[Editor's note: This post was started last Tuesday, but I'm just now getting it posted.]

I woke up sore this morning. Sore in expected and unexpected places.

Sore legs — yep, that was to be expected. Sore obliques — a nice feeling, but I didn’t realize they’d feel quite this sore.  And a shooting soreness down my right forearm. Hm… that might be from one of my mishaps.

You see, yesterday, C. and I took Ski Lessons. His first. And my first, too.

Oh, I’d been on skis before. In total: twice. Both times were back in high school, when my friends assured me that they’d “teach” me how to ski. Yeah, right. Here’s what I remember:

Ski Trip #1: I attempted to master the tow-rope, but instead found myself hopelessly tangled up in it, and then deposited onto the snow, face-first. Eventually, I managed to get up the hill, turned around, and pointed back down. With no clue how to control my speed, I zipped through a crowd of people and ended up in a creek bed. Decided to spend the rest of the day drinking hot chocolate.

Ski Trip #2: Went skiing with a boy I had a crush on. He convinced me that “this hill will be fun.” I realized at the top that it was a black diamond, and proceeded to roll. The whole. way. down. That experience ended my skiing career.

Until yesterday, that is. My in-laws gave the grandkids the gift of a quick after-Christmas ski trip for Christmas, and in a fit of holiday delirium adventure, I thought it would be “fun” to take a lesson with C., to try to conquer this ski thing, even though I’m way slightly older than I was during my first two attempts.

My first warning came during the rental process. The helpful ski-renter-guy asked me what size skis I wanted.

“Um, I have no idea. This is my first ski lesson — what does that mean?”

His response: “It means you’ll be falling down a lot.”

Hmph. So much for helpful.

C. and I spent a couple hours with a very nice instructor named Jim. He was patient with us. He didn’t even yell at me when I made the conveyor-belt-carpet-lift thing stop while lots of people were on it.  (No one told me not to put my poles down at the end of it! And honestly — one sign saying “Lift Poles Now” is just not sufficient for new skiers who are too worried about maintaining their balance to be bothered with reading signs.)

And I’m happy to say I didn’t end up in any creek beds and I didn’t roll down any hills. Of course, I also didn’t leave the training slope, but that’s a minor detail. In all, I only fell down once, and that wasn’t my fault. It was that darn conveyor-belt-carpet-lift thing again. As I came to the end, I saw that a large crowd of children was stopped mere feet off the end of the belt. I panicked, worried I would run into them, toppling them like puffy little neon-colored bowling pins.

So instead, I fell down. (I’m all about self-sacrifice.) Thankfully, our instructor was nearby and helped me stand up before anyone could run over my head with their skis.

C. had a good time. He decided not to try the big ski lift that day — we’ll save that adventure for another time. But he did very well for his first time on skis, mastering the “pizza” move, the “reverse pizza” move, the “walk like a duck” move, and the “french fries” move.

I had a good time, too. And while I doubt I’ll ever be a very proficient skier, I can see myself enjoying the sport with the family in brief spurts, followed, of course, by recuperative hot chocolates.