To sell or not to sell

I'm not sure how this happened exactly except that what I pictured in my mind's eye is vastly different from reality in regards to owning a lake house. When we made the decision to purchase our lake house almost 4 years ago, I pictured watching the beautiful sunset from the deck while sipping a glass of white wine or enjoying lunch on the dock while watching boaters demonstrate how easy wake boarding is. Reality - maintaining and cleaning another house except with inferior 1970's appliances and cooking for my growing family in a miniature kitchen. Reality - we can none of us wake board and believe me we've tried.

Still, I keep trying to create the beautiful image in my mind or at least a beautiful meal like my ridiculously talented friend Greta does in her sleep. I purchased fresh flowers and a tablecloth and color coordinated napkins for our 4th of July weekend and admit that the added touches made the meal feel more special. For Labor Day,we purchased a large red umbrella so that we could sit out on the swim platform in the bright sunshine that we get in the afternoons. We are all about protecting our skin from the sun for all different reasons I might add. We have everything from brand new baby skin to aging skin to protect here!

I spent the morning preparing a grilled chicken taco salad from the Pioneer Woman website which has the most fabulous food pictures if you ever need inspiration to cook. I gathered everything we would need to eat our lunch and took it down to the water. It wasn't what I would call relaxing as we were watching Lucy, adorable 14 month old granddaughter would not tumble into the water. Meanwhile our 9 and 10 yr. old children were negotiating exactly how they would be jumping off the swim platform. The adults were making the best of it and enjoying the delicious salad when a gust of wind sent the red umbrella that was on a 100 lb base falling on it's side. Jason, who was seated Indian style on the platform grabbed the umbrella with all his might at its base to keep it from falling on someone. Thankfully we were able to upright it. Did we learn from this, not a chance. Ever the optimistic ones, we left it up only to have another gust of wind come, this time toppling it completely over right in front of Laura, Jason, Lucy and Roxy our dog, who were swinging on the porch swing! Well, Roxy made a run for high ground. Laura and Jason were too tired from chasing Lucy around all day so didn't move at all. We did put the umbrella down for the day.

Still haven't come to a conclusion on whether to sell our quirky place. Yes, it's exhausting and things hardly ever turn out like I plan but somehow it's worth the trouble. In the meantime, we have purchased bolts for the big red umbrella.