Talk about you Tuesdays....

OK, so we've all got parenting blogs. We love to talk about our kids and all the great and interesting things they are doing, all the mess and the drool, and all the love and adventures. But, what about us? Occasionally, it's fun to talk about yourself. Selfish? Maybe, but it's your blog, you can write what you want. So I'm starting a new activity/carnival/Mr. Linky party...It's Talk about You Tuesdays.

Use your Tuesday blog space to tell us a story about you. It probably won't be completely void of your children, but instead of them being the soul focus take some time for you...Here I'll start us off with a story I was recently reminded of:

"The Day I Fell Out of the Boat"

Since we brought our daughter home, I find myself thinking about all the wacky things I got myself into growing up, and one of my misadventures came fluttering back to the surface and made me laugh.

I am an avid angler, and winter really puts a damper on my fishing. So every year when the lakes thaw I throw the boat in the back of the truck and head to the closest lake to see what's swimming around. In the winter of my 17th year, I didn't have a truck. I had my mom's car and a precarious system of knots that kept the boat firmly (or not-so-firmly attached).

The trip to the newly thawed lake was uneventful. Once I was unloaded and tooting around the lake with my electric trolling motor and more fishing rods than one person needs for a few hours on the water I was finally at peace. That is until I felt the 'call of nature.' Now I've been fishing with people who will readily answer 'nature's call' over the side of the boat, but I'm a little more modest. So I head for the closest shoreline.

I get the boat as close as possible to land, but this shoreline was far from suitable for exiting a boat in February. At this point I had no choice, I was running out of time and had to get out of the boat. So I did what any safe boater would. I threw my anchor up on shore, climbed to the front of the boat and grabbed a small tree that would aide in my exit. Unfortunately, the tree was too small and when I attempted to pull my self away from the boat, the tree bent. From here everything slowed down.

I felt the tree giving in to my weight and my balance fading...It continued to fade until I was in the water. The water was only about eight inches deep, but it was enough to soak me through. It was cold, very, very cold. At this point (thankfully), 'nature' stopped calling. I shot out of the water and over the side of the boat. I gunned my tiny motor back to the ramp at little more than a snails pace. Losing feeling in my hands and feeling my clothes starting to freeze I dragged the boat ashore and did my best to lash it to the car. Tying knots with no feeling in your hands is difficult but tying a good knot with no feeling in your hands and the weight of the lake in your frozen clothes is just about impossible.

When I finally got in the car I did what any pre-hypothermic angler would do I stripped to my underwear and drove home. Amazingly, the boat stayed on the car and I didn't get pulled over...Oh, and I guess it was good that I survived, too.

I hope I can teach my daughter to avoid the mistakes I've made. Sure she'll make her own, but if I teach her one thing it'll be to make sure she's uses the bathroom before she leaves the house because you never know what can happen when you close the door behind to leave.

Do you have a story? Add your link here: