Thank G-d for Aleve!

Perhaps I'm getting too old to have this much fun?  But it sure was worth it at the moment(s), it made me feel so alive and young and active.  Until the muscles cooled down and I could hardly move again.

Monday we started our day by attending the 9:00 am Pickleball lessons.  This is something I've wanted to do since I first learned about it two years ago in Texas.  At that time I was too busy learning about line dancing to pursue it, so now was our big chance.

Pickleball was started in 196 by Congressman Joel Pritchard in Bainbridge Island WA.  They had wanted to play badminton but nobody could find the shuttlecock, so they improvised and created this new sport.

It's a combination of badminton, tennis and table tennis.  It uses a doubles badminton court, a tennis net that is 2" lower than normal, a hard paddle and a wiffle ball.

The advantages of this for children and seniors (they really are one and the same!) is the smaller court size, about one-third of a tennis court and a slower speed, again about one-third the speed of a tennis ball.

We met up with our instructor and he started us out with learning how to serve.  Then we progressed to the forehand and backhand strokes.  At the end of the session we were ready to leave but another couple needed two more people to play with, so we jumped in with our new found knowledge.

This was perfect, since we were able to put it all together with the scoring (which is kind of weird, but now makes sense) and our new skills.  It was a blast!  Left Brain isn't so sure, this might be a little tough on his joints.  I'm already envisioning finding pickle theme fabric to make a pickleball game bag for my new equipment.  I haven't bought any just yet.  The instructor allows you to check his out and there's another lady in the park who will lend us her paddles while we're here.  Then when we know which weight paddles and such we like the best we can make our purchases.

I had just enough time to fix a light lunch and rest up a bit before the 12:30 line dancing.  That seems to be coming back to me and is similar to the ones I'd learned before, but the instructor goes over and over it so much it's a little boring.  But, it still gets a good sweat worked up and burns some calories as well as being a lot of fun.

After a quick shower Sister Mary took me to a vegetable store where I filled up my cart with the lowest priced fruits and veggies I'd ever seen.

I know what I'll be doing tomorrow - chopping, slicing, dicing and cleaning veggies!

Long Live the Queen of the Pickleball Court