Happy Sunday! It is a GLORIOUS day in Texas. The weather is absolutely spectacular! I spent a good deal of it outside yesterday, kayaking with my friend Nancy. There is a little creek is about 10 minutes from our neighborhood and no matter how many times we go, it always feels and looks a little bit different. Sometimes the water is high, sometimes it is low, sometimes there is a film of something on top of it, sometimes it is choppy, sometimes is it smooth. No matter how it changes, it always feels like we are on vacation. Seriously. We do the hard work of loading and unloading the kayaks, which takes us all of five or ten minutes, but feels like the work you have to do when you get ready for vacation. We have our loading and unloading process down to a good system and it happens quickly and efficiently. We lug the kayaks from the parking lot to the little rocky beach where we put the boats in the water. Plop our butts down on the kayaks and instantly the world melts away. I actually feel my blood pressure lowering, stress levels drop and total relaxation set in as I pick up the paddle and start moving out into the water.
We have to paddle pretty steady to get through the big lake area and we then head under the overpass with all the car traffic and road noise to get back to this little piece of heaven. This is where we hang out. We float and fish and talk and look for critters and say over and over again "This is the best. Doesn't it feel like we are on vacation." We say it every time and every time we marvel at how we can just be a hop, skip and a jump from home but it feels like another world.
Nancy caught a big bass yesterday and it was exciting, but we really just don't care if we fish or have bites or catch anything. We are happy to talk to turtles and point out cool birds, rocks, squirrels, snakes or find old fishing lures or try to reach in the water to retrieve golf balls or our new purple reading glasses that accidentally slipped out of our pocket and fell in the creek (that happened yesterday to me and we did not find them!) Or we have real excitement, like an unexpected storm blows up and we have to paddle like hell to get to shore. That has happened more than once. And recently, the water was a little low and I somehow got my kayak stuck on a limb of some kind under the water and after paddling like hell in every direction for a solid fifteen minutes I resigned myself that I just lived on my kayak under the Parmer Bridge and I would die there. My arms were on fire from paddling as hard as I could. I was bouncing and trying to shift my weight real hard without falling out of the boat. Of course, there was heavy breathing and howling and laughing and cussing and a myriad of attempts and pulling and pushing and fake panicking. Eventually, Nancy got out of her kayak and managed to get me unstuck, so basically saved my life that day. I owe her. Why didn't I get out of my own boat and save my own life, you might be asking? Because I would NEVER be able to get my ass back in that kayak. No way in hell I could go from the water up on to the kayak without a ladder! But Nancy can. She is my hero.
Anyway, Mother Nature was putting on a show yesterday. Here are some pictures of our adventure.
And my Saturday got even better because after spending the daylight hours outside on the water, I got to spend the evening hours outside sitting around a fire pit! I went up to Beth's little slice of paradise in Georgetown and we sat around her fire pit visiting and eating! There was delicious veggie pizza and a fabulous salad. Thanks for helping me stick to my plants and also to Beverly for the two new veggies for the week - I needed them to get to 40! We laughed and ran from smoke and caught up on kids and upcoming weddings and pets and the hunt for a perfect rug, Christmas tree decor and traditions and Instagram accounts we stalk. It was so lovely. I got home about 9:00 pm and felt spent and happy and whatever else feels like a wonderful, wonderful day.
Hope your Saturday was wonderful too!
Today, Christmas decorations will be coming into my house at a ridiculously early date and I am here for it! Let's go!
No comments:
Post a Comment