THE LAST UPDATE!

Well, I did it. I got through my very first 99 in 999 list! I wanted to get all of them done, obviously, but think 70/99 isn't too bad for a first go, right? I'm going to go with "yes," because I did so many things I wouldn't have done otherwise, and I feel super accomplished about it. Let's recap the last few I did, and then I'll tell you what my favorite items on the list were.

#29 - write in a journal weekly for six months

I didn't do this on the blog so much, and I thought I was sucking really bad at this goal--but then I remembered that I've been writing down three awesome things that happen each day, and that totally counts as journaling! Way to go, self! Too bad you didn't think of that months and months and months ago when you were oversharing on the internet.

#35 - send a care package to someone

I thought this was going to be one the simplest ones to do, but it wound up being pretty tricky! Due to a lot of safety and health restrictions (which make sense), many places won't let you send your own care packages. They either ask that you ship a box to a central location to get parceled out, or that you donate money instead. Well, I did some research, and I decided to go with a CAREpackage! Fun fact: the term "care package" is actually a registered trademark by this company, who created the original care packages in 1946 to be mailed to Europe after WWII. They're still a legitimate organization who now mail care packages to women in Third World countries. I got to "build" my box online, and I had a long list of things to choose from to put "into" the box: mosquito nets, schoolbooks, business classes, etc. Everything is focused on giving women and young girls in these areas the opportunity to be healthy, educated, and self-sufficient, and a lot of the things you can pick aren't very expensive at all. (I think a set of schoolbooks is around $7.) This goal wound up being different than the packed-by-hand-and-mailed-with-love box that I imagined, but I'm glad we live in a world where it's so easy to help on a global scale.

#50 - write down three awesome things that happen each day for six months

I've been keeping this list on a little digital sticky note on my laptop, and every day when I come home from class/work/school, I write down three great things I can remember from the day. Sometimes it's HARD. Especially this past semester, when I'm so burned out and want to just hate everything. I'm definitely going to keep this one up, because it's so cool to look back at all the nice things that happened to you for months in a row.

#57 - have a recycling bin and utilize it once a week

For a long time, we thought our apartment complex didn't have recycling pickup...but then (like a whole year later) we found out that it does! So we got a second trash can to use for recycling, and we've been on a recycling spree ever since. It's crazy how much stuff we use every week that can be recycled. Now that I'm aware of it, I cringe when I see bottles in garbage cans or people throwing away big stacks of paper. Basically I'm ready to film a Captain Planet episode now.


#62 - avoid having cable/satellite TV for the entire 999 days

Ricky and I are totally a Netflix Instant family, and it's been AWESOME. We watch the shows we like ("Once Upon a Time," "Modern Family"--the classics) on Hulu for free, and we do Netflix for everything else. The only time I was sad we didn't have cable was during the Olympics, but then I reminded myself that paying for cable just so I could watch the Olympics every two years probably wouldn't be a great investment. We've done so well without "real TV" that we're pretty sure we're not going to get cable anytime in the foreseeable future.

#70 - send flowers to someone

I've been waiting for just the right moment to use this one, but after my lovely friend Kaitlyn came home from spending 18 months in Argentina (during which time I did not contact her ONCE, because my friendship skills have a lot of room for improvement), I had my eureka moment. Sending flowers as a total surprise is like the best feeling ever. EVER. Especially when the person lives across the country and you're just waiting for the moment the flowers get delivered. Thanks for letting me send you flowers, Kaitlyn! :D

#85 - make a book list

I agonized over this one! I love books, and it's so hard for me to make a "to-read" list, because it winds up being like 100 books every time. So I was having a hard time figuring out what the theme of my list was going to be, how many books should be on it, etc. Luckily, when we were at MegaCon this year meeting the Star Trek: Next Generation cast, Ricky had the awesome idea to ask each cast member for a book recommendation! That gave us a great opportunity to talk to them about books they enjoyed, books we enjoyed, and just books in general. (Way less awkward and more fulfilling than just telling them how awesome we think they are...even though they are totally awesome.) We missed a few members of the cast because they had gone to a Q&A panel by the time we thought about it, but here's what we have:

