Camp Creek Press

For all interested parties who have politely poked me now and again about the Club, yes, it is still alive!

I hope you'll think it was worth the wait when I tell you it is going to be a FREE download (yay!) with an occasional (hopefully inexpensive) (always optional) mail-order.

I'm a person who likes to have a lot on my plate at all times — somehow, it helps me focus on getting things done. The more I do, the more I do, if you know what I mean. (And, correspondingly, the less I do .. well, that just ends in me sitting around like a stump. See below.)

On the other hand, even I have to throw my hands up sometimes and wonder if I can ever get it all done. Sometimes I just have to pick one thing to concentrate on and finally finish, or one thing (or, to be honest, more than one thing) to just ignore for awhile. That's what the back burner is for, right?

This one has been on the back burner for a little while, but I'm moving it up to the front and giving it a good stir. Thank you for waiting so patiently!

Figure 1. Lori in her inert stage.

The first Club packet is almost ready!

Thanks to all who have e-mailed me politely asking if progress is being made. Your gentle inquiries are the wind beneath my wings.

When we're ready, we will alert everyone on the mailing list. The first iteration will no doubt become a collector's item, like Superman issue 1.

I want to introduce a little project we've been working on.

We have been putting together a little mail-order club for kids -- we're calling it the Camp Creek Club. Think nature, think arts & crafts, think stories and poems and puzzles, think a wonderful packet of do-make-play coming in the mail.

The Club is meant to be used by kids without needing adult supervision -- things they can do themselves! Of course, if a child can't read yet, they still might enjoy many of the activities. (Then they would need some help.) But if your child can read, our goal is for the packet to contain things they can handle primarily on their own.

It is possible that even if you are not a child yourself, and even if you don't have any children of your own, you may wish to be a member of the Camp Creek Club -- after all, it will be chock full of ideas for doing things with kids, whether they're nieces, nephews, grandchildren, scout troops, or Sunday school kids. We promise not to discriminate against anyone based on their age.

This idea has been brewing for years -- I was a big fan of mail-order clubs when I was a kid (the Reader's Digest Children's Book-a-Month club, Weekly Reader, Highlights, the Sunday paper kids' page...). Am I dating myself? Also, sending away for things in the mail -- 1,000 foreign stamps! 100 foreign coins! spy glasses! joke books!

A few years ago I put together a prototype of a packet we could mail to our students during the summer, full of things to make and do. The Club is just a slightly bigger, year-round version of that same idea.

We are sitting on top of eight years' worth of science, nature, and art activities ... and so much more. How better to use it up than parcel it out in goody bags for kids?

The Club won't be free, but it won't be expensive, and we have no idea how many times a year we might make a packet until we give it a try. It could be 4, 6, or 8 times a year. If you're interested at all, just click on "Join Our Mailing List" in the right-hand column, or leave your e-mail in the comments, and you'll hear about it when the first batch is ready to go!