The past few days have left me quite exhausted by the end. Joyful Hearts week is always a little more overstimulating because you have so many people in one room with the echoes. I’m struggling even now to come up with anything to to say, there’s just nothing left, or nothing in there right now. Lucinda, the nurse, is here for this week and when she comes is always such a highlight of the summer, for the year even for me.

I had to help cook supper. The normal evening cook was sick and the others couldn’t fill in. One of the LuHigh boys is working in the kitchen along with another who has been here with the boy scouts. They both are good workers. The cooks all have their own ways of doing things. I told them they could use a clean dish towel to dry dishes with but when it’s the other cook then you have to do it however she says to do it.

What we’ve really needed is someone with OCD to come in and run the kitchen again. I shouldn’t say that’s what we’ve needed because God provides for our needs and the people he has provided aren’t ones with OCD. It really is hard to not compare the camp I remember with the camp I am living with and working at now. They were big on working. If you were a good worker it would stand out to them, same if you weren’t.

Everyone had their quirks. I personally was a little terrified of the main cook and cleaning lady because she had very high standards and always seemed to favor the male staff over the girls. You can’t flirt with young women or earn points with extra pieces of bacon. I’m not saying she did that. But her way has been what I have had in my mind when it comes to how a kitchen can actually be run. We both miss her.

It’s different when you’re a grown up. It’s actually a good system they have right now so I hope it works out. Miles is another person they’ve hired to help. He needed to make $2000 for college. Laura has a camper where you have to puree her food. She’s the only one like that where you have to feed them. I am grateful still that I am able to work. I could not see once how I would ever be able to. It is payment enough.

It is just as much of an indictment of myself to concede the point that marriage is hard. I will wake up in the morning or have random times here and there when I am inwardly mad about something again. Nothing even needs to happen other than a memory that floats by, or a social media post that you read. I finally did unfollow a couple of accounts where the posts chronically produced in me an annoyed and disagreeable response.

It’s like I’m staring down into the water when I see it, the hurt, and I try to catch it with my hands and cup the water so I can throw it up into the air. And quickly move it along. It’s like an offering, where I say, “By his wounds I am healed”. I just keep offering them up because God is the one who can do something with them, who has already.

So anyway, it’s a practice, a life-long one I suppose. Because the way of peace is truly much better and that is the gift that God is wanting to give me, that he pours out and fills me up with every single day. The ones that most upset me are those with the words I once lived by and believed and told others myself. I keep trying to tell them you almost never hear older women saying these things. It’s the ones who are still learning.

Laura’s parents invited our family and another family over for supper. It’s funny how a relationship between your children opens you up to another whole household. They’ve been at every camp function since this relationship started and have plans to come visit the camp on Monday. Because of circuit events over these years, her parents aren’t total strangers. They are ten years older than us and all their kids are out of the house.

The other family has two sons who are also currently working at camp. The kids wanted to play indoor board games after supper. They’d already played a very intense frisbee game in the yard. I only say intense because everyone was sweating, even though the temperature was mild and the rain drops only small. Board games are one of those things that I don’t enjoy all that much because I feel blocked off from people’s minds.

Laura’s older brother, who was visiting from California, suggested that the married folks play the game Spouse-ology. It is a couple’s game that was developed and sold by Family Life ministries. This sounded fun to me and the men endured it with good attitudes. You had to pick a card and answer questions based on what you thought your spouse would choose from the options. We played a couple of rounds and I would play it again.