November 2, 2021
Today we enjoyed the Lewis and Clark Visitor Center in Nebraska City with our Wild and Free group, where we wandered among the 79 wooded acres overlooking the Missouri river, following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark. The children used a replica Native American Earthlodge as their home base, while they discovered the surrounding hills. It was another beautiful November day! The warm sunshine, crispness in the air, and crunching leaves beneath our feet were salve to the soul.
It isn’t easy to make nature hikes a priority each week, but it is always worthwhile. It helps so much to have the accountability of our group to draw me away from my unending to-do list. I have been reading The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi as a part of the Read Aloud Revival Mama book club (with Sarah Mackenzie). One of the pointers I have taken away is to simply make a decision and then stick with it. According to Adachi, “Constant decision-making is one of the reasons you don’t have energy for things that matter to you. By discovering a few opportunities to decide once and then never again, you give your brain more room to play.” This is what I have done with Wild and Free. I knew that I wanted to incorporate more nature study into days. I found a group that would help hold me accountable to that goal and have committed to join them each week on their adventures. I don’t reevaluate my decision each week, I simply just show up to hike. There is so much freedom found in setting a goal and developing an action plan to make it happen.