Just Do It

All you parents out there, are you the kind that are homebodies or on-the-goers? I myself love to be on-the-go. Doesn't matter to me whether I have 1 or 3 of my kids with me, if I want to go somewhere, I go. Then again I'm a pretty spontaneous gal anyway, so it's nothing for me to think of a cool thing to do and decide to go right then. I mean, to often we plan things out so much that we never end up doing it because we talk ourselves out of that very same plan that minuets ago seemed like the greatest idea in the world...am I right? I've done it, I'm sure we all have. I love to come up with what I think are great ideas, I call mine a Life List. I don't actually write it down although I should but instead I mentally have all these things that I would love to do. Sometimes I think of these things and if they are within reason, I just do it. It seems that those spontaneous adventures are the best kind. Who says you can't pack up the kids and go down to the West Side Market just to get a hot dog from Hot Dog Johnny's or let the kids run around outside at 2am on New Years Eve just because it seems like a fun thing to do. How about getting a bunch of friends (12 to be exact) and getting on The Martha Stewert Show or getting up super early just to be in the audience of The Today Show. Some of those things don't seem like a big deal but at the time when you think about it, you could easily say, "Oh, that's a waste of gas to go to the West Side Market just for a hot dog or the kids might get sick running around outside in the middle of winter at 2am." Which I suppose are all true statements but look at the memories you just created, not too shabby eh.

 I guess growing up, my parents were the same way, they took us on all sorts of adventures. If my dad had a hankering for Tony Paco's Chili, off we went to Toledo on a Sunday afternoon and I have to tell ya, it was some darn good chili. Remember going for "rides" in the car? Our family did that a lot. Usually on Sunday afternoons. No real destination in mind but we picked a direction to go and we went. Sometimes we'd come upon a Maple Festival and stop to sample the fresh made maple ice cream or hike the cliffs at Wolf's Ledges or see an awesome tree to climb and stop to take a picture after I finally was able to make it to the top. On vacations often times we would decide our next hotel on the road from a list of hotels/motels in our Trip Tik from AAA. My dad would see a sign for horseback riding in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Canada and sign us up for a day trip. Eating canned meat in the back of our Suburban in the middle of the Badlands with no one in sight for miles was not at all unusual to me. We stayed in motels with wild horses on one side and buffalo on the other and being in a rodeo in Cody, Wyoming was just about the neatest thing a 10 yr old got to do even if the prize for roping a calf was a 12 pack of sarsaparilla. Made no difference to me, I just went with the flow. Sometimes mom would wake us up in the morning on a school day and say, "Ya know what, you aren't going to school today, instead we are going shopping and out to lunch, just you and me!" We thought that was the best surprise ever and I have happy memories of those times. Ice skating across Lake Hamlin from our cottage to my dad's ice fishing shanty to bring him hot coffee and lunch was just another adventure on the Lake in Michigan. Running down the sand dunes just to fall over ourselves because the hill was so steep was, in my mind a great challenge. Cross Country Skiing in the Ludington, MI National Forest and coming home with red cheecks and sore legs and stories of what we came across in the forest made for some great show-and-tells at school.

You see, in this life I want my children to have those same great adventures, no matter if they are big or small. Sometimes it's the little things that have the biggest impact in little minds. So next time you see an ad on TV for Perry's Monument on Put-in-Bay and say I'd like to go there and check it out...or Amish Country for some great cheese or a neat hiking path in Hocking Hills....pack up the family and just do it. If your kids say they want ice cream from that place by the beach but it's 9 at night and they are in their jammies, so what, who's to say that's wrong? Jump in the car and get some ice cream from that place by the beach. While your at it, watch the sunset.  I promise you won't be sorry because what's better than Making Memories. I can't think of a single thing?