The boys made a scarecrow last week to scare campers and school groups. I think the only one it’s really scaring is me because every time I’m in the kitchen and catch the window in my eye there’s this black figure in the field that isn’t normally there. I kept thinking it was an ostrich. The big kids came home from practice later one night once the sun had gone down and they asked, “Who is that person standing out in the field?”

A picture doesn’t do it justice. They never do. Every time I tried to take a picture of the river, or of the sky in the early morning as we took off from the plane, I kept thinking, “But that’s not what it looks like, that’s not what it looks like…” I saw an Instagram reel once that compared this phenomenon to pictures we see of ourselves. I don’t think guys care as much but for girls you can often think you don’t look good in pictures.

And this reel said it’s the same way about pictures of you as the ones you take of the sunsets when there is no way to truly capture their fullest essence and beauty. This was me as a forty-something reading this and I was absolutely floored. I’d never put those two phenomenons together. If that’s true and that’s what it’s like then I can hardly believe it, how wrong we can be, how so much time is wasted on whatever isn’t true.

I keep thinking I need to make a writing goal, to commit myself to writing one smart sounding paragraph a day. I can read a page of something, then try to carefully explain whatever it is I just read, and then not only that, but then share my thoughts or voice some kind of conclusion. It bothers me so much to be stuck like this, to not be growing and developing my brain in other ways. It’s like I can’t or wasn’t meant to sound smart.

Dad is at a pastor’s conference in Carlyle. When we were plotting out our calendar and trips it was realized that I would be gone and then he would be gone and the opportunity see each other would not happen in between. He dropped the boys and their schoolbooks off with Grandma around 9AM. I was home around 1:30 and went straight to bed. After that I went to the store and the boys were back here around 4:30.

At first I was disappointed that he’d be there without me, not that I’m sure I would have gone. Going to these conferences together used to be our thing. Grandma would come down and stay with the kids. A couple of times, maybe only once, I brought two of them with. I love Carlyle Lake and wanted to be there with him when he saw it too. The kids and I used to come here and play, half of them I don’t think would even remember.

Actually, he’s coming to the meet. The kids have a meet and then he’ll be home on Wednesday. The kids and I went to get ice cream in the evening. One wanted to drive and the others just wanted to go out and do something. One of the former counselors who is currently living at camp came along. I was still in my green pajama pants from the night/morning before. I woke up and thought they’d be great for the day’s travel.

They could almost pass as those kinds of sweater-like outfits you see in the stores now. I think they look both pretty and cozy. It’s like a matching knit shirt and cozy looking pants set. I stayed in the car and gave the kids my debit card. Elianna knows the PIN. Before long they were back enjoying their blizzards and we drove home singing familiar songs. Before that the kids played volleyball outside and we ate supper at the table.