Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon April 2020

12:48 AM - Good Evening! I am excited and rearing to go! I'm going to try to keep to a similar format as last year but we'll see how that goes. First up this evening was finishing off the last two chapters of The Fire By Night by Teresa Messineo, and Oh my gosh that is a fantastic book! It's one that took me so long to finish but honestly is one of my favorites now. I'll have a review up next week. for now onto the next one. It's a bit silly but I'm going to try and knock out the Junie B. Jones series by Barbara Park next.

1:34 AM - I've Finished the eleventh in the series Junie B. Jones is a Beauty Shop Guy. Oh my gosh this might have been the reason I cut all my hair off in second grade. Like I'm pretty sure this book was exactly the reason I thought it was a great idea to go at my own head with craft scissors the day before school pictures. Mom I'm sorry!

4:47 AM - I've just finished an old mystery book I've found Dead Man's Cat by  about two kids and a missing stamp collection. It was super fun and quirky! It was very akin to the Audrey Hepburn movie Charade, but in a preteen mystery sort of way. I love finding old paperback mysteries in thrift stores and this one did not disappoint. Equal parts camp and suspense it was a fun little read! Now I think it's back to the Junie B. Jones series until I decide it's time to get stuck into a bigger book.

5:43 AM - I've just finished Junie B. Jones Smells Something Fishy. Guys I have to admit this is genuinely my guilty pleasure series. The amount of times I tried to keep a dead bug as a pet when I was a kid was numerous. And to read about a six year old who is trying to convince their parents that a dead fish is an excellent pet is honestly the weirdest type of validation I will ever have. Don't judge me.

10:51 AM - I fell asleep somewhere around 6:30 this morning, and just woke up. Before I fell asleep I started Holes by Louis Sachar and got 9 chapters in. It's weird comparing the book to the movie, especially since I haven't seen the movie in 3 or 4 years. There are so many things I remember from that movie and I don't know why. It wasn't a particular favorite, and I was pretty young when it came out, yet seeing that movie was a big memory of my childhood. Funny how that happens isn't it?

3:38 PM - I Read Holes until about 12:30 then got distracted with things around the house. I'm going to make myself a late lunch and then jump back into it.

7:55 PM - Whew! Time flies! Just finished Holes and let me tell you it makes me want to watch that movie so much! It's both so frustrating and so mun at the same time. Like I said I like books with a little mystery, and since it had been years since I'd seen the movie I forgot how the story ends. And it is so good! The frustrating thing about this book is looking at it from a legal point of view, which is hard not to do when your dad is a lawyer. The absolutely awful situations these kids were put in were honestly baffling to me at times. OH MY GOSH! I need to keep reminding myself it's a kids book! Next up I'm going to head back to the Junie B. Jones series and see if I  can make my way through that.

9:04 PM - Only three hours to go! I just finished Junie B. Jones is (Almost) a Flower Girl. It's #13 in the series. Gosh these books are just absurd! Do you remember being a precocious little kid who said anything that popped into their head? I certainly do! Also it was around the time I read this the first time that I was a flower girl in my mom's friend's wedding and let me tell you I am more and more coming to the realization that I was Junie B. Jones as a kid.

10:32 PM - I got a little bored of the Junie B. series so I decided to shift to another book. A Book of Scottish Nursery Rhymes by Norah Montgomerie an old thrift store find, and man am I not well versed in old Glasgowian. The rhymes have a lot of words like "tae (to/two)", "wi (with)", "hame (home)", "papingoe (parrot)" and various other little phrases. Thankfully there's a cheat sheet in the beginning of the book to turn back to when I get a bit lost in the brogue. And for the moment I am going to take a stretch break. while I finish off the half jar of peanut butter I've been snacking on all day.

12:17 AM - My computer decided to update at exactly midnight! But I made it! Almost 7 Books, 694 Pages in total and I am actually totally down to finish this last book I've been reading before I turn in (should I? Maybe not). I hope you've had as lovely a readathon as I have. I might do another one soon, because I still have a huge backlog of books I started and never finished sitting on my bedside table. But we'll see.

Have a good evening, and I'll talk to you all soon!

