Know your Limits - a tale of two hikes

Parenting Philosophy - use your kid as an excuse to do things. Outdoorsy things. Oooh, Hiking. I like to Hike. I like exploring the great big world out there!

So taking full advantage of a beautiful forecast of cooler weather - I consulted the local hikes guide. Oh hey! A hike in my county, with ponds, waterfalls and some challenge for a level - Yesssss, done, let's do this! 

And so me and my agreeable pawn of an 8 year old kid (on the internet we mostly call her ART, fyi) found ourselves downloading a pdf map from the DEC website and heading into the woods. The trail was fairly visible, though ART had her doubts about its validity. About 10 yards into this journey ART logged our first strike - the dreaded bug in the eye... Let me rephrase that - the DREADED BUG SQUISHED INTO THE INSIDE OF HER EYELID ATTEMPTING TO MAKE A HOME THERE. A dozen stabs of my fingernails to ARTs eyeball and some freaking out later....we decide to continue down the trail. While the trail became more beat down and rocky ART found herself a good ten steps ahead of me and I found myself spaced out wondering how long til we come across a "pond" or "waterfall" - when suddenly I hear a booming echoing yell of pain. Aka - I logged our second strike. And there was blood, and ART was wiping dirt off my arms for me so I could clean my bloodied leg.

(So much scraping.... Jeeeez). No problem, no problem - I have alcohol pads and band aids - I am mother in this play after all. So we hike on. Closer to each other, silently noting this had not been going so well. And then strikes three, four, five and so on start ringing through the air. My fear was fighting hard to take over the wheel shouting DO YOU NOT HEAR THE BULLETS BEING SHOT THAT YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THEY ARE?? So I calmly said to ART, hey... Do you want to turn around? Maybe we should turn around. In the probable reality of those fine people who probably have property backing the state land - they were legally taking target practice or something totally safe. In my 30 something, single parent, doesn't know shit about where I really am reality --- I'm OUT, time to GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WOODS. 

Insta- moral of that tale -- Know thy limits. You are not a country girl. 

Far be it from me to be defeated however - we stopped at a nice wildlife educational center on our way home and "hiked" their trails - where we saw lovely little sights like this mini water fall ...aaaah nature.. 

New Grown Up Blog

 "Grown Up" is just another label. It's a category in life. You know what else I've been told?  "Age" is just a number.
Well I'm here to tell you these sentences are true. For me, anyway - You might hold tight to some nuances related to either being a "grown up" or whatever your "age" is.
I've always been a fan of irony in life - and this blog will no doubt show that on full broad spectrum display. As such, it seems pertinent to point out that a driving force behind blogging being back in style in my life - is "age". I've been doing much thinking about where I am, what I've accomplished, or rather, not yet accomplished; who I know myself to be, who the world might know me to be; what has worked, what hasn't and what I want to believe works in life. Da Hell that got to do with a silly ol blog? Well - Here's another few things I know - Writing is important. Really Important. Reading is important. Really Important. Engaging is important. Really Important. Not just for me, for everyone. I don't care who you are or what your nuances are. Authenticity is important. Really Important. Period.
And now to turn those things back on me, myself and I (yes all of us) - I feel a constant hankering for this platform. It's always been there. Oooh kay only as far back as the internet allowed for it (ahem, livejournal anyone?), and it's taken different forms (oh hey look more of my history on the internet - I had a  wordpress blog - it was super this is what I did with my life today blogging)... but it's always been there and here it shall be. Join me, if you wish, I promise I will have some laughs and some lessons we can share in.