Blessings of Many Kinds

I still don't have my computer set up at home, and it still doesn't have a wireless network adapter so that's why blogging has been sparser than usual.  I'm hoping to get things more settled in this coming week so that I can get back to some productive writing patterns.

But in the meantime, some random thoughts, collected from the past week:

--Yesterday at church, we had our annual blessing of teachers, staff, and administrators.  I've written about this tradition before, most recently in this post from last year.

--It's taken me a long time to feel like I deserve a blessing too.  At first, I felt unworthy because I teach college, and that's not as tough as my compatriots who teach in public schools.  And then I felt unworthy because I've been teaching less and less.  But now, I realize how much work administrators do to keep things running smoothly.  It's very different from what teachers do--I'll be the first to admit that.  But it's important work, nonetheless.

--I've said this before, but it bears repeating.  I don't think it's just teachers/staff/administrators who need a blessing for the work they do in their occupations.  It would be a cool some Labor Day Sunday to bless all of us who toil outside the home--send us all out blessed to be a blessing.

--Summer seems to end earlier each year.  In some ways, it has.  Students go back to school midway through August.  That means they're not going to camp in August.  Families aren't taking vacations in August, except for the ones who rush away the last week before classes start.

--What will be the future of summer camps, if summer gets shorter and shorter?  I know that many camps are doing more with adult programming during the non-summer months.  Will we some day come to a point where camps don't have much in the way of sleep-away programs?  These ideas may deserve posts of their own, so perhaps more later.

--We not only blessed teachers/staff/administrators yesterday.  We also had a chili cook-off.  Yes, a chili cook-off in August.  We probably need to migrate that event to the winter months.  Maybe have a salad contest in August.

--I was the judge of the chili cook-off.  What fun!  We also judged cornbread too.  I thought I'd be blown away by spice and heat.  I was not. 

--It was good to have that fellowship.  It was good to have a tasty meal in a week of getting back from our great southeast driving trip and continuing to move stuff from the old house to the new house.  It was good to remember why we come together.