summer soul camp: family, home, self

On June 1st my sister-in-law and I began our summer soul camp, a challenge/reset/something. She had done a workshop through North Ridge Farm a few years ago called “Summer Soul Camp.” Feeling like she needed a reset, a time of shutting the garden gate to reconnect with family, home, and self, my sister-in-law proposed we work on areas in our life for the next 3 months. Having done a 30-day reset that was partially successful, I was all in.

30-day reset update

My biggest struggle with my 30-day reset was my eating habits, specifically sugar. I just couldn’t break eating sugar, yet I could feel the inflammation in my body. I finally did a fast of 4 days which seems to have broken the cycle.

summer soul camp

I picked 6 areas to focus on for the next 90 days: creativity, faith/catholicism, health/fitness, gardening, household, and food. My list contains a mixture of self-care and practical items, though there’s an element of creativity in almost everything on the list.

As an aside, I am one of those people who has a multitude of creative outlets. From a young age, I played instruments, drew pictures, took photographs, wrote poems, and painted. In high school, I branched out into crafts including basket weaving, macrame, and woodworking. I also taught myself calligraphy. In college, I learned to knit from my grandmother; later on, I picked up embroidery. Nowadays, I express my creativity through baking, gardening, and home decorating projects.

Daily Non-negotiables

As part of the 6 areas for the challenge, I came up with a list of daily non-negotiables (my sister-in-law’s term): one photo, one drawing, one blog post, movement, eating, keto, The Catechism in a Year podcast, and prayers. I have these listed in the Streak app to help me track my progress.

Focus Areas

I decided to focus on these areas for the next 3 months. While I generally focus on these areas anyway when planning, I set specific priorities for the next 3 months.

Creativity

• photo daily
• draw daily
• write daily

Faith/Catholicism

• read my stack of Catholic books
• Catechism in a Year podcast

Health/Fitness

• keto diet
• running 2 miles daily
• strength training – MAPS Performance
• daily movement: walking, gardening, dog walks
• insidetracker – analysis of biomarkers from blood draw

Gardening

• drain by fountain
• wood chips
• build new beds
• work on fountain

Household

• finish breakfast room
• work on the powder room
• hang pictures
• work on office
• thrifting

Food

• cook new recipes from new Israeli, Palestinian, and Indian cookbooks
• pantry challenge
• use never/seldom used items