Footprints in the sand - my size and others

At the beginning of the summer, I vowed that I would have a summer!

In blogs and on Facebook I always hear mothers talking about how awesome it will be for the kids to be out of school and how they are so excited for the pool, family trips and relaxation.

My past five or six summers have been highly stressful work saturated summers which subsequently turned me into a transparent light version of myself and drastically stressed out sun worshipper wannabe. Having a fiscal year that ends in September means that the entire world dumps money and projects on us from June - August with the expectation that we are somehow going to complete them by October 1st. Whatever.

Not so this year. I've taken at least a couple of days a week to swim laps after work and have at least driven to a beach or two and waded in the six inch deep water. Getting a slight tan has been nice, especially knowing that I've been able to do it after 4:00 p.m. on most days and so I at least feel like it was "safely" achieved. Plus, who can complain of real ocean air, sand grating between the toes, and a few McDonald's wildberry smoothies along the way.

It is enough.

Just enough to make me feel like I've had a summer. Now it is August and even after about 40-50 days of humidity/heat that is WAY over 90 degrees, I still want more.

And, I got a little more.

This week, for work, I got to travel down to the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area, a little southeast of Richmond. That is quite the drive. Without traffic I'm sure it can be accomplished under three hours, but when is there no traffic going toward a beach? Or, shall we say 100s of beaches? Or, say, those people that decide to bring the beach (er, pool) with them and plug up traffic? (Which, ironically, by the time I finally got close enough to take the picture had subsided).

Along the way, I decided to take some back roads since I wasn't going directly to Norfolk, and ended up driving through Newport News, VA. I used to get a catalog in my teen years selling clothing supposedly from Newport News. It showed attractive people (kind of like Ralph Lauren models) wearing  Sperry Topsiders, posing on yachts, and sporting white teeth, tousled wind blown hair and beautiful tans. So, I've always wanted to see Newport News.

It's got a big bridge over the James River.

It does have a beach (many of them actually), that I discovered right before crossing the bridge.

It also has a ton of ships which I couldn't get good pictures of while driving over the bridge. There are gorgeous homes along the waterfront properties, but elsewhere it appeared a little dilapidated with lots of stores closing and a few characters riff raffing about. That seems to be the look of a few ocean side cities.

The great thing about the entire western side of Virginia is that the shoreline has so much character - bays, rivers, outlets, inlets, etc. It creates so many extra hundreds of miles of beachfront that couldn't be possible if it was a straight coast like say - Oregon.

But, I digress.

So, I spent my moments at Newport News and then continued on to my destination - which I will neither confirm or deny because I went to a "facility." I had to be escorted everywhere which is always funny since I don't do anything that requires such mannerisms.

Lucky for me, my cousin and family were visiting her parents (OK, my cousin's wife and the kids - which is called what?) in Virginia from San Jose, CA and so we got to meet up at Yorktown.

(I do not like self-portraits - especially on 100 degree sweaty days, but this is all I have of me and Lorena)

What a great place! I've never been there even though it is right there by Williamsburg!

Williamsburg is a great colonial town, but at almost $40 a person it isn't something you stop at every time you drive by. However, Yorktown is much cheaper and there is a great little beach area.

(Only five of the kids are my cousins. I know, the "only" part is all relative)

(Trying to figure out if that was a jellyfish in the water)

(It is a fairly large dead jellyfish which was then escorted up on the sand and buried by some little people that felt it necessary.)

Besides the beach there is free parking, a shuttle bus that takes you to Jamestown and to the little Yorktown settlement as well as festive music playing the evenings on the green.

It was great to spend a couple of hours seeing relatives and relaxing before heading back towards DC. I'm definitely going to take a trip back this way!

I got to take yet another bridge away from Yorktown and towards DC. Instead of the typical freeway, I took the back way up through beaches, corn fields, marshes and little towns. A great diversion (except for the torrential downpour part) from day to day life - just being able to drive somewhat in the right direction home.

(Disclaimer: Don't try this while driving like I did. One hand was on the wheel at all times....maybe)

Anyway, good little trip for many reasons.

To see some bird stereotypes in action.

To get weirded out that my phone knows where I am before I do.

And, to leave my footprints in some sand.

As well as some sand in the car.

Summer footprints - ah, time to hit just one more beach!

Miracle Suits - er perhaps just improvement

So, I needed a swimsuit and swim shorts recently and stumbled upon the Eddie Bauer Miracle Suit. They are basically "basic." However, they promise to suck you in and so I went out on eBay and bought a new one for half the price (since on sale the one I wanted was $120 through Eddie Bauer).

They do help. At least it feels like they help and isn't that half the battle with a swimsuit?

Only one problem - when you suck in the flesh in one spot, it has to pop out of another. It is kind of like the water displacement method - once you put an object in the water, the water that is displaced must move somewhere.






So, how does this relate?

Well, the Miracle Suit can perform miracles on the part that it covers, but the extra flesh must go somewhere and has to pop out the edges. I tried to find a picture on the Internet because I'm smart enough not to use myself as an example, but couldn't find any that were appropriate for my blog.


But, I'm sure we've all seen plenty of examples at our own pools and beaches.

In the meantime, I'm lucky I bought some little swim shorts to go with it and I'm going to get swimmin those laps!

Word Eatage

So, I will have to eat my words on the last post.

Yes, it doesn't take long to write. However, this thing called the brain can get overwhelmed at times and in those five minutes that are free, a post will not come forth.

Such has been my last few weeks. I've worked over 115 hours (officially), but unofficially it's been about 125-130 hours. And, it's required a lot of focus on reading documents, analysis, and decision making that impacts a lot of peoples lives as far as their day jobs are concerned.

I'm still not done with the entire process, and along with that we are hiring more people internally and I've been trying to catch up on all of the emails. It took 15 hours last weekend to get caught up - meaning only about 100 emails left in the work inbox when I started work last Monday.

Wow. I'm too old for this. I remember working 90 hour weeks all the time in my 20s and juggling 3 jobs. Now, I can't make it. No more super woman multi-tasking coming from me.

Ok, well, maybe a bit of it behind the scenes.

Where did those lazy days of summer go? When did we actually have lazy days of summer? I have no idea when they actually occurred. It must have been sometime in junior high.

and so I digress...

Now it's 11 p.m. on a Saturday night and all I did today was work, walk, take toilets to the dump, eat at a Caribbean restaurant, go to the post office, track my finances, cut my man's hair, and read part of a book and take a 10:00 p.m. stroll in the moonlight.

Hmmm. Now, what am I actually complaining about?