{Swing Set}

Remember this? Well today I am FINALLY starting it.

The word I received today was swing set. Ahh, the childhood memories.

First let me give you some quick background information.

Growing up, all my cousins were a lot older than me. It was basically like having a ton of older siblings who would pick on you haha. So anytime I'd go to my grandparents house, my cousins weren't exactly the right age to be someone who could play with me, so I'd often be left to my own devices.

As I've grown up though, I feel that that really benefited me as it truly made me more imaginative. And imagination is a fabulous thing.

So my grandparents had this swing set in their backyard. It had been through the wear and tear of four other grandchildren, but it was still in a great condition in spite of this. There were two swings, a tire swing and a regular swing, although the tire swing broke and was never fixed around the time I was 9 or so.

One of my favorite games to play on the swing set was a pirate game. The entire set was the ship and anything else was either land or water, depending on whether I had already "set sail" or not.

I would always start the game by gathering grass and acorns and weeds and pretending I had to gather all the food possible to accompany me on my trip. I would then hop on the swing and get higher and higher pretending we were setting sail. I had an imaginary crew, although contrary to popular belief, all my pirate shipmates were girls.

We would dock our "ship" at all sorts of places. I had already visited the entire coast of Europe by the time I was 7 and I sailed the entire perimeter of North America in only two hours. I got around, let me tell you.

Me and my crew would attack other ships and gain prisoners (which always ended up being boys) and do all sorts of pirate-y things. I would cup my hands together and squint through my make shift telescope with one eye and truly see the ocean, not a sea of grass or my grandparent's house or the trees scattered along their yard. I would see other ships and pirate flags and real pirates.

Imagination was a big part of my childhood. And I had quite the fabulous childhood.

Have a fabulous Wednesday.