Stroll

"Above all, do not lose your desire to walk.  Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness.  I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it."  ~Soren Kierkegaard

Maeve and I take a lot of walks.  Sometimes to cure my loneliness or brighten my mood, often to distract her from tooth pain or wear her out for a nap.  But walking is good medicine for both of us.

We're lucky to have a very quiet and serene park right across the street from our apartment.  The park has two (sadly artificial) ponds with fountains in them, which Maeve has become quite interested in lately.  They make a nice splashy noise which I think is fun for her.  And now that the plague of grasshoppers seems to be lifting, it's a very pleasant place to walk.

Yesterday, as I pulled the stroller out of the trunk of my car for our walk, I managed somehow to break off a front wheel. Yikes!  All I could think about was how stupid and careless I was, and how expensive a new stroller would be.  I took her on a walk in it anyway, to see if we could do it on 3 wheels, and it was a bit wobbly.  

But the walk cleared my head, as I realized that the stroller could've broken on our upcoming (Friday!) trip to England, which would have been much worse, and furthermore it probably wasn't my fault at all.   Also it occurred to me that I didn't have to go buy a new stroller, I could hop over to our local consignment shop instead.

Which I did, where I got a lighter, more reliable stroller for just $48.  So not only do I feel pretty good about myself, I might have averted a much more serious situation - buying a stroller in England would have cost a fortune!  All thanks to the impulse to take a walk. 

On a walk at our park back when Maeve was teeny tiny