lessons in kayaking

today was a beautiful day.  Sunny, nice breeze, warm but not oppressively hot.   Nice day to rent a kayak with Princess and float around the lake.

Or so I thought.

It was indeed beautiful.  We headed down to the Cove (Trey was home with Little man, who was napping) planning on a 3 hour rental for a canoe.  As we were driving to the park, I heard on the radio something about the dragon boat races sponsored by the local Christian radio station, Love89 (www.love89.org).  Hmmmm.  That meant that the Cove would be a bit more crowded than usual, but at least there would be something to watch while we were out floating.

It was indeed crowded.  It took us hours to find a place to park, then we had to hike the AT back to the boat rental building.  When we arrived, I talked with the girl behind the counter about kayaks vs. canoes.  We decided on a kayak - nothing like trying something new!  So I loaded up our water bottles and sunscreen, checked that my phone was in my pocket and put on the straight - I mean - life jacket and we headed out.  So far, so good...

It was indeed breezy.  As we were heading out of the protective shield of the trees into the vast lake, we were pummeled with gale force winds and waves surfers dream about.  I think there was a hurricane somewhere to the east of us.  We watched a couple of the races then started towards another section of the lake, with the wind at our back.  We trespassed near a hawk's nest (they didn't really like us all that much) and passed a sailboat marina.  Once we passed the boats, I stopped and rested and checked my phone to see what time it was.  Note to self: don't take a cell phone in a kayak if it isn't waterproof, or at least in a plastic bag, or else it'll get wet and not work.  

Well, that's no good.

So we turn around and start back.  Paddling against the wind is much harder than paddling with the wind, did you know that?  At least the waves were bigger going this way.  Actually, bouncing on the waves was pretty fun.  Princess kept squealing and laughing so I was enjoying that - even if my arms did want to fall off.  By the time we got to the Cove park, I was exhausted, so we floated around a little bit and watched another boat race before heading back to the cove where there weren't any gale force winds threatening us.

I found out what time it was and realized we had only been out there for 30 minutes.  30 minutes, huh?  I was getting nervous about not having a working phone (how did we ever survive without cell phones???) so we stayed in the little cove.  I let Princess try paddling for a while.  After ducking a few times as she helicoptored the paddle, I decided it might be prudent for me to take over paddling.

We headed back in, packed everything up and called Trey from the rental building (he was on call so I wanted to make sure he didn't need me to rush home).  He wonderfully suggested that perhaps I should have put the phone in a plastic bag.   Gee, thanks.

All it all, it was a good day.

blog list

I've added a list of the blogs I visit on a semi-regular basis (more than once per week) to share some of my inspiration.  I can only hope to become the writers that some of these people are.  However, the one blog that I visit most frequently, I couldn't get to post, so I'll mention it here.  It's mom2my6pack.blogspot.com.  I think she's changing it to www.becauseisaidso.com soon.  I really enjoy reading her stories.  She makes me laugh out loud - oh, that LOL isn't it?

Blog ad

Ok, I've been reading numerous blogs trying to get a feel for what's out there.  It's intimidating thinking of all the different people writing about whatever is happening in their lives at that moment.  I've visited some of what I would call "big time" blogs and they have hundreds of comments and thousands of visitors.  I saw one that had 600+ comments!  Wow.  That's a lot.  But I've also noticed they have ads on their blogs.  So I started thinking (yeah, I know, you should see the smoke coming out of my ears) should I put ads on my blog? 

Could I make a little money with this?  I know it's a little early to tell, but what the heck, right?  

Trey advised that I should wait - after asking how much would I make, of course.  So, being the dutiful, non-confrontational wife that I am (no comments from the peanut gallery, thank you!) I deferred to his advice and have decided to wait on putting ads on my blog.

By the way, here's a picture of the infamous puppy.  Ain't 'e cute?  

Wednesday Week in Review

I'm still working on this whole blogging thing.  I haven't quite figured it out.  I used to keep a fairly good journal, but then life happened.  I'm sure you know how that is.

I'm going to start a "Wednesday Week in Review".  It's probably been done before, but it's a consistent thing that I can at least attempt to keep up with.

The first big thing that happened last week was Little Man falling down a couple of steps and bonking his head - as he put it.  We waited until the next morning to have a doctor look at it and he did the "let's-make-mom-feel-guilty" for not bringing him in right away.  He wasn't able to get stitches, but he did get the dermabond glue on his head.  At least chicks dig scars, right?

Then we get a puppy.  He's cute but he's young.  I haven't been this sleep deprived since Little Man was a little man.  

Then the loose tooth.  How cool is the first loose tooth?  Monkey is very excited.

Ok, well, I just reviewed everything that I already posted about previously.  That's no fun.   I guess I'll have to do the WWIR only on things I didn't blog about.

Did everyone starting a blog go through all this?  This is much harder than I thought it would be.

puppies? loose tooth? huh??

yes, we have a new puppy now.  I had blissfully forgotten how much fun it is to house train a puppy.  Good thing we're planning on replacing the carpet in the near future.

