the campground family

I love change, crafts, yoga, my little family, musicals, travelling, tramping, being a bit of a hippy, my tattoo, picking great outfits reading, careers and development, thinking, delicious healthy food. After three years as expats in Brunei, in 2016 we moved home to New Zealand to manage a holiday park. This blog is about toddler parenting, campground life, and trying to balance the two.

[breakthecitysky]

Make the Ordinary Come Alive

Do not ask your children  to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is a way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples, and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself.

 - William Martin, The Parent’s Tao Te Ching

[baturday]

[abloodymess]

that tree isn’t high enough stupid!

He’s so sleepy he doesn’t even care. <3

[adriofthedead]

me as a bat

[ecdysozoa]

I’m in love with this bat

[xekstrin]

“fuck it, good enough.”

[thecampgroundkid]

This week I've been thinking and writing a lot, but none of it's been for my blog. It's all been for Keep it Kind Online, a campaign for considerate interactions online.

We have lots of things in the pipeline for campaign day tomorrow (Wednesday 7 June), but today my co-creator Christina has written a wonderful blog about what she means by kindness.

You can find the blog here: https://keepitkindonline.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/kindness/

If you want to join the campaign, you can follow along on our Facebook page or Instagram (@keepitkindonline) or Twitter (@keepkindonline).

[thecampgroundkid]

Nastiness is boring. Keep it Kind Online. Join the campaign on Wednesday 7 June. More information here: http://www.facebook.com/keepitkindonline

[lizclimo]

#FridayFeeling

[daysofsonnets]

Giacomo Bagnara

[tinfoil-crown-deactivated201801]

Bill Watterson is an insightful dude…

[physicalvocalist]

Calvin’s dad is a radical anti capitalist.

[daysofsonnets]

[thecampgroundkid]

It's National Infertility Awareness Week. So I wrote something: https://thecampgroundkid.wordpress.com/2017/04/24/listen-up/

[plant-folk]

The full rotation of the Moon as seen by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

[okcupidescapades]

i feel like the most important piece of wisdom i can impart on teenagers is that no one–no one–knows what the fuck they’re doing

my brother is 26 years old, makes $200k a year, and just bought a house with his fiance. he’s the success story you hear about but never actually meet in person, but it all happened by accident. he wanted to go to college for clarinet performance, but he got rejected from all the top schools. so he decided to major in physics instead, and then went on to get a doctorate to put off being an adult for a few more years. but then he ended up dropping out halfway through the program and accepting a job with google as a software engineer. so to reiterate: my brother majored in something he was not interested in, and then he got a job that had nothing to do with his degree. 

he isn’t successful because he had some master plan he followed, he just stumbled around blindly until something worked out. and that’s what we’re all doing–i majored in political science and now i do customer service for a company that makes industrial-sized gas detection monitors. the marketing director at my company has a degree in biology, and my mom has an MBA and works at a middle school.  no one knows what they’re doing, we’re all just trying different things until something works out.

so if you don’t have a plan, that’s fine. most of us don’t. and even those of us who do, don’t usually end up doing the thing they thought they would. it’s okay to relax and let life carry you wherever it’s gonna carry you. because even though a lot of us don’t end up doing the thing we wanted, most of us end up happy anyway.

[okcupidescapades]

I’ve been thinking about this post since I made it a few hours ago, and I realized that I literally don’t know anyone who’s doing what they thought they’d be doing at this point in their life. I know a girl that has a degree in neuroscience and works in a restaurant (and makes quite a bit more money than I do, might I add), and a guy who wanted to be a parole officer but is now a security guard. I know people who wanted to be lawyers but ended up not having the grades for law school. I have a friend who’s 24 and just finished her bachelor’s, and two friends who decided to go to grad school because the idea of joining the adult world terrified them.

When I was seventeen, I was 100% sure that I was going to get a job as a bureaucrat and save the world. When I was a 21-year-old recent college grad, I found out that it’s impossible to get a government job unless you know someone. So I gave up and found something else. I know my teenage self would be disappointed if she could see where I’m at, but you know what? I don’t care. Because teenage me was an idiot. She didn’t know anything about the world or how it worked, and she couldn’t have possibly predicted the curveballs that life would throw at her. And because I don’t know a single person who’s doing the thing they wanted to do when they were teenagers.

I know a thousand people who aren’t where they thought they’d be, and zero people who are following the path they set out for themselves. All of us are confused and all of us are scared, and it’s okay if you are too.

[sabrecmc]

Adulthood is a series of moments when you look around and think, “Wow, this situation really needs an adult,” followed by, “Oh, right. Crap. Okay, then.”

[queerlybelovedones]

I knew I would become a vet. Until about grade 10 when I realized how much school it was (I HATED school). So I went to college for 2 years and became a paramedic with great grades and an fee job possibilities. Then I started having seizures and couldn’t do that anymore. Randomly I applied for a job online that had no qualifications beyond a fast typing speed (hello millennials!) and I am a 911 dispatcher and make $60,000 a year PART TIME. If I choose full time in a year or so I could be making $90k with ease.

[whathappenshappenswithpurpose]

I love this thread.

I thought I wanted to be an English teacher and did 4 years of undergrad before I realized, nope. I completed all of the requirements for a degree in social welfare the following year and literally fell into a job managing the women’s shelter per the referral and recommendation from one of my soc profs.

I’ve now been in social work / a family therapist for 16 years.

Also, my first marriage ended as a burning dumpster. My first date with my now husband he told me he didn’t want kids or get married and I literally wrote in my journal, “Just… no.” We’ve now been together for 9 years, married for 5, have a beautiful infant daughter, and 5 college degrees between the two of us.

My life looks nothing like how my 21 year old self thought it would.

[thecampgroundkid]

I 100% relate to this.

I thought I'd get a PhD in chemistry, but instead I left uni to get a masters in dairy science. Then I worked as a food techie and project manager. Then I left that to work in human resources. Then I studied career development and did some management coaching. Then we moved overseas for three years and I didn't work. And now I manage a campground.

Nobody could have predicted that mess of a career journey. And while I don't know that I'd be deemed a "success", this job is pretty cool.

[mentalflossr]

[thecampgroundkid]

"The Happy Platypus infuser. Because I always say there aren't enough tea infusers that look like an animal has been gutted and bleeding into your cup." http://offbeathome.com/bizarre-tea-infusers/

[sixpenceee]

Pictures of Sunsets through Shattered Mirrors by Bing Wright 

[fosterswear]

This is going to be my new Monday motto.

[did-you-know]

After decades of thinking there were only 7 continents, geologists are now arguing there is an 8th. ‘Zealandia’ consists of New Zealand and New Caledonia and could potentially be the smallest of all the (known) continents- however, there is no scientific body or widely accepted definition that designates what is or is not a continent, so Zealandia will only become official if enough scientists get on board. Source

[thecampgroundkid]

Yesss. Make us a continent!

[thecampgroundkid]

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all. Love and kisses from The Campground Family.