~Delaney

Life Update: April 2020 Habits, Routines & Motivation

There's a lot I've wanted to share here, but I haven't found the time. Well I haven't made the time, but I'm working on that. I'm trying to be more proactive of how I spend my time, which meant that certain hobbies, such as this blog had to fall by the way side as I worked on building new habits. And then we were all placed in quarantine. So what's happened over the past five months? Well a lot!

I Got a New Job & Started Working On Myself

I had gone about 6 months working as a nanny and it just wasn't cutting it for me. I really did enjoy a lot of it, and I do still do the occasional sitting job for a friend of two, but I wasn't running myself as a business, and so I wasn't making profits. It was the second time I had ever quit a job and it was just as hard, but honestly for the best. I ended up finding a new job in October at a Five Guys, and although it wasn't exactly what I wanted, I am all the better for it. I absolutely love the work I do, I enjoy the people I work with and I can honestly say it brings me joy. I had worked so long avoiding working a job I had never experienced solely based on the perspective other people had on it, but honestly one of the things I'm working on this year has been not making decisions based on other people's opinions, and I'm honestly enjoying that liberation!

I have known for a long time that I struggle with productivity. It's not that I don't want to do things it's that I don't know how to get started, and I fear failure so finishing projects becomes hard too. As anyone who struggles with productivity knows it's not about not having goals it about making the plans for those goals. It took me five years to get my license because I was so afraid of driving that I didn't pursue a permit, and then once I had a permit I wasn't persistent and vocal enough to get any behind the wheel training. So I let my permit expire and I got another one a year or two later. I didn't end up actually getting my license until May of 2018 right before I left for summer camp. And I was so mad that I hadn't done it sooner. It was then I decided I needed to start setting attainable goals and working on them. So when I came back from camp that year I decided to quit my job at my dad's office and find something I enjoyed. I started working full time as a nanny and really enjoyed the experience. I had to learn to manage my own time and money. I had to learn to budget for expenses (crafts, trips to the zoo, gas, ect.) and I learned a lot about managing myself. Although in the end I decided to stop nannying as it wasn't a consistent or profitable business for me at the time, I am so thankful for that experience. I learned to set my own time, I learned to not overwork myself and still stay productive, and I learned to value my own worth, and not take no for an answer. This lead me to finding the job at Five Guys and everything about it seemed to fall into place. It's close enough to home in Riverside that I get to take a really beautiful drive, and it's close enough to church and friends in Corona that I can stay connected to my community. It's a job and it's not forever but in a weird and personal way it gave me a ton of independence and I'm so thankful for it.

I Started Attending A Bible Study

My church started a new round of growth groups and I got involved in the young adults group. After a long time of nannying and volunteering in church with preschoolers it was a really great shift to start hanging out with people my own age. 😂 It also allowed me to build a stronger connection with God and helped me a lot through the shift we were all forced into over the last month. If it weren't for these people constantly lifting each other up and finding new ways to help out our community I don't know how I would have taken going into quarantine. Last year I struggled with a lot of things I didn't feel comfortable talking to others about, and now I have a group of people I can tell absolutely anything to without fear of judgement. I'm so grateful for this group of people and can't wait until we're all allowed to meet in person again. I'd really like to encourage you to find a group to get together with throughout the week, whether it's a bible study, a book club, an online game group or whatever you're interested in. If quarantine has taught me anything it's the importance of community, and that's coming from an introvert who was home schooled her whole life. Stay connected to the people you love and remind them why you love them. I find that the best thing to do when you start to feel alone is to reach out to someone who might be feeling alone too. Stick with it for at least two weeks, even if it feels awkward at first, you never know how it could impact someone's life or even your own.

I Stared Organizing My House

Eesh the big one! Has anyone else gotten so freaking bored?! I am not one for house work in fact I am currently writing this in an attempt to avoid doing dishes, but this last week I got so bored I started doing laundry voluntarily! Which if you know me is actually something I will avoid doing as much as possible until all I have left is a swimsuit and two mismatched socks. But I've actually stared to enjoy some of it. My mom and I went through our garage and started getting rid of old craft supplies, fabrics, home school curriculum and all the random junk my various fairly members have dumped on us in the past few years. It's crazy busy work and we're still a long way from the finish line but it's been very cathartic for both my mother and myself. If you've been avoiding doing a Marie Kondo sweep through or a simple trip to the dump I highly recommend it. It's incredibly liberating.

