For the last month or so, Ladybug, Chickadee, and I have been attempting to walk five to six miles every weekday morning. Walking has been part of our school day when the weather is nice anyway, but that was more of a quick two-mile jaunt. We decided as we got closer to our trip this summer, we wanted to lengthen our walk to prepare ourselves, and so as school wound down and then ended for the year, we have been able to dedicate more time in the morning to a longer walk, and for the most part, we’ve had good luck in getting out every day, even if it meant walking in a bit of rain.
On Monday, we were expecting storms in the afternoon, so I wanted to make sure we got started early…we didn’t wait until after my planned grocery shopping trip. I double-checked the weather before we went out at about 8:15, and the radar was clear, and the forecast said the storms weren’t supposed to start until about 1:00, so our timing was great. Or so I thought. We hadn’t even walked quite a mile when it started raining (which wouldn’t have been a big deal because it wasn’t too heavy), and then lightning, which sent us hastening home.
After I did the grocery shopping, we decided to try again. We had about an hour before the next round of storms was supposed to start, so we set out again, altering our route to make sure we wouldn’t get too far from home in case the forecast was wrong again. Actually, while we had a little more rain, there wasn’t any further thunder for the rest of the day, so things were looking good. We were enjoying our walk, there was a nice breeze, and then I felt a thunk on my head. I assumed it was a “helicopter” seed pod blown down from one of the trees we had just passed, and reached up to shake it out of my hair. I felt it, but it was kind of tangled in, so I became a little more insistent in trying to free it. And then I realized that I didn’t have a helicopter in my hair, but rather an insect. And it was just my luck that it happened to be a wasp that stung me right on the scalp before flying away…and I’m pretty sure I heard it laughing as it went.
We still hadn’t met our goal of our daily five miles, but we went home, one of us feeling rather defeated. I was also feeling pretty determined at that point, though, so before dinner, I set out by myself to finish my walk and hit my steps for the day.
I guess the third time really is the charm, because I had no further mishaps. No bad weather, no injuries, nothing out of the ordinary. For some reason, though, I didn’t really feel like I had accomplished as much…the whole walk just kind of fell flat after all the trouble I had!