Bucket Envy...

The other night my friend Lori and I were walking down the beach. The water was splashing around our feet and the setting sun was warm on our faces. We were talking about nothing… just enjoying our walk together. Eventually we randomly started to pick up seashells. This became our activity for the next 30 minutes or so and we were content in the mindless peace that picking up shells from the sandy beach can offer a mom. The sound of the waves drowning out any worries we had in our minds. We were escaping the craziness that was ensuing in the beach house behind us. Our children were all running around and hyper by now and our husbands were still asking us questions like “Have you seen my sunglasses?” or “Didn’t you pack my blue shorts?” We were free of crying babies and whining teenagers. Ahhhhhh~

At one point we passed a few other women who were doing the same thing as us… walking for a bit, stopping to move something on the sand with their big toe and then bending to pick it up, but they had a bucket. Lori and I could not resist to ask them what was in their bucket-assuming that they had shells as well. We peered in and saw what looked like coral/dried sponge/rock.

We exchanged some niceties with the women and proceeded on with our mindless therapy, but this time we wanted what was in their bucket! We dropped the shells that we had so meticulously picked up and started to search for things that looked like coral/dried sponge/rock.

We didn’t know what exactly we were looking for, but we did discover that it was a lot harder to find these little pieces of the sea than it was to pick a shell out of the millions of shells that were on the beach.

It gave our search a purpose. It gave us a challenge. In the end, we only found 4 coral/dried sponge/rock looking things and we were incredibly pleased with our treasures.
We celebrated by opening a bottle of wine and making fun of our husbands and telling our children that we planned a skinny dipping expedition that evening. This caused everyone to stay clear of us in case we started stripping down for all the beach combers to see… us moms know how to get some peace and quiet let me tell ya!