Blogging, Math, Cruises and Red Ribbon Week

Blogging feels overwhelming and a bit daunting right now, like exercising and laundry and visiting teaching and dust and what to make for dinner. Oh and math. Math is scary. I used to break out in hives everyday of 6th grade when we did math,  My teacher would send me to the sick room. Now I think about writing and break out in cellulite. It's kind of the same thing except at this house there is no sick room, just dust and dinner that needs to be made and laundry and me not exercising.

The ocean is also scary and overwhelming and daunting. And big. I have always been terrified of that place. This is probably because I grew up watching "Gilligan's Island" and watching movies like the "Poseidon Adventure" and "Jaws" at a young age. I also drank out of the garden hose, didn't wear a seat belt, and I don't even think bike helmets were invented. Anyway, it's not dying in the ocean, it's living in the ocean that terrifies me. If you do not think this is a scary thing, you haven't been watching Finding Nemo or reading the Reader's Digest for the past 20 years. Every time I start to convince myself that the ocean is "ok," the R.D. publishes a story about someone that fell off a boat and treaded water for 4 days and was almost eaten by sharks and saw 4 boats and 9 airplanes before their eyeballs were sunburned out of their sockets until they were finally rescued so that they could begin therapy for the rest of their lives. I'm just sayin that if I were my ancestors, I'd still be living in the mother country, far from the sea.

But this summer I faced my fear and went on a cruise. A cruise is like a small country with too much food and too much gambling and a walking art gallery of tattoos floating in the ocean. And yes, even though I'm back, my stomach rolls just thinking about it. (Did I mention there are a lot more rolls on my stomach?") Not the I'm going to throw-up kind of roll, but the roll you get coming down the first hill of a roller coaster. But at least it's just that and not the hyperventilating and near passing out that happened to me 25 years ago when we crossed Galveston Bay. In a car.

So I can cross "face my fear of the ocean" off my 50 things to do before I'm 50 list. And I can add, "lose the 7 pounds that I gained on my cruise," because I did a lot of self-medicating on the cruise, food  being my drug of choice. So now I am having my own red ribbon week month. Just say NO! NO! NO! NO!

When I wasn't panicking about the lack of land and the fact that the ocean was 6,000+ feet deep and full of lurking creatures, I enjoyed:

kissing stingrays

and dolphins

and this hottie on the beach

and spending time with these people.