Woke up today, ready for my 2nd surf, ever! Arranged for my beautiful friend Lee-Ann to  give Kai a lift to school so that I could at least get to the office at 7:45!

Arrived at work, checked my mail, finalised all the info I need for SARS (after spending 5 hours at their office yesterday with no resolution in sight!), took some calls and jumped up when I realised it was 9:15…time was running out…apprehension was growing…locked up, popped in to the printing shop to make copies of some very important documents.

Got to Lifestyle Surf with 3 minutes to spare, to a room full of moms dressed in wetsuits and the funky Moms on Board blue rashvests. Everyone was ready to go. I on the other hand still had to search through many wetsuits to find the perfect size!

Finally, armed with a size L-L wetsuit I quickly squeeze into the changing booth, took a very deep breath and started the exhausting process of getting into my very tight wetsuit. Imagine my sense of achievement (or let me rephrase, my sense of possibly, having have lost some weight!!) after I managed to get the wetsuit over my thighs with very little effort!

Then came the horror! After getting the wetsuit all the way to my chest, I could not get my hands through the sleeves, CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT IT FEELS LIKE WHEN YOU CAN’T GET YOUR HANDS THROUGH THE SLEEVES OF A WETSUIT??? I looked at my hands, I looked at the size of the sleeve and was horrified that I may have to choose another wetsuit after managing to get it up to my chest with very little effort…I persevered, I literally bent my thumbs under my hands, bent my pinkie fingers over my thumbs and finally managed to squeeze my hands through!

Then reality struck real hard! I couldn’t get the wetsuit over my shoulders!! THAT WAS IT! I boldly stepped out of the changing booth, half dressed in my wetsuit, and looked at all the other moms, all ready in their wetsuits and funky rashvests and with slight disappointment exclaimed “I THINK I MAY NEED A BIGGER WETSUIT!” (as a curvaceous female it really can be quite embarrassing/intimidating when you step out into a room full of surfer chicks with half your body looking all curved and toned – the benefits of tight wetsuits, while your top half is a bit of a blob and your arms feeling like gigantic elephant trunks… but hey when you know something awesome is waiting then you really don’t care!).

Nicky Riley, bless her sweet soul, stepped over to me to try and help me out of this wetsuit sleeve dilemma. Finally after lots of stretching, pulling, twisting and more pulling (by Nicky that is) we manage to get me zipped up and ready to take on some waves!

I grabbed a board, spoke to some moms and out we walked INTO THE STORM OF EPIC FREEDOM! Nothing is more exhilarating than walking outside in a wetsuit, with a surfboard tucked under your arm and big raindrops falling on your face, feeling the wetness of the rain under your feet . Everything is so clean and refreshing. I felt like a crazy person, one with nature, one with the earth, the only thing missing was some djembe drums in the background and some tribal dancing…I was in my element!

Out in the ocean I kept getting tangled in my leash, but I am so impressed with myself. I can now balance on the board while laying flat on my stomach! I had one incident when, somehow, I managed to land UNDER my board as the waves were breaking (remember I am like waist height in the ocean, so really not very deep at all…) and I struggled to get back out from under my board, trapped under water for a few seconds, and I had no fear… the sense of freedom and peace is too intense for fear!

Then after spending an exhilarating 35 minutes in the water with about 20 moms it was time to head back out. Oh, I forgot to mention that mid-way I swopped my board for another lady’s BIGGER board, which really helped me balance a lot better. Okay, back to heading out, I had a quick chat with, I think the owner of Lifestyle, can’t get to his name now, who so kindly offered to take my board back to the shop when he heard that I needed to get back to the office!

I quickly ran up to the shop, struggled out of my wetsuit, grabbed my bag and bright red umbrella and off I went at 10:40 to take some photographs of the construction work at the surfers’ corner traffic circle, popped in at the print shop to pick up my copies for SARS and got our audit signed off. Rushed into Checkers to get some milk for our board meeting and arrived at the office soaking wet!

And that is what I would like to call work-life-balance with Moms on Board. Thank you again for an epic Tuesday morning! I know I will feel the pain tomorrow morning and look forward to going to bed with the sound of the ocean still playing in my ears tonight! — feeling grateful.