New Year – New Site!

I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions, they’re usually negative and vague (stop eating junk food, watch less tv, etc.), and most people fail before the end of February (because of the negativity and vagueness I’d assume).

What I DO love is goal setting!!! It’s totally different from stinky ol’ resolutions, and the best part is, you can set goals, make changes, and shake things up any ol’ time! You don’t have to wait for a specific day of the year.

SO that’s why I’m so excited to announce that I’ve moved my website!!

(Thanks to Curt Jackson for actually doing all of the work of moving my website.. haha)

It’s been a goal of mine for a while and I’m so happy that it’s finally time!

I’m changing it up a bit, I’m still going to focus on things I wish I had known when I started and things I’m learning along the way (because I’m always learning!) but I’m going to try some other things as well, and I’m excited to have some more guest posts in the New Year.

So that’s the game plan! I’d love to hear suggestions of the type of things you’d like to see from me (or specific topics).

Everything is over at my new site http://www.thecampnerd.com already and I’ll be posting over there from now on. As of January 1st this page will no longer be available and will automatically redirect you to the new one – so update your bookmarks!

I’m so excited to see what 2018 brings!

Hit me up on social media and let me know what you’re excited about in 2018 and what you’d like to see from this little ol’ blog in its next phase. 🙂

 

Being Sick at Camp

There’s nothing worse than being sick at camp, right?
Ok, there are probably worse things in the scheme of things but being sick when you’re away from home and have a lot of responsibility is high up there on the list of things that suck.

 

As a director or leadership staff member, how do you manage staff who are sick, and what do you do when YOU get sick??

I remember the first time I got sick at camp, it was my first summer as a counsellor and in those days we used to have each cabin counsellor sleep in their cabin on a rotating schedule. It was my night, so I was in the cabin with about 10 campers, when I woke up just after dawn and felt SO SICK. I tried not to move, because I was afraid of what would happen, but it was no use… we didn’t have bathrooms in our cabins so I ran for the deck where I found an empty plastic shopping bag and, well, you know.

I made my way back to the bed and hoped for the best, no such luck. Within minutes I was running for the deck again.
I realized this couldn’t go on, so after I woke up the counsellor in the cabin next door,

Camp Sick

Ok, I’ve totally been feeling camp sick.

As you may or may not know, I resigned from my full time camp job in February (actually I resigned in Nov or Dec, but I finished working in February) and while I’m happy with my decision and SO excited about the new adventures I’m embarking on, I can’t help but miss camp at this time of year.

 

I was fine, I was looking forward, excited, not thinking about my former camp a whole lot… then they posted a photo during staff training.

Patchwork Marketplace

Hi camp friends,

If you follow me on social media you would have seen me post about this already, but I thought I’d share a little more info about it here. I am just so proud and excited about this project. And if you don’t follow me on social media, this will be brand new information! Exciting! Also, let’s be friends, all of my social media links are on the sidebar. –>

How Patchwork Marketplace Came To Be

Ok, so if you’ve been around these parts before you may have seen this post by Curt Jackson in my “Path” series. And also this post about how exciting it is to work with new people in blog land and in camping. Well, once Curt and I chatted a bit, wrote for each other’s blogs we decided that we wanted to work on another project together. We brainstormed a little bit, designed some (awesome) t-shirts, wrote a few fun quizzes and other posts but we were still looking for a bigger project to work on.

Then he mentioned that he always thought it would be neat to have a site similar to the ones available for teachers but for camp and recreation professionals.

Cue record scratch.

Hold the presses.

That’s freakin’ brilliant!

I said, “umm, YEAH!” so we put all of our resources into creating Patchwork Marketplace.

And I’m super excited about it.

Then we came up with the name Patchwork because it sort of encompassed all of the things we were trying to accomplish with the marketplace. There’s an explanation on the site, click here to read it.
(If you join our beta test, you can have access now. More about that at the bottom)

Collaboration friends, it’s where it’s at!

Sooo… What Is It We’re Doing?

Summer Book Review

You guys…
I think that BR Myers is stalking me…

Haha, just kidding (I think?) but I did read her adorable book a few months ago called Girl on the Run. Which I happened to pick up by chance, because it was near Tyler Oakley’s Binge book in Chapters (which I also picked up), and I liked the look of the cover.

Once I turned it over and read the synopsis, I knew I had to have it. It was a book about running AND camp!!! Two of my favourite things!!

So I brought it home and started reading it, it was so much fun (and also a little unsettling, but I’ll get into that in a moment).

It’s a YA novel about a 17 year old girl who has given up running after her father’s death, she heads to summer camp to try to get her life back on track (peh. heh. heh. unintentional pun, but I like it and now I’m proud of it!)

 

 

When I started reading it I was reminded of the Sweet Valley High books I used to read when I was young, it was a fun read and I finished it by the end of the evening.

There were a couple of references in the book that made me say ‘YES, this author totally gets me, we should be friends”.

And then there were a few story points that made me think “man, this camp is SKETCHY!”

Let’s get into it, shall we?

*Warning – Spoilers Ahead*