My to do list is unending, yet somehow I found time today to spend just under 2 hours pruning our weeping cherry. I discovered last week that the branches growing out of the top of our weeping cherry were instead an entirely different tree that should have been pruned a year or two ago.
I’m embarrassed to describe what I did to prune this thing back to the original tree (and thankful that 2 of my five neighbors in our cul-de-sac were out of town so they didn’t see it). I’m only glad I waited until Nate left to do this…as I don’t think he would have allowed it under his watch.
While I was hoisting myself up on one of the branches so as to use my body weight to dislodge it from the trunk I did wonder if the online description of how to prune a weeping cherry had this step in it.
I haven’t yet told Nate that in a moment of sheer desperation I used his power drill. I was scrounging around the garage to find anything with power that would give my arms a rest from the hand saw. It turns out, however, that pushing both legs against the tree while pulling down on the branch worked a lot better than the drill bit.
By the end I had no shame as to what my neighbors must have been thinking …I was going on pure adrenaline of weeks, months and years of waiting on this adoption. The thought did cross my mind while I was furiously sawing through one of the mature branches: If I cut off a finger … will the U.S. immigration department require that I get a new set of fingerprints before we pick up the children?
What was left at the end of this little diversion is fairly close in stature to the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. The branches in a heap behind our house amount to more than the ones left behind on the tree. I’ve separated the wheat from the chaff so to speak and by the end I’m not sure which tree got to stay and which had to go.
So this is my life. I have had moments in the past few weeks where I have been very measured and rational about all the life changes on the horizon …but the fact that I’ve had to replace tissue boxes in every room this past week is probably an indication that my emotions are starting to reflect the weight of responsibility coming our way.
This thing — this exceptionally long gestation period — is going to end in a family. My family.
And as friends have so graciously been telling us, we have no idea what we’re getting ourselves into.
So in between cries to God for mercy …
…I have been focusing my energies on the non-urgent, non-important items in my life.