I Started Setting New Goals

Now I have in no way mastered any of these new habits I've picked up. I still struggle with speaking up and connecting to people when I feel lonely. I still have times when all I want to do all day is watch Netflix or paint pretty pictures, but I'm beginning to learn to self motivate, something I was never taught as a kid. I find that when I do have bursts of energy to do something creative I will channel that into something productive, like taking the dog on a walk, or loading the dishwasher, and then rewarding myself with a night of Netflix and painting. Little things like this are helping me to stay motivated and continue a path of building new and better habits. If you're like me ask yourself this: "What kind of person do I want to be coming out of quarantine?" Do you want to be more responsible with your finances? More active, going on hikes and runs daily or even weekly? And then ask yourself: "What is one thing I can do right now that brings me one step closer to that goal?" and do it. 

I'm not saying that you'll see improvement over night. Lord knows I have't! And I'm not saying you won't miss a day or two, but finding a group of people to keep you motivated and finding ways to motivate yourself will help you begin to inch closer to that finish line. And it's so worth it! So love yourself, start doing things that bring you motivation and passion, surround yourself (virtually or  6 feet apart 😊) with people who will encourage you, motivate you, and and celebrate with you. We may not know what the future holds, but we can start by building who we want to be when we get there.

~Delaney

Summer Skirt

Spending all summer teaching kids different crafts had made me kinda miss the whole thing myself, so when a lady from my church had asked me to teach her daughter how to sew it gave me an urge to make a couple of things for myself. I'd had this chevron cotton fabric for a while and so I decided to take a stab at making myself a skirt.

One thing I will say is that sewing is not like riding a bike. You don't just remember everything you've been taught as soon as you jump back in-- or at least I don't. This skirt probably took me three weeks to complete! Partially because with working as a nanny there are a lot of weekends, afternoons and evenings spent not at home. Not that I mind it, but it does mean you have to stick to more portable hobbies and leave the sewing machine at home. So whenever I got the chance, I'd spend an hour or so relearning how to put in a gathering stitch, or sew a buttonhole, and ask myself why I don't do this more often so that I have better practice. But I will say that despite the small frustrations it was really fun and made me want to make a few more, so that might be my hobby of choice for the autumn. And I taught myself (semi-successfully) how to put in a zipper, and hem my own skirt, two things I'd never done before.

I started off my measuring a skirt I'd made a few years ago, and patterning the new one off of that. I knew I wanted it a bit longer, which I later found out meant I wouldn't be able to add the big in-seam pockets the last skirt had, since I bout the same amount of fabric I had bought for the first skirt, but I think it turned out pretty well none the less. And I'm hoping to run to the craft store in the next few weeks and see if I can pick up a bit more and add some top pockets instead of inseam ones.

I measured out the length I wanted the skirt, plus some seam allowance, and cut out a front and back panel. I then cut out a waistband, which is when I realized I wouldn't have extra fabric for the pockets, as I had to cut two strips for the waist band that I attached to make the full circumference of my waist. This is where I screwed up a bit.

I had remembered to add a seam allowance to the length of the skirt, but not to the waistband. My original plan was to have a two inch waist band which meant that I would need five inches so that I could fold it over, two inches in front, two inches in back, and have a half an inch on both sides for seam allowance. Unfortunately I only cut two inches, which meant that it ended up a little less than an inch in height once it was attached to the skirt. I hadn't done sewing math in a long time, and completely forgot to ass for seam allowance!

 Still I pressed on. The first thing I stitched was the two panels for the skirt. I sewed them together leaving about five or six inches at the top on one side to add a zipper and then started my gathering stitch at the waist, making a line along the edge of the fabric and then pulling the thread to gather the fabric.