     Brent Spiner (Data): The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by David McCullough (He originally said "I don't read much fiction" when we asked him, and Ricky and I burst out laughing, because I don't think Ricky's read a fiction book in like five years--we love nonfiction.)
     Levar Burton (Geordi La Forge): Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley (This was the book his movie "Roots" was based off of--I didn't know there was a book! Also, I'm not sure my life will ever get better than getting a personal book recommendation from the host of Reading Rainbow. It just won't.)
     Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar): Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. (Angela and Robin both said this was good, so now it's confirmed! Denise Crosby is like the nicest person in the world.)
     John De Lancie (Q): The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin
     Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi): The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy by Stieg Larson (She was so enthusiastic about telling us when we asked her! She said she was "desolate" when she got to the end. I complimented her adjective.)
     Jonathan Frakes (Will Riker): Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan
     Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher): House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. (I forgot to ask him this at the Con, so I sent him a message on tumblr and he responded. Cool!)
     Patrick Stewart (Jean-Luc Picard): Macbeth by William Shakespeare (Ok, he didn't actually recommend this--we didn't have time to ask him because the line behind us was super long! But Ricky hasn't read this in a long time, so I'm putting in on here.)

#86 - keep a running list of all books completed

I've been keeping those on Facebook, but I'll probably move them over to Goodreads sooner or later. :) I LOVE keeping track of the books I've read! It makes me feel really productive with my life...and really nerdy. I love it.

#98 - visit the Florida Keys 

Can I just mention that living this close to the Keys is pretty fantastic? After we went the Renaissance Faire, we decided to swing down to Key Largo (about an hour south) for dinner. Driving next to the water at night is beautiful! The restaurant we originally wanted to go to was packed (and the host was super rude about it), so we drove around until we found something that looked good. And that something was Mrs. Mac's Kitchen. Ricky had the most amazing honey-mustard crab cakes. My mouth is watering just thinking about them. I had mahi-mahi, but their house seasoning didn't have a lot of flavor, so that was disappointed. It made up for it when we grabbed a coupon for a free key lime dessert out of the Key Largo guidebook they had for free next to the register (smart thinking, me!) and shared this great milkshake/smoothie/ice cream sort of combo that was all key lime flavored and frozen and delicious.

Outside the restaurant after a full day of Renaissancing

Loved it here! Definitely getting those crab cakes next time.

I can't believe that's all of them!! I just wrote out a check for $70 to mail to the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. This is a great thing, you guys. Everyone should do this--it's so worth it.

Stay tuned for the launch of my new 99 in 999 list this weekend!

overview!

YOU GUYS. There are only 45 days left until my 99 list expires! I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by...there's still so much left to do that I'm going to have to roll over to my next list. Since I've been so bad at cataloging events as a I check them off (I'll be better at that next time, I swear!), I decided I'd better do an overview of everything I haven't already blogged about. And yes, I could do that when my list is over, but that's near the end of the semester when I have about a billion papers to grade, so...we're going to do this a bit early.

#8 - read the New Testament cover-to-cover (August 2012)

This was something I had already done in high school, but I felt it was important to read it again. I have my own opinions on the way many people interpret the Bible, but I think the best part--hands down--is the Gospels. Even if you have a different interpretation of who Christ is, those parables about the widow's mite and the good Samaritan and the vineyard laborers are just so good. As in, they make me want to be a better, humbler person. I'm glad I live in an age and place where religious texts are readily accessible and understood.

#17 - go back to Busch Gardens (October 2011)

One of the top three days of my life was the first time Ricky and I went to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg. There were no lines, it wasn't too hot or too cold, neither of us felt ill or tired or got blisters, and it was basically the most perfect day ever. We left before we could go again, but luckily, Tampa is home to the second Busch Gardens, and Ricky got me tickets for my birthday in 2011.

I'm wearing my zombies shirt because it was right before Halloween. This was after the giraffe tried to eat my whole hand.

#19 - donate to Pantene Beautiful Lengths (August 2011)

This originally was Locks of Love, but after some research (you guys know I love my research), I felt that Pantone Beautiful Lengths would make better use of my hair. (Apparently Locks of Love gets a ton more hair than they can use, so they wind up selling it. Not necessarily bad, but not where I wanted my hair to go. If I wanted to sell it, I could do that myself.) I made the cut in summer of 2011.

