So I am kind of obsessed with the Lake up here a little. I find a reason to drive by it 3 out of 5 days a week. Either just a slow drive down Lakeshore taking it all in, or sitting by Rip Tide Rock soaking in the rays and watching the garbage geese, heading out to Presque Isle Park by the breaker wall and just enjoying the view or going out to Black Rocks and just taking it all in. That is my favorite thing to do. Just go out there and sit. Take pictures. Think. I think a lot out there. About my life as it has come to this and how much I love it up here. How very blessed and lucky I am to have found such an amazing person in my life - someone I look forward to waking up to every single day, even after a year...who I look forward to seeing when he gets home, even if he is greasy and dirty and crabby...someone I would be willing to take care of the rest of my life. And how blessed I am to live up here....amongst all this beauty. People giggle when I tell them I moved TO here and tell me most people leave up here to go find a better life somewhere else. Ok the job market is not the best. Yes there are tons of jobs here they don't all pay the highest. I have a job. Yes, part time, but I love my job. I love who I work with and who I work for. And I love that my office is right across the street from the lake (I forgot to request the lakefront view from my office in the interview so I don't have a window overlooking it unfortunately) and that I get to see it every single day. I love that there is a place I can go and feel invigorated just by smelling the air, watching the waves, like I did this morning. Steven Tyler said it best, Life is a Journey, not a Destination. And it is true. Life is too short NOT to enjoy this.
Think about how hard people work - take the mines for example, or a big corporate job working 60 hours a week. You make a lot of money. You get bills paid. You may buy new toys like vehicles and boats and ATVs, etc - but what good is it all if you miss out on all of the opportunities in life because you are working all of the time - you miss out on time with your kids and your significant others. I would rather grab those people, head to the lake and enjoy a day of beauty than miss out on one minute with them because I had to go make a few more bucks. Life is too short people. What if one day you get told you have stage 4 cancer and you have 2 months to live if that. I know someone this happened to and they were gone in 6 weeks, it went that fast. Did you kiss your loved one goodbye this morning? Did you go to bed angry? Did you kiss them when they got home and kiss them goodnight? Did you tell your children you loved them? Did you stop, and go breathe in the air at the lake this morning? I did. I could be at work getting more stuff done and making a couple more dollars for an extra hour of work. But life is too short. Too short for me to sit on Facebook all day or all night, too short to worry about a big corporate job or making $30 an hour, and too short not to pay attention to the things that really matter in life. Sure we would all love to have all of our bills paid off and live debt free and have toys to play with and a lot of people do - some worked hard for it, others hand it handed to them, some are just lucky, and some had to fight for their life health wise for it. Whatever way it came to them, good for them. And to the middle class, like my family - we don't live paycheck to paycheck and scrounge, we are not hurting - but we are not ready to retire or buy that land yet.....it will come. As long as we take time to stop and look at the lake and say good morning. And enjoy the little things. A great teacher once told me "Don't sweat the little stuff, look at the big picture." ANd he was right. Don't worry about all of the little things, look at what life has to offer you. I am lucky enough to live in one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, including overseas....and this Lake, I think it has some magical power, it has to have really, lol. It takes me in every time. ...I still haven't jumped off Black Rocks yet. In time. I am not going anywhere.
I hope you enjoy the pictures. I know I enjoyed taking them. I took some videos of the waves close up and got kissed by the lake this morning. It was very awakening.
My shout outs for today: The Eagle Mine information center on West Washington street - if you want to see cool stuff, please go check it out. Ask Megan to do her presentation, it is pretty awesome learning about the mines and what they do and how they do it.
Last restaurant we stopped at: Pasqualis in Negaunee. First actually we went to Jackson's Pit but they were packed and had a 40 minute wait time, it was already past 8 pm. So Pasqualies it was in Negaunee - we walked in - bar tables and pool tables everywhere. You could tell they played a lot of pool at this place, hence all of the trophies on the wall. I found out they have a pool league and there are 2 men's teams from that bar that do very well. So we sat at the bar, ordered drinks and got menus. The menus are small, a few sandwiches, appetizers and pizzas. We got cheesy garlic bites for an appetizer - highly recommended, very yummy!!! Like little tiny bread sticks with cheese. YUM. So Tony went traditional Yooper and got the Cudhigi and I got the Chicken Sandwich - cheese and marina sauce. THE BREAD. OMG> so everything is bigger in the U.P. right? So the bread is huge, this sandwich is like 8 inches long and maybe 3 to 4 inches across.......and DELICIOUS! the bread is homemade right at Pasqualis and it is to dye for. I took half the sandwich home and I would not let anyone eat it, it was amazing. Highly recommended.
Sams Shoes on Third Street in Marquette. I took my favorite pair of knee high leather boots to Sam. I drove by there and realized my boots had a broken heel and I needed to swing in there to see what he could do. I got there to drop them off, he took a look at them, no problem. $10 down. It is a small shop with shoes everywhere and shoe repair supplies everywhere. He is a one man business and he does great work. So a couple of weeks later (they were done in a week I just forgot to pick them up, see paragraph one of this blog) - he charged me $15 more bucks, so $25 total. He rebuilt BOTH heels and reinforced the hell out of them. I don't know what he put inside them, but they are NOT breaking again. Great job Sam, I will be back.
Cruisin Coffee - yes I still go there even though my diet and kidney infection has kept me off my girl coffee for a couple of weeks, I stopped there yesterday actually because I was starving. Got a Snow White ice cream expresso drink that was delish and a muffin. NOMNOMNOM. :-)
Ok, if you are a radio listener, I will be on with the Fatman at 8:20 Monday morning and then on 98.3 at 7:20 or so Tuesday morning, talking about upcoming HBA stuff.
Have a great weekend and remember, please stop and enjoy the little moments. When you make your honey smile or they make you smile. When you get a hug or an I love you from your kid. When you have time to go to the lake....and not sit at home or put things off. The little things. Life is a journey, enjoy it along the way. I know my future is up here. Whether Tony and I will ever get that land and that little house out there.....who knows. We hope to someday. I plan on being by his side for the rest of our lives, who knows, maybe we can be old and sit on Black Rocks and still enjoy it.
~Loving my journey in the U.P. -
Sarah
