Pan Out

At least I'm consistant. I have been prone to Wild Hares my entire life.There was the one time I rooked everyone into pooling our money for Mothers Day and giving my mom professional lawn care for her 2.7 acre lawn that entire summer.

That one turned out pretty good.

Then there was the time I dragged all my friends and and family with me to see a free outdoor play at a park an hour from where we lived. When we got there, it was discovered the play finished it's final run the evening before.

That one turned out publicly, embarrassingly bad.

You would think I would learn to vet my crazy ideas for logic and probability. Spontaneous fun is only fun if you don't freak people out about it, and the timing is right, and you actually check all your facts and sources, instead of getting caught up in the excitement and hype and running out the door so fast you forget to grab the diaper bag or the map to where you are going.

Sometimes a Wild Hare is sheer awesomeness, worth every ounce of effort to pull it off. Sometimes a Wild Hare is awful, and I privately hope group amnesia will set in so no one ever remembers how awful it really was.

Latest Wild Hare: I received an email coupon for a bounce house, 70% off the regular price. I immediately thought how I could apply this to my life. Wait, I had to throw a birthday party, was this not the perfect solution? That's the line of logic that landed me in the driver seat, the soul adult in a fully-loaded twelve passenger van, driving ninety minutes (I know, I know) for the privilege of bouncing off of someone else's walls.

Before you light a candle for my soul, you should know it was the awesome kind of Wild Hare. The children (all eleven of them, ages eleven and under) had a grand time. They were so thrilled to be together, they sang and giggled and played all ninety minutes down. Then they ran and jumped and bounced and laughed and danced for two hours.

We took a break for lunch, and gift-opening, and more singing, then it was back to the bouncing. The ninety minutes home were filled with more singing and giggling and some rather dramatic playing (along with some napping). We stopped for ice cream - it was a birthday party, after all - and posed for pictures, and I dropped the party-goers off happy and tired and smiling.

I am grateful when things pan out. That excursion could have gone horridly, horridly wrong in any number of nightmare scenarios. But it didn't. It went off without a hitch. It's the Wild Hares like this that keep me coming back for more, junkie that I am. And, I think most of my favorite memories started out as a Wild Hare. Filed under "Panned Out".

What are you blessed with today?