Is it possible to have hair envy of your past self? Because seriously.

I dyed it for the HP7:P2 premiere, and then cut it like two weeks after. This is right before I had my husband chop away at it.

This is my "WHAT HAVE I DONE" moment. I got over it, but it's kind of terrifying holding that much of your own hair. Pulled straight, it was about 13 inches at the longest point.

#43 - learn to hit a golf ball the "real" way (April 2012)

Look, you can't just live in South Florida and not know how to do certain things. One of those "certain things" is hitting a golf ball in a way that doesn't embarrass yourself or others. Seeing as the extent of my golfing knowledge basically only made it as far as mini-golf...I decided to ask my dad and grandparents (golfing pros!) for assistance.

"Did I hit it? I hit it, right?" (I did.)

 I'm not going to show you my golfing stance because it looks ridiculous, but I was definitely getting some good hits in by the end. Even Ricky, who purportedly HATED golf, joined in the action...and picked it up immediately. Now he says he doesn't mind it all that much. (Go figure, right?)

We were hitting the balls over the pool so that they would be easy to retrieve. Dad was so excited that Ricky was good at golf. I think he has visions of future Florida golf escapades.

#44 - memorize the order of American Presidents (January 2013)

When I was doing my travel study in England back in 2008, I picked up a ruler with all the Kings and Queens of England since 1066 listed on the back (the ruler of rulers!). I carried it with my all over, and every time we were on a long train or bus ride, I would memorize it. I can still name all of them in order, but I thought it was pretty shameful that I couldn't do the same for the US Presidents! So I put it on my list. I tried songs, I tried acronyms, I tried straight memorization...and I just couldn't do it! My brain just hates America, apparently. Finally, I found this awesome YouTube video of a teacher who folded the Presidents' names into a totally ridiculous story. Here's the video, and here's my retelling of the story from memory:

In outer space, there's a little alien named Waj (Washington, Adams, Jefferson). Waj LOVES M&M's (Madison and Monroe--"a" comes before "o") and always wears a baseball cap with a big "A" (Adams) on the front. One day, Waj decides to visit Earth, and the first person he meets is Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson is driving a huge van (Van Buren) with even bigger tires (Tyler), and his hairy son (Harrison) is in the front seat. On the day Waj comes to visit, someone pokes (Polk) the tires, and they have to get a tailor (Taylor) to sew them back together and then fill more (Filmore) air into them. They have the tailor sew it with a special material Jthat can never be pierced (Pierce). Everyone's so excited that the tires are fixed that they set off cannons (Buchanan). Then they have a parade, led by Abraham Lincoln. (At this point you have to remember that each of the two Johnsons come after the most famous assassinations.) Lincoln signs a Grant for more hay (Hayes), and then he goes with Garfield the Cat to get it from King Arthur and send it back to Cleveland, OH. Lincoln sends his hairy son (Harrison) to Cleveland (fun fact: Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms) to get the hay, but his son bungles it up and Lincoln banishes him to Mt. McKinley in Alaska. On the way up the mountain, he sees teddy bears in some rose bushes (Teddy Roosevelt). When he gets near the top, the draft (Taft) in the air gives him the willies (Wilson) and causes him to harden (Harding) because it's so cool (Coolidge), and he has to use a Hoover vacuum to thaw himself out. On the way back down the mountain, he sees the rose bushes again, but the teddy bears are gone (F.D.R.). When he gets back to the parade, a very manly, true man (Truman) has joined, and he has very large eyes (Eisenhower). Also at the parade are Barbie and Ken (Kennedy)(and another Johnson), and Ken has shaving nicks (Nixon) all over his face. They're tired of walking in the parade, so they get in a Ford pulling a big cart (Carter) filled with Raggedy Ann dolls (Reagan--bit of a stretch there) in the shape of a Bush. Someone lights a cigar (Clinton--word association only) and lights the Bush of dolls on fire, and the whole thing goes up with a bang (Obama, which apparently is being used an onomatopoeia).

Basically, this is my new party trick.

#47 - read a biography of Walt Disney (December 2012)

I didn't think it would be that difficult to find an authoritative biography of Walt Disney, but apparently there's a boatload of controversy over biographers who either whitewash or demonize him. The only I settled on was Neal Gabler's Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination.

