Found It!

Well, I turned 39 last month. This is not huge news in and of itself as birthdays happen every year.

Lily Ruth's Daddy took me on a wonderful wine tasting outing to celebrate. It was fantastic! Possibly the best trip we've ever taken together. We simply had a great time the whole time - no sniping, no 'you didn't think this through or make a plan!?' Just relaxed fun. We took our map of the Texas Wine Trail, and headed out.

First stop, Dry Comal Creek. We already love their wines, so stopping there was a no-brainer. We had a great tasting in a completely casual and relaxed atmosphere, and left with several bottles of wine (no, silly, not ALL of those!):

We stopped at Pedernales Cellars next, but they were PACKED, and unprepared for that volume of business. We would have waited 10-20 minutes just to get to the tasting counter, and the next tour of their underground cellar wasn't for another 45 minutes :-( We'll try them again another time...

We debated about our next stop, because we had several options. In the end, Becker Vinyards won out, and I am soooo glad that it did! We had a very large amount of fun at Becker.

When you buy a tasting there, they give you a glass (that you keep) and 6 tickets for wine tasting. Then you stand around their huge rectangular bar and trade in your tickets for the wines of your choice. Not only is their new(ish) tasting room absolutely gorgeous, but their staff is big fun. Also, one thing that drunk people are terrible at is holding onto small pieces of paper. Every time we looked down, there were more tickets on the floor and no owners (apart from us) in sight.

After spending way too long falling in love with the Malbec at Becker, we wandered off to find lunch in Fredricsburg. Mmmmmmm, lunch. I'm not a huge fan of posting pictures of meals, but I was having too much fun not to take this:

After eating ourselves silly, we meandered out to our Bed and Breakfast. My darling husband had made yet another excellent choice. The Walden Plantation was great. Our room was gorgeous:

The staff was fantastic, and our breakfast was deeeeelicious. We are definitely going to visit them again, and we hope to bring lots of friends.

Enough with the recap - on to my point. My point is this: I tend to take stock every year around this time. I think that it's due in equal parts to the new year, the change in seasons and my birthday. Whatever the reasons, around about now, I am looking hard at what is up with me.

This year, I find that I am doing more complaining than fixing. I am unhappy with my weight and my size (not the same thing, ya'll!). I am not thrilled with my energy level. I feel like I'm treading water instead of doing, yet I'm not making any changes. Why is this? Well, this week, I think that I figured it out: Motivation.

I have these vague (and not so vague) dissatisfactions, but I had lost the motivation to do anything about them... until I met the Climber.

The Climber is a new element at the wonderful McKenna Children's Museum (a.k.a - Lily Ruth's new favorite place). I talked it up to Lily Ruth on the drive up there. She was very excited to try something new and to climb. We walked up to the Climber, and she promptly panicked. There was no way she was going to get into that big, scary thing all by herself. Well, I wasn't about to let her miss out because of fear of the unknown, so I pushed down my fear of heights, and squeezed myself into the Climber.

We made our way from color to color. Her eyes gradually returned to their normal size, and her shoulders left her ears and relaxed down her back. We went up to the top:

down, up again (hung out for a while) back down, up yet again (more hanging out), and finally down. Ya'll I am too big and too out of shape for this kind of thing! I was completely wiped out by the time we were done. But somewhere way up high; staring at that big blue Texas sky with my baby, I found my motivation. I will NOT miss out on opportunities like that. I will not let my daughter down by being physically unable to do something. I WILL show her how to be brave and strong and how to take on this world one colorful climb at a time. We will have adventures. We will push limits. We will conquer fear.

So there you have it - motivation found. Who's up for an adventure?