by Michele | Jun 24, 2012 | Preparation Stage
As we’ve mentioned in the last couple of weeks, Dan and I have been taking a sailing class through our local yacht club. It was a 3 week/9 session class that was surprisingly simple. We had no idea what to expect going in to the class, but I don’t think either of us expected almost no instruction at all. Our first day, we learned how to tie a bowline knot (which we had already learned in scuba class), were shown a model boat to demonstrate points of sail, and learned how to rig a Laser. The other 8 sessions were all sailing, all the time.
We had a surprisingly good range of wind speeds to learn on the Lasers/JY15/Capri 22 that we got to sail. On our first day of sailing, there was about 1-3 knots of wind the entire evening, a.k.a. not fun at all. Our last day of sailing was somewhat more exciting at a breezy 20-25 knots on our instructor’s Capri 22. During most of our classes, the instructors were all in chase boats just watching us and yelling at anyone they thought needed an extra boost. There were some students who definitely needed more help than others, but luckily Dan and I weren’t in that category.
Even though we are both extremely happy with the results of this little class, it’s hard to describe exactly what we learned how to do. Sure, we picked up a few pointers on how to rig the boat easier and how to hike out of a Laser/Laser radial, but that doesn’t really encompass what we walked away with. The real benefit of the class was training ourselves in what a sailboat is supposed to feel like and how it is going to react. The small boats that we were sailing are much more reactive than our MacGregor, and certainly more reactive than any cruiser that we would be living on in the future. We left the class with considerably more confidence than we started with, which was worth the cost of the class and then some to us.
It also taught us that sailing Lasers is really fun.
by Michele | Jun 9, 2012 | Preparation Stage
Tuesday night as Dan and I were driving home from buying our sweet new Keen sandals-which are totally awesome by the way- Dan was overcome by a sudden fit of anxiety. Okay, that’s somewhat over dramatic, but he did start looking around all of the sudden and slowing down the car. “We’re gonna miss the transit! We have to go find a spot to see it!” he said as he started driving in the opposite direction of our house.
For those of you who follow the news, you will probably recognize that Dan was talking about Tuesday’s transit of Venus in front of the sun. I am ashamed to say that I generally don’t pay any attention to the news so I had no idea what he was talking about, but of course he quickly explained and then I was just as excited to see it as he was. The transit of Venus is an extremely rare celestial event and won’t happen again until 2117, so it’s pretty much guaranteed that we won’t get the chance to see it again, though Carter might if he lives to be 107.
We quickly found a spot with an unobstructed view of the sun, which would have been difficult if we had waited any longer, but then realized that we didn’t have anything with us to be able to view the transit. You can’t look directly into the sun and see anything of course, and we had nothing (that we know of) to make a shadow viewing. We were somewhat dejected as we headed home to look at pictures of it on the internet, I know…super lame, right?
Luckily, on the way home we spotted an older gentleman standing outside with a camera pointed directly at the sun. We were hesitant to stop, but figured there wasn’t any harm in asking if he was looking at the transit. I’m so glad we did! Apparently, this man had an intense camera with a lens that filters out everything but 1/10th of 1% of the sun’s light, specifically for viewing events like this and solar eclipses. We got an amazing first hand look at Venus crossing the sun, and it was definitely worth the trouble, much better than watching it on a screen, that’s for sure.
As we were looking through his camera, the gentleman told us all about his trips to Mexico and Switzerland and a bunch of other places he had been just to view celestial events. As we drove away, Dan and I started talking about how cool it is that this guy is willing to spend so much time and energy for just a few minutes of something that he loves. He isn’t content to sit on the sidelines and let someone else experience life for him. It’s always nice to find a kindred spirit.
Follow your Dreams. Follow the Horizon.
by Michele | May 30, 2012 | Preparation Stage
Six staples later and still smiling!
…so I volunteered. As you will note from our last post, we all were in Bull Shoals, Arkansas this last weekend for a fantastic scuba diving trip. It was super fun, and we’ll probably have a post on it very soon. This post, however, is about my first (and hopefully last) dive accident which happened Sunday night. The story goes something like this: Dan and Kyle couldn’t finish their rescue diver certifications without completing a real rescue… so they needed someone to sustain an injury in the water to be able to fix. So I volunteered, and Kyle hit me over the head with his scuba tank so we would get some nice blood and potential spinal cord injury to practice on. Okay, not really.
