The project

I've mentioned a few time about the Eagle project I've been helping with. Well, the project is nearly done and I thought I'd post a few pictures. This young man was told that the City of Sutherlin was wanting tables for the park. Right now, they have four tables total, with only one in the pavilion. The city was wanting a minimum of six. After sitting down and working out a budget with his adviser, our Boy Scout approached different businesses in town and asked them to sponsor a table for $125. The board of our Blackberry Festival sponsored two tables and added $25/table to have them painted purple. Other businesses heard about that and added their dollars for specialized painting. The end results are thirteen very colorful tables.


I don't have a finished product picture but here's what most of the frames look like. Most of them are all one color but some of them have different colored boards bolted on. Two of the purple ones have yellow boards, one blue one has red boards, and a red one has a blue top and white benches.


Our scout had the name of the sponsoring company routered into the center board of the table. He knew Mike had cut the letters for Cameron's project, so asked him to cut his boards. Here, Mike is doing fine detailing on the logo for a local wood products company after free-handing the rest of the logo.


Our young man being shown by his adviser how to get the spacing right on the table boards. We were happy that this paint cured to a duller orange than what you see here!

He still has a couple of badges to earn before he can send in his application for Eagle rank but he's working on them right now and since his birthday isn't until February, I have no doubt he'll get it.

I Survived Day Camp

This must be my, oh, fourth year being a unit leader for Girl Scouts and I've been a volunteer at Cub Scout day camp for something like twelve years but each time I get through the week, I always feel as if I've survived something. One year I was even given an "I Survived Cub Day Camp" mug as a thank-you.

I've not helped at Cub day camp since I managed to convince people three years ago that since Cameron hadn't been in Cubs for three years, I needed to focus on Girl day camp and Richelle.

Usually, I have my child in my group but this year they needed me to be the leader of seven girls, six of whom were going into first grade and one into second. Sure was odd to see my daughter across the parade grounds with another group!

These little girls were so cute and said the most hilarious things such as:

"We screamed our EARS off!!" (loud singing contest between units)
"We're going to sit on the throne of wizz" (bathroom run)
"I don't like salad on my sandwich" (looking at my lettuce)
"Rocky-moley" for guacamole

And they hear things a little differently sometimes. The first morning, at opening flags, the camp director emphasized the need to drink water and reminded the girls to save the bottles and refill them. One of my girls heard "save the bottles" and not the "drink water" and "refill" parts and proudly showed her mom her unopened bottle of water that she'd saved. She'd had a bottle of juice with lunch and I wasn't on top of things that first day monitoring their water intake.

Another time, I spilled down my shirt getting a drink of water and murmured that I must have a hole in my lip. One little girl keep shooting me looks and after about ten minutes she leaned close and said, "I think I see the hole."

They were the best little girls, too. There were no fights or arguments until the last half of the last day when one girl managed to get two others mad at her at the same time. I'd hoped they would be able to straighten things out by themselves but after about half an hour and one of them coming to me saying they'd been pushed, I had to step in. All it took were a few gentle words and suggestions and they all became good friends and exchanged phone numbers.

The older girls, grades 4-6, camped overnight Thursday and since Richelle was one of them, I stayed, too. The campfire program was one of the best I've seen, mainly because those leaders were told they had to come up with skits that have never been done before. Campfires are so boring when the same skits and songs are done year after year. Out of the seven skits performed that night, I've never seen two and that's saying a lot after watching campfire programs for about fifteen years!

It was a great evening of fun and the girls were so tired that lights went out at 10pm and nearly everyone was asleep by 11pm. Even the dump truck's arrival at 5am didn't wake anyone up for more than a few minutes.

After so many years at day camps, I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Monday evening, I picked up some glow-in-the-dark beads and large safety pins without the spring and awarded each girl with a bead every time she drank all the water in her bottle. One bead-happy girl went home Friday with about twenty on her pins.

Another thing I did was pick up some UV-activated beads. These beads are a dull white until they're touched by UV rays and the beads rapidly change color. I gave those out each time they completed their camp-wide chores. Friday, our job was to pick up litter and I told the girls I would give them a bead for the first 30 pieces they collected and another one for each ten they picked up beyond that. Little first and second graders can't figure out how much litter they need to pick up for x-number of beads but they can figure out that the more they pick up, the more beads they'll get. One of the girls earned nine beads, three more earned eight, one earned three, and two earned one. There's lots of litter to pick up at day camp with all the crafts!

