I should go right over there and crawl into bed. But. I don't feel tired. I've got things on my mind. I could be productive but I know when I pull out the things I have to work on THEN I'll feel tired. LOL But I don't want to pull out those things. Gah. Such a doofus.
Was talking with a friend about "settling". Is it wrong to settle for what you can have for now to be happy? I'm not going into details because I don't even know if I can formulate them right now. It's not a long term settlement, it's completely for the short term. Hmmm.... I'll mull some more.
Also, crazy crush still in effect. Sent a personal message via Twitter. Got a response back. So geeky tickled.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
wilderness adventures
It's long. There may or may not be typos. Fun for me fo' sho'
This week I am cooking for 120 teens and adults who are on a leadership “retreat” …eh…it’s more like a camp. There are three of us in the kitchen. A friend of mine who is about my age and a young guy who is our “dishwasher” (more about him later).
I’ve been out to this particular camp twice before. Once we drove out on a winter Friday evening which means it was dark way before we got here. That night we took a wrong turn and ended up at the edge of gated property that was posted “Trespassers will be Shot”. Eek! Scary. The second time I drove out to pick up a friend who was at this particular camp. So I’ve been out here. I left my “base” (mom and dad’s) at 8:00am with the view to get out to the camp between 9:30am and 10am. I was making great time and then I took wrong turn number 1. The street I was supposed to turn on is “Hidden” Valley Road. The street I turned on was NE “Hidden” Valley Road. Stupid podunk county…sheesh. Got on the correct road and took wrong turn number 2. Yeah. Not totally my fault because the signage SUCKS.
So I get here and we pretty much need to immediately make lunch. Chicken Ceasar Wraps. They were awesome. My friend had already started the Chicken. So we cut it all up and mixed it with cheese and ceasar (HAIL Ceasar!!!) then made wraps with Romaine Lettuce and Spinach Tortillas. Salad on the side, juice and fruit. We rocked it. They were all astounded that we actually wrapped the wraps and didn’t just sling everything to them.
Baked two yellow sheet cakes for after dinner. Drove to our cabin and got stuff settled. At this point we started joking about how we wanted Navy SEALs to come and spend some time with us. (This will continue to appear through the week).
Drove back down and started dinner; Beef and Chicken stir-fry with vegetables and rice. The beef was still frozen even though it had been put in the refrigerator to thaw (not early enough) but once we broke it up it was good to go.
Here’s where I have to mention our dish-washer. But really we should call him our assistant. First of all after lunch he kicked it with the lunch dishes getting them all done in record time. Then after we (I) had made a mess of the grill with teriyaki sauce he came over and cleaned the grill (a job I HATE but can do well) because he “does it everyday at his job”.
I delivered the cake to each table, you’da thought I was bringin’ them money.
Cleaned up. Made sure we had everything ready for today. Got up to our cabin around 10:00pm—took showers and got to bed around 11:30pm Was startled awake at ten to one in the morning by the others coming in and getting situated.
Alarm went off at 5:40am. Headed down to cook breakfast. Sausage, Pancakes, Hashbrowns, and Orange Juice. I got to play on the griddle again with the pancakes. It took a couple of rounds to get some good looking (not Cajun) pancakes. Cleaned off the griddle because we were going to use it again for lunch (note no multiple griddle meals right in a row it’s a pain in the fundament).
At this point we made a run up to the cabin. I need to explain. By {finger quotes} making a run {end finger quotes} I mean we hopped into the car and drove back to the cabin. We joked about driving back and fort. It’s not very far but the thought of having to walk after spending 2 hours prepping and cooking and 2ish hours serving and cleaning up is more than can be borne. I joked that I would make it half way then they would find me sitting in the middle of the path crying. At which point a Navy SEAL (see told you it would come back) would appear (as if by magic but we know it would be a HALO jump in the middle of the flag football field) and offer to help me back to my cabin. We laughed SO hard.
Prepping for lunch was fun. I buttered one side per slice of twenty loaves of bread. Woo! Grilled cheese! (This is when I miss my 5 person High School kitchen crew from Junior High retreats). I was starting to grill the sandwiches and our Awesome Kitchen Assistant offered to grill the sandwiches because “I do that at my job too”. It was the orange meal. Grilled Cheese, Tomato soup, goldfish crackers, oranges, and carrots (and ranch which we really should have dyed orange).
At this point my right hand and wrist are starting to ache like a mothah. It feels like it does after I’ve been river rafting and holding on so tight and rowing really hard. All that griddling eesh.
Took a nappy nap. And back to cooking for dinner. EASY Dinner. Spaghetti, Meatballs, Salad, and fruit. Note to selves. One box of Pasta is PLENTY…lol we had so much pasta left over, we told the kids that if they didn’t finish it we were having “French Pasta” instead of French Toast for breakfast and they would have pasta sandwiches for lunch.
