. Is that your favorite band/singer? They’re pretty high on the list

46. Are you allergic to anything? Chocolate

47. Favorite pair of shoes you wear all the time? I don’t have one favorite pair…but I love all of my sandals/flip flops!

48. Are you jealous of anyone? Yes…sort of, anyway.

50. Is anyone jealous of you? I honestly have no clue.

51. What time is it? 1:53 EDT

52. Do any of your friends have children? None of my close in age friends.

53. Do you eat healthy? Yes but we could have a long discussion about whether many things that are commonly considered healthy really are, and whether some things that are commonly considered unhealthy really are!

54. What do you usually do during the day? Play the piano, read, cook, clean, spend too much time online, work, knit…to name a few.

55. Do you hate anyone right now? No.

56. Do you use the word ‘hello’ daily? If not daily, then almost daily. Although…don’t tell anyone this…sometimes I say “hi” instead.

57. When? Generally upon greeting people.

58. How old will you be turning on your next birthday? 20

59. Have you ever been to Six Flags? I have not. And I don’t really care to go, either.

60. How did you get one of your scars? It’s really stupid. I was cutting/serving a pie, and the spatula had a really sharp edge…I cut myself pretty badly.

My original intent was to keep a journal of my trip, recording each day’s happenings upon that day. No surprise, that didn’t end up happening. So instead of a day-by-day account, anyone reading this will get to see my random thoughts on a variety of themes and events and occurrences of the past week or so, not necessarily in chronological order, or indeed any kind of order! The theme of the moment? Camp!

From August 14-16, I was up at Huron Forest Camp Cherith in northern Michigan, working as a cook with some family friends. They’ve been involved both with the camp, and with the group that had come up for the weekend, City Mission (an inner city mission in the Brightmoor area of Detroit), for about 10 years.

Cooking for close to 80 people is hard work! It’s pretty much a 14 hour day, and that barely seems like enough time to get everything done. Because you’re cooking for so many, you can’t do everything from scratch, which was hard for me. I have to admit, I’m a bit of a food snob, so it was quite the challenge to make myself use mixes and prepared foods and such. I kept reminding myself that it was only for a few days. But it’s also a lot of fun. Though the people I was working with are closer to my parent’s age than mine, things still got a bit crazy in the kitchen. It was like late night randomness, during the day, all day, in real life. Quite the experience.

I hadn’t been at the camp for over three years, so there were some changes since the last time. One was that I was finally allowed to use knives! I had been under 18 last time, and legally could not handle them. It became something of a running joke that I couldn’t use or touch the knives last time, so it was quite exciting to be able to. A random cooking tip for anyone who’s interested: ovens work better when you actually turn them on. The food happens to cook faster that way, too.

For anyone (Kevin…) who knows about my thing with the hanging rack for pots and pans, and the very specific order the objects must hang on it, and thinks I’m just a bit obsessive, I have been vindicated! (in a way) My order makes sense! In my kitchen, part of the order is that all the smaller objects hang in the front, making it less likely that I will hit my head on anything. This is necessary, as I have a bad habit of doing that very thing. In the camp kitchen, there is not any kind of order for the various cooking utensils to hang up, and because of that, I whacked myself quite soundly on a large pot hanging where I would not have put it, and knocked it to the ground. Despite the injury, I have the sense of a minor victory because I was right…although I do wish I hadn’t had to prove it in that way.

Despite the grueling hours and hard taskmasters, I was able to escape the kitchen for a little while Friday afternoon, and take a trip to the Au Sable river. It’s gorgeous. The special attraction here was a huge, incredibly steep hill of sand (they refer to it as a dune, though I’m not sure it really is one) overlooking a wide section of the river. Though many people raced down to the water as soon as we got there, I on the other hand never made it quite all the way down. I went about halfway, had to go back for something, returned, and made it about two thirds of the way down before I realized that I probably wouldn’t arrive at the bottom before I would need to be back at the top in time to get back to camp! However, 1/2 + 2/3 = 7/6, so technically I did cover the entire distance and I will not be persuaded otherwise!

Being in the kitchen until 9:30-10:00 at night meant missing the campfires with everyone, but I almost preferred the way things worked out. By the time I was able to get down to the fire, the campers had gone to bed and just a few of the staff and the TE’s * were left. Both nights, we had very special times of worship and prayer and fellowship. It was a more than adequate substitute for late night randomness , and probably the best part of the time at camp.

*TE = Team Elijah. The name Camp Cherith comes from the story of Elijah by the Brook Cherith, and reason all the staff have bird names is because of the ravens that fed Elijah there. (it’s kind of a stretch, but that’s the reason they have…) This is the only place where I’m known as Ouzel in real life! I was Ouzel there before ever being water_ouzel online. But anyway, the TE’s are high school age campers who, instead of paying to come to camp just for fun, receive a small stipend to come and serve. They do dishes (a Herculean undertaking!) help with the horses, and because we were short-staffed this weekend, helped with many, many other things. They are always a huge help, but I don’t think we would have made it without them this time!

Even though I was only there for a few days, in that short time I had many traditional camp experiences:

1. Sand everywhere and in everything–shoes, socks, suitcase, bedding, and everywhere else.
   
2. Sharing a shower with spiders *shudders*
3. Nonsense songs at lunchtime
4. Legs completely covered in mosquito bites
5. Freezing cold nights
6. 2 inch thin “mattresses”
7. Camaraderie
8. Disconnecting from the world outside. It’s really a whole ‘nother life up there.
9. Meeting God
10. Being utterly exhausted at the end of camp, sleeping most of the ride downstate–and still not being able to keep my eyes open that evening!

More to come soon! Also, I will add pictures as soon as I can make them work.

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