excitement takes many different forms

I wanted excitement... and I got it.

(Are you ready for a thrill? Drum rollllll...) Yesterday, I got to go the dentist!

(I bet that's more exciting than you were expecting!) My teeth now feel all squeaky clean...time to go eat some chocolate! However, I also learnt that I soon have to get my wisdom teeth out... so be prepared for chipmunk cheeks.

I felt bad for the hygienist, though... near the end, my mouth was beginning to foam as much as a mutant squirrel with rabies. I did not know it was possible to have so much spit in my poor little mouth. (Ok, so maybe my mouth isn't that small... some might even say I'm a blabbermouth... but still.)

...WAIT A SECOND. Maybe I contracted rabies on my earlier wilderness hike. (That might explain all the foam!) There was some quite dangerous wildlife...

Oops, wait, that was just us. I meant this little guy.

Who knows, maybe he was a poison arrow frog in disguise. Mud can hide a lot of things.

Also... you might be amazed by this but... I did fall over. (I know, it comes as a shock.)

Plus, there was a mysterious pool of water surrounded by a fence... horror movie material, right there. Perhaps it was a pool of biohazardous waste? Or maybe we'll all turn into dinosaurs? The forest did remind me of Jurassic Park... (That would actually be pretty epic.)

Or maybe I just have a lot of spit. Who knows.

(Also, all photos are courtesy of Claire! Go check out her lovely photography blog.)

why, naturally

....I'm posting a picture today! I would never do something so dastardly (I love that word, it's just so evocative!) as skip a day. Not me. Nope. ...right.

Anyway, the prompt for today was 'nature' and so I decided to post this picture!

This was taken during the hiking trip I talked about here. Butterflies are just so 'in' right now, I've noticed. (It seems slightly odd to mention an insect being 'in', but I'm not the one who makes the trends.) Clothing, art supplies... they're everywhere! (Thank goodness it's not wasps... somehow I have no desire to wear black-and-yellow striped clothing.) What's your favourite insect?

liking hiking... not so much biking

The other day, my father and I went hiking up in the hills (what's the height difference between a moutain and a hill? In writing hill, it makes me think of sledding... so not super high) near our house. This sounds like a fairly peaceful activity, right? Well, not so much. 

The day we'd picked was apparently scheduled for Invasion of the Bikers. (Great movie title, right? Is the term still 'biker' if they're on a bicycle and not a motorcycle?) People on bikes are scary, when they're going 100km/hour down a twisty and turvy road. What if they ended up flat against our windshield? Or under our tires? This is just one of the reasons I don't bike.

(Actually, that's a total lie. I don't bike because a) helmets mess up my hair, but I know too well that I am a klutz and so likely to kill myself without one and b) I don't have enough padding on my posterior for it to be comfortable. How do those super-skinny athletes manage?)

To be completely fair, they probably thought we were the scary ones... We were in a large, square, orange car-thing, after all. (Named Bertie. Because that's just what you call a large, square, orange car-thing.) Plus, we kept stalling for no reason. (No, I was not driving.)

However, despite all this, we managed to leave the bike zone and arrive at the hike zone with no fatal injuries... just a few bruises and scrapes. (KIDDING! No one was squashed like a bug against our windshield! You're welcome for that lovely mental image.)

Once we got over that initial trauma, the hike itself was actually lovely. We even managed to see quite a bit of wildlife! (Ok, so most of it was of the insect variety, but still. I fancy that the bugs buzzing around my head gave me quite an angelic halo!) Funny fact: even though we go hiking quite often, this was my first time seeing deer in the woods- and I saw two!

The terror of driving may have taken a few years off my life... but the serenity of the deer restored it. (Thankfully there were no mutant squrrels... although I suspect the insects may have been their evil minions.)

What are your thoughts on hiking? Is it a fun family activity, or something to be actively avoided?