THEN oh my goodness THEN, my friend told me about a really good looking guy who walked by. She pointed him out and yeah….he was way good looking and buffety buff too. We chatted and I looked at her all wide-eyed and said, “What if he’s the Navy SEAL we asked for?” AT which point we collapsed in a bunch of giggles.
About an hour later my friend’s sister who is my new best friend because she brought me a diet coke (oh sigh!) informed us that the guy is the bro-in-law of one of the other leaders. And……wait for it…..a Navy SEAL (or something like that)!!!! We laughed SO SO SO SO SO hard. Unfortunately for us it turns out that he’s married with kids. Man! I said, “okay, God sent us the SEAL but we weren’t specific enough. Dear God, please send a single SEAL who wants to hang with me.” It was pretty hilarious.
It took a lot of time tonight because we swept, mopped, swept, and squigeed the floor. Now we’re chillaxin’ before bed. Showers never feel as good as when you feel grimy and gross.
These kids are so thankful. It’s almost annoying but not really. They thank us when we serve them (family style through a window); when we give them seconds; and after they eat and clean up. Many of them even make a point to tell us how much they liked the meal (for all of the meals). We’ve been told a couple of times that we’re (the 3 of us) are doing a better job then when they have 8 or 10 people in the kitchen (normal camp staff). For all the hard work and exhaustion and sore feet, legs, back, arm, and hands; it’s really rewarding.
Okay….gonna put on some lotion and massage my sore sore hand and read for a bit. I’ll update tomorrow or Thursday.
2.
It’s 11:30pm on Wednesday. Once we got the kids packed up we have a break from dinner until it’s time to fix lunch tomorrow. The kids had hobo packs for dinner and cereal for breakfast.
Breakfast today was French toast and Bacon. Two hours of dunking and flipping eggy bread. Well…upside, I’m not as sore as I was last night. Lunch was probably the easiest meal we prepped – pizza. We made a lot of extra the kids were very tickled. Still way way thankful.
On an entertaining note it turns out our Navy SEAL is actually part of JAG. Ain’t that the way it goes. I would have gotten it right.
Am all on my owny oh (sort of) since my partner in crime went to a birthday party. She’ll be back in the morning. I made some brownies, got my craft on, and read a little. One of the people sharing bunk space is an older woman who is the camp nurse. She has come in noisily for the last two nights and now that I’m not quite ready to sleep, she’s hinting about….”so when are you turning in?” Hmph, guess I’ll be courteous. More tomorrow I think.
3.
Here it is Friday and I’m back at base camp (mom and dad’s). Thursday we only had to cook lunch (tacos) and dinner (hamburgers). Breakfast today was pretty easy finished off par-baked cinnamon rolls (yum), eggs (baked scrambled) and sausage. Cleaned the kitchen (not terrible).
Returned to the cabin to pack up and was on the road by 12:30p. So tired I have the dumb.
Got some fun crafty stuff done. Also too sleepy to type coherently so here’s where I’ll leave it.
This week I am cooking for 120 teens and adults who are on a leadership “retreat” …eh…it’s more like a camp. There are three of us in the kitchen. A friend of mine who is about my age and a young guy who is our “dishwasher” (more about him later).
I’ve been out to this particular camp twice before. Once we drove out on a winter Friday evening which means it was dark way before we got here. That night we took a wrong turn and ended up at the edge of gated property that was posted “Trespassers will be Shot”. Eek! Scary. The second time I drove out to pick up a friend who was at this particular camp. So I’ve been out here. I left my “base” (mom and dad’s) at 8:00am with the view to get out to the camp between 9:30am and 10am. I was making great time and then I took wrong turn number 1. The street I was supposed to turn on is “Hidden” Valley Road. The street I turned on was NE “Hidden” Valley Road. Stupid podunk county…sheesh. Got on the correct road and took wrong turn number 2. Yeah. Not totally my fault because the signage SUCKS.
So I get here and we pretty much need to immediately make lunch. Chicken Ceasar Wraps. They were awesome. My friend had already started the Chicken. So we cut it all up and mixed it with cheese and ceasar (HAIL Ceasar!!!) then made wraps with Romaine Lettuce and Spinach Tortillas. Salad on the side, juice and fruit. We rocked it. They were all astounded that we actually wrapped the wraps and didn’t just sling everything to them.
Baked two yellow sheet cakes for after dinner. Drove to our cabin and got stuff settled. At this point we started joking about how we wanted Navy SEALs to come and spend some time with us. (This will continue to appear through the week).
Drove back down and started dinner; Beef and Chicken stir-fry with vegetables and rice. The beef was still frozen even though it had been put in the refrigerator to thaw (not early enough) but once we broke it up it was good to go.
Here’s where I have to mention our dish-washer. But really we should call him our assistant. First of all after lunch he kicked it with the lunch dishes getting them all done in record time. Then after we (I) had made a mess of the grill with teriyaki sauce he came over and cleaned the grill (a job I HATE but can do well) because he “does it everyday at his job”.
I delivered the cake to each table, you’da thought I was bringin’ them money.
