This weekend was a long one for the kids since they have today off. This meant coming up with a variety of things for the kids to do. When we did planning, it was decided that we would take one of the boarders who would be around the whole weekend rock climbing on Sunday. We also took that boarder to Costco, Trader Joes, and the Salvation Army store on Saturday to get all of the grocery shopping for the rest of the month done, as well as let him pick something out with his disposable income. Today, we took the kids that were here for the"School's out Camps in" program to the cities for lunch at Wendy's and to the I-max.
With all of this going on, none of us have had much of any time off, so we've all been taking small chunks (a few hours at a time) off so that nobody is on at all times. I managed to get this afternoon (post I-max and lunch) off until it's time for me to go make dinner. The moment we got back from the cities, I headed straight for my room to get ready for a few minutes before heading off for a walk. I haven't spent much time off of camp, so it felt good to get away for a half an hour. It also felt good to go for a walk in the sun, especially since it's in the high thirties here today.
The thing about being an introvert is that sometimes not having much time alone, or with only a couple of people is that you start to become worn out. What I've discovered since arriving at Camp Pillsbury is that I've enjoyed the more one on one time with the boarders/campers, and that I've also enjoyed the fact that I work with three people. This has allowed me to get to know the people I work with. At one point last week, we had a staff meeting where the three of the four of us that have worked at camps for years made the same noise at the same moment because we all had very specific and similar memories of moments that had happened at the camps we each had worked at pop into our heads at the same moment. One of the things that I've discovered is that, while the after school kids are around, I spend a lot of time with three of them, and most of that is one on one or with two of them. I'm hoping that that more individual attention from me with those three after school kids gives them a chance to get to know me, see that I care about them, and know that they can come to me any time that they need to talk.
This afternoon, as we were driving back from the cities, it hit me that my battery was on low, and that I HAD to take my time off this afternoon so that I could recharge. The good thing about taking that walk once we got back, and now just hanging out in my room, is that I now am feeling like once I reconnect with the kids and the staff at dinner, I'll have a lot more energy to do things with the kids.
We're hoping to work on scheduling who has what day off each week in the next week or so that we aren't figuring out who has what time off at the last minute. Once that happens, it will be so much easier to plan "Erin" time.
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