Tired as I am, I still enjoy day camps.

Things I learned this week

1. If you have trouble sleeping, quit drinking tea and soda.

2. Make sure your child knows what "off" is on the valve feeding the soaker hose so you don't have an unpleasant surprise four hours later.

3. A picnic and swim in the river makes a child's entire day.

4. Teenagers are quite hungry when they get home at 3am after a long day of work. Keep snacks on hand for them or there's no telling what they'll get into.

5. When your husband suggests you wipe down the computer chair with alcohol because he unthinkingly sat in it still wearing the same pants he wore in the poison oak, it's a good idea to remember to do that BEFORE you sit on it wearing shorts.

Cameron's arm

I wanted post a quick update about Cameron's arm. He says it still hurts quite a bit but he hasn't missed a day of work and even worked overtime six hours yesterday on the greenchain and eight hours over last weekend doing clean-up. He says clean-up is the easiest job ever and works eight hours overtime each week that he can.

He's not been to the chiropractor yet but has an appointment and is on the cancellation list. His appointment isn't until early September because he's limited to Fridays with his 10-hour shifts.

He's pretty careful of his arm but doesn't feel he needs the sling. Each time I ask him how it's doing, he says it still hurts so I ask him if it's getting better and he mumbles something. So like a man.

Flowers

Roses

Roses aren't my all-time favorite flower but I do love them. Richelle raced inside the other morning and grabbed the camera while yelling that I needed to "come look at something right now!"

What I needed to see was the dew still on the roses. She didn't know how to take a micro shot or she would have done it herself. I wasn't sure if I could take the shot without blurring and she was hoping the dew would show up. You have to look kind of closely to see the dew but it's there.

By the way, the shot at the top of the blogspot of the other side of our narrow valley is one that she took as part of her Camera Badge for Girl Scouts. She was pleased to see that I used it.



Lavender


I have one lavender plant and harvested the first crop a few days ago. Richelle and I had fun putting together bunches with ribbons and hanging them up all over the house. This one hangs above the coat closet in the front entry.

Although it's directly in line with the front door, my dear husband didn't notice it until I pointed it out. Cameron, the only male of my acquaintance to be able to find what he's been sent to get, noticed the lavender straightaway.

A long week

Whew! What a week we've had!! Mike and Cameron are on swing shift so I would do what house and yard work I could before about 11am and then fix lunch before going into Sutherlin for two-three hours to help one of our Boy Scouts work on his Eagle project. He's building picnic tables for the park in town. He started out looking for sponsors for six tables and ended up building eleven. With the help of a professional and a couple of fellow scouts, he bent, cut, and welded the metal frames. Others helped grind the welds and rough edges. I was put in charge of getting the frames painted. My main crew was Richelle and the Scout's little sister who is also in Richelle's troop. Others came to help now and then but it's been over a week and there's still one to be painted.

All of this in the heat. 100+ degree weather. We always get five days to a week of 100-degree weather in August and often a partial week in July but this year we've already had a couple of days that hot in May and now this week in July.

Global warming? Hardly. The Scout camp in the Cascades still has three foot snow drifts and they're not sure just when they can get in there and get the camp ready for campers in three weeks. There was so much snow that many of the wooden tent frames are destroyed. No, not global warming.

Added to working outside in the heat was the cold I had. It started in my head, then moved into my chest where it pretty much made itself at home for a while. All of that together made me tired, tired, tired. I also took the kids to the river to swim a couple of times and while the current isn't very strong there, it's strong enough to tire us out in little over an hour.

Stay tuned for next week's episode: I Was A Leader At Day Camp

Cute

Richelle is one of those people who talk rather rapidly but not always clearly. Mike's always asking her to repeat herself because she slurs words. I frequently ask her to repeat because she leaves out vital information by using all pronouns.

"Dad,doyouhaveanyelectritician'stapeinyourtoolboxIneeditformyproject."
"Richelle, slow down and enunciate!"

"Mom,whydidn'tshelikeit?"
"Why didn't who like what?"

