My Social Media-less Life

This is part 2 of 3 about my Blimey Camp experience last weekend. This is going to be the longest blog since this was the only full day of Blimey Camp.

Yesterday, we left off with a question: did the Lord wake me up in the morning? What time?

The answers to those questions are: yes, and He woke me up at 5:09am. I had left my phone on the counter to charge and it was nowhere near my bed, so I didn’t want to use it as an alarm… which is why I asked the Lord to wake me up.

So I did my French through Duolingo (“Why French?” You ask. That’s a conversation for another time, really), spent time with the Lord, caught up on my news emails, planned out a little bit of my day since I needed to run out into town to grab a mug from a coffee shop for another friend from church, and just watched the sun rise.

This was the morning I wished we’d had just one more day of Blimey Camp, because I knew this day was going to be PACKED, and it would be fun to have a day where I could just relax with the new friends I was meeting and making. But sitting out on the front deck until it was time to leave for the morning hike wasn’t too terrible, even if that time was mostly by myself.

Amanda (from church) and I left the cabin around 6:45am to get to the main building called “The Fortress” where Josh Taylor told everyone who wanted to come on a hike to meet.

“Everyone who shows up for this early morning hike is a real one,” Josh said in a loud whisper when it was about 10 of us.

Overall, about 20-25 people showed up for this hike and it ended up lasting about an hour because we kept hitting dead end trails and had to go back. But it was a GREAT time getting to talk to more people and experience nature at the same time.

Today was the day that those who pre-registered for laser tag or zip-lining would be doing their events, but we were all very interested to see what these “Group Challenges” were that were happening before and after lunch. So that was a big topic of conversation over breakfast.

But first… there was a live recording of one of BlimeyCow’s shows, Christian Meme Review.

(As a side note, Amanda and I did go get that mug for my friend… it happened between breakfast and the live recording… but only barely)

Josh had asked us the night before to share some good Christian memes and we might get featured during the recording.

While I was intrigued by the idea of being featured in a video, I didn’t realize that ALL THREE of my memes would be featured… or that “being featured” meant coming up on stage and sitting between the guys while also reading my own memes live… into a microphone.

But hey, when that video of CMR comes out, I will be the first person to share it with you all. 🙂

The Josh that traveled with me to Blimey Camp was also featured, as well as one other guy, so I was glad to not be the only one.

After that, we finally got to find out about the Group Challenges… it was basically a Scavenger Hunt at different stations where you had to get a “Bingo” to earn points for the overall team you were under. My team was “Team Josh”, while my friend Amanda was under “Team Jordan.”

After lunch, we had the weirdest and WILDEST game of Four-Square Dodgeball I have ever played or been involved in, and that ultimately determined which team (Josh or Jordan) would win.

Sadly, Team Josh did not win, but we all had a good time and they ended up handing out “awards” for different categories that I didn’t even know there would be.

My little mini-team (Team 2C) won the award for being the only group to sing “His Cheeseburger” (you know, the VeggieTales love song by Mr. Lunt) at the “Melodious Cacophony” section of the game. So Erica got to keep a fun bike horn because I was the only one nearby to accept it.

It definitely fits my personality better than anyone else on my team anyway. 😛

Laser tag was the event I signed up to do, and I was so glad I didn’t pick zip-lining. I loved it when I did it in the Bahamas on my cruise 5 years ago, but I also knew that was probably the only time I was going to zip line in my life. Plus, laser tag took up MOST of the afternoon, whereas zip-lining itself didn’t take nearly as long.

I promise I was pretty sore by the time we got to dinner though. After hiking that morning, walking up the hill to get to the laser tag area that afternoon, PLAYING three 20-minute games of said laser tag, and all the trips I took to get to my cabin (also going up and down a steep incline), I was pretty beat.

I had pretty much decided I probably wasn’t going to do swing dancing, which is a regular thing they now plan into any BlimeyCon, and many of the people were VERY excited about it, but I was not one of them.

They switched up the schedule a bit and had “Live Quiplash” before swing dancing, where the audience votes by the loudness of the applause for each answer.

Somehow I made it to the final four, and would call my final answer the runner up, but the game was only for bragging rights anyway. 😉 The fact that I got as far as I did is the biggest bragging right of them all.

By the time they started swing dancing, it was about 9pm and I was getting tired, as was Amanda. But she wanted to swing dance a bit and I wanted to watch. When Jordan and his wife, Sara, asked the men and women to find a partner, I probably should have left then.

And then I saw Jordan coming toward me with all the pleading in his eyes.

“Are the chances greater than zero that you’d be willing to do swing dancing?”

“How many do you need?” I asked, hoping the person next to me might also be needed.
”Just one,” he said.

And that was the second moment I did something I not only didn’t want to do, but wasn’t really looking forward to doing. But I also realized something else about myself:

I see Jordan as a friend, and because of that, I’m willing to try things, even just once, if he asks.

Because I do that with my other friends. I’ve gone to concerts and rodeos with my bestest friend, Esther; I’ve gone to Ramencon with my other best friend, Rachel, and I went on nearly all of her traveling events that first year she decided to sell more books in-person; when my other friend, Jenni, asks me to go on some random last-minute adventure out in nature, so long as it doesn’t interfere with other plans, I say yes.

Friendship is a strong bond for me, and it means more than just having someone to talk to and share experiences that I’m comfortable experiencing. It also means stepping outside of my comfort zone and trying something new. It’s about trusting that friend to not judge if things don’t look exactly how we both expected.

And of course, none of my friends do that, but it’s wild to think that before this summer of Survivor and the backstabbing that occurred with that game, I really wouldn’t have done these things because Jordan was my friend. I probably wouldn’t even have done them because he’s just someone I follow on YouTube.

I’ve avoided swing dancing all the other times because I didn’t feel like it was something a friend wanted me to do, but because it was something I could opt out of.

I wouldn’t have played volleyball… because as soon as two weeks ago, I was telling people I had no intentions of playing volleyball. I think I even mentioned that to Amanda on the way to pick up Josh and Eli (pronounced Elly) on Friday morning.

Friendship is getting out of your comfort zone and finding you really do enjoy the camaraderie of a good time more than you enjoy watching from the sidelines.

My first partner (the one who needed the “one” person) was alright, but when the option came up to switch partners, I definitely decided that was best for us both.

So I wasn’t there for long, but it was a good time overall. When I left, I made sure to tell Jordan so he was aware that I did dance, but was no longer going to be present.

That night, I asked the Lord to wake me up the next morning and went to sleep thanking Him for at least one good day with my BlimeyCow friends.