 This was when I realized I didn't make my waistband wide enough and in order for me to add it o I was going to have to add extra fabric, or cut a new waistband from the skirt's length. It was also lie two in the morning when I got to this point and so I went to bed and left it to be planned out another day.

And then I got busy, and the skirt sat for a few days until I figured out something to do. It wasn't my first choice but I decided to go ahead and sew two strips of fabric together as a way of making the waistband taller. Then two more in the same way, and attaching all four together to make the waistband wider. It all seemed like so many extra steps, but gave me a much clearer way to fix the mess I had made and a couple Do's and Don't's for the next time! Because it had been so long since I had done this, and I was doing all of it from memory instead of from a pattern or tutorial, I made a ton of mistakes, but I think this was ultimately a lesson on persistence. I've worn this skirt so much since I finished it, and it bothers me that it practically took me a month to finish, when it was really quite simple, and I was just adding extra steps for myself that I didn't need to do! Don't you just hate it when you're basically standing in your own way to accomplish something?



 With a fresh perspective on the situation I forged ahead. I attached the waistband to the skirt, and was happily surprised that when I tried on the skirt it wasn't too big, or too small but actually fit my waist pretty well.

 I then had a big challenge to face which was to add a zipper. I questioned why I chose this moment to learn to put a zipper in, as the day I was working on it happened to be my sister's birthday and I had hoped to wear the skirt to her party that evening. I watched about 15 tutorials, and then kind of winged it when it came to the zipper. And of course took no photo evidence of the process, but I have a few of the finished product. Basically what I did was attach the zipper using pins, and then instead of using the zipper foot on my machine, I used the regular foot, and sewed up, over, and then up again in a "U" shape around the teeth, and then sewed it into the waistband.

It was then that I realized I had only two steps left! Angels sang as I attached my button-hole foot... and my machine stopped working. I could not figure out why it was only stitching one side of the button hole and not the other three needed. A few days of reading the manual and changing the settings, and I realized that for this sized waistband I was using too big of a button, and switching to a smaller one worked. I felt ridiculous that it was that simple.

The next day I measured from my waist to where I wanted the skirt to end, adding seam allowance (because I learned my lesson from the waistband), and then I decided to do something I actually really liked. When putting in the hem I stitched around at the base of the fold all the way around to secure the fabric, and then stitched all the way around at the edge of the fabric creating a one inch gap between the two seams. I think it actually created a cool effect on the end and made the hem look really polished. I think I'm going to do this with all of my hems from now on. It just looks so good!

 Lastly I learned to machine stitch a button on and I will never hand sew one again (I hate hand sewing buttons)! And I hand stitched a hook and eye into the waistband to secure it more easily. I am always having trouble keeping my zippers up in some of my skirts that I do this to all of them now. It really keeps it intact.

All in all I think it came out really well. There were a lot of mistakes along the way, but I really love this skirt and I know I'll get a lot of use out of it!

~Delaney

Apricots: How I've Been Spending My Summer

Okay ladies and gentlemen, it has been far too long since I've done anything with this here blog. Not for lack of wanting to but for lack of time/lack of ideas/increasing amounts of the soul-sucking-anxiety-that-nothing-really-matters-and-this-is-all-just-meaningless 😆 (You guys I am loving the discovery that you can insert emojis into these posts).

Anyway I've genuinely been thinking a lot about the kind of content I want out here, so much so that I've lost track of actually doing it. I think that an issue that can arise when you look at social media and content creators is that if you're a small content creator or really just doing this for the fun of it (or really because why the hell not 🤷[like me]), you forget that there is no audience to impress. Don't get me wrong, if you do read this and you enjoy it, I really do appreciate you. But I get this feeling that if I am going to do something I have to throw my heart and soul into it and that's just not true. Yes if you have something where you want to progress, like education or your career, then you should definitely do that with all the passion and hard work that you can muster so that you can succeed, but that being said success isn't the same for everyone. Success for someone may be views and comments on a video or web page, but I think for me, right now, it's just doing something and producing a product on a regular basis. To stop procrastinating and just do something that I want to do regardless of the comments other people say.

