Hobbies

Setting Up Camp, Part 2

Jeanna G1 Comment

Back in May I made a promise to my daughter that I would bring camp to her since her summer camp had been cancelled. It took some time to plan and prep, but this is what we did:

The week that she was registered to attend had the theme of “Christmas in July,” so while she was sleeping I strung colored lights along the ceiling of her bedroom, hung a gift-filled stocking on her closet door, and sprinkled individually wrapped candies across her furnishings. In the morning, I did rouse her with reveille, but then a Christmas playlist jingled its way into the room. We sang along as she opened her stocking that was filled with gimp and dollar store trinkets.

She was so excited to get the day started, and filled with candy, so we skipped breakfast and went straight into her first activity: baking. She said brownies and cupcakes were always offered at camp as desserts, so she helped me make both.

Next came one of my favorite camp activities: leather working. We moistened leather strap bracelets, stamped them with designs, then stained and sheened them.

Considering the theme, I wanted to include a Christmas craft, so we made waterless snow globes. I bought my first glue gun for this craft, so I feel like a full fledged member of the crafting world now. We glued small foam squares into the screw-on lids of glass jars to serve as pedestals for the figurines. Then we glued small snow-covered evergreens and snowmen to the foam. (The remaining trees will be perfect for the train set that we plan to build together!) We poured fake snow and Christmas colored glitter into the jars, and then inverted the lids, screwed them on, shook them up, and voilà!

Chinese food was one of her favorite lunches from camp, so we ordered carry-out before continuing on with our craft activities. To the tune of the Addam’s Family theme song we prayed:

“We’ve filled our bowls and dishes – with food that is delicious – you’ve granted all our wishes – God thank you very much!”

After lunch we had a siesta, which was a part of my summer camp experience. Campers would write letters home or read while the counselors geared up for the evening programs. As mom/counselor, I just needed to rest my eyes for a bit.

The next craft was a continuation of something we had started during stay-at-home orders. As I’d mentioned in my post titled “Expanding Time,” my daughter and I went on many springtime strolls and had plenty of time to stop and smell the flowers. We collected and pressed small blossoms that we spotted along the way. I did the same with petals from the Mother’s Day carnations she gifted me. Our craft was to arrange the pressings into small frames. We are both very happy with the results, and they help to shine a light of gratitude on our memories of this pandemic.

Next came wood burning. I bought small pieces of wood for a dollar from Michael’s that are very easy to burn designs into.

Our final activity was making friendship bracelets with embroidery thread and key chains with gimp while watching Elf.

Dinner was unique, to say the least. She had described a spaghetti burrito that I was not so sure about, but she devoured what we made! “ABCDEFG – Thank you God for feeding me!” was the blessing.

Flour tortilla wrapped around spaghetti mixed with butter, sour cream, & shredded cheese.

I have more planned, but some of the activities require the participation of my friend’s children. We were going to run the games at our annual lake trip, but it was hard to compete with the activities that were already available to us: paddle boarding, kayaking, swimming, and floating. We’ve decided to host a day of camp one weekend soon, which I’ll be sure to post as Part 3.

Even though we didn’t play the games at the lake, we were still able to add in the sweetness of S’mores around a campfire and spend some time stargazing. No meteor showers, but we did see a shooting star and were able to locate the comet Neowise! It’s not the best photo, but it’s good enough.

Neowise!

So it wasn’t a week away with a cabin full of bunk mates, but she seems to be a happy camper, nonetheless.

What activities would you plan for a camp-at-home experience?

Life’s Playlist

Jeanna G1 Comment

This past Mother’s Day, my daughter and I took a road trip to the beach. Every road trip needs music. My car, however, needs help in that department. The CD player is broken, and I don’t have the fancy Bluetooth business, the auxiliary port is finicky, and playing music through my phone speaker just isn’t loud enough. So, we listen to the radio. Not iHeart Radio or Sirius, just plain old local FM radio. To my delight, one such station replays Casey Kasem’s Top 40 shows on Sunday mornings! The sound of his voice turned my car into a time machine. So of course I then had to explain to my daughter who he was and what we were listening to, and how I would tune into his show every week so that I would be ‘in the know’ at school on Monday. It’s amazing to think of how many lyrics I had memorized by such a young age. Music is reminiscent.

I’ve always had a fairly eclectic taste in music, but there are definitely genres of music that I could label periods of my life with. Elementary was Top 40, middle and high school was hip hop and alt-rock, college was jam band, mid-20s went back to hip hop, and my 30s became Kidz Bop, Fresh Beat Band, and Disney. *Sigh* We’re moving past that phase and my daughter is discovering other tastes in music. Some I like, some not so much, but I’m still curious to hear her life’s playlist. Tik Tok, YouTube, and friends are among her sources of discovery, while I try desperately to influence her musical choices every chance I get. (“Repeat after me: John, Paul, George, and Ringo.”) It’s in those attempts that I have been rediscovering my love of music. Music is revealing.

