I might have mentioned that since I’m not working lately I have been doing a lot of yardwork. For the last two weeks my biggest focus has been the nightmare of a firepit terrace. See, somebody about 15 or more years ago got a brilliant idea to reuse chunks of broken driveway to make a terrace. It’s a great idea in theory, but the way they did it was awful. There were gaps to swallow chair legs and it was uneven enough to trip over. I’ve put up with it for 8 years and I decided that I was going to tackle it. Pry slabs loose, break them up, shovel out the sod between. It’s not easy work and I’ve been going slow but steady.

A week ago a friend volunteered her husband for a couple of mornings. His work was on pause and he was going stir crazy. We spent one morning prying up the slabs and got farther than I expected. The next day he put treads on my deck stairs. They’d been out of commission for an embarrassing amount of time and we had been using a less than ideal path down to the lawn. But with a couple of hours of work he had the top half put back together. Yay! Now I have easy access to the lawn from upstairs.

So Tuesday of last week I got as far as setting up a row of blocks to mark the edge of the terrace. I put in probably five hours of hard labor moving heavy things by hand. I took Wednesday easy to make sure I didn’t hurt myself. Thursday morning I got ready to work hard again. I put my boots on by the back door on the deck and went to use my newly useable stairs. The top half was fine. Then I got to the bottom half where there are still the old wood deck boards. Wood stairs that haven’t been used in almost two years… If you’ve ever lived in a damp climate you know exactly where this is going. Wood that sits for any time ends up getting coated with a sludge that isn’t quite moss, mildew, or mud, but is as slick as snot.

I took one step onto the first stair and the next thing I knew my feet weren’t under me. I landed on my tailbone and bumped down a few steps until my heels dug in at the bottom landing. Ow! It didn’t hurt much at first, but my mobility was suddenly severely limited. I could hardly bend over to pick things up from the ground. But I have found that if I don’t keep moving I will freeze up.

I got the hose and a wire brush and scrubbed those steps to within an inch of their life. I managed to mow part of the lawn. Ow! I didn’t want to sit. Reaching for anything that takes me out of center hurt. And every time I hurt it made me laugh. Ibuprofen didn’t help much. An ice pack helped a little. But what did the most was time.

It’s been a week. It hasn’t been a fun week. I’ve been restless and cranky and hardly got anything done. I gave myself a deadline of May 30 to have this terrace cleared and some sort of firepit functional. Lounging around wasn’t getting anything done. I hate feeling like I can’t get things done. It does bad things to my mental health. But yesterday I got moving again.

I got my boys to come out with me. The middle one just needed the incentive of driving my truck to bring the trailer down. I am horrible at backing trailers while he has a natural instinct for it. We got it parked and started throwing chunks on it. Now it’s piled high enough that I’m worried about it being overweight. We might have to throw half of it off before we take it on the road.

I often start projects only to run into the most ridiculous roadblocks. All I know how to do is to keep trying. It often feels like I’m going too slow if not backwards. But when I pause and look around I can see that I’m not doing as bad as it feels. Baby steps might not be fast, but if you take those tiny steps for long enough you might be surprised how far you can get. And don’t hesitate to slow down if the situation calls for it. Allowing yourself to recover means you can do more the next time you push. Just don’t let the momentum completely disappear.