So that was my long winded way of saying I made apricot fruit leather, and pie. and there's probably going to be a lot of apricot themed things this summer (like maybe jam?), because our tree is fruiting like crazy! It's also me saying you might see me posting here more often (I'm trying). But let's get on to the goodness.

The first thing I did was, obviously, pick all the fresh apricots from our tree. Our tortoise, Slim, loved this! My brother came outside and would just shake the tree and a lot of the really ripe ones would just fall to the ground and then I would go and pick them up. Slim has been eating the ones off the ground like crazy and so he fancied it a game to see how many he could eat before I collected them. Hissing at me and grounding his hind legs every time I'd pick up one of the ones he had his eye on. He was actually pretty angry that my brother and I were out there stealing all his snacks! We had an apricot tree at the old house and I remember I made a really excellent apricot pie, but I stupidly never kept the recipe and I don't remember Slim being so into the apricots, bus sure enough he was out there at the ready to help consume them.

So we collected about half of one large grocery bag, and I went to work washing, pitting and quartering the apricots I ended up having enough for one pie plus two gallon zip lock bags which I froze.

For the pie I just made a simple crust and followed a recipe online that basically said to add the quartered apricots in a bowl with sugar, cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg and toss. Then pour into pie pan and cover with the top layer of crust.
The one thing I did do that I wish I hadn't was that I egg washed the crust and sprinkled sugar on the top crust before baking so it came out a little more black than I had hoped but the crust wasn't hared and tasted perfectly fine.

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Fresh apricot pie! 😋 . . . . . . . . . . #coffeecakebooks #blogger #baker #freshpie #pie #summerbakes #sumerpie #cuteaspie

A post shared by Delaney Linnea Barrett (@coffeecakebooks) on Jul 1, 2019 at 9:06pm PDT

After that I was on a roll! I had a ton of apricots and nothing to do with them, so I started looking up recipes. I thought about making jam but with the limited amount of people in my house who actually like the taste of apricots and the fact that we are somehow running out of canning jars, despite the fact that we haven't had to buy any in years. I had to go with plan B.

Years ago my mom bought a dehydrator she found somewhere and it didn't have a manual. she managed to use it to make some apple chips once, with the intention of learning more about the machine, but we never got around to it. So I looked up the manual and another recipe and I was on my way. So after a bit of trial and error I ended up with this recipe.

• 2 cups Pitted, Quartered Apricots
• 1/4 cup Honey/Sugar
• 1 tsp. Cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. Clove
• 1/4 tsp. Nutmeg

Combine all ingredients into a food processor and puree until smooth, paying close attention to the chunks of apricot. All the recipes differed on whether they used honey or sugar, I tried one batch with each and determined that I liked the honey batch better. the sugar batch was grainier and much sweeter.

Once smooth spread mixture onto a fruit leather tray for a dehydrator, and set the dehydrator for Fruit setting. Alternately you can spread it onto a baking tray with a silpat or wax paper and bake in the oven at about 150F until dry. The recipes I found were all for the oven so I kind of did some guess work. I think over all this stuff was in the dehydrator for about 18-24 hours. he first batch too as little as 12 but came out brittle and hard to peel from the tray. It was way too thin.

With the second batch I filled the trays all the way to the top and gently placed them into the dehydrator. This was the batch that took about 24 hours, but It was also my best batch. It ended up coming out really nice and even, incredibly shiny, and chewy but able to tear easily.

The next issue I had with the recipe was actually with the portions per drying, and the shape itself. Although this dehydrator works great, we currently only have two of the trays for making the fruit leather. all the other trays are the regular drying racks you place solids onto, and they have holes and mesh for aeration. This is an easy fix of an obstacle as Amazon sells them in a 2 pack for $7.99 but still it slowed me down since I ended up with a good gallon and a half of puree.

The thing I learned about this process is it really is just a waiting game. In order to dry all the puree it took about 7-9 days. The tricky park was knowing the difference between a sticky top because the dehydrator is so hot or a sticky top because the batter isn't quite firmed. I did have to take a few out at the beginning and let them cool only to see that they were in fact still a little mushy and set them back in the dehydrator again. But all that being said, it was a pretty successful attempt at my first dehydrator fruit leather and the first time I made fruit leather in general since about 10th grade.

