Mama Duck - Creating Your Own Fun

Dressed in my yellow paddling jacket and PFD while paddling a yellow kayak, I look like a giant duck.  As a mother it was a natural progression that on the water I came to be known as mama duck.

I decided that for fun I would take a different "baby" rubber duck kayaking with me on each of the lakes and reservoirs during my kayaking BHAG:  I would name each one, date it with the day it kayaked, and the location.  At the end of my BHAG I will have a visible record of my accomplishment of kayaking 106 lakes and reservoirs within a year.  Many people might think that playing with rubber ducks is a pretty silly thing for a 50 year old to be doing.  It makes me smile.  It makes me laugh.  In the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, "Do what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway.  You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't."  Yeah, yeah, I know she had bigger things in mind than rubber ducks but you get the idea.  This BHAG is to help me rediscover joy.  The ducks make me happy.  End of story.

When shopping for Christmas gifts I saw a large yellow duck and instantly knew that I had to have it.  I had found mama duck.

Prior to the start of this BHAG I had only been a warm weather shorts and t-shirt kayaker.  This BHAG is going to be quite a challenge for me as it is going to require cold weather kayaking in order to complete all the lakes within the 365 day deadline I have set for myself.  The very nature of a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) is that it requires a giant step up in your capabilities.  It forces you to dramatically improve because otherwise you won't be able to achieve it.  The only other time that I set a BHAG for myself was when I set the goal of running the 2010 Columbus Marathon.  I can happily state that I achieved that BHAG (even though I probably could have walked the 26.2 miles faster than I ran it).  Here is hoping that this BHAG goes as well.