Weekly Mileage and Virtual YW Camp

found this lovely critter on the wall in the basement. ick!

Monday I ran errands, including getting Ocean's birthday presents while Jeremy did the in-town shopping. Divide and conquer for the win.

After that I made Ocean's birthday cake (a roll cake, per his request) and then had a camp staff meeting. After that was the camp kickoff meeting.

While sitting through those camp meetings, I finally figured out why I don't like zoom calls. You have to look at the screen and look interested, which makes it hard to do anything else with your hands. The problem is that if I'm just sitting there, not doing anything with my hands, I'm zoning out and trying not to fall asleep. Years of experience have shown me that just sitting = falling asleep. Keeping my hands busy = much less likely I'll fall asleep. And as an adult leader, I have to stay on top of what's going on so I can offer an opinion or advice if needed or asked.

the Rescue Bots he got as presents had to help blow out the candles :)

I also had this thought: Ocean was born early in the morning, around 4:30ish I think. I gotta wonder if that has anything to do with him being an early riser. He wakes up early, then wakes his brother up and they go scavenging through the kitchen, leaving the wreckage behind them. We finally bought a get out of bed clock for the boys, which I'd been meaning to do for months, and so far it's actually working. It's red when Ocean wakes up, turns yellow when they have 20 minutes to go (we've told them to make their beds, get dressed, and clean up their room during this time), then it turns green and they can leave their room. They're still awake and making noise, but at least they're not loose in the house. Though I do need to break Ocean of his habit of barging in to tell me that "the light turned green so we can leave our room!" Which I know, because there's an alarm that goes with it as well.

Tuesday started with a staff meeting followed by two small group meetings. I had some time off after that, so I worked on my logo update and ordered some new business cards, designed some stickers, and worked on the color scheme for my logo and site. It's been predominantly black and white in the past, but now I have some more options. I also ordered more waxed canvas so I have the materials on hand when I'm ready to make waxed canvas totes.

I then bounced between afternoon group meetings (the starts were staggered, but the first ended up overlapping the second). There was an evening fireside that Sunshine attended, but I skipped because I just couldn't handle any more zoom.

During the day, between the morning and afternoon group meetings, the girls had a class where they learned a new skill. Sunshine took self defense, macaron making, and cake decorating. There was also sketching, watercolors, something with photography and filters, American Ninja Warrior, shelter building, cooking, and more. They also had time to work on group challenges and other goals, some of which got them outside, away from their computer screens.

a teal macaron

Wednesday started with a staff meeting followed by one group meeting. We shuffled things around so those of us helping with two groups weren't bouncing back and forth.

Afterwards I finalized my sticker designs and okayed the order, then worked some more on my logo colors. Once those were done, I started working on my website updates. The colors, the logo, and the header. I also realized I never transferred the blog posts from my old WordPress website to this Shopify site, so I started that. However that was slow going since most of the early pics were 2 years old or so and I had to figure out where they were on my computer.

Sunshine with her wacky outfit challenge 

Wednesday evening was an adult leaders meeting where we talked about the leadership skills the girls were learning.

Thursday started again with a staff meeting, group meetings (back to bouncing between the two) in the morning and afternoon, and then we had an evening ward meeting. I got to lead out on that one, which was stressful. For all the leadership positions I've been in and the leadership training I've taken, I don't actually enjoy leading group discussions and activities. Doing it over zoom added to that stress. Despite that, I think it went reasonably well.

Sunshine's cake decorating class. We used fondant instead of frosting to cover the outside, which was a good learning experience for both of us (I helped because she wouldn't have had time to do that and prep the frosting).

Sitting in the small group meetings and watching the youth camp advisors (some of the older girls) teach leadership and communication activities to the younger girls in their groups, I realized that they were some of the same ones we used in Wood Badge. I'm willing to bed the guy who put them together (they were used by both the YM and the YW) has gone to Wood Badge at least once. Such a great opportunity for our youth to learn these things now rather than when they're a lot older.

The leather I ordered for handles and straps and more tote bags arrived. But I need to get the site updates done first so that as soon as products are done I can post them to a professional looking website.

Ocean wanted to take Hedwig and Scabbers outside to play, but it had started raining, so I convinced him to leave them inside with me. I set them on a box so they could look out the window and watch him. He thought it was hilarious!

And then later I looked outside and saw this:

And this:

Yes, Ocean is laying in a mud puddle in our driveway.

We took Sunshine's cake outside for some better pictures. You can see the fondant seams better, but like I said, it was a good learning experience.

Friday was our last day of camp. One last staff meeting, one last round of morning group meetings, then a close of camp meeting. Overall, I thought camp went well and was a good experience for the girls, even if a lot of it was on zoom.

Honestly, this week was exhausting for me. I had to get up at a consistent time every morning, regardless of when I actually went to sleep the night before (I actually do try to get up at a consistent time, but I normally have the option of laying in bed for a bit longer if I'm feeling particularly crummy).

I think the real exhaustion comes from an HSP perspective. I had to be "on" for 6+ hours a day on zoom, which is a LOT of interaction after months of very little interaction. It was overstimulating in all senses of the word. Added to that was there was lots of second-guessing myself in what I said and did because my anxiety levels were already higher than normal. I can usually keep the second-guessing to a minimum, but I had a much harder time this week.

One thing our stake focused on was having the YCAs model the leadership roles that should be occurring within our classes. The YCAs led the discussions, taught the communications exercises, delegated daily devotional responsibilities, met with those responsible for the daily devotionals to go over what was expected, and so on. It's actually unfortunate that more of our girls didn't attend and see this in action.

Saturday I finally ordered photo backgrounds and a lighting setup for product photography. I've been putting it off for far too long and realized I needed to get it done ASAP. I continued working on reconstructing the old blog posts. It's taken a lot longer than planned and isn't quite done yet. I can only upload one photo at a time in Shopify (unlike Blogger and Wordpress, where you can do bulk uploads), but I'm getting closer to being done.

Sunday was an in-person church day. Jeremy had virtual drill, so he stayed home with Ocean while I took the older two kiddos to church.

In the afternoon I had a YW presidency meeting via zoom and it was definitely too soon to be back on zoom. So done with it right now. I'm still working on getting my anxiety and stress levels back down, so another zoom meeting didn't help.

Some thoughts on getting up every day for a week straight at a set time: it's exhausting. Combined with all the time on zoom and in front of the computer, it was even more so. I didn't do any leather work this week because I like to work in as long of stints as possible and I needed to get the site updates done. I also had to coordinate stuff with people at the last minute, which is stressful, and thus exhausting in its own way. This has me wondering if I can do actual week long camps and still be functional by the end. I think it will be better without the computer aspect thrown in, but I don't know. My introvert game is super strong right now.

Since I started focusing on my leather work I have drastically decreased my time on my computer, which has been nice. However, it's time to sit down and write more blog posts again.

Weekly Mileage
total- 0 miles

2020 totals

27 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

164.19 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
18.00 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
200.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
382.19 miles total