I will own up to a life that has benefited from some excitement in it, but I will also admit that I have slowed down a lot in the last couple of years.
Life on the Crystal Coast offers plenty of things to do. I just can no longer do them all in one day.
Time eventually catches up with you and those days when you could work forever seem to slip away far too quickly.
I still love to work and get in my fair share. I play pretty hard when I have the time, but the difference is I cannot do it day after day or all day without a break. If I spend a few hours in the morning mowing and doing my outside chores, it is not unusual for me to take a nap of fifteen to twenty minutes. I try to set my Smartphone alarm so that I will not sleep any longer than that.
With a short nap I am good for some more adventures whether it is walking the beach, fishing, or writing. I watch little television and mostly attend to my writing efforts in the evening. When it feels like my face is going to crash into the keyboard, I give up for the evening. Still I sometimes write until 11:30 PM or later, but I usually do a serious review in the morning of anything that I write after 10 PM.
On the Saturday before father's day, I managed a short boat ride, a quick hike, a morning of writing, and my after lunch nap. Next we went shopping at Belk's then Walmart and grabbed a sandwich at Smithfield's before driving home. When we got home I washed both our cars, and now I have been writing for a while and trying to sort out my Hammock's Beach photos.
That sounds like a pretty busy day, but the funny part was when I sat down for a few minutes to relax this evening. I enjoyed a carefully planned pre-father's day drink. Now I have never been a huge drinker, but over the years I have enjoyed my share of scotch, a little rum, and some interesting beers. I still drink a beer or two a month if the stars are aligned.
So what did I have for my evening drink? It was a Diet Seven-Up. I have tried pretty successfully to get my beverages to just coffee, tea, and water. Now a diet soda is a treat. How life has changed.
We planned my father's day feast and the menu will probably be grilled turkey burgers, corn on the cob, and some baked homemade fries, half white potato and half sweet potato. It sounds like a great meal and I might break out that Smuttynose IPA that I have been saving for a warm day, but it is not what I might have enjoyed a few years ago.
No one told me not to grill a big steak or have a scotch or open a nice bottle of wine. They are just not on my radar these days. Breakfast father's day morning will be a Dr. Oz Museli Power Breakfast with added hemp and chia seeds. Gone are those bacon and egg breakfasts of long ago. When museli isn't on the menu, I usually have a plate full of grilled veggies topped with a little shredded cheese, hemp seeds and an egg or egg white.
I still fall off the eating well wagon more than I care to admit, but getting back to the norm is not a challenge. I just never thought that the norm would be buttering my one piece of low carb toast with olive oil. The scary thing is that I like the olive oil on toast and find my Marmite which I have not abandoned tastes great with it.
I shudder to think what I will be enjoying five years from now. I hope that I can still enjoy those five mile beach hikes and a can of sardines once in a while.