To store fruit leather I decided to basically make my own Fruit Roll-Ups with some wax paper, which was better in theory. The trays were donut shaped so  cutting the into strips made them a but uneven, but I worked with what I had and I think they turned out pretty good.

I tried two different methods for rolling the fruit leather. The first was to cut it into strips and lay them out onto the saran wrap and roll them up. Although you get more even strip s with this method, it's time consuming and a but more wasteful with the saran wrap. the second method was to roll the whole thing into the saran wrap and then cut it into "logs" essentially. The issue with this was that whether I used a knife or kitchen scissors it was pretty thick, and it not only left the sides exposed to dry but you would have to be mindful of picking the plastic out of the roll as you ate it. For this reason I think that baking it is a lot easier. If you bake it batter in the oven already spread out on the parchment paper it' not only easier to roll it's easier to cut, because you can cut it warm, rather than waiting for it to cool on the trays like I had to. But I do believe that the dehydrator makes a nice thin, and crisp leather, and I believe it takes less time ( not to mention it's on the counter so it doesn't render your oven useless for 6 hours). But I do have to say that having done this both ways there is no clear winner to me: oven or dehydrator. That being said I believe the last time I made oven baked fruit leather it was a berry and dried much faster because it was thinner and and a bit more dry going in.

But that could also be in perspective that I did it during a full day of 4-H meetings so the time wasn't spent waiting impatiently.

But all in all it was a nice little expiriment, and I really did like the flavor that came out. It's still apricot but with the cinnamon and nutmeg it almost has a pumpkin flavor to it, which gave me some good ideas for the fall, so you might see a theme coming up later in the year.

I'll leave you with the last few pictures of my attempts at rolling the leather. again I think the best decision is to cut the strips first but I will say one tip is to fold about n inch of the wrap over the edge of the strips before you roll, and doing a few a time works best if you have short fingers like I do.














But It was an enjoyable experience. Maybe I'll try again if we get another harvest of apricots and try and focus on keeping it thick and not adding too muck spiced to overpower the fruit flavor.

I also think we might have a fig tree in the backyard so making some fig rolls as well as fig leather would be a fun test. But all in all I'm excited to do some more stuff with this dehydrator. Looking in the manual I found recipes for dried fruit, dried veggies and even some tips on making your own spices and seasoned nuts. who knows maybe I'll get brave enough to make beef jerky! ~Delaney

Day Tripper: Mother's Day 2018

We have officially started the countdown. I leave for camp on Monday, and I am freaking out about the amount of stuff I still have to do! I have a test on Thursday that I have been studying like crazy, and I am just praying I pass. This weekend, however, was a nice reprieve from the craziness that I've fallen into as I get ready to leave. My family decided to go down to San Diego for Mother's Day and do some of our favorite things down there. We Drove down to Balboa Park and spent the day walking around the Spanish Village which is one of my favorite places in the world. The flowers are gorgeous, the buildings are gorgeous, the ground is gorgeous! I absolutely love the weather in San Diego and it was just lovely, we stepped into some of the shops, got some coffee at the coffee cart, and then walked through the park.

One of my favorite things about San Diego is that a lot of the old buildings are these expansive adobe structures, with big double doors, or gated archways, and the botanical gardens are probably my favorite example of that. I've started getting back into photography (not that I need another hobby), I'm nowhere near good but I've really enjoyed it, and I think a couple of these came out pretty nice. Some of the plants there were so cool looking that I spent a lot of time taking pictures of them, and then probably the same amount of time searching for my brand-new sunglasses that I put down and lost somewhere in the building (Thanks for finding them Chel!).

After the gardens we walked around the square and looked at the vendors and performers scattered around the park, before walking over to the sculptures at the front of the museum. It was funny looking at them as an adult because I used to love this one of the man and the woman as a kid, but on a second look it's actually a really strange mosaic. The snake is kind of weird too but I didn't get a really good picture of it because we stared to head to the International Houses.

