Relaxing The Best Way I Know How

My happy place, The Trexler Game Preserve

Well, hello-dere!

Today was an amazing, perfectly warm and sunny saturday, which we don't get a ton of in these parts. (Sorry, Vermont! I know you just got two more feet of snow for your Blessed Beltane.) I treated the day like a painting...I endeavored to create a masterpiece. I put on the new dress that my husband gave me, turquoise, my favorite. I packed an over-the-top picnic (shrimp cocktail was on sale!). We all rambled down the country road to meet some friends at the Trexler Game Preserve for ice cold creek water and cocktail sauce. If you recall, my new year's resolution was TO RELAX, and it's May already, and I haven't forgotten. I'm ON IT, yet, in a relaxed manner.

I have to work at relaxing. I know, an oxymoron, but to me relaxing is a carrot I have to run towards. I don't have to flip out over minutae, like when my husband says that he will register the truck, but I don't have proof of insurance, so he calls me at work, and I call the insurance company, and I have a paper faxed to the registration people, and then I get home...and my husband says he waited at the registration place for an hour but never got any fax....

Or when you haven't tattooed for a year, because you are a little bit nervous about it, and you finally get yourself ready to go, and you collect all of your tattoo stuff, and you clean out a spot to work in, and you find a victim, and the kids are in bed sleeping, and you've got the design, and you have cleaned and put down plastic and ointment, and you are just about to set the needle to the skin...and you are missing a vital piece that has to be special ordered and you have to pack up and call it a night...

Or when you are trained for a position at work that would be easier and would also mean a pay raise, and you have done it for a few weeks on a temporary basis and enjoyed it, and the announcement is sent out that they are hiring for the position permanently, and the boss says you would be perfect for it...and you can't apply because you are on a written warning for your poor attendence due to pneumonia...
Let it
F U C K I N G
go.

See? Zen. Om. Hare Krishna. Choose the pantheon of your choice.

Nope, today was winding country roads with a cooler bungee-strapped into the bed of my truck, my husband riding shotgun, two kids in the back, and the bunny in the middle in the cat carrier. My friend was waiting with her two munchkins, and I was so excited I didn't know which direction to go first...unpack the picnic, get into the water with the kids, take out the bunny and introduce him, take pictures, or just sit and "relax"...it was pleasure overload. Don't worry, every one of those pleasureable things were eventually acheived. It was a tall-stacked submarine sandwich of loveliness.

I really enjoyed the new little kids to play with. The two year old had a smile that shone like a new penny. The six year old was a city kid thrown into the mud, catching frogs in buckets for the very first time. I like kids better than grownups.

I've got a sunburn. I've got peace in my heart. I've got a happy, healthy family. I'm grateful.

I am listening to: Sam Bush on NPR's Mountain Stage Radio Show
I am reading: about The Outdoor Challenge on Five Orange Potatoes
I am working: on a truly ferocious pile of laundry
I am learning: to respect my husband's laidback nature
I am loving: that the sucktacular winter is finally dead and buried.
I give you: instructions on how to make an acorn whistle

Love and light,
your friend,
Mountain