So this is what actually happened: Dan, Kyle, and I were completing our advanced scuba certifications through PADI this weekend on our trip. Sunday night was my last dive, which was going to be our night dive. You basically do some underwater navigation and swim around with a flashlight when it’s dark. It was around 9:00 when Dan and I got in the water with one of the instructors on the trip and he started explaining to us what we needed to cover. We started swimming on the surface and suddenly I was shoved under water and had an intense pain on the crown of my head. I knew almost instantly that someone had jumped in on top of me and hit me in the head with their tank. Note to audience: getting hit in the head with 250 lbs of weight is not pleasant, please do not try this at home. I learned later that it was Kyle who had jumped in on me. He *claims* he couldn’t see me as it was pitch dark outside, but my theory is he was trying to kill me. Totally just kidding. He would never, ever do something like that on purpose.
It was at this point where the fact that there were four newly certified rescue divers on our trip, including Dan and Kyle who were in the water with me, became a really great factor. I shot up out of the water- luckily I hadn’t lost consciousness and my BCD (scuba vest) was full of air- and started screaming bloody murder. Dan and Kyle were both extremely calm, but focused, and literally had my gear off and me out of the water in probably 10 seconds flat. Another of the newly trained rescue divers was there stabilizing my head and neck against further potential damage to my spinal cord. Someone had already called 911 as well as the boat dock to get a rescue boat out to me. It was truly well done and I am very grateful to everyone on the boat that helped me so professionally and quickly.
The rest of my evening was spent waiting on various medical professionals in the emergency room of Baxter Regional Medical Center. To their credit, they did get to me fairly fast to do a preliminary assessment of my spinal cord, etc. After the doctor determined that I just had a big cut in my head, however, I pretty much got reassigned to the bottom of the list. I really believe that it was a miracle that I didn’t sustain more damage after such a heavy impact. I could have had a serious spinal injury, cracked skull, concussion, etc. but I didn’t. I did need 6 staples in my head, but I didn’t even get a headache!
Truthfully, there’s nothing like a serious accident to remind you of your priorities. Things like this happen to people every day, and yet so many of us waste our dreams by telling ourselves we’ll get to them later. What if there isn’t a later? Don’t be complacent with your time. You don’t know how much you have to work with, so make the most of it while you can.
Follow your Dreams. Follow the Horizon.
by Michele | May 26, 2012 | Preparation Stage
We aren't quite at this level...
So, for those of you who are keeping count, Dan and I have been sailing this year a grand total of… three times. Well, actually he’s been three, and I’ve been sailing twice and trying frantically to find somewhere to land the boat once. Seeing as it is almost the end of May you might be wondering where all of our sailing stories are. There are a couple of reasons (see: excuses) why we haven’t seen as much wind this spring as we had originally anticipated, but hope to improve over the summer.
- First, the weather has been crazy. All week it will be beautiful sailing weather, then its freezing and rainy all weekend.
- Also complicating our plans is that our boat is not currently in a slip. This might not sound like a big complication, but it takes significantly longer prep time to have to pick up the boat and step the mast before heading out on the water. It pretty much limits our sailing time to weekends except for in the middle of the summer when there is a lot more daylight time to work with.
- Finally, Dan’s brother Kyle has been working most weekends, and due to my status as resident weakling, we need help stepping the mast.
Now that I’ve got all of the logical reasons out of the way, here’s the embarrassing one: we’re a little afraid of another disaster. Our confidence has been somewhat injured by our failures so far. (Though one of our 3 days was actually perfect.) Kyle, Becca, Dan and I actually had the boat down at a marina on Sunday, but we chickened out after watching another boat glide peacefully out of the harbor, only to get practically laid down as soon as they hit the 20 mph winds on the river. We just aren’t ready for dealing with that yet.