 

If you have never been to Balboa Park, I highly recommend it if only for the International Houses. This was my favorite thing as a kid, the best part of all of San Diego in my mind. The International Houses is a village in the park where each building represents a different country, they have folk music playing, photos and displays about the culture of that country and then each building has a sample of a traditional food from their country ( I highly recommend Germany, Poland, Israel and Norway). They will even do events where one country will take over the square for a week or so and they'll have performers and food, and all kinds of fun stuff for the family. This weekend the House of Norway put on the event, and there were booths selling flags, T-shirts, cookies, and all kinds of good things! I picked up these chocolate-covered caramels and they were gone within a day or two, because we all loved them. We spent a long time wandering there, because it's just so much fun to see what kind of events they're doing down there. And then our last stop was walking through the palm canyon trail through the park before heading out to dinner.

For dinner we went to El Indio right off the 5 on India street. They have some of the best Mexican food, and if you are planning a trip to San Diego it's a must. I normally just get tacos or a burrito, but I went for the chicken fajitas this time and they did not disappoint, and no trip to El Indio would be complete without their seasoned chips, or cinnamon sugar chips (which are to die for).

Our final stop on our Mother's Day extravaganza was a trip down to Sea Port Village, which was really where I felt most at home. My family has been going to Sea Port Village since before most of us were born. Every one of the shops down there is perfect, the weather is always so nice and cool, and if you go near the evening before they close the crowds aren't bad and so you can just wander and enjoy the scenery. Also there's a gazebo which is always a sign you should go there often (or that I watch too much Gilmore Girls). My two favorite purchases of this weekend were the color changing nail polish I bought at Del Sol that gives me life, and the pin my sister Bri found that says "We Mermaid For Each Other" and that all of us girls now own. Which is basically the best saying ever in my mind, because not only is it about being a mermaid, but it's also a pun. And if you know anything about me you know I love a bad pun.

Let me know how you spent your Mother's Day down below!

~Delaney

Dewey Readathon April 2018

I woke up really late this morning. My plan was to start getting up earlier and earlier these past few weeks so that I am ready to jump into camp this summer, but last night we went out to see Avengers: Infinity War (I can't even talk about it, guys) and I didn't go to bed until like one in the morning because I decided to clean my room after that (why did I do that instead of going to bed or better yet start reading? IDK I'm insane). So I woke up at around 9-9:30ish this morning and am just now sitting down to read. I'm the only one home so maybe I'll be able to get through a lot, but we'll see.

First up I'll be reading A Wrinkle In Time, which I started on the Eleventh but I'm restarting because I haven't picked it up in about two weeks because of my stupid schedule.

A Wrinkle In Time - 12:09 PM - 1:18 PM, 2:12 PM - 3:07 PM

Cars, Books, Camp and Babies: My Crazy Next Few Weeks

Busy, busy couple of  weeks! I honestly haven't had the time to sit down and write a post in a while because I have just been on the go 24/7. Car shopping (I bought a car!), babysitting, leading youth group, getting projects done around the house, and prepping for camp have been all I’ve thought about for the last few weeks! Unfortunately I got sick because of my crazy schedule about a two weeks ago and it took forever to shake! I started feeling a lot better at the beginning of last week and finally got rid of the sore throat and stuffiness by the end of it, but in a crude twist of fate I ended spending all of Saturday and Sunday working on my car in the 90+ degree weather and now I’m healing from a bad sunburn. But on the bright side (no pun intended) my Dad and I got a lot of things accomplished on my car and it's soon to be in top shape. Which will be nice seeing as my to do list has been building up like crazy in anticipation for camp.

I started working for a camp called Forest Home in 2017. Forest Home is a Christian camp based in the San Bernardino Mountains whose mission statement is “Encounter Jesus. Experience Transformation. Engage the World.” They run camp for all different ages at their main campus in the mountains, and they have a VBS program called Neighborhood Day Camp which was designed to take the fun of camp down the mountain to get communities plugged into their local church. I’ve been working with NDC as a counselor for the past two summers. It’s a ton of work but incredibly worth it! This will be my first summer leading counselors as a Crew Lead, and I am both crazy excited and crazy nervous. I’ve done tons of leadership as a teenager through 4-H, but nothing at this scale.

