Twas the day before camp and all through the house,
Every creature was stirring trying to get packed.

That’s where the creativity ends on that catchy little Christmas in July song parody. I didn’t even bother to try and rhyme. Wait. Not true. I did give it half a second worth of thought. Mouse, louse, douse, packed. And that’s where the song ends.

I don’t believe I mentioned that two days before camp, Justus, our 13 year old, had an out-of-town soccer tournament. Therefore, we had to be completely ready for a soccer tournament with all food and cold beverages and food (never enough food), plus five people worth of a clothing for a week, towels, hoodies just in case, sleeping bags, sheets, Bibles, shoes, flashlights, class teaching materials (for Matt and me), and twenty to ninety other random items – by the Friday before leaving for camp on Sunday. No biggie.

The hoodies? They were argued over. “Mom, why did you put ‘hoodie and jeans’ on our packing list? We will totally not need them.” To which I answered that you never know when the temperature might dip down at the end of July at church camp and you’d sure hate to be stuck freezing in shorts and tanks so pack them because I am right.

Oh, they will thank me once we’re there and they are chilly some evening. Which won’t ever happen because the lows are supposed to be hot. But still, just in case.

So all that to say that I was way too busy to cook on Friday but everyone still wanted to eat so somehow I had to schedule that into my day. I did not, however, remember to put “clean the kitchen” on my to-do list. So I would quickly cook some form of a meal, then leave the room to carry on with my other jobs. Therefore, when I walked into the kitchen for a glass of water Friday afternoon, I was greeted with this:

While this picture surely throws us all into overstimulation because there is so much mess to look over at one time, your eyes undoubtedly landed directly on the bag of Bugles right there front and center. What can I say? Elias (11) dearly wanted to take a snack to camp that was all his own and not in the homemade granola or fresh fruit category, so I allowed him to spend $1 of his own money on whatever he picked out at the dollar store that wouldn’t give him an automatic cavity. He decided on a bag of Bugles.

As you can see, after taking this picture I promptly walked back out of the kitchen and began writing a blog post about my mess instead of taking the time to clean it. Hey, I’d been working hard and needed to sit for a while, plus writing sounded like more fun than scraping smoothie gunk off the countertops.

The suitcases were placed by the front door with care,
In hopes that we hadn’t forgotten anything.

Seriously, I should just get back in there and clean the kitchen. And also, I should never, ever compose Christmas songs.

Update:  I wrote this last Friday afternoon while avoiding my kitchen. You’ll be happy to know that the kitchen was sparkling when we left for camp. Or at least it was a level better than disaster. And those hoodies? I’ve already worn mine twice. So there.