Neal Gabler apparently had unprecedented access to the Disney Vault, which obviously is going to give him more authentic information on the goings-on of early Disney Studios. He's a journalist, and it shows in the slant he tries to put on the whole story, but it's easy to ignore his efforts to fit Disney into his thesis and to just enjoy the facts and anecdotes instead. It was a good read.

#54 - go to an MLB spring training game (March 2012)

Since we live 20 minutes from the Red Sox spring training stadium, we knew we HAD to go, despite the fact that Ricky is a die-hard Yankees fan. To surprise Ricky, I bought tickets for the Red Sox/Yankees spring training game, which sold out in the first 15 minutes of them being put on sale. We won't talk about how much I paid for them.

We were afraid those threatening storm clouds were going to rain us out, but it blew right past us.

The teams were tied at the end of the last inning (so intense!), and instead of going into extra innings, both teams decided to call it a draw and go home. There was united booing from both Red Sox and Yankees fans. SUCH a fun game, though.

#66 - pay for someone behind me in a drive-thru line (2011?)

This one's been hanging out FOREVER, because I kept meaning to send the picture from my phone, but the lady at Sprint wiped my SIM card before I got the chance. Sigh. Anyway, we were driving back from Orlando after one Disney trip, and we stopped at our usual Wendy's for trip-home-food. Remembering my list, I asked the window cashier how much the total was for the guy in the work truck behind us (it looked like a painting/repair truck, with ladders and such). It came out to about $10, so I stuck it on our bill. I'm SO glad I put this on my list, because honestly I don't think I ever would've done this otherwise. The feeling of just randomly doing something nice for someone is pretty great. 

#67 - get a credit card (June 2012)

A lot of people were surprised when I told them I was 23 and didn't have a credit card, but it seriously was the best thing I could've done. I'm glad I have one now, because my credit is amazing, but I'm not sure if I would've handled it well as a college student. What finally prompted me to get one was a birthday gift I wanted to get for Ricky without him seeing the back account--now we have joint checking and our separate credit cards. So perfect for surprises!

#68 - apply for a graduate assistantship (May 2011)

Graduate school was a tricky thing, because in order to start in time to finish when Ricky did, I had to forego any sort of graduate funding. (I applied really late in the game.) That was a blow to the bank account (I'm still shaking my head over that one--make better choices, past self!), so I made sure to get a graduate assistantship the following years of grad school. Now my school pays me to go! Funny how that works out, and by "funny" I mean "academia is a hot mess." I've enjoyed teaching composition classes for the past three semesters, but I'm more than ready to be done. 

#72 - get Ricky new glasses (February 2011)

Ricky--bless his heart--wore a pair of crooked glasses for who knows how long before I insisted we get him a new pair. It's not that Ricky isn't aware of these things--it's just that he can't justify spending money on something he doesn't really need. (Which, let's be honest, makes him a way better person than me.) So finally I had to step in and basically demand that he let me pick out new glasses for him.

Old (also, really glad I have a better camera now)

New!

#75 - find a job in Florida (October 2010)

We moved to Florida in August, which means it took me two months of pretty constant job searching to FINALLY land a job at Borders (RIP...), and that was because a friend of my mom's was a regional manager and put in a call to our local store down here. Working at Borders was great because I got to "check out" brand new books like a library, I had a 40% discount, and I got to take my pick of the advance reader copies of new novels each month (that's how I read one of Orson Scott Card's novels before it was released). Working at Borders was TERRIBLE because of everything else. I had to deal with the entitled, retired elite of Southwest Florida, who live in mansions on the beach and are used to upscale boutiques and restaurants and the service that comes with them. Unfortunately, there are no upscale bookstores, so I had the privilege of being on the receiving end of their nonsense. (I once had an elderly customer drop-kick a shopping basket at me because I wouldn't sell him a Kindle. AT BORDERS.) I'm pretty sure that job is what made me hate people forever. But now I have a great job that I love! So retail can go suck an egg.

#78 - get my wedding ring (finally) resized (?)

Nothing exciting here. Lost about 10 pounds after we got married (yeah, mono!) and never gained it back, so my wedding ring was too big. I put this on my list because I kept forgetting to do it! Now it fits me. The end.

