An Apprehensive Preface

When my husband Ryan and I were newly weds, we went on outdoor adventures a lot.

Then we got a cat, a second cat, bought a house, got a dog, had three babies and voila, our grand adventures became a little less. . . grand.

One of our daughters is attending a nature based preschool in our neighborhood this year. We’d like to say we chose the school because of its educational theory but, honestly, not needing to buckle a car seat to get her there was the bigger draw.

During our first parent- teacher conference, I told the teacher that we were working on the “1,000 Books Before Kindergarten” challenge. I explained I had finished the challenge with one of our children and wanted to do the same for our other kids.

I think I was secretly hoping the teacher would be impressed with my commitment to literacy. Instead, she asked me if I had heard of the “1,000 Hours Outside” challenge.

I had heard of this challenge but it had always seemed like a lot of work and therefore a bit stressful. At least reading 1,000 kids books doesn’t take 1,000 hours.

Even though we still like to spend time outside, it now requires explanations like: “It’s cold, you have to wear a coat!” Questions like: “Where are your shoes?” And statements like: “We’re not taking the blocks with on our walk.”

I could easily spend 1,000 hours a year just getting ready to go outside.

While I trusted the advice of this teacher and wanted to do what was best for my children, I also didn’t want to take on too much (because I never do that).

But as the idea went round in my head and I mulled over its feasibility, three things stuck out:

• I thought about the fact that we’re still in this pandemic and being outside is one of the only places where our kids can live fairly normal lives.
  
  
• I thought about all the outdoor places I love where we live and how infrequently I actually take advantage of them.
  
  
• I thought about how being outside always puts me in a good better mood (after all,”if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”).
  
  And then, I’m not going to lie, I thought about how I’ve been wanting to blog again but not sure where to start. Maybe I could write about our adventures in attempting to reach 1,000 hours outside in a calendar year.

So there you have it. If there was ever a year to do it, 2022 is probably the one.

Here’s to outdoor adventures (and hopefully not exhausting ourselves the first month)!