Thursday and Friday

I find it interesting that one of my counseling assignments was that I needed to be more spontaneous. Truthfully, most of what I do in my life is decided on the spur of the moment. I have had to really work to build structure into my life. Writing in my blog daily is one of those structural practices I've recently worked into my life. I find it helpful, emotionally, but I don't like doing it. For awhile I had a purpose, a story to tell, progress to chart. Recently, I've noticed that more and more random thoughts and ideas are making their way into my writing. It lacks clarity. Many times I have issues to discuss, and I avoid them, because right now those issues themselves, are unclear. I've been distracting myself with more entertaining thoughts, to avoid talking about all the changes that are happening so rapidly inside me. It's time to face what's happening and talk to myself about it, and perhaps it will make more sense to me when I'm finished. The only problem is that I can't seem to identify any of it. I'm just a mass of feelings that change from minute to minute. I have no control. That really bugs me. I'm going to outline my past couple of days while I think about all this "stuff".

I went to Youth Conference. I absolutely enjoyed every minute of it. We have great youth. I was told to expect 5-7 participants at my workshop. As I was preparing, I decided on a whim, to make 16 packets. I thought I could save the extras, in case I wanted to repeat the activity. I had 26 kids show up for the workshop. I had to ask some of them to leave. As it was, 18 stayed--two buddied up with others. The time flew by. Because the number of participants was so much higher than expected, I didn't get to do many of the activities I had planned. I hope the kids had fun anyway.

I stayed for dinner and chaperoned the dance. At 11:00, the dance ended. I went grocery shopping with a friend because we were supposed to bring a lunch the next day, and I had no supplies. My friend and I stayed up talking until 1:30 A.M. I got to bed at 2:00.

Darrin's alarm rang three hours after I went to bed. I got up, did my devotional, woke DJ, made lunches (I made a couple of extras, because I know someone will forget his/her lunch), got ready to go and drove to the church. We all (5 adults and 58 kids) boarded a bus and headed for the CSU challenge course. It's a course that has all sorts of activities designed to build teamwork and trust. I HAD to participate. It looked like so much fun. For four hours we had an intense, challenging, absolutely wonderful time. I got to walk a tightrope HIGH above the ground. I got to climb a tall pole, stand on top, and JUMP off it to grab and swing on a trapeze. I got to climb a rock wall. Then on the ground were balancing challenges, teamwork games, and other fun activities. Of course, we were all harnessed in. If we fell, our team members would belay us to the ground. Never mind that my teammates were all 14-17 year old kids (lends new meaning to the words "For the Strength of Youth")...

We went home (I slept all the way), and met some city workers at a park for a service project in which we mulched about 10,000 trees (well, it felt like there were that many), then headed out of town for a barbeque and fireside/testimony meeting. The burgers were overdone (I abstained), and all my most UN-favorite foods were served (potato and macaroni salads swimming in mayo or some other sauce, watermelon...). I put some lettuce and tomatoes on a bun and ate some baked beans--good dinner. I think at this point we were all too tired to care anymore about much of anything. The fireside was mediocre, and the testimony meeting had some bizarre twists and turns. I hit a rock coming into the canyon and my car leaked a little tranmission fluid, so I was worrying about that, of course. Anyway, I was VERY happy to get home at 11:00 and go to bed.