#79 - get health insurance (March 2012)

One of the greatest things that came along with my fancy salaried grown-up job was great benefits. I've had to go to the doctor a lot recently for some weird heart palpitation issues, and I seriously don't know what I would do if I wasn't covered under my company's plan. (Those tests are expensive!) I hope that one day no one in this country will have to worry about whether or not to go to the doctor when they're sick.

#82 - attend the weddings of at least three couples/friends (3/3) (July 2012)

Two years ago, my friend Kayla came down to Florida for a funeral for one of her friends. When I came over to Ft. Lauderdale to see her, we had lunch with one of the other families that had been at the funeral, and it was a great time. Afterwards, Kayla asked me for my opinion about the guy she was sitting next to at lunch, because she thought she might be interested in him. Now they've been married almost a year! And I still haven't written about their wedding. I was one of Kayla's bridesmaids in her lovely park wedding at Key Biscayne (right off the beach!), complete with peacocks and a really obnoxious honking bird. It was SO good to see my college roommates that came down for the event! We had a blast staying with Felipe's family and stuffing our faces with paella. Ricky walked into a sliding glass door completely sober, and everyone thought he was super drunk. (Not sure if he ever corrected them, because how embarrassing is it to walk into a door for no reason?)

On the balcony at the hotel. (Shamelessly ripped from Kayla's Facebook, because I'm inept and don't know how to share it here.)

#83 - buy "Virginia Is for Lovers" t-shirts for Ricky and myself

One of Virginia's tourism campaigns revolves around the phrase "Virginia Is for Lovers": hiking lovers, beach lovers, etc. You can find "Virginia Is for Lovers" t-shirts everywhere around the state, but since I didn't get around to buying one before we left, I had to order two online for Ricky and me. I haven't taken pictures of us in our t-shirts, so you're just going to have to take my word for it.

You can just pretend this one is mine...

...and that this one is Ricky's. :)

#90 - start a collection (2010-present)

George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate puts out a beautiful, signature ornament every Christmas, and since Ricky and I had our wedding reception there during the winter, we decided it would be a fun tradition to buy each ornament to show how long we've been married. Now we have three!

2010 - Anniversary of the Estate renovation

2011 - Prayer at Valley Forge

2012 - Commemorating the hospitality of the Washingtons (nice camera progression there--yikes)

#91 - put valuable documents in a safe/deposit box (September 2012)

Finally did this! Bought a fireproof/water-resistant safe online for our passports and such. Great investment.

 

#94 - give a Christmas Jar/Secret Santa gift to a family in need (December 2012)

Last year, we "adopted" a family at the local Women's Shelter for Christmas. We played Santa for a little boy, a little girl, and their mom. We didn't think to take any pictures, but it was absolutely the best experience in the whole world. I was more excited to shop for them than I was for my own family! If you have the means, and a Women's Shelter nearby (and you probably do), this is such a great way to give back. Truly.

---

Stay tuned for more at the end of the remaining 45 days! I've got a bunch in progression that I'm hoping to finish up by then.

#29 - write in a journal weekly for six months (9/27)

(prompt from here)

Write about something you now know that you wish you knew earlier in life. How could this knowledge have helped you?

If I could go back and have a conversation with College Me (all of six to three years ago), I think I would tell her to stop being such a self-righteous idiot. High School Me was a social moron (weren't we all?) and often quite mean, but the self-righteousness didn't start sticking its nose in the air until I went to a religious college. Don't get me wrong--my college was pretty awesome--but what happened for me when I was immersed in a religious environment was that I forgot how to not be a jerk about what other people believe and think. I thought that if someone self-identified as Mormon, like me, that I was then at liberty to tut-tut over skirt lengths and choice of movies and church attendance and marriage partners and wow, College Me, you were seriously embarrassing. College Me's preoccupation with other people's business often prevented her from understanding and appreciating those people for who they were, instead of who SHE expected them to be, and that was a very poor life choice. I wish I had learned earlier that I'm severely unqualified to pass judgment on other people's lives or beliefs, even if we go to church together. Especially if we go to church together. Basically, somebody needed to give College Me a good kick in the knee-length skirt.