Cleaned up. Made sure we had everything ready for today. Got up to our cabin around 10:00pm—took showers and got to bed around 11:30pm Was startled awake at ten to one in the morning by the others coming in and getting situated.
Alarm went off at 5:40am. Headed down to cook breakfast. Sausage, Pancakes, Hashbrowns, and Orange Juice. I got to play on the griddle again with the pancakes. It took a couple of rounds to get some good looking (not Cajun) pancakes. Cleaned off the griddle because we were going to use it again for lunch (note no multiple griddle meals right in a row it’s a pain in the fundament).
At this point we made a run up to the cabin. I need to explain. By {finger quotes} making a run {end finger quotes} I mean we hopped into the car and drove back to the cabin. We joked about driving back and fort. It’s not very far but the thought of having to walk after spending 2 hours prepping and cooking and 2ish hours serving and cleaning up is more than can be borne. I joked that I would make it half way then they would find me sitting in the middle of the path crying. At which point a Navy SEAL (see told you it would come back) would appear (as if by magic but we know it would be a HALO jump in the middle of the flag football field) and offer to help me back to my cabin. We laughed SO hard.
Prepping for lunch was fun. I buttered one side per slice of twenty loaves of bread. Woo! Grilled cheese! (This is when I miss my 5 person High School kitchen crew from Junior High retreats). I was starting to grill the sandwiches and our Awesome Kitchen Assistant offered to grill the sandwiches because “I do that at my job too”. It was the orange meal. Grilled Cheese, Tomato soup, goldfish crackers, oranges, and carrots (and ranch which we really should have dyed orange).
At this point my right hand and wrist are starting to ache like a mothah. It feels like it does after I’ve been river rafting and holding on so tight and rowing really hard. All that griddling eesh.
Took a nappy nap. And back to cooking for dinner. EASY Dinner. Spaghetti, Meatballs, Salad, and fruit. Note to selves. One box of Pasta is PLENTY…lol we had so much pasta left over, we told the kids that if they didn’t finish it we were having “French Pasta” instead of French Toast for breakfast and they would have pasta sandwiches for lunch.
THEN oh my goodness THEN, my friend told me about a really good looking guy who walked by. She pointed him out and yeah….he was way good looking and buffety buff too. We chatted and I looked at her all wide-eyed and said, “What if he’s the Navy SEAL we asked for?” AT which point we collapsed in a bunch of giggles.
About an hour later my friend’s sister who is my new best friend because she brought me a diet coke (oh sigh!) informed us that the guy is the bro-in-law of one of the other leaders. And……wait for it…..a Navy SEAL (or something like that)!!!! We laughed SO SO SO SO SO hard. Unfortunately for us it turns out that he’s married with kids. Man! I said, “okay, God sent us the SEAL but we weren’t specific enough. Dear God, please send a single SEAL who wants to hang with me.” It was pretty hilarious.
It took a lot of time tonight because we swept, mopped, swept, and squigeed the floor. Now we’re chillaxin’ before bed. Showers never feel as good as when you feel grimy and gross.
These kids are so thankful. It’s almost annoying but not really. They thank us when we serve them (family style through a window); when we give them seconds; and after they eat and clean up. Many of them even make a point to tell us how much they liked the meal (for all of the meals). We’ve been told a couple of times that we’re (the 3 of us) are doing a better job then when they have 8 or 10 people in the kitchen (normal camp staff). For all the hard work and exhaustion and sore feet, legs, back, arm, and hands; it’s really rewarding.
Okay….gonna put on some lotion and massage my sore sore hand and read for a bit. I’ll update tomorrow or Thursday.
2.
It’s 11:30pm on Wednesday. Once we got the kids packed up we have a break from dinner until it’s time to fix lunch tomorrow. The kids had hobo packs for dinner and cereal for breakfast.
Breakfast today was French toast and Bacon. Two hours of dunking and flipping eggy bread. Well…upside, I’m not as sore as I was last night. Lunch was probably the easiest meal we prepped – pizza. We made a lot of extra the kids were very tickled. Still way way thankful.
On an entertaining note it turns out our Navy SEAL is actually part of JAG. Ain’t that the way it goes. I would have gotten it right.
Am all on my owny oh (sort of) since my partner in crime went to a birthday party. She’ll be back in the morning. I made some brownies, got my craft on, and read a little. One of the people sharing bunk space is an older woman who is the camp nurse. She has come in noisily for the last two nights and now that I’m not quite ready to sleep, she’s hinting about….”so when are you turning in?” Hmph, guess I’ll be courteous. More tomorrow I think.
3.
Here it is Friday and I’m back at base camp (mom and dad’s). Thursday we only had to cook lunch (tacos) and dinner (hamburgers). Breakfast today was pretty easy finished off par-baked cinnamon rolls (yum), eggs (baked scrambled) and sausage. Cleaned the kitchen (not terrible).
Returned to the cabin to pack up and was on the road by 12:30p. So tired I have the dumb.
Got some fun crafty stuff done. Also too sleepy to type coherently so here’s where I’ll leave it.
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