I’ll be in charge of a setup/tear down crew in the mornings and afternoons as well as a group of the counselors and kids during the day while they go to all of their activities. We have tons of fun activities like inflatable water slides, a climbing wall, and all kinds of games and songs as we teach kids about our amazing God. It’s a ton of work but an absolute blast! The camp goes for about ten weeks in the summer, and has previously had two teams, each of them at a different location each week. This will be our first year with our third team, which I am so pumped for! I honestly can’t wait for the summer to start but there is still so much to do for me to be ready to go. I leave near the end of May which means I have less than two months to get everything ready to go, but I’m hoping not to leave many thing to the last minute. I just bought a few books that I'm going to start reading through for bible studies, and I'm going to be bringing the Thrive leadership curriculum I used in 4-H to do some fun team building and leadership activities as well. I've never done a daily devotional outside of a mission trip program I did in 6th grade, so I was unsure of which one to pick. I know some of them, especially the women's devotionals, can be sappy and I really didn't want to go down that path. I'm not into that, and I find it really unhelpful when leading others, so I decided to just pick something that I could do my own mix on. I decided to go with Trusting God Day by Day by Joyce Meyer because it seemed to be more of a quick lesson with a verse and a few questions, which is more my cup of tea. I know Joyce Meyer is a well known author of books on faith for women, but I've never read any of her work, so I figured I'd try it out and if it's not my jam I can alter it with the Thrive curriculum.
The other book I picked up is one I've been wanting to read for a while now but never went out and bought. Teen Wisdom and Other Oxymorons by Zoe Rose Harness is an account of Zoe's family's goal to visit every US state. In Teen Wisdom Zoe shares the adventure they had and the lessons they learned through their trip as well as through her experience in working with service organizations. I knew Zoe in high school for a time and have been wanting to read her book for a while but never got the chance, so I'm super excited to jump into this one. I figured I could use all three books to make my own thing, and see where it goes. I don't want to just be winging it because I have had Crew Leads that do that before and I didn't really get a lot out of it, but I don't want it to feel like a sermon.

Babysitting and youth group have been going well lately. I babysit once a week for a small group from my church, and the kids are all rambunctious but super fun and we all have a blast just running about and playing games, or watching many many hours of Spirit on Netflix (That show guys... there's a reason I wasn't into horses when I was a kid). But it's been going good. I also have a group of girls in Jr. High that I have been working with for the past two years through my church's youth group, Remnant. We've been doing well, and we'll be finishing out the year by the end of spring. It's been a really great experience because I have never been all that great with older kids and teens, but I'm actually doing pretty well. Fifth grade is about where I max out on being a good teacher, teens and preteens just find me embarrassing, I'm not that great at relating to them. I was really nervous when I started working with this group, but I've got a good bunch and we seem to be getting on pretty well. My sister Grace is in my group and she'll be going into eighth grade this autumn, which is crazy to think about! It's really weird and silly to see her be a little teenager with her friends and think about the fact that she'll be 13 this June!

That's about everything I've been doing lately, it's just a lot of car maintenance and a lot of late nights out working with church. In the next few weeks I'll be getting the rest of my shopping done for camp, because I still have some things I want to get for my car before I leave so I will be very busy in the next coming weeks.

As I get closer to the trip I'm going to write a post on the tips and tricks on packing light that I've learned from doing NDC, because it's all information I wish I had when I started camp, and it's useful when travelling in general because I now know how to pack a ton of stuff really efficiently. I start on May 21st, so I'll be keeping you posted on things as I get closer to that date! I'm super excited and also really nervous, but I just can't wait to get started! The only other upcoming thing is the spring Dewey Readathon on April 28th. I would love to participate but I might not get a chance because the week following it is going to be crazy busy and I don't know if I'll have time, but I did just get a Litsy account a few weeks ago, and I'm trying to use it more often so if you are of the bookish variety you should head over there and add me (coffeecakeandbooks), it's basically Instagram for book people.

Let me know how your week's been going in the comments and I'll talk to you soon!
~Delaney