Yesterday, we were at a family picnic with the Boy Scout troop and one of the younger brothers noticed that Richelle repeated a lot. This young lad doesn't use his lips much when he speaks. Here's the quick exchange I heard.

"Richelle, why do you repeat everything?"

"What?"

A couple of other parents me joined me in quiet laughter and the boy didn't repeat the question. Richelle grabbed the handful of chips she was after and ran off without pursuing the issue.

Memory is the first to go

We were sitting around the family room this afternoon talking about Cameron's arm and he mentioned that they saw the scar from the old break.

Whaa?

"When did you break your left arm?"

"Five years ago. A couple of weeks before Melissa died," he says. He thinks, "Mom, you're losing it."

"No, that was your right arm," I correct while struggling with memory.

We had a short discussion about how we know Nick broke his left arm because his Scoutmaster, missing his right arm from the shoulder, called Nick his "right-hand man" and we know that Nick's and Cameron's breaks were almost identical except for being opposite arms. We scratched our heads and dusted off memories and I finally asked Cameron if he remembered which side the casket was on when he was pallbearer.

"The left side.......oh. It was my right arm I broke."

So he did damage the bone when he walked in front of the jitney. The x-rays showed what was either a crack or an old, healed break and at 2am Mike and Cameron assumed it was his left arm he'd broken years ago.

Update...

It turns out he's only bruised. Pretty bad bruise, I'm guessing because it was just very red last night...uh, early this morning...and he's not gotten up yet for me to see. I have a tube of arnica cream and I'll have him apply it regularly.

First, I'd like to make clear that it was his own fault. Jitney drivers are supposed to take ordinary precautions but they do have the right-of-way. It's the responsibility of everyone else to keep their eyes peeled and stay out of their way. There are walking paths painted on the floor to get from one place to another and hysters are careful when they cross them but this happened right where Cameron works.

Cameron was headed to the bathrooms and didn't look around while a jitney was coming to get a load from the stacker. Mike told me that Cameron was in front of the jitney right in the driver's blind spot. The driver was raising the forks high enough to get the load from the stacker, about ten feet up. The fork hit Cameron at the top of his shoulder. Since the forks were rising, if the collision happened a foot farther on, the fork would have gotten him in the head. That's why he was so shaken last night but I didn't want to add that until I knew more.

His supervisor saw the whole thing happen. He yelled loudly and continuously but the noise is bad in the mill and everyone wears earplugs so neither Cameron nor the jitney driver heard him. Mike said, and I'll quote, "It scared Hell out of everybody."

He's going back to work today. It's his Friday so he'll have three days to heal before the next week rolls around.

Children.....

I was suddenly yanked from slumber by the shrill of the telephone. Like all mothers, I was on my feet and in the next room before my eyes opened, multiple thoughts racing through my head one after another as if they were playing tag, "Where's the phone? I have to answer before the machine picks up. Follow-the-sound-follow-the-sound. Please don't let me collide with a chair," and the thoughts we keep shoving away, "Who?" and "Why?" Not complete thoughts because we don't want them answered.

I answer the phone. A voice so upset I can hardly recognize it says, "Mom, I'm all right."

I'm a bit rattled. That's what Nick said four years ago when he rolled his Bronco but nobody should be driving anywhere at 11pm. I mean, they should be in bed or at work. Mike's shift ends at 11:30, Cameron's ends at 2am and Nick's shift starts at 6:30am. Mike sometimes works later and occasionally comes home earlier but this is Cameron talking to me.

"You're all right where?" I wondered, fumbling for reality.
"At work." Again, a voice fighting for control.

It turns out that he was hit by a forklift and injured his arm. They got on the radio and called Mike who was there in a few short minutes and took him to the hospital. He called me because we have a deal. When he gets hurt, he calls me. That way, when he's not home when I wander the house in the wee sma's, I don't worry.

So now I'm waiting to hear what the extent is of his injury. I'm waiting up, of course, but this is one of the few times I can't seek oblivion in a book. I keep making stupid mistakes in my Sudoku book, and my stomach isn't feeling the best either. Mike called from the hospital a few minutes ago to find out when his last tetanus shot was and his uneducated diagnosis was either a bruised or broken arm. Let's hope for just a bruise!