there's no place like gnome.

First, baby quilts.

Another one went in the mail yesterday to a new baby soon to be born in Virginia to a Banana and her husband.  This little monkey could be a boy or a girl so I went for bright colors.  And monkeys.  I love the simplicity of it – I love straight-line quilting.  I think I need to do more of it.

One of my favorite parts of this quilt is the binding.  I was quilting along and wondering what I was going to use for the binding.  I wanted something that popped but couldn’t think of anything but the fabric already used in the quilt.  Then I remembered I had these awesome stripes which could not have matched any more perfectly.  Love it.

Second, saving babies.

*This is a shameless plug.*  I have to go to jail for babies.  Jail is a restaurant in Austin and the babies are ones helped by the March of Dimes.  The March of Dimes big fundraiser is the Jail and Bail.  Someone nominated me to go to “jail” for babies … and now I have to raise my bail.  Let it be known – I dislike asking people for money.  I’m swallowing it because of my role as a somewhat public figure in the community and the March of Dimes doing awesome things.   It is a super worthy cause and if you at all feel drawn to it, you can help “bail” me out here.  And if not, don’t feel bad.  [Jail is really just an hour of my time next Wednesday and apparently they feed me pizza.  I hope there’s a mugshot too.]

Day camp success once more.

It started off with a trip to the local care center to deliver suncatchers we had made earlier in the summer.  It was a fun little field trip and I know the residents love seeing the kids.  A great experience all around.

It was Olympics theme the rest of day and so we had Olympic rings for snack.  [Donuts with appropriate colored sprinkles.]  Like we had every time before, a scavenger hunt followed to find the three fruit of the spirit we would focus on that day.  Today they were love, self-control, and patience.  We talked about each and all shared people to whom we show love in some way or another.  One camper said, “My brother, my sister, my mom, my dad, my two cats, and ALL OF YOU.”  For sweet.

We played a couple rounds of My Grandma’s Big Fat Toe [always a day camp favorite] and a couple games of pew battleship.  [I just learned about this one.  Played in the sanctuary, it requires everyone to be stealthy and quiet.  For that, it was awesome.]  Soon enough, it was lunch time and following that was time for the opening ceremony.

That’s right.  This ROG Olympic Games had an opening ceremony.  We all spread around the yard area, I played inspirational techno music, and we ran the wrapping-paper-tissue-paper torch to each other other.  Artistic and creative running was encouraged and embraced.  We had slow-motion, jumps, twirls, and ninja dives.  Best opening ceremonies ever.

Olympic games continued, crazy style.  There was the shower-cap-catch – a favorite by far – which involved covering a team member’s head with shaving cream and throwing fruit loops on it.  The team with the most fruit loops stuck on the shaving cream head at the end of two minutes won the round.  There were water games.  Sit on the water balloon, fill the water bottle that’s held on your teammate’s head, cup relays and more.  Gosh, it was fun.

It was a great day with great kids.  It truly is bittersweet.  Day camp days are exhausting and time-consuming but I feel my heart is rewarded ten-fold when the day is over.  It’s so fun to hang out with these campers.  I love them to pieces.

One of the campers, dear Matthew, a soon-to-be-kindergartner, has been staying with his grandparents [who are members of the church] since this past February.  His parents are in a military branch and some intensive training was required; so Matthew and his younger brother came to stay in MN.  The entire congregation has fallen in love with Matthew; he works the crowd during the sharing of the peace and is always super helpful on noisy coin Sundays.  I’ve fallen in love with him … and today was the last time I’ll see him.  His mom picked him up and they’ll be moving to a southern state tomorrow.  I’m so glad he was able to come to day camp and I gave him a big hug as he left.  I’ll miss that kid.

I’ll miss all of these kids and the summer chances to hang out with them.

The tables are set.  Tomorrow is the last day of day camp at Red Oak Grove this summer.  It’s bittersweet.  It will be a super fun day of delivering art projects to the local care center and the ROG summer olympic games.  [I made a torch by stuffing an end of a wrapping paper tube with tissue paper.  I plan on making the kids run it around the church grounds for our opening ceremony.]  We’ll take a group photo, make ice cream in a bag, and maybe even have a picnic lunch.  It will be a great day.

