Wednesday morning for the nth time it was the middle of the week and I hadn’t made it off our property. Monday I spent several hours cleaning the house.  Our house needed it.  It started with me getting a toilet brush and cleaning the first toilet.  There I did.  The rest was easy.  Getting started was the hardest part.  The rest was momentum.

I worked hard,.  Polina watched and found things to do while interacting with me.  I noticed how much better I was handling work with her needs.  Before long it was nap time, then dinner time, so we didn’t make it out.

On Tuesday I called so-called “tree experts” to diagnose an evergreen in my yard that had lost all its needles.  It was that way when we bought the house a year ago, but now I noticed that the tree next to it was also losing its needles.  I began to worry the tree might be infected.  One expert suggested it might be due to a bark beetle infestation.  I panicked that I may lose the rest of my trees due to bark beetles.  I spent the morning worrying, emailing and calling.  The sound of a chainsaw revving outside made me nervous.  During Polina’s nap, I talked to my neighbor next door, as she had mentioned a company she had worked with in the past.  On the way back, I decided to be bold and talk to the chainsaw operator guy.  Turns out he wasn’t an arborist but has been in the “tree service” business for 27 years.

“They don’t climb trees and I didn’t read the books,” he said.

Fortunately for me, he went across the driveway and examined my tree.  He slapped it with his hand.  It sounded hollow.  He concluded that it has been dead for a while.  As for the tree next to it not having as many needles, he said this happens when trees overlap and needles don’t get enough sunlight.  All in all I felt a lot better that it wasn’t necessarily the bark beetle.  I felt even better when he gave me an estimate, which was less than I expected.  I was grateful.

A good day, but we hadn’t made it off our property.

Wednesday morning, I was set on going out.  I learned from past experience that the *right* way to do it is to get an earlier start.  Unfortunately, that morning, Polina woke me up at 6 am and continued to wake me for two hours.  Fortunately it was time for Peter to wake up, so he took over, letting me “sleep-in” for an hour.

When he left, I got ready.  I had to make a speedy exit or our trip would fall to close to Polina’s nap time.  I ate leftover dinner for breakfast.  I left the pile of dishes from the night before in the sink.  I’m learning how to throw perfection out the window.  I don’t like it, but I have to.

When we got to a park I had been wanting to visit for a while, Polina was asleep.  Another case of meaning well, but bad timing.  Parking was $7.  Seven dollars to park in a county park?  I parked near the entrance to wait for Polina to wake up.  I realized once again I forgot to bring something to read.  Why didn’t I put that book in the car I wanted to read? 

Fortunately I had the radio.  Unfortunately, a park ranger alerted me to his existence and after a brief chat about the park I offered him $7.  Driving to the day use parking lot, Polina woke up, and when we got out of the car, we weren’t on our property for the first time in four days.

While Polina decided to run around barefoot in the playground, I was cold.  I had on a sweatshirt but no reserve coat in the car (although I did bring a rain jacket for Polina.  Check.  I did something right.)

I didn’t think I could stand being in the cold and tried not to be sad about wasting $7, which, if you get paid for your work, may not be a lot of money.  But I don’t get paid for my work.

So I’m standing in the cold in the playground by the lake and I look up.  There is a clearing in the clouds.  Maybe if I wait long enough, the sun will peak out.  The best thing we had going for us is that the place was empty except for a few park rangers.  We had the place to ourselves, and there was “the sound of silence.”  I decide to make the most of our trip.  We went down to the water, picked blackberries by the shore, walked on the dock and talked with a lone fisherman.  Sometime during all this, the sun came out, and when I looked up, the clouds were gone.  Polina and I ended up spending five hours in the park walking on a nature trail, picking and playing with branches and leaves, discovering water lilies, pretending to be fishing with sticks in puddles, seeing the fish the fisherman caught and released, practicing walking on rocks, and playing on the playground.

During our drive home, it started to drizzle, then rain, then downpour.  When I took our exit off the highway I saw a giant rainbow.  We made it home and Polina went to sleep easily because it was a full day.

A cold day turned into a warm one.  What I thought was a wash turned into a 5 hour adventure.  It didn’t start off perfectly, but it ended perfectly.

Now if I can only get the dishes done in the morning…..