Yesterday, motivated by a string of rather unproductive days (weeks? months?), we decided a change of scenery was in order, so we decided to spend the afternoon at the Wild Center in Tupper Lake.  The kiddos were thrilled to see fish, turtles, otters, ducks and various other things that I wouldn’t have necessarily thought would captivate them.  We walked the trails and I was thankful for being able to be outside, in the shade of sweet-smelling pine trees, and get a small bit of exercise that didn’t involve gardening or going for a walk around the block (that can be nice, but gets boring kind of quick).  I was thankful for a loose agenda and time with my family that didn’t require any other doing.  And you know what?  Later, when children were in bed – even though I had been awake since early and had probably exhausted myself, physically, more than I had in a while – I had motivation to be productive.  Granted, I hadn’t left myself much of the day to accomplish things, but nevertheless, a changing table got repaired, cleaned and organized, a car seat got taken out of storage, disassembled and cleaned, and a cradle got pulled out and cleaned, too.

Today, though there hasn’t been a fast pace by any means, things have been steadily getting done.  Tim is working on gutting the back section of our upstairs, and I have canned some sweet pickles, made refrigerator summer squash pickles, and baked a double batch of banana bread.  Hopefully, at the end of the day today, we will not feel quite as overwhelmed as usual on a Saturday night.  I really don’t often mind when projects take a long time, or when to-do lists are really long…I just like to see progress.  So, despite the fact that there is no “end” in sight to the work that needs doing on and around our house, today it is enough that something has been accomplished.