My major push of the week, work-wise, was my 10 email series. It actually went well and I am on the last few pieces. Of course I'll have edits come back and revisions to do. But I think the lion's share is done, and that feels good.
Tuesday was a carefully orchestrated day. I got up early and worked on the writing project for 2 and a half hours. Then I went and got my hair cut and went Christmas shopping. At 1 my friend Margaret came over to get help with her website. She left a little after 3 and I needed to start fixing dinner. The missionaries were coming at 5:30... or maybe 6.... depending on if we were to have another couple over for dinner and they needed to have a lesson before dinner. Since my ususally 7pm lesson with John was also scheduled. And Tom had to leave at 6pm for some meeting.
Well...the early couple canceled... and then John canceled...So, I thought, why not move dinner to 5pm so Tom could eat with the missionaries before he had to go to his meeting. The missionaries could adjust... what problem could there be to move dinner up an hour? It all worked out pretty well, since I'd planned ahead and knew exactly what I needed to do.
The meeting Tom was to go to was about family history. So when John canceled, I went as well. We got lots of questions to answer to help with writing our personal history or learning about our relatives' lives. While we were gone, we were "heart attacked" by the sister missionaries:
Tom spent the week working off the list of small repairs from our rental homes inspection. We have a duplex in Midway. When we walked into one bedroom, it smelled odd. Cassidy, the property manager said it smelled a bit like cat pee. But they have no cats. They newly moved in. However, we'd had a bat problem there. Was the attic so full of bat guano that it stank? Tom hired a young man from church to help him open the tightly sealed trap door to the attic and went to take a look. Nope. Bats were all gone (we'd hired someone to solve that problem.) and there was very little sign of bat poop.
However, a few days later, Cassidy finally got in to inspect the downstairs unit. IT reeked of kittie litter and pee! It would have saved some work if we'd been able to get into the lower unit the day we inspected the top one. But she'd changed the locks and our keys didn't work. So the lower unit is on notice to clean up and get rid of the cat pee smell. Jeepers. How can people live like that?
Miranda and Dan planned to go to Silver Dollar City on Friday... and maybe spend the night. Tom and I thought, why not go up on Thursday, do some shopping and join with them on Friday? Then we looked at the calendar and decided if we wanted to get to the temple at all in December, Thursday was the best day. So we left early Thursday morning and drove to the temple. We had a wonderful sunrise skyscape.
On our way, we got a call from Miranda. Rachael was running a temperature and had a snotty nose. They would not be able to come. Hmmm. We had invited some friends to meet us at Silver Dollar City so we could share some free tickets we had. With Miranda and family, we were just along for the ride. We'd do whatever they wanted. Now we had to be the adults and decide what we wanted to do.
We got to Branson in time to do most all our shopping. We met our friends when the park opened, about 1pm, and went to see two shows: A Christmas Carol, and It's a Wonderful Life. We wandered through a few shops and looked at the lights.
We didn't stay for the parade but also didn't travel home. We went to a hotel in Branson and spent the night.
We thought we might write our Christmas cards... but ended up watching Christmas movies on TV instead. On Saturday morning we did a little more shopping. It was very relaxing. We didn't have to rush anywhere. We stopped for lunch... at Colton's, a sit-down restaurant on our way home. No fast food. We ordered the blooming onion, split a salad.... I was still so full I didn't need dinner! Ah... Tom might have ordered a slice of pecan pie for desert that we shared as well.
Saturday afternoon I napped, then caught up, kind of, on all the emails and such that had accumulated while I was gone. Tom played Santa and wrapped gifts.
This trip was a delightful, festive way to feel the Christmas spirit. We're having a low key Christmas season. I have not decorated. I pulled out a Christmas tablecloth and centerpiece. And we have a Christmas drape over the sofa. That's about it. No tree, no lights, no nativity, no nutcrackers on the mantel. No one coming to our house to entertain. And, you know what? It's Christmas, just the same. We are looking forward to visiting Jonathan and Kristy for Christmas.
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