Sunday, December 25, 2011

The other half of Christmas Day


Today started out with 3degrees  and rose as high as 10 degrees.  Time to go swimming in the warm weather…….ha ha ha ha
We were asked to go pick up an elderly member who lives quite a way out of Augusta and ended up doing 108 miles going to pick her up, take her to church and return her home etc.  Of course we took a little detour – Bill missed the turn and we almost ended up at Boothbay and Wiscasset before we turned around and found another road that led to her house.  She raises goats way out in the country.
 We returned to our apartment in time to reheat the turkey breast that we bought yesterday and cook the sweet potato to take to our friends’ home  for Christmas dinner.  We ate and then came home due to the snow.   We did not know how much snow had fallen while we ate but it was coming down the whole time.  We opened our gifts to each other after we got home. 

This Christmas has been really really different.  At home I usually make a gingerbread house that David takes home with him, and loads of cookies etc. but I do not have my electric mixer with me so that I cannot really do cooking very well.  We also do not have our Christmas decorations with us and do not have a CD player so that we can listen to Christmas songs so life has been quite different this year.
It can best be described as “Discontinuity”.  This is a term used by Bill’s nephew Geoffrey when he was 8 years old and we were visiting him and his family in Neenah, Wisconsin.  I asked him how he liked vacation and he told me that he was not on vacation but rather in discontinuity.  Continuity is when you do your regular life activities and discontinuity is when you are doing other things.   I guess having Christmas is out of the ordinary and we do not have to go to the Archives tomorrow because they are closed for the day so the next day we have to be there will be Tuesday and it will really seem strange.
Another thing that is different with this couples mission is that once we are done with the day’s work, the time is our own.  That may be so, but we are so tired from doing the digitizing, we are very tired and when we get home all we want to do is relax.  I guess I am not 26 years old any more…………….On my first mission we were gone from our apartment from 8.30am till 9pm.  I doubt if I still have that kind of stamina.
We opened our gifts from Sara and family over skype.  The children sent me art work that I treasure very much.  Sara made a small scrapbook book for pictures to be put in it and she sent us some storage bowls and some hand warmers like Jacob takes hunting.  These gifts are quite innovative and very useful.  I opened one of the hand warmer packs and it was quite comforting for my hands to hold it during church because the building was quite cold…..well it was only about 7 degrees when we got there anyway.
I notice that the trash container for the apartments is filled to overflowing.  I guess all the inhabitants in the area had a great Christmas mother lode of presents.

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