Sapsucker Break

Broke my new rule of maximum 2-hours computer at a time. That's a new year's resolution, to atleast every 2 hours go away (hopefully outside) to chop some wood, walk, play, sing... Then, if necessary, come back refreshed. It's helping keep my mind clear, keep me focussed on getting just one or two good things done in that shorter chunk, keeping me balanced.

But at my new downtown "office", just how many times can I walk around a "city" block and feel refreshed? I did once today and it was good, but the afternoon was the "gotta get it all done before going home" feeling that, predictably, led to a dwindling efficiency then a horrible Excel mistake that took an extra hour to untangle.

When I did get home early enough to play with the boys, they and Sarah were all miraculously not there. I could sneak in for that nap I'd been dreaming about for the last 2 hours. But instead I rounded up the boys and the Woofers, grabbed a drill and old applejuice bottles and some tubing, and finally tapped our maple trees. All fatigue was gone in an instant as we communed with that cold air and drank maple sap straight from the trees, inserting the spiles and surgical tubing into their trunks like straws. I don't know how much we'll get, and suspect that the energy that we put into our inefficient boiling-down will never make environmental sense, but it just felt GOOOOOOD to be out there making our own sugar.

I could have napped. Instead I drilled and sucked, and that energy has carried me much further into this winter night than I would have planned. Even to my first blog posting in almost a month (did you miss me?)