As sad as it will be that camp is over for the summer, this means I can get my office back.  My office has been overrun with day camp supplies for the last three months.  While I look forward to cleaning it up and sorting it out again, the messy, cramped office has been totally worth it.

Back to filling water balloons, finishing medal necklaces, and writing scavenger hunt clues for this excited pastor  …  last day of day camp, here we come!

It’s a dreary, dreary day in northern Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior.  Rainy.  Cold.

Class on the island wrapped up at 3pm this afternoon.  I left with a stack of mixed media journal cards, wrapped up neatly and creatively in pockets, folders, and books I created to keep them in.  My former life as a lover of bookmaking came in handy and impressed my instructor.

[Above: The class work, belonging to each of us, spread out.  As I added mine last, the instructor told me, “I need you to spread out.  Literally and metaphorically.”  Ha.  Mine is at the bottom.]  We bid goodbye as a class.  My classmates and instructor were really great, all in such unique ways.  They were great learning companions for the week.  Susan, a dear calligrapher by trade, gave me a hug as she was leaving and said, “I haven’t said this for about twenty years, but I would go to church to hear you preach.”  Sweet compliment.  I think it’s a gift to be able to challenge people’s perception of what a pastor is and isn’t.

It was a great week.  MISA is such a fun place.  A great community of people, awesome staff, and the coffee is always on.  [And there are always chocolate chip cookies in the cookie jar in each classroom.]  Classrooms were open all night and we were welcome to come and go as we pleased.  I would love to go back again for a class sometime in the future.

As of right now, I just got off the boat.  The cute, bearded captain got Sprocket and I safely back on the mainland.  Now I sit, rain jacket and all, at a coffee shop in Bayfield and wait.  I wait for friend, Sara, so we can begin phase two of continuing education: overnight kayaking.

We leave tomorrow morning and here’s hoping the weather improves.  Otherwise it is going to be a very chilly and wet couple of days.  Potentially miserable.  We go with a group; up to four new friends we will meet tomorrow.  I hope I packed enough warm clothes … I fear I was [now incorrectly] more concerned about sunscreen and sunglasses.

You’ll hear back from me after that adventure.  An adventure it will be.

It’s Wednesday at MISA.  Three days of class behind me; only two to go.  What have I been up to since I last wrote?  Let me tell you –

Class is all about reflective writing/journaling and different art techniques, all the while talking about our inner critics and inner heroes.  We all have them – voices that live inside of us.  Talking about them is getting a little new age-y for me at times but it’s okay.  It’s okay to go beyond the comfort zone.  [Right?]  While talking about the inner critics and inner heroes, we’re creating 5×7 cards that speak to us in some way – hopefully that somehow reflect our inner heroes.  They so far include art techniques and collage or found poetry.  Soon they will also include journaling on one side.

Found poetry is so far my favorite.  I’m a poet by no means [and don’t like reading poems either], but this I can get behind.  The object of found poetry is to take pages from a book or catalog and begin by simply cutting our words or phrases that catch our eye.  Words or phrases that stick out to us.  Once you have a pile of words and phrases in front of you, a poem appears.  You move words, phrases, start over, and move another word.  Sure enough, a poem [in the loosest sense of the word] emerges.  You trust the process and it’s a little crazy.  A little uncomfortable.  But super therapeutic in a way.  And plus I love the way the text looks cut up and rearranged, especially when using phrases from different books and typefaces.  Here is one of my poems from the day, mounted on watercolor paper I colored with ink –

Deep, right?  [Nope.  Not at all.  It will pale in comparison to my artful classmates tomorrow during show and tell … but I’m not supposed to compare.  It’s the thief of joy.  My poems are what they need to be.]

In addition to class, I explored La Pointe [the solo town on the island] tonight with a couple classmates and have also taken the ferry back to Bayfield to explore.  That’s what I did last night by myself and it was lovely.  I love taking the ferry.  I explored a bookstore, a quilt shop, and then parked at a coffee shop to do my class homework before eating at an outdoor bar. It was only a couple hours on the mainland but super fun to explore.  Plus, on the return trip, the ferry was captained by the cute, young captain.  Bearded, lovely, married-according-to-the-ring-on-his-hand captain.  [All the lovely bearded captains are.  Am I right?]