I Have Been Remiss

I hope that you, my dear readers, will forgive my absence. I was out from Thursday through Sunday taking our church youth group to HEB Camp, our annual pilgrimage into the wilds of the Texas Hill Country. And it was so depressing that I have only now felt like doing anything other than brooding and feeling sorry for myself.

The beautiful Frio River in the beautiful Texas Hill Country.

Don't get me wrong. I love HEB Camp. Our group gets the most primitive campsite available, which has a kitchen, bath house, and four cabins. Three of the four cabins look like they're about to fall down and have these horrid cots in there. The fourth one has fairly decent bunkbeds. I suspect it was built when the original fell down. I'm hoping that they replace the other three sometime soon. So our camp experience is in beds with showers, but no A/C, no phone, no TV, etc. We get no cell phone coverage because we are in the bottom of a canyon with the Frio River.

It's a beautiful site and it reminds me every year of the blessings of God and His wonderful creation. It's the closest I get to nature throughout the entire year. But we had our issues. The program wasn't as well organized as it used to be, but I think that's due to the inexperience of our new youth director. Continuity of the retreat was broken two years ago when the youth director left right before camp, then we had a brand new one last year who had never been and was only able to stay one day because her other part time job wouldn't let her off. Then this year, she left in the middle of planning and we pretty much had to start over.

You know how it feels when something you've done the same way every year is different? It feels kind of disorienting and in my case depressing. I took over 600 photos of the weekend and I have barely felt like going through them. I'll share a few here, but I still have to upload them somewhere to get prints made and prepare for a scrapbooking evening with the youth.

One of our classic clowns posing.

Swimming in and jumping into the Blue Hole


Full moon over Texas

The traditional group photo. They love getting their t-shirts.

This week is also extremely busy getting ready for the new marching season. This is my last year in the band boosters and I'm in charge of chaperones and fund-raising, which includes the spirit items we sell at the football games. I'm behind in ordering things to sell and this morning I couldn't find the bag with all the information in it. I'm actually triple-booked for tonight: Sr/Jr band student registration, the district booster organization meeting, and choir practice. We haven't had choir practice in over a month and I'm missing the first one back. I'm not too happy about that, either. Registration continues tomorrow and Friday night, too.

In addition to all that, I have to get my Sr student's picture taken. It was pre-scheduled for 4:30 on a Wednesday afternoon. Two problems, though. One, it's our anniversary and we planned to take off the afternoon and go see The Simpsons Movie. Two, it's 1-1/2 hours after he finishes band rehearsal for the day and he'll have to take a shower and get ready and be there after a 30 minute drive to get there. I think I'm going to have to reschedule that one.

I'm still trying to get my hormonal systems back in order after being messed up for a couple of months. I'm not on anything right now, so I'm very emotional. I hope that things get better really soon. I covet prayers for getting my mind straight.

Have a great rest of the week.