I Need A Costume Change

I spend most of my weekends in the middle of the woods. No, this is not a vacation home or a rental, this is my SG's home. He lives in the cabin, in the middle of the woods, on a pond. The property is hundreds of acres of farmland, which used to be a working farm, is now a timber farm and hunting reserve. He leases his land to hunters to offset the property taxes. There is a main house, his sister's house and the cabin.

It is truly a magical place. I feel completely blown away by the beauty of this property. One pond, one lake (which he calls a pond - I call a lake, it's huge) and tons of riding trails which we use with the 4-wheeler to run the dogs.

Today, I asked SG to take the 4 wheeler out for the running of his Border Collie, Gypsy. The weather is incredible right now, and I wanted to feel the wind in my hair.

Due to the incredible amount of rain we have received over the past weeks, we ended up basically crunching through a few downed trees. Big bump here, duck under a branch there, and I got the wild idea to walk down to the big lake. Of course, he says, let's drive the 4 wheeler down. I thought it was a fine idea until I saw how far down a hill he would have to drive it. I freaked out. I asked him could we just park it and walk. He says of course, lets me off, then proceeds to drive it down there. So here I am in my $150+ gym sneakers and some cottony yoga pants and a long sleeve tshirt attempting to forge through the forest. I try stepping over stumps, ducking under branches, only to end up stuck in the middle of a bunch of thorns. But note - I took the same trail he did... but the difference is, he plowed right through this stuff.

We make it down there and lo and behold, we have to go back up. At this point, I am brushing woodland spiders and random beetles (which I could swear were those kissing-death- beetles) and trying hard to hang onto the back of the 4-wheeler. We are on such an incline, that I freak out, jump off and tear through the forest trying to make sure no other critters attack me.

SG is laughing and charging up the hill, stopping to pick me up, then slams through the bush. I'm squealing like a little kid frightened by a clown, and we finally make it up the hill and back on the nature trail. I'm looking at my clothes at this point, covered in thorny things, my hair with leaves, and a few small spiders crawling on my arm. My shoes are wet... and all I could think was, "Damn. I need to buy a whole new outfit to be out here."

I see girls wearing those duck boots, trying to look cute in the mall. You know the ones, right?

These little guys run about $119 dollars on the LL Bean website and have a waiting list around Christmas for almost 6 months. For fashion.

I need them to survive out here.

Then there is the whole flannel thing. I thought it was just for show to. (Don't laugh.) I seriously need it out here. It's cold, it's tough material, and well..

Goodness... I need a costume change.

Which sort of makes me laugh. The girl who wanted nothing more than stilettos and sky scrapers has found absolute happiness in the middle of nowhere special.

So how do you go from this :


































To this:

This is going to be an interesting transition.