Utilize the SUN!!

I woke up this morning and looked at my phone and discovered something truly frightening. It is JUNE 25th already, people!! Can you believe it? That's like an entire month of summer nearly gone. So, I was thinking that July really needs to pass by a bit more slowly than it's friend June. But, then I was thinking that my thinking was completely unrealistic, so I did some feasible thinking and decided that I need to utilize every available sun and active outdoors minute left in this beautiful summer! :)

I'm working on accomplishing that utilization beginning with those muddy horse trails I mentioned in my last post. A couple of days after my exciting bike ride, I took Briana back out to the beginning of my newly discovered horse trails and we opted to hike them before busting out our bikes. Thank heavens we had sense enough to do that. There are some of the steepest hills I have ever hiked on buried inside those woods. I absolutely LOVE the trails out there. I have this cheesy desire to go on a real hike someday - I'm talking like fallen trees and logs in the path that I have to climb over and under and tree branches I have to shove out of the way - the whole shenanigans. These trails are offering me bits and pieces of my dream come true. :P We definitely found a couple of the best fallen tree logs ever the other day and proceeded to climb across one such tree that stretched across a little stream 10 feet or so below. To pass over the stream, we even had to climb in an upwards direction on this fallen tree. It was the coolest thing ever - like straight out of an adventure movie (well close anyway....). AND, on the way back, we even half scooted for fear of falling to our deaths (or maybe just a couple of broken bones). The climb back was the epitomy of the whole forest scene, including rotten bark sliding off of the tree and landing with the crashes of a fear foreshadowing what would happen if we were to lose our balance. We've been on the trail twice thus far, both times nearly suffocating in the humidity, but it was more than worth it. We have multiple side trails and logs and climbing adventures left to explore on that particular trail.

What else, what else?? Well, I worked 34 hours in 3 days this past weekend and of course felt somewhat comatose after the experience. It's weird to be cooped up inside a building for 12 hours in a day and leaving only to return 12 hours later for round number two. Despite the exhaustion that followed that experience, I had a lot of great moments with the residents at Pine Lane. I brightened one lady's day by offering to fill her bird feeder for her (apparently no one has ever done that before) and then sitting and chatting for a good 20 minutes. I now have a Kentucky Fried Chicken and life discernment date with her on an evening sometime soon. I also continue to receive pick-up lines from a 93-year-old man and have officially memorized coffee and hot water requests for each of the residents for all 3 meals of the day. :)

After emerging from my coma, I headed home to spend a couple of days with my family and especially my sister and her husband, home briefly from Michigan. My mom of course decided to set up a professional family picture which was met with a barrage of groans and disgruntled words and actions most notably from the men in the family. I'm sure it will turn out to be a darling picture, though, beings we were all color-coordinated and everything.

I need to get back to my tobacco awareness project set-ups. I suppose it is necessary to work some before I run outside frolicking in the sun all afternoon. :) Have a great weekend!!