Hello friends! I’m a sleepy one over here… and my (decaf) coffee just has me antsy with hazy eyes. Marlowe is on the mend and it seems like we might finally leave the house this week. We officially put in our two weeks notice at the daycare, so it seems like next week will be her last part time week there. It’s going to be interesting… and not at all overwhelming (fingers crossed). She wants a bike (trike) ride today, but I don’t think thats going to happen quite yet.
Today, while accomplish tasks around the house and sit hunched over with about 60 felt animals in front of me, I leave you with Hannah, of The Tree Diaries. She has a sweet story of her big adventurous plans for this year… and I will say, I’m a bit jealous. It seems like a wonderful way to count the days in a year. Please visit her blog and say hello 🙂 Happy Wednesday, everyone!
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In November 2012, I gave birth to a baby girl. My husband and I were overwhelming happy – we had been looking forward to her joining our family for a long time. But with baby girl’s arrival, I suddenly found myself not working for the first time in my adult life. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t have a goal for each day except to get our baby through it in one piece. There were no clear markers of time and no start or end to the day. I had no idea how I was going to place a day within a week, let alone a year, when some days just felt like a jumble of nappies, tears, (missed) naps and exhaustion. I needed a goal that would distinguish each day from the day before, the one to follow….
And so was born The Tree Diaries. Husband and I decided that we would plant 365 trees in 365 days. This would give me a clear goal each day, something that I could measure my days and weeks and months by. It would also be a way for us to diversify and landscape some of our 20 acres of native Australian bushland, which we had been hoping to do since moving to our property almost 2 years ago.
But more than that, this project would be a way to help introduce our littlest to the thing that is most important to us: being outside. I have always been a keen vege gardener (even when living in an apartment with a teeny balcony), and I love to a hike, camp and trail run. I don’t expect that my daughter will love all of these things, but the thought of her not growing up in the outdoors frightens me. I want her life to be filled with digging in dirt, discovering bugs and other critters, making mud pies, finding fairy houses in trees, watching seeds that she has sown grow and pop out of the ground… I know that she may become a teenager and decide to sit in coffee shops and text her friends all day, but there is plenty of time to indoctrinate her with nature before then!
Each day Husband and I are learning: about trees and how to keep them alive, about our daughter and how to get her to giggle at our hilarious jokes. About what is most important to us, how we want to parent, why we live where we do, doing what we do. I don’t know what this year has in store for us, or where we will end up, but we have a goal and a plan and we are having a whole lot of fun trying to achieve them. The Tree Diaries is our little piece of the interwebs to document this adventure … 30 trees down, only 335 to go!
4 Comments
Wow sounds like an adventurous and fun activity! I've never planted a tree before, let alone 365 trees! She's a really cool mum 😉
hope you feel better soon and loving the idea of planting the trees…popping on over now to say hi xxx
Such a beautiful idea. I think you naturally want to be outside with children because they are so much calmer in nature.
Bettina
http://www.littleoldsouls.com
This idea could not be any more inspiring. Thank you for sharing such a lovely story with us. It's so good to know there are people in this world who want to make a difference! Glad Marlowe is feeling better 🙂