Skip to main content

Kayaking with the Hills

My friend, Natalie, is my friend.  I say that because I've learned through the years that I haven't always understood what a friend is and have been surprisingly hurt by people I thought were my friends, but weren't.  But Natalie is exactly what I need.  We go walking three times a week, and we talk and talk and talk.  Sometimes she suggests that we sit and talk after we're done with walking, but I would rather feel like we never finish so that we can just pick up when we start the next time ;-)

She's been trying to arrange things to do with the four of us (John, Dan, Natalie and me), and I've been hesitant.  I kinda worry that if she really gets to know John and me, she might decide that we aren't for them.  In other words, I want to maintain a bit of mystery ;-)  She got us to go out to dinner the first time (Steve and Rocky's, a GREAT and upscale restaurant where a man needs to wear a collared shirt), and then we went over to their home to play games.  They aren't quite on the level we are with games, but the charcuterie tray she serves us? Heavenly!

They like to bike, and they keep inviting us, but I'm not even sure we own a helmet, so when they suggested kayaking, I was on board! (see what I did there?)  We even arranged it with the girls' work schedules that they could come too.  A Wednesday afternoon, kayaking down the Huron River, in Pure Michigan.  It doesn't get any better in summertime.

It IS funny to see us in life vests because the water wasn't more than a foot deep....and we're SCUBA trained swimmers!  But the rental company required them.

  

I don't need to write about the experience, because it was a typical kayaking trip, but it was for my introverted self, a very atypical social experience.  I've been working on lowering the bar I have for myself and for other people, and I've discovered that I'm able to enjoy so much more about life when I do.  It was one of the best social experiences I've ever had.  I was relaxed and happy and just able to enjoy the moment instead of having a million different voices in my head telling me how I need to act, worrying about how I'm acting, and trying not to act in a way that people won't like me.

We were out a little over two hours, and at the end, I was ready to do it all over again.  I was driving, so I took us to Culver's for dinner, and we drove home with the windows rolled down.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

SURPRISE!!

When the pizza guy came to the door last night, here's what John saw: It took a few seconds for John to process who the pizza delivery man was, but when he did, he was incredibly happy (and couldn't stop saying "heeeeyyyyy....".  It was Jared Moran, John's best friend. And me, I just knelt down, right then and there, and began repenting of all the lies that I have told over the last four months, hiding this most amazing surprise :-)  I told Sarah the other day that I was glad to see the light at the end of the falsehood tunnel, because if I kept this up much longer, I was destined to end up in liars' hell... Jared ran the Air Force marathon with John last year.  It was his first marathon, and from what he told us, his last.  However, he called in June and said he was coming again, but I was supposed to keep it a surprise from John.  I'm not sure what changed his mind, but we sure are glad he did.  John hates runnings marathons alone, and ther...

Trail Run

Since Anna's blog is private (and inaccessible to most), I copied her post about her recent trail run.  She wrote about it much more philosophically than I did, and I love it. I'm so grateful that I have a body that allows me to run. Running has proved to work wonders for my stress, and for my physical and mental well-being. I've evolved into a new "Anna" through running and training for races.   This past weekend, I ran my first trail race. Going into it, I had NO idea what to expect. I actually thought it would be a nice path through a wooded tree area. Boy, I was WRONG! The trail included running through rivers, up and along such narrow pathways on the side of mountains, and through legit mud holes. It didn't help that I forgot to wear my Garmin GPS watch. Not only was I clueless to where I was running, I had no idea how far I had run and how much longer I needed go. The race became a total mental feat.   I could hear myself breathing heavily. I cou...

A Quick Trip to Mackinac Island

 Allow me a pity party for a paragraph.  As much as John is earning buckets of money for us and for our retirement, his weekend calls have been infringing on our time together.  Like I said, it's a complete pity party, because my logical mind reminds me that I should be happy he's making so much money, but my heart feels rather lonely at times as I reminisce about trips we have taken that we don't have time to take again. I love John.  I don't need him around all the time, but I find that the best quality time with him is when he doesn't have other distractions like work, and call, and hospital credentialing. Anyway, I guess that was two paragraphs, and I don't need to take it any further than that, because I don't want the body of this blog post to be about me and my loneliness. I've been wanting to go to Mackinac Island for two years now (I can hardly even believe that it's been that long since I was there).  With Lake Michigan getting colder and t...