When was the last time you did a cannonball?

Really.  A cannonball.  If it's been awhile as it has for me then I would offer one piece of advice: plug your nose!

 

After a challenge from our son I decided that it really couldn't be that bad...three feet deep water so an in-head estimation involving vivid-broken-leg-imagery accounted for an initial cannonball rapidly involving forward-leg-slides underwater.  Yep, sure to work, be fun, save my spine, and all that jazz.

 

One item forgotten: airway.  As chlorinated water rushed into my nostrils I experienced the swimmers version of 'brainfreeze'.   Ahhhh.  Spine unharmed.  Inner nose hair grazed off.

 

It's been awhile since we (as in Jeff and I, the supposedly mature McDougalls) truly played.  Play.  Recall those fun actions we used to do as kids that seem to have been stroked off the adult to-do list once employment and mortgage payments entered?

 

Dictionary.com defines Play as...

 

-to exercise or employ oneself in diversion, amusement, or recreation.

-to do something in sport that is not to be taken seriously.

-to amuse oneself; toy; trifle (often followed by with ).

-to take part or engage in a game.

 

So what has happened to us grownups that we no longer play, amuse ourselves, trifle, engage in a game?  Even playing with our kids doesn't always seem so amusing (sadly and shamefully admitted).

 

The cannonballs (yes, multiple) have inspired me to add to our lives some new, different, and fun play.  Enough with this 24-7 chip of responsibility .. how about some comical 'whims'???

Update: How am I doing with my latest challenge?

 

"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without."

 

I will happily have you know that I have NOT purchased a new shower curtain. 

 

And when eyeing up new patio tables, now on sale at Canadian Tire, an item that has been on my wish list for several years since our last one cracked and smashed into a million pieces (literally, though I did not count them so perhaps a million is an exageration) I suddenly asked myself "what are you doing?". 

 

Concluding the absolute ridiculousness of my materialistic desire, I abruptly reckoned that realistically we could make ourselves an outdoor 'dining stand' from an old door and some sawhorses.  Why spend $100?  And why not re-purpose an article?

 

How easily it is to be overwhelmed and excited by new-ness and shiny-ness and other such attractive features...

 

What about you?  What little teeny (or big, massive) changes have you made?  Every one of them makes a difference!