52 New Things -- Week 30 -- Cara Box

Forget Christmas in July -- it's like Christmas every day for the woman who lives across the hall from us. I was home every day in the month of June, taking a class over the internet, and the UPS guy seriously came at least three times a week. Do you have any idea how torturous it is to think, "Hey! The UPS guy just came . . . and I can hear him coming up the stairs! Maybe it's for me!" . . . and then he knocks on the door across the hall? Every time.

While I realize I should not be jealous of what is clearly an addiction to the Home Shopping Network (one quick peek makes it very clear that she is not working from home but indeed ordering, ordering, ordering stuff from QVC), I wanted a delivery, too, darn it.

A few months back, I bookmarked a blog about doing a Cara Box Exchange; basically you get matched up with other bloggers and exchange a boxes of fun goodies. After being envious of my neighbor all of June, I signed up for the Cara Box exchange for July (not realizing it was about to turn into the craziest month of my life).

It was fun to read the blogs of the two young women I was matched with. I put together several items for a girl named Sam at The Samantha Daily. She's a cute & bubbly college girl who made me smile every time I read one of her cute postings. She keeps a book of wedding ideas, so I sent her a Bride magazine. She also blogged about how she wished she were more flexible, so I ordered a flexibility DVD off of Amazon for her. Neither of those really fit the "nautical" theme we were supposed to be shooting for, but I couldn't find much of anything -- a couple of rubber ducks, an ocean-scented candle, and red and blue nail polish were the best I could come up with. Oh, and you were supposed to try to make something, too; I scoured Pinterest but couldn't find much of anything that matched my craftiness level -- LOW SKILL. I ended up making her a sugar scrub . . . it was bluish. Like the ocean. Which is kinda nautical, right? Ugh. I hope she wasn't horribly disappointed.

I got a box from Cait over at My Life As A Long. She's spunky and fun and way more crafty than I could ever hope to be. She's also working hard at getting fit and looking great . . . which kind of makes me feel bad about myself, to be honest. I need to follow her lead! Anyway, she sent me a fab package and stuck to the nautical theme way better than I did. I got a Scentsy satchel, red nail polish, fun straws, cool hair ties, and then -- putting my Cara Box to shame -- a personalized beach towel. For real. It's awesome. I love it. But I feel like a crappy Cara Box partner after seeing it!

The whole Christmas in July part was awesome -- I just hope Sam wasn't bummed to get a box from Miss Lack-of-Crafty-Craftiness!

52 New Things -- Week 29 -- Bedwetting

I want to write about camp, okay? And no, it's not a new thing -- I worked there the whole summer in 2010 -- but I had to change some sheets for the first time ever, so we're gonna go with that as the new thing so I can write about what I want to write about. ;)

Can I just say Paul Newman was a stud? And not in the blue-eyed-movie-star sense, but in the leave-the-world-a-better-place sense. Thousands of kids with cancer, sickle cell disease, metabolic issues, HIV, and other illnesses get to spend a week or a weekend at the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp every year to forget about hospitals and (in Newman's words) raise a little hell. For a short amount of time, they get to be like any other kid. I wish more of the rich and famous would follow his lead; twenty-five years after founding the camp and five years after his death, camper after camper after camper reaps the benefit of the legacy he left behind.

I drove out Friday and Saturday and the kids arrived Sunday. We had an absolutely fabulous week fishing, riding horses, swimming, singing, dancing, and more. There were six little girls in our cabin, all with sickle cell disease. Before I worked at camp, I didn't know anything about sickle, like the fact that kids with sickle often get cold . . . which means kids with sickle rarely go swimming in the summer because pool water is too cold. The Hole in the Wall's pool? A toasty 89 degrees. The kids were in heaven.

The second to last night at camp was rough. I'd already been woken up twice by two girls needing help; I finally drifted back to sleep and was dreaming the girls were up at 5:30am and I was instructing them to go back to sleep when a little hand patted my shoulder.

"Do you know where my cheetah print shorts are?" a little voice asked.

"Go back to sleep, honey," I mumbled. "We'll find them in the morning."

I heard her rustling around in her trunk, then creep out of the room toward the bathroom. Only then did I groggily realize she'd probably wet the bed. I hurried after her and found her getting out a washcloth and a bar of soap.

"Did you have an accident?" I asked. When she nodded, I told her to go ahead and clean herself up while I put new sheets on the bed. I managed to get the bed changed and her back into it without waking up any of the other girls.

I will be a horrible mother someday. They will puke, pee, wail . . . and I will sleep through it all.

All six of our girls were great, and the boys in the cabin next door were a mix of adorable and hellish. It's the kind of thing where you're super excited at the start of the week, exhausted and unsure you can finish strong toward the end of the week, and sad to see them go on the last day.

My overall feeling all week was gratefulness . . . gratefulness for a place where kids feel safe and loved and normal and awesome for a brief moment . . . gratefulness for the college-kid counselors who choose low pay and lots of love over internships . . . gratefulness for people with money who contribute the millions of dollars it takes to let every kid experience camp absolutely free . . . and gratefulness that I get to be a part of it.

Here's a quick three-minute slideshow that gives you a glimpse into a week in the life of a camper -- totally fun!! And no, I'm not in it . . . but when you see a feisty-looking little guy blasting someone with a super-soaker in the pool, guess who was on the receiving end? This girl. And I couldn't be more grateful.