(This self-revelation isn't going to keep me from passing cruel, cold judgment when my students use the wrong form of "your" in a paper, though. I'm not that generous!)

#41 - take Ricky to a DCI show

Even though my marching band days are far behind me, there's something about a drum corps show that is just so fun.  Ricky had no idea that drum corps even existed before we started dating, so I made it a goal to eventually drag him to an event, and--lucky for me!--DCI Orlando had some nice corps this summer.

(For those of you familiar with the DCI scene, Carolina Crown took first--their show was awesome!  It was unpolished, but they had this crazy intensity.  The Cadets were cleaner, and I actually had them pegged to win it, but they took second.  The Cavies' show was surprisingly boring.)

We weren't even sure if the corps was going to march, because there had been a threat of pretty bad rain, but the weather held out!  (Which was good, because we drove three hours to see it.)  Ricky agreed that seeing drum corps live was way better than watching YouTube videos.  I only wish DCI Orlando was later in the season so we could see more polished shows, but hey, I'll take what I can get.  Florida's pretty far from everywhere else. :)

#55 - get a new camera

Some backstory: I've had my Nikon Coolpix point-and-shoot since my senior year of high school started.  That's over seven years!  That little camera's been stepped on and dropped all over the place, and it still takes great outdoor shots, even though the lens gets stuck sometimes and the battery cover barely hangs on.  The problem is indoor pictures!  That poor little camera takes the crummiest low light/indoor shots, and I was ready for a new one.  So when Kodak announced that they were pulling out of the camera business and all their cameras went on sale, I snagged a Z990 for just over $100.  It's not an SLR--I didn't want to deal with all that!--but it's a better-quality point-and-shoot, and the pictures are MUCH better.  A lot of waiting paid off for such a great deal!

Please note that I did NOT take this picture to be artsy or hipstery or whatever.  I only posed it this way because it reminded me of the Borg. 

 

#24 - go scuba diving/renew certification

Catching up some old events!  Last October (that's right--2011), Ricky and I took advantage of a Groupon for a dive class.  I really want to get Ricky his open water certification (I'm already certified), but he wasn't sure if he would like it, so this was a chance for him to get his feet wet, literally speaking. 

He loved it!  I had a great time doing a refresher course, and it was fun going with Ricky.  (The title here is misleading.  SCUBA certification never expires, but you do have to do a refresher if you haven't been diving for a while.)  I forgot how amazing diving is.  I told Ricky that as soon as he's done with school, we're going to get him certified so that he can be my dive buddy.

I wound up leaving my dive gear (oops!) and we had to go back to Orlando the next month to retrieve it.  But it was a good excuse to visit the dive shop again!

#42 - visit the Everglades

After a disastrous attempt at "traditional" Thanksgiving last year (I dropped my pecan pie taking it out of the oven and it exploded everywhere; Ricky's turkey didn't thaw in time), Ricky and I decided Thanksgiving is The Worst Holiday Ever and that we needed to Do Something About It.  So instead of stuffing our faces with genetically deformed turkeys (that's my only vegetarian jab, I promise!), we turned to a celebration of our nation's pilgrim heritage by crossing a body of water in a boat.

I guess our city is technically in the Everglades area, but everything here is all about the beach, so there isn't much in the way of inlet/swamp exploration.  For that, we drove to the neighboring Everglades City, where you can rent canoes or kayaks for the day and explore.  We were pretty excited at the chance for adventuring, but a little wary--they just send you off with this poorly drawn navigational map and tell you to be back by 4:30.  We had to stop in the middle of the...river? ocean? not sure? a few times just to figure out which island was in front of us.  On the way out, we were going with the tide/wind, so it was smooth sailing!

Florida is dang beautiful.

One of the islands has a walking trail that we were aiming for, and we thought we were pretty smooth when we found the right island and the dock.  Well, we discovered then that our canoe didn't have a rope, so instead we found a bare patch on the shoreline and figured we'd just drag the canoe up out of the tide.  Great plan, yes?  So we went for it.

Any aura of coolness we thought we had promptly disappeared when we rowed under the low-hanging trees to reach the island and I came face-to-face with the most monstrous spider I've ever seen.  This thing was so big and filled out that I could see its huge, gaping, red jelly eyes literally a foot away from (and drifting closer to) my face.  I gasped so hard my throat hurt, and instinctively shoved away from the tree with my oar; what I didn't remember in my panic was that the other half of the canoe, occupied by my fearless husband, was also shoved backwards--into the opposite tangle of tree branches.  