I’m getting back into the hobby of making playlists. I was a mix tape maker. First there was the art of pressing record at just the right moment to capture a song off the radio. With the double cassette player came compilations from all of the tapes I could get my hands on. Then came mix CDs, which still line the door of my car because I keep hoping my CD player will magically start working again. And now I use iTunes and Spotify to get back into the groove of playlist making. I’ve got playlists for different moods and seasons, events and people, as well as different activities like working out, cleaning the house, and focusing on my job. Music inspires and music motivates.

To say my sister was a DJ for a period of time would be an understatement. She may have gotten paid to do it for a couple of years, but she’s been my DJ for life. Music influences.

Working and schooling at home during the pandemic required several graces, and music was a big one. So I committed an act of self-preservation by making a playlist of music from my middle and high school years. I started with my personal favorites, and then decided to reach out to my friends. I asked them to name their top 3 artists or songs from that period. Not only did that spur even more memories, but it was a fun way to connect, spread joy, and offer respite to my loved ones. Music unites and music heals.

As my enjoyment of popular music ebbs and flows with the times, my love of jazz remains constant. Improvisation provides a breath of fresh air, and I find hope in the blending of multiple rhythms and melodies. It evokes calmness despite the fickle world we live in. Music soothes.

There’s a song for everything. I get tired of telling my daughter to clean up or get ready or whatever, so now I sing directions to her. She rolls her eyes, but I know she likes it better than me yelling. And now she sings to me as a way to get me to pay attention. Music communicates.

Music is all around me and within me. It helps me tune into life, and allows me to escape. It accompanies the good and the sad, the major and the minor. Life is an ever-changing playlist of songs, but the music is a constant friend.

What makes your life’s playlist? What does music do for you?

The Importance of Play: Pt. 2

Jeanna GLeave a comment

I’ve been thinking back on the devotional that I wrote for my church last October (See The Importance of Play: Pt. 1). I wrote about the need for play in order to learn and grow. Now, less than a year later, children have been sent home from school, away from their playmates, and told to learn remotely. Meanwhile, parents are trying to work from home. What does this mean? Screen time, screen time, and more screen time.

I can tell you firsthand that working and teaching from home is mentally exhausting, and when I finally get to ‘clock out,’ I just want to turn my brain off. But, there’s my daughter to think about. She misses her friends and the playtime she had at recess so much. So what could we do that didn’t require thinking, but still involved a level of play? How could I help her to learn remotely without entering an online classroom? What could we do to reduce the anxieties caused by this pandemic? We’d go to various parks and trails where I would walk the dogs and she would ride her bike or hoverboard. We would paint on the back porch or color in her coloring books (both very good activities for calming the nerves). And we played every board game in the house, three times over. As enjoyable as those activities are, we needed more (I mean really, it’s been 88 days since the first stay-at-home order was issued!).

I started to think about the activities that I love to play and that also reduce stress, and hoped that my daughter would enjoy them, too. I love puzzles, so I bought myself a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, and a few smaller puzzles for her to work on beside me. She would have me time her as she tried to beat her own puzzle completion time over and over. I finished my puzzle within a weekend. Ok, what’s next?

I love Norman Rockwell’s Illustrations!

I chose the first activity and she chose the second. She has been really into LEGOs lately (thanks to her juvenescent 53-year old uncle who plays with them regularly and sent her a bunch!), so I decided to take my own advice to act like a child and nurture my own imagination, and give them a try. I bought myself the Friends LEGO set of Central Perk, and I loved building it! I did not play with LEGOs much as a child, so I didn’t understand the draw. I mean there’s an entire LEGOLAND and a LEGO Masters show and LEGO Movies! But now that I’ve pieced a set together, I totally get it. For one thing, I love the show Friends. Secondly, I love working with my hands, piecing things together, fixing things, and figuring out how things work. Building a Friends LEGO set just made sense. After completing it, my daughter and I sat down and watched all 10 seasons of Friends together. While we watched, she played with the LEGOs, setting up the Friends in positions similar to where they were in the show’s scenes. This became our nightly ritual for several weeks.

Something that I spent a lot of time playing with as a child was a train set. That was a fun hobby that really is similar to puzzles and LEGOs; not only was I piecing something together, but the more I worked on them, the more I felt I was in them, like a part of the scene. It’s kind of like how Mister Rogers’ trolley would magically transport you to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. Yes, I think my daughter and I will just have to build a set together.

My old train set! Complete with a shoebox tunnel.

This time at home has increased the level of importance of play even more. The kids have really been thrown for a loop, no matter how resilient their coping skills seem to be. Think about how stressed you’ve been during this pandemic and then fit all of that into a pint-sized version of yourself. Use this time to act like a child and be the best playmate your child could ever imagine.