Sunday Snippet: The Lake Life Reality Edition

We are in our 14th year here at the lake. It’s hard to believe we’ve had our cottage for so long, particularly given that we waited for so long to buy one. It seemed like whenever we were ready to buy, cottages were just out of our reach and when they were in our reach, we weren’t in a position to consider buying one. Fourteen years ago, when this marriage-long dream came true, we were overjoyed.

We still are, although the realities of lake life are a little different from the fantasies.

This is a rehash of the harsh realities of lake life, but I’m doing it again anyway because I need the reminder… and we have friends who’ve just bought a lake place and they might need a reality check too.

The fantasies didn’t include have to scrub the cottage down a couple of times a year because the trees and the road dust and mildew can make it look truly dreadful. The fantasies didn’t include having to stain the deck every couple of years or spraying the driveway for weeds once a month in the summer or sweeping cobwebs off the boat lift before we uncover the boat for a ride or scrubbing the boat down or weeding the gardens around the cottage or stomping down the mole hills or spraying for spiders and ants or checking all the kitchen drawers for mouse droppings. It didn’t include needing a new roof or new boards on the deck or repairing a boat lift or getting stung by the wasps that nest behind the cottage shutters and under the eaves of the shed. Basically, the fantasy forgot that cottage ownership, at times, will be just as arduous as home ownership.

For example, who knew we’d get the boat out of storage this year, get it ready to launch, give starting it a try while it still sits in the driveway as we do every year, and nada–the motor didn’t turn over at all. Sigh. Husband has diagnosed the problem, ordered the parts that need to be replaced and the boat will be in the water next week, but again …  who knew?

When we’d been here about five years or so, somehow, the word got out (after ninety-some-odd years) about how wonderful our bay was for swimming. Suddenly, we became the party bay for the whole lake and now every hot weekend, our bay is filled with boats and swimmers., We are now, apparently, officially the weekend party bay on the lake. When Moe and I went out to swim yesterday, there were a bunch of boats and music so loud it echoed all the way across the bay. Also a part of lake life that we hadn’t anticipated.

I sound a little but whiny and disenchanted, but I’m not, truly. I’m simply more in reality about what lake life is all about and about the different reasons people love it here. We love being near the water so we can swim and fish whenever we like, so for us, being here during the week works best. For others, who are here for the water sports and the party atmosphere, weekends are the time to come to the lake.

Those confessions/observations aside, we are still crazy about being at the lake and about our little community, which has turned over a lot in the fourteen years we’ve been here. We love our big deep bay on this beautiful lake. It’s the perfect place to swim and fish. Watching the moon make a path across the water still takes my breath away. Being able to walk down and sit on the dock to simply watch the ripples on the surface of the water and breath in the scent of the lake is all I need to know all will be well.

The lake is still our dream vacation–and how blessed we are to be able to come up whenever we like and enjoy our life here. Life doesn’t always take the turns you plan for when you are first married and starting out together full of dreams, but after 52 years of marriage, our life, both here at the lake and in the city, is pretty darn good.

Gratitude for this Week: Husband can fix a boat; my BookBub book is still ranking well into the Amazon Top 100 Bestselling Books and still #1 in two other categories (It’s still free until June 15, just click the graphic here!); we got the deck furniture set up; Pal Mary and I got a new garden planted at the city house; and Grandboy is out of school for the summer. 

Stay well, stay safe, speak out when you can, and most of, mes amies, find the good stuff in your life and be grateful!