the candid files

two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon.
No big plans in the future…my family’s going to visit family, but I’m being lazy and staying home.
My “hot young single” neighbour’s having a big party. Like, huge. He’s rented a port-o-potty, hired a DJ and according to my brother there are kegs lined up to go, and he filled this old boat he has entirely full of ice. We’re even invited…so maybe I’ll go check it out later. Not like I even know the guy’s name, but apparently I won’t be sleeping anyway because our yards are so close…really they’re almost one big yard. So we’ll see.
I stayed at work overtime yesterday, till nine. Aside from the annoyance of working when you could be doing other things, working late is pretty nice. It’s quiet, with just five or six people – nice people, too. And since we had serious faxing issues last night, I wasn’t really too worried about doing everything perfect, I was just trying to survive.

I survived the first work week after vacation blues. It wasn’t too bad. Aside from feeling absolutely awful on Thursday and in a Tylenol enhanced state of haziness emailing Peter to whine about it…and accidentally sending the email to my manager instead…who fortunately has a decent sense of humour. THAT was embarassing. Good thing I was feeling too sick to write anything mushy.

It turns out that my graduation from college is occurring on Sept. 23. My whole family is camping in Pineries that weekend, which I think is a major blessing. Otherwise I could just see my mom and dad dragging my brother and sister there, to sit and try and make a huge momentous occasion out of my career college “acheivement”. The only reason I want to go is to see some people I haven’t seen since June. So I think I’ll just take Peter for the evening and then we’ll go up to the Pineries afterward.

Camp was strange this year. I loved it – I loved seeing Ryan and Peter being totally awesome counselors…and I loved the challenges Justine and I had to face, in a strange way…they made camp sort of dramatic. Not that it isn’t usually…

I remember in particular Friday morning. After all that had happened with our errant cabin pack late the night before, we were pretty apprehensive about how the day was going to go. And exhausted, since we hadn’t got to bed until about two. Justine wasn’t feeling well so she stayed back at the cabin with the campers, and the rest of us went to the counselor cabin for morning devotions. For those of you who haven’t been at camp as a counselor, in the morning once devotions and business is discussed we break into groups, hold hands, and pray together. I was the last in our group to pray…and as I prayed for strength for the day and thanked God for the people who’d given so much to help Justine and I with our girls…everyone started crying. Well all the girls, anyway…and then while we were all crying and hugging the other two groups showed up, and although everyone who wasn’t involved was pretty bewildered, we gathered together for our cheer. Gathered in a huddle with our hands together and some people still in tears, someone started singing Kumbayah. And everyone joined in…which made me cry more than before…

Somebody’s crying Lord
Kumbayah
Oh, oh, oh somebody’s crying Lord
Kumbaya
Oh, oh, oh somebody’s crying Lord
Kumbaya
They’re crying rain, storm, fire Lord, Kumbayah

Kumbayah, Lord, Kumbayah
Kumbayah, Lord, Kumbayah
Kumbayah, Lord, Kumbayah
Kumbayah, Lord, Kumbayah

For those who don’t know, “Kumbayah” means “Come by here”. And He really did. It was amazing, the change in our cabin pack that day. We asked for staff help with our CPD’s…and amazingly, they went well. I think on the last day the girls learned more than they had the entire week before. So it just goes to show you…the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Or a whole bunch of not-so-righteous men and women who really do desire to serve the Lord.

On a totally unrelated note, on one of those “follow the links” trips from blog to blog to places where I really knew no one I found this very interesting post on “what’s so good about marriage” http://junkmail.chattablogs.com/archives/027288.html
Read it.