A Relaxing Day
Today was one of those rare and lovely days that come along far too rarely in my hectic, single-mom life. A day when I had fun. Just — had fun.
The boys went with their father to help with the spaghetti lunch fundraiser for Troop 40. Knowing that the kids and I would be going out to my grandmother’s house this afternoon (which means fishing, swimming, and boat rides), I went out in the backyard and raked leaves and moved bricks to find bait. I found plenty. I also managed two dime-size blisters on my thumbs, which I didn’t notice until they broke and the skin came off. Ow. (But it was still fun. I like hunting worms. If I could have found my file, I would have grunted them instead of raking and digging … but my file got lost a while back and I haven’t yet replaced it. Stobs I got, but no file. Can’t grunt worms without a file, or something pretty like it.)
When I came inside, I was filthy dirty and soaked to the skin. So I took a shower and got ready. The kids came home soon, and after a couple of false starts (first I had to go back in the house for my floppy hat. Then we had to go to my mom’s for the kids’ swim things, then had to go back home when we found I had left without my purse — and no purse means no driving license, which means a citation if, God forbid, anything should happen), we headed out to Grandma’s. She lives in Lakeland, and owns an entire peninsula of land that juts into the middle of Garner Lake.
We met my parents and my younger brother and his wife … my other younger brother came out later with my baby nephew, but his wife was working today. 🙁
We loaded up the boat and headed out on the lake. First to fish. I cannot believe my two sons are too squeamish to bait their own hooks. Okay, granted, snapping six-inch nightcrawlers in pieces and threading them onto a hook is not my favourite thing to do, but really, it’s not that bad. And it’s not like there’s no water to wash the gook off your hands with afterward. (If I’d been in my jeans, I wouldn’t have needed the water. But there’s no good place on a swimsuit to wipe worm guts off your hands. y’know?)
And those boys are so impatient. Goodness. I couldn’t get them to leave their lines in the water. They were yanking them out and re-casting every ten seconds. And then complaining about nothing biting. LOL. I seem to remember being just as antsy at their ages, and I understand a bit better why Grandpa was always edgy when he took us fishing.
Finally, my sister-in-law and my sons had their fill of fishing, so we pulled to the middle of the lake and went swimming. The water was so warm we might as well have been in the tub. And it was warm a looooooong way down. I dived in from the boat several times, and even though I’m a good diver and probably went down 15 or 20 feet, the water never did get cool. I remember swimming in Garner Lake when I was a kid, the water would be warm on top, but once you got four or five feet down, it began to get cooler. Interesting.
When we got back to Grandma’s place after a good two to three hours out, we all piled in the car and went to Steak ‘n’ Shake for dinner. I tried something new — the Portobello and Swiss — and it was really quite good. (I usually get the patty melt, but I wasn’t up for greasy messy tonight.)
We got to talking about local fireworks displays, and when my younger son heard that Bellevue Baptist was having theirs tonight, he wanted to go. I told him that if his dad was willing to take him, he could go. And so the ex came and picked up that son and took him to the fireworks. The other son came home with me.
All in all, it was a nice, quiet, relaxing day. I feel ready to tackle whatever this week may throw at me. After all, things can only get better this week. And it’s a four-day work week. Sweet!