thursday tales

as you’ve probably noticed, i’m still trying to find a rhythm to my posts and they’ve kind of been all over the place. a few ideas i have are to keep my monday musings [because i tend to think of ridiculous things over the weekend] and wear it wednesday [because that’s ultimately where I want to take this blog] every week and switch up the rest [and as long as i can keep up my crazy title alliteration obsession i will!].  one of those rare unicorn posts i’d like to start popping up here and there are those i’ve titled thursday tales where i’d like to tell you a little story [duh, title gives it away, natalie]. about what, you may ask? well, it could be about me or … well… anyone [yeah i run a really strict shop here, boundaries aplenty!]. so to quote my first ever post, “and so i begin…”:

let me preface this by saying that i am the least extreme-sports/adventurous/yeah-let’s-go-barreling-down-a-hill person you’ll probably ever meet [i’m scared of roller coasters for pete’s sake]. so naturally, husband [who was boyfriend at the time] decided to take me skiing 3 years ago. we get to the mountain, get our gear, waddle like penguins [because let’s face it, there’s no graceful way to walk in ski boots… or is it just me?] to the training slopes [which i thought was the bunny slope – silly me] where hubby leaves me [he can ski just fine] in the capable hands of the 12-year old [i may be exaggerating his youth just a little] ski instructor for a group lesson.  for the next 45 minutes, i learn how to let gravity gently pull me down the gradual slope and to “pizza” to a stop [you guys know the pizza? pretty easy to do right? you just wait]. “no big deal, i got this, i’m ready”, i say to hubby when he comes to pick me up. 

and i was ready until i saw the “bunny slope” which to me looked like a double-black diamond with a sheer drop off at the end should i fail to pizza-stop. perfect. confidence totally skyrocketed [not].  fortunately for hubby [who remember was boyfriend at the time and still trying to impress me] i don’t like to quit once i’ve started something and the date wasn't over, so i sucked it up and c a r e f u l l y edged my way out from the side of the slope.  

for all of 5 seconds, my form was just darn perfect, so perfect, in fact that i started gaining speed. you see, dear readers, if you hold your skis straight, you tend to accelerate. and accelerate i did.  in my building panic, instead of pizza-ing my skis, i did the only logical [ha!] thing i could think of – to get closer to the ground so my [inevitable] fall wouldn’t hurt as much – i sat down on my skis.  do you know what happens when you sit down straight down on your skis? you turn into a luge, dear readers, and go even faster. 

so there i was, barreling down this slope with hubby behind me trying to catch up, and all i saw was the sheer drop off i mentioned earlier getting closer and closer [fabulous]. i had approximately .5 seconds to make a decision, and a decision i made – i tucked and rolled… down the rest of the slope. 

as my hubby finally caught up to me and strangers brought me a ski here, a glove there that i left littered in my wake, i vowed never to ski again. a vow i had to immediately break when i was informed that the only way back up to the [blessed, horizontal] ski lodge, short of being escorted by ski patrol on snowmobiles, was to get on the ski lift, go to the next slope [i was assured that was a “bunny” as well… liars] and go back down [fabulous].  

well, long-story-long, i got on that ski lift, and yes, i may have done an ungraceful dismount, but i got my act together and pizza-skied down that next slope like a [very slow] champ. we even went skiing again [and i got a very long, one-on-one lesson beforehand]!

[i prefer fort-building and snowball fights to skiing]

have you ever done something, failed miserably, but refused to quit?