All I heard was a strangled "KATIE!" before "UUUUGHoksomething'sonmecrapit'sintheboatdon'tmovedon'tmove," at which point both of my feet shot up off the bottom of the canoe and I said in my calmest voice, "I swear if that thing touches me I am going to totally lose it and it will be really embarrassing and also the boat will probably tip over."

Because I have the instincts of a horror movie survivor, I did NOT turn around to see what the mysterious thing was, which is why the boat panic went on much longer than it should've, because the mysterious thing (which, in my mind, was my horrible spider friend) was actually just a small crab that only looked a little bit like a gigantic spider monster.  Ricky scooped it up with his oar to show me, and when I finally turned around, I cheerfully exclaimed, "Oh look!  It's a little crab!  Aww."

Fear responses are weird.

We didn't see any alligators or manatees, but we saw a ton of birds, and since the beauty of the Everglades is that you can be a total idiot and no one is around to hear you, we made up names and characteristics of the birds a la National Geographic documentaries.  

Eventually it got pretty sore to sit on the metal canoe seats, so our life jackets made nice seat cushions. (My mom is dying right now.  Don't worry, mom! The water around the islands is only about 3-4 feet deep.)

The weather was perfect (low 70s) and everything was beautiful!  It was eerily quiet.  I loved it. 

We briefly got stuck on this beef stroganoff/coral-type thing that snuck up on us.

 When we successfully navigated the islands and decided to head back, we thought we wouldn't have any problem.  The guy who gave us the map had warned us that it would be harder to paddle against the tide (duh, I thought), but I feel like he should've emphasized that no, really, the way back will probably make you lose your will to live.  Not only was the tide coming out against us, but the dang wind was blowing around 20 mph at an angle against the canoe.  So, instead of making a direct crossing, we had to face the wind to keep from losing ground--otherwise, the wind would catch the side of the canoe and push us backwards--which meant we were cresting two-foot waves and coming down hard on the water.  After about five minutes, I looked like a Splash Mountain victim.  ("At least you didn't spew!" says Ricky helpfully.)  It also meant we had to cross the two remaining miles of open water at a nonstop, furious row in order to make any headway.  It was grueling.  At one point I may have yelled to Ricky that Pocahontas' advice to not take the smoothest course was total crap.  ("John Smith is NOT worth this!")

Ricky asked me if I was too tired to keep rowing, and if he should blow the whistle for the park rangers, but there's no motivating factor on earth for me like the shame of embarrassment.  Just the mental image of me having to explain to some poor, working-on-Thanksgiving park ranger that I was too tired was humiliating.  What would my seafaring ancestors think of me?  So we kept rowing.

After an hour and 45 minutes of some seriously intense rowing, we made it back to the rangers' station!

This is my "ugh" face.  Don't let that calm-looking water fool you--this little cove has tree cover on both sides.

When we started, the water level was up at those lighter-colored rocks.  Thanks a lot, tide!

"Please don't make me raise my arms again.  My body can't take it."

Victory shot!

After racking our boat and checking back in at the station, we went in search of an open restaurant, and struck gold with the discovery of a diner in a converted railroad depot right on the water.  Their food was amazing, but I'm still not sure if I think so because it was actually amazing, or because I was just really hungry.  Ricky had Thanksgiving-style offerings (turkey, etc.) while I went for some delicious fried crab cakes, shrimp, and potatoes.  After a bite of Ricky's homemade stuffing, I requested a plate of it to go--it was absolutely the best stuffing I've ever had.  (I had leftovers today, and it was still the best, so that's confirmed.)  I may have to drive there next Thanksgiving just for a plate of that stuffing.

Stuffing is my weakness.

Ricky and I had a great time overall, and we learned that we really need to be spending more time exploring Florida, because this place is amazing!  (And also because we're big weenies when it comes to nature.  I'm looking at you, spider monster.)  Next on our list is a trip to the panther reserve, and a visit to the local swamp sanctuary.  But that'll have to wait until Christmas break, I think.