Anyway, it's a boxer puppy.  He's cute but I'm a little worried about his health and background.  We were given the pup under what I would call false pretenses.  Based on what the friend was telling us, he would be coming from a reputable breeder in a NAFTA agreement between the friend's mom (also a breeder) and the other breeder.  In actuality, the puppy came from breeder at an adopt-a-thon.  We don't have any health records on the puppy, just an AKC form stating the pup is an AKC registered boxer.  To some, that may be important, but for me, I'd rather have health records on the puppy.  Any backyard breeder can claim AKC status.

We'll be seeing the vet in the near future to check this bad boy out.  Hope all will be well because Trey and Monkey are pretty attached already.  

OK, I have figured out that if I wait too long before posting to the blog, a day has gone by and much has changed.  This is going to take some getting used to.  

Ok, so the puppy went to the vet today and he's mostly ok.  He's very underweight and has a bad case of worms, but other than that, seems well.  Hopefully, after the deworming, he'll be a much more active puppy (and by then, I'll be wishing he wasn't so active, I bet).

In other news, it was discovered at dinner last night that Monkey has a loose tooth.  How exciting for her!  Trey and I told her we'd tie dental floss around it and tie the other end to a door knob to speed along the process.  She wasn't interested.  Guess the tooth fairy will have to wait a little while longer...

ch ch ch changes....

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes (Turn and face the stranger) Ch-ch-Changes Pretty soon you're gonna get a little older Time may change me But I can't trace time I said that time may change me But I can't trace time

(David Bowie, in case you didn't recognize it)

Ok, so I changed the name of my blog.  I like "Butterflies in my hand" better anyway.  It's something my daughter said this morning.  Actually, it's something she's always said when her hands/feet/leg/whatever had fallen asleep.  I thought it was the coolest way to describe what it feels like when your foot falls asleep.  Certainly better than "pins and needles."

Have you ever held a butterfly?  So light and barely there.  Fleeting, too.  They don't linger.  It's like our lives, our children and friends.  Not light and barely there, but fleeting sometimes.  You blink and your baby girl is in Kindergarten.  Your baby boy isn't a baby anymore.  He's at the ER getting his face fixed (Little man fell down a couple of steps and split his eyebrow open the other day).  You find out that someone you knew in college has passed suddenly.  Life is fleeting, isn't it?

Daddy told me once when I was a little girl that butterflies are the spirits of old friends that you haven't seen in a while floating by to check on you, making sure you're ok.  Mommies and Daddies are good at telling such things to children.  I'm older now and "know better" but still when I see a butterfly, I say a little prayer for a friend that I haven't seen in a while and tell the butterfly that I'm doing ok.  Is it silly?  Yeah, maybe so, but I still do it.

in the beginning...

in the beginning, there was light.  

Ok, but in the beginning of this blog, there's me.  I'll be talking about my family in just a little while, but right now I'm sharing some of my interests.  I like reading, sometimes writing, painting, photography, scrapbooking, anything outdoorsy - hiking, rock-climbing, canoeing, camping, but most of that was before children.

Now, I like sleeping, quiet mornings with my coffee before everyone wakes up, evenings after the kids go to bed, sleeping, playing with the children, did I mention sleeping?  I'm not old, but I certainly feel like it sometimes.

Some of my dislikes are cleaning...  um, cleaning... OK, I really dislike cleaning.  I also don't like inconsiderate drivers.  Especially in the drop off line at school.  People in a hurry to get to work that think they have the right to cut in line or cut through the parking lot to get ahead.   I really don't like that.  If you're in that much of a hurry, leave home earlier.  It's a simple concept - why am I the only one that gets it?

Enough about me.  Now it's Trey's turn.  He likes to fly airplanes.  It's a hobby that pays well.  He also likes woodworking.  He's teaching himself to play guitar and he likes golf.  He likes to play XBox and Playstation 3.  He also likes to organize and sometimes clean, but the housecleaning usually falls to me because I'm the SAHM.  

The kids like just about everything, as kids normally do.  Monkey likes singing and dancing, coloring, reading - you know, all that fun stuff.

Little Man likes cars and balls.  He'll want to play just about every ball sport there is.  And he's good!  Even at 1, he was throwing balls with amazing accuracy and strength.  I'm only a little biased.  I also catch him looking at books a lot, even though he isn't reading yet.

I'm thinking that's all there is for now.  We've done our introductions, now it's on to our daily lives.

where do we go next....

 

nicknames

We all have nicknames, don't we?  Whether we like them or not, right?  Some given during childhood by our parents, some earned at school (even some we didn't know about), some we give ourselves.

Allow me to introduce us.  I'm KoolAid.  Yeah, I know, weird, isn't it?  I got it in college because I dyed a streak of pink in my hair with kool-aid.  Black cherry, if I remember right.  Just so you know, kool-aid doesn't wash out.  Ever.  

My husband we'll call Trey.  He's a "third" in his family so this fits.  I sometimes have other names for him (good and bad), but we'll keep this a family-oriented blog.

My daughter, 5, is Monkey.  She's been a monkey climber since she was a toddler.  Sometimes she's Princess or Punkin, but Monkey still works.

My son, 2, is Little Man because he looks like a little man.  Even when he was a baby, he was a "little man."   Sometimes he's Buddy, but then what little boy isn't?

we have 2 cats - Dumb and Scaredy and 1 dog - Ol girl.

Guess that's the family...  now, let's see where we are...