Friday Favorites – Having a Great Time…Wish You Were Here.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, unless it is all of a sudden Friday and you realize you were supposed to have a post ready to go live, like two hours ago.
I’ve been at our happy place* since last Friday, which has been awesome. Like vacation but with laundry to do and a cat box to scoop and a kitchen to clean.
*You may notice that for the first time, the words “happy place” are not a hot link. I figure the 12 of you who read this know all about my happy place by now and are pretty damn sick of it.
But if you are new, 1.) Welcome! Happy to have you here!! 2.) There’s a tab up top that you can click that will fill you in and 3.) I apologize that your inaugural post is this one. Go look around in the archives. This one’s gonna suck, I can just feel it.
So, like I was saying, being here at the lake for an extended period of time is fabulous, obviously. But there are downfalls, believe it or not.
Don’t believe me?
Here. I’ll list them.
(The aforementioned…)
1. Laundry — towels. So, so many towels.
2. Cat boxes — we bring our cats with us (they love it here) and god damn it if they don’t still pee and poop.
3. Kitchen — even though I resist cooking at every moment while here (who am I kidding, I resist cooking at every moment while not here) we seem to dirty an obscene amount of glasses and silverware while here (because paper plates, obviously).
And there’s also…
4. Trash — an embarrassing number of chip bags and empty Chips Ahoy® packages. And all those paper plates.
5. Recycling — the number of wine bottles and beer bottles certainly makes the recycling man worry about us, I’m sure.
6. Mowing — we often ‘roshambo’ for this undesirable job.
So it’s not quite like vacation.
But.
But, despite still having to do life, it is still far and away my most favorite place to be, and so since it’s where I’ve been for the past seven days and will be for three more (until next weekend when I return), I thought I’d devote this week’s Favorites to a list of what I’ve been doing this past week…besides scooping the cat boxes.
 I know it’s not that exciting, Britney, but it’s all I’ve got this week. |
1. Jet skiing –
Taking an easy top spot for obvious reasons. Flying across the lake at 45 mph isn’t just thrilling and freeing, it unleashes my inner biker babe and makes me feel a little dangerous. And if you’re one who’s known me my whole life, you’ll know that’s sayin’ something.
Besides zipping around pretending like I’m bad ass, Thing 2 and I love to take it out together, stop it and jump off and swim. This week we’ve perfected our front flips. And by “perfected” I mean have accomplished a hell of a fine .75 with a half moon on entry.
Yes, that does mean what you think it means.
2. Run/Walk/Biking the trail –
We’re lucky that our cabin is only about 1/8 of a mile from a beautiful paved trail that stretches 112 miles across Minnesota. Equally lucky is that the adorable little town is only 2 miles down the trail, because 4 miles is just about as far as I can go without dying. It’s truly adorable. And little. With just one main street (named, aptly, “Main Street”) it’s where everyone visiting the many lakes and lake resorts and cabins in about a 30 mile radius comes to wander.
This week I’ve run (*cough* walked *cough*) alone:
And I’ve biked in with the fam for a small little treat:
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| just a small one. |
3. Reading –
Knowing that I was going to be here for 10 days, I had downloaded a bunch of samples to peruse on my Kindle. But then I got here and ended up reading two weeks’ worth of Entertainment Weeklys and Peoples and UsWeeklys and some other stupid magazine that I only bought because it had Carrie Underwood on the cover (and you know how I feel about HER).
But I did manage to read one book and start another.
No matter how old they get, the tube — and the lake — will hold some of their very best memories.
And that is definitely a favorite.
5. 4th of July on the Lake –
Much like the little town near us, our lake is small. But that’s just why we love it so much.
Every 4th of July we have a boat parade, where you decorate your boats and putter around the perimeter of the entire lake in a long line, waving to all the people sitting on their docks who were too lazy to participate.
The past three summers we’ve been creative.
Summer before last we made our boat a pageant float and had Thing 2 in a sash and crown at the front and Thing 1 riding the hot dog tube off the back holding a sign that said “runner up”.
Last year we strung ornaments and tinsel and wore Santa Hats and blasted Christmas Music for a “Christmas in July” theme.
This year we conformed to the masses (meaning we couldn’t think of anything) and just went with red, white and blue.
It’s terribly simple and takes all of an hour to get around the whole lake, but it’s the simplicity and the ordinariness of it that makes it so extraordinary.
It’s small town lake Americana at it’s best…and there’s no better day for it to happen.
6. Sunsets like this…
*Things That Happened Around The Blog This Week*
I was a lazy ass (see above) and only posted twice.
Last week’s Friday Favorites got hijacked by Saturday — you can read it HERE.
And even though I’m at the lake, I’m still RECAPPING THE BACHELORETTE for you. Duh.
I was talking about these things over on my Facebook page…
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| Tidal wave of amniotic fluid. Get it? Because only like 8 others did. |
Then I tweeted that ⬆(@urmyfavetoday) and it got retweeted by the Huffington Post Parents (@HuffPostParents)!
So of course I had to go back to Facebook to share it.
I love that you said “This one’s gonna suck, I can just feel it.” I could put that disclaimer on half of my posts these days. It didn’t, btw. Suck, that is.
I want to go to your happy place. That sounds dirty, but you know what I mean. That boat parade is adorable. Enjoy the rest of your vacation!
You’re invited to my happy place anytime! Dirty or not…
And despite what you thought, I’m guessing the post did suck being that YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE WHO COMMENTED. Sigh. Thanks for saying that, though. You know it just makes me love you more. xo
I haven’t been up to my happy place at all this summer, which like we’ve discussed is only a few miles from your happy place! I grew up tubing with my sister on our tube too! & I haven’t been jetskiing in way too flipping long, so this post has done nothing but make me jealous, thanks Michelle!