No worries, though! We haven’t given up, we are just going to get a little confidence boost before doing anything else crazy. Dan and I are taking a sailing class starting in June that should get us right back to our good-old-selves. Nothing like a little hands-on where the most experienced sailor in the boat isn’t the one who took the free online class! In the meantime, we’re going on a sweet dive vacation to Bull Shoals, Arkansas…full details forthcoming.
by Michele | May 13, 2012 | Preparation Stage
The day I became a mother.
As an employee of a local children’s hospital, I regularly hear testimony from families who have been changed forever by an illness or accident that has happened to their child. This Mother’s Day, one mother of a long time patient wrote a blog post for the hospital that I would like to share with you. She reminds us to celebrate every moment with our children, even those that seem “ordinary”. Enjoy and have a Happy Mother’s Day!
“I celebrated Mother’s Day 2011 by begging my then three-year-old son to let me sleep-in as my Mother’s Day present. That was at 6:47 in the morning. By 7:06 AM I was awakened by a trumpet solo from my dear, dear, baby boy. Yes, a trumpet solo for my Mother’s Day present. A trumpet solo right in my face as I lay in bed. I actually felt the toy trumpet hit the tip of my nose several times during the performance. Okay, okay, I’m up. With a hint of sarcasm, I thought to myself, “happy Mother’s Day to me” as I shot up and out of bed at 7:07 AM. I could either send Noah away with a stern mommy-look and try to fall back to sleep or…I could…dance. By 7:08AM on Mother’s Day 2011, I was dancing in gleeful circles with my little trumpeter swinging from my arms. I felt so blessed to be celebrating another Mother’s Day, and especially this particular Mother’s Day. Here’s why…
Seven months prior to the Mother’s Day trumpet solo, I was a mother who held her second child, her four-day-old daughter, as she lay dying in my arms. I was a mother who was going to spend hours upon hours in a tiny chapel on the first floor of the Children’s Hospital of Illinois, begging God to let me keep one of his angels here on earth; while the doctors upstairs tried desperately to save Ella’s life through science and medicine. I was a mother who would be defined through living nine months of life with one child safe at home and the other fighting for each of her next breaths in a critical care unit, hours away from the safety of our home.
I would come to realize that the title “mother” is the greatest of all gifts to be given and received. It is the gift of song. It is the gift of dance. It is the gift of unimaginable strength. It is the gift of a love so pure, and yet, so powerful. It is the gift of setting priorities and defining what moments truly matter in life. It is the gift of belly-laughs. It is the gift of overcoming fears. It is the gift of finding yourself through loving someone else unconditionally. It is the gift of never-forgotten memories. It is the gift of understanding that the ordinary moments of life are all actually the extraordinary ones. It is the gift of a celebratory perspective of life.
Last year, not only did I celebrate an early morning trumpet solo by dancing to the tune, but I also celebrated many of the most common and ordinary moments of motherhood. I celebrated washing a batch of pink, girl laundry at home. I celebrated washing Ella’s hospital blankets because at one point in our journey, I was told my daughter probably would not survive the night. Here I was, months later, with my first batch of pink laundry. I was celebrating laundry! I celebrated every midnight moment where I was awake comforting my daughter through dealing with the pain of pervious surgeries to try and fix her broken heart. I celebrated even though those midnight moments were shared with critical-care nurses. I was celebrating lack of sleep! I celebrated being able to once again hold my daughter in my arms. It would be the first time in several months I was able to hold her after the moment I held her as she lay dying in my arms at four days old. I was celebrating the numbness in my arms because of holding a chubby baby! I even celebrated baby poop. There was time when no one knew if my daughter’s bowels would ever work normal. I was celebrating poop!
I realized that not only were we gifted the title “mother” from our little ones, but through that gift we were given ordinary moments to either take for granted or to celebrate as extraordinary ones. I call it CellaBRATING LIFE.
I wish you an ordinary Mother’s Day 2012 full of laundry, midnight shenanigans, numb arms, normal bowel movements and maybe, if you’re lucky, even an early morning trumpet solo!”
We are normal (well ok, not so normal) people that have a dream to see the world and live life as it was meant to be. We both have successful careers in the healthcare industry, even in this terrible economy. We want to break free of the current cycle of trading time for dollars and dollars for more and more things we don't need. So, we have decided to forego the fruits of our economic success and "retire" well before we are 30 and set out to see what is over the Horizon.