Thank you and burnt kneecaps.

I was going to pull a Hayleyghoover and thank each and every one of the nice, thoughtful, and wonderful people who commented on my last blog post. However, literally everyone said something reassuring and helpful, so I think I am just going to cast a blanket "thank you" over everyone who reads and comments on my blog.

One thing that occurred to me while I was reading your comments was that, in dwelling on a few mean comments or hateful people, I was almost, in a sense, taking for granted how many of you are amazing. There are a ton of you who comment saying encouraging, witty, helpful, sweet things all the time, and a few usernames I recognize commenting nearly every time... You guys are the best. I feel like I have my own little army over here on my blog of people who just seriously are a little bit better than the rest of the people on the Internet, so thank you. Thank you for making haters completely irrelevent.


So instead, I am going to talk about water skiing!

Today, instead of doing the long list of errands and chores I have to do before leaving for London, I went out on my family's boat for the afternoon. It was 87 degrees today and beautiful out on the water, and I am so glad I decided to go because I had a blast.

Usually I just go innertubing because I am not much of an "extreme sports" type girl, but today my dad brought the waterskis, something I have never tried and have always been terrified of.

My brother went first, and did pretty well. He did spend an entire weekend wakeboarding with our cousin Josh a few weeks ago when we were in North Dakota though, so he had a little knowledge of what he was doing. My dad went next, and it was a really odd sight for some reason. You always picture your father as the man of the house, the one who goes to work, unclogs the toilet when it gets plugged up, sits on the couch and commands the remote - seeing him being pulled behind the boat on skis in a life jacket with a big goofy grin is just not a sight I am used to. He was surprisingly good though! He used to waterski a lot back when he was my age.

My mom just had nasal surgery and couldn't go, so it was left to me.

My dad was like, "Wanna go, T?"

Ummm.

"Come ON. Just try it."

"What if I fall? What if I panic?"

"Just keep your knees up by your chest and your feet together. Come on, let's fit these to your feet."

The next thing I knew I was neck high in freezing water with skis strapped to my feet, armed only with "knees up, skis together", and before I knew it, I was freaking WATERSKIING.

For about ten seconds. xD
But hey! My dad AND brother were super impressed. They told me no one actually gets to standing on their first try.

I had all sorts of water up my nose and I was hacking and coughing lake water out of my lungs, but I tried three more times, never staying up any longer than my first try.

Finally, arms sore, nose and lungs aching (though I did get better at plugging my nose as soon as I knew I was going to fall), I gave up. I'll try again next time. The biggest accomplishment for me was 1. Jumping in the freezing lake water (I'm a cold water wimp) and 2. realizing that waterskiing is not in fact as scary as I thought but actually kind of fun.


In other news, I slathered on the sunscreen but still managed to get burnt kneecaps. Just my kneecaps. That's weird.

Days until I leave for London: 5