Fearless? You Decide.

I'm way behind in my ABC posts but will try to catch up. When I uploaded the Fearless Knitter button on my sidebar, I thought about what it means to be fearless. Yeah, I know I haven't put a zipper into a sweater yet, but when it comes to knitting, there are not too many patterns that I'd be afraid to try. Although if you look carefully at my shawl, I did put lifelines in.

I could have been fearless and just continued on but no, I put the lifelines in mainly because I am really afraid that if I make a major mistake, I will not be able to recover especially with this Kidsilk Haze. Hmmm... maybe I'm not so fearless.

But then I went on to think about other aspects of my life. As I've gotten older, I have come across situations where I've been confronted with an opportunity to try something and it was very likely that the opportunity would not arise again. Do you take the plunge and try or do you take the chance of saying "I wish I had"? To me, I think those may well be some of the saddest words you can say - to have had an opportunity, not taken it and then regret it. All of the following pictures are from a trip I took to New Zealand with my Mom and Dad in 1996. NZ is really one of the most beautiful countries - did you know that the sheep outnumber the people?! How can that not be a great place! Anyway, one of the places we visited was Queenstown where there are many outdoor activities in which to participate. When we pulled up to the Kawarau Bridge, my heart was beating quickly but here was one of those opportunities and I knew I had to try.

Here I am standing on the edge of a platform on the bridge. I have put my life into the hands of the nice man behind me as he attached a padded belt around my ankles which was then attached to a giant bungy cord. They adjust the bounciness according to your weight and this is definitely one situation where you don't want to lie! Thank goodness the employees are willing to jump with you because I knew there was no way I would willingly dive off of the platform on my own. You can't jump feet first because the cord is attached around your ankles and you end up hanging upside down.

There we are hanging upside down - that little raft comes and gets you at the end. I can't really say I enjoyed this - it went by way too fast and I had my eyes closed for part of it. You bounce around a lot like you are on a huge rubber band. Now the other thing I got to try was much more enjoyable and you could actually enjoy the scenery. I went flying on a tandem parapente which is a two person parasail. The hardest part was hiking up the mountain because once you are all hooked up, you have to run off the edge of a cliff to catch the air. Here we go.

Now this was a cool ride!