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I'm back to Blogging about hiking, running and life...over at Word Press:  http://iampause.wordpress.com/

I Am

You Never Get Any Fun...

...Out of the Things You Have Not Done...

This girl continually teaches me that it's all about LIVING.
Living large, living in the moment, living with your heart pounding wildly in your chest!

She plays hard, she works hard, and she's constantly in motion. Everything is fun to her. Isn't that how it should be? Somewhere along the way we start to limit ourselves. Instead of trying to figure out when and how that happened, I'm simply moving forward with her as my 8 year old guide. Some might say that as the adult, I am the one teaching her. I'm starting to think it is quite the other way around.

What has made your inner daring 8 year old come out in you lately?
Are you living large? In the moment? What makes your heart pound mightily in your chest these days?

I have to say that the rope swing made me feel pretty good the other day :D

One Freaking Craftastic Day

Some women are into crafts. Some women are not. Some of these women come together every Wednesday for a women's bible study group. One week they decided to make diaper cakes for a baby shower. A list was passed around and too soon it landed in the nervously sweaty hands of the least crafty woman in town: Me.

My first thought was "my tummy hurts". My second thought was "cheap and easy". Then my eyes landed on it - clear rubber bands. Quick! Write your name down before someone else grabs it!

Done.

Waiting until the last possible day, I set out for my local craft store, Michael's "Where Creativity Happens". HA! I thought they might have a poster with my face on it behind the cash register reading "non-crafter - proceed with caution". After wandering around with drool pooling in the corner of my mouth and a blank look on my face, I was carefully approached by a young man who asked if I was finding what I was looking for.

Me: Um...rubber bands?

He: Rubber bands?

Me: Yes, clear rubber bands, please.

He: We don't carry rubber bands.

Me: I'm doing a craft project that requires rubber bands.

He: We don't carry rubber bands.

Me: I need clear ones.

He: We don't carry rubber bands.

Me: I don't understand. I'm making a craft project that requires rubber bands. You're a craft store, right?

He: Yes.

Me: Great. Can you tell me which aisle has the clear and crafty type of rubber bands?

He: Ma'am, we don't carry rubber bands.

Me: Crap.


So...2 hours, 4 stores, half a tank of gas and a little bit of vodka later, after frantically facebooking crafty people to help me, I end up at my local department store hair care aisle and find the damn rubber bands.


And that, my friends, is one freaking craftastic day.

Never. Again.

The Cold Shower

The outdoor heat yesterday was sweltering enough, but my hot shower felt like I was trying to boil myself to mush. I worked out the kinks in my shoulders, rinsed my hair and tried to wash away the thoughts and troubles of the day shift before heading into my night shift. At the last minute, I stepped back in and turned the water back on, this time to cold. I once heard that you should finish your hair rinse with lukewarm water to close the cuticles and make it shinier. My hair currently needs all the help it can get, but cold felt better than lukewarm. Not freezing cold, but that coolness that you can stay in for longer than you probably have time for on a busy blazing hot work day.

I suddenly found myself going back to memories of a much different cleansing in a much different place. Almost 30 years ago I took this shower - cold, refreshing, and incredibly lovely. It was the first real shower I had taken all summer. We started that season with less than ideal large group baths in a lake that we were told held small alligators. Bathing with strangers in what was likely a Florida swamp in retrospect, turned into the occasional ocean bath, but mostly river baths in Belize - eating mangos and pineapples and letting the juice flow down our faces before bringing the water up with cupped hands to cleanse us. There is something to be said for a mango eating bath time, but that shower - oh boy - that shower was amazing.

After long weeks of hard work and the freedom you get from getting dirty, being dirty and staying dirty, you come upon a shower shack right on the ocean and you hop in and realize what you've been missing. Not sure whether to look up and out at the incredible ocean view or down in amazement at how much dirt was leaving my skin in each small rivulet of cool water running down to my feet, I closed my eyes and let that water gently flow over my head and face.

It is these moments, these simple bits of time, that can leave an imprint on us that lasts almost three decades - stuck in our brain somewhere until just the right time to surface and remind us that it's not about expensive shampoos and regularly scheduled haircuts and why I have to work nights, but about how much we have to be thankful for in the simplest things that God gives us - the taste of a mango drip on our chin that we flick away with our tongue, the laughter of teenage girls trying to wash their hair in the river, and that amazing rustic shower on a beach in Mexico. There are all kinds of dirt that can get washed away in a shower like that, even without soap or shampoo.

School's. Out. For. Summer.

When I asked Jack what he wanted to do on his first day of Summer Vacation (or a 3 month and one day long weekend as he puts it...and is that true by the way? 3 months and one day? Seems quite a long time for kids and parents to be together...), he said he wanted to check out the Hawthorne Bridge.

And that's just what we did.

First a little peek to see what was below...

....then climbing to a higher view point...

...soaked in some sun...

...got a piggyback ride from our old friend, Vera...

...started our trek across the oldest bridge in Portland...

...Phew! That's a relief...

...wondering why we didn't think to bring a swimsuit...

...loving on her "bubby"...

...gathered up some babies...

...perfect timing to see the bridge get raised for a lunch cruise...

...and that's what we call a fun urban hike for the first day of Summer Vacation!!

We're sure glad that...

Well...the Wild Canyon Games Weekend has come and gone. What a blast!