Rest your little worried souls. My heart is still beating, and my lungs moving so atleast my cerebellum is still functioning.
What is not functioning is our internet at home which in part explains the no daily read of yesterday. Spare me some of your vast quantities of magnanimity. Because it was Friday. I had plans of doing a post on Black Friday. Even though it wasn't.
Do you Black Friday?
I have once. Last year, with Rachel and our two cousins.
I bought keebler cookies and a cabbage patch baby doll. The checker looked at me like I was nuts and vocalized that thought 'You couldn't wait for the cookies it's 4:15 am and this cabbage patch doll is not on sale.' [Meaning that I could buy it, but it wasn't discounted like the flat screens I had passed in the dairy aisle].
I said, 'Sam Walton wants me to remind you that your job is to take my money not ask me questions. Now can I pay for my cookies and my cabbage patch doll."
Now I don't think you have lived until you have Black Friday'd in Cedar. In most places you've got stores like Kohl's, Target, Best Buy, Staples to diffuse the masses of crazed consumers, but in Cedar City there is one option for anyone with the more is more approach to gift-giving--Walmart..
I was more than a little amused as I waded through the frenzy. Hottest item I saw? Card table and chairs. I thought, "ooh who's been the good little boy or girl this year?. Bet you can't wait to invite your friends over to share with them this awesomeness." Maybe I'm wrong and bridge is making a resurgence with generation LOL.
Anyway, we were in and out like a hamburger joint that sells terrible fries but apparently has great benefits.
Best part of the morning was when we went across the vacant lot next to Walmart to Home Depot and scored an awesome deal on a shopvac. Did we need a shopvac? No. Has it been the best 18 dollars ever spent? Quite possibly.
We even got that conquest on video, but I can't get it to post. I'll try to update it later.
For now, This will have to do.
So I know there hasn't been a lot of reading to this post but it's Saturday. Who reads on the weekend.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Daily #28: Gifts from a not so good neighbor
Bet you didn't think I was going to make it today. To be honest there were times when I didn't think I was either. Suffice it to say it was a long one. It has been a long couple of ones and more than likely, for the foreseeable future my life is like that poem:
The wood are lovely dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep......
At some point my boss mentioned he was going to spend the night preparing some fairly amazing caramel popcorn for friends and neighbors. Neighborhood gifts bring back many fond memories, I'll have to post again about it, but for now I entertained myself today with thoughts of terrible neighbor gifts. Here's the beginnings of a list. I hope you add to it by commenting below.
What gift would qualify you for the terrible neighbor of the year award?
The wood are lovely dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep......
At some point my boss mentioned he was going to spend the night preparing some fairly amazing caramel popcorn for friends and neighbors. Neighborhood gifts bring back many fond memories, I'll have to post again about it, but for now I entertained myself today with thoughts of terrible neighbor gifts. Here's the beginnings of a list. I hope you add to it by commenting below.
What gift would qualify you for the terrible neighbor of the year award?
- Returning their mail...opened...from the last 4 months.
- Audio tapes of their last family night fight.
- A wreath shaped from treasures their dog has left on your lawn.
- A video montage of the birth of all your children set to Cat Stevens
- A door mat with every member of their family's social security number (remember you had their mail).
- A calendar of supreme court justices in their lounging robes.
- The product of your new hobby-cheese making-from the milk of your herd of pygmy goats.
- Having a herd of pygmy goats.
- A pygmy goat
- Tickets to the next Michael Moore movie
- Ornaments made from your unmatched tupperware and tube socks
- Nancy Pelosi's memoir - Know your power: a message to America's daughters.
- Arm & Hammer baking soda toothpaste
- 'Sand' art made from the hair clippings from your electric razor.
- Your own remake of Richard Simmon's 'Sweatin' to the Holidays'.
- Coupons redeemable for the chance to babysit your kids.
- Slim-fast: even if you fashion reindeer antlers out of pipe cleaners around the tops of the cans and hot glue a large red pompom to the front of each.
- the plate of cookies they brought you---last year
- Donation in their name to Planned Parenthood
- A Ouija board
- A blanket infected with small pox
- Campaign stationery from your failed run for Stark County treasurer.
- Reusable toilet paper.
- A framed 10X14 picture of your family
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Daily Read #28: Letters from my Father (and everyone else in the Family)
I could probably write quite a few posts about my Korea Christmases. I finally found my ideal atmosphere for celebrating Christmas in Korea. Naturally as missionaries there is an inherent degree of Christmas spirit all year round, and Christmas became a natural way to increase people's interest in two white missionaries who wanted to share a 'Christmas' message.
Korea was also westernized enough and Christian enough (particularly where I was in Seoul) to have a few touches of Christmas splattered in unexpected places but it wasn't the 80 proof Christmas Spirit that assaults the senses with every step in many places in the US. This meant I could 'gak' about the cold without getting sneers from merrimakers.
Finally for me, Christmas will always be inseparably tied with home. I can't imagine how homesick Christmas in a more traditional Christmas environment would make a missionary. As it were if I didn't want to think about what I was 'missing' by being 10,000 miles from the holiday homefront, I didn't have to fend off reminders on every doorstep.
Leading up to my first Christmas I had been in Korea for only a few months. I was quite a happy and well adjusted missionary. I liked the food, I was seeing some success, satisfied with who I was working with, and in generally learning to be quite fond of being a missionary and being a missionary in Korea. We were teaching a family (Dad, mom, two kids) who would end up setting baptismal dates for Christmas day. With that to look forward too, it was very easy to convince myself that there is no where I would rather spend my Christmas than in Korea.
Overall I was quite impressed by myself. Not even the slightest pang of homesickness, it didn't really register with me despite my holiday advent pocket Christmas tree. The companion I was with came from a non-traditional family background and wasn't overly morose with the idea of spending another Christmas in Korea and because it was just the two of us together we didn't have much to mope over.
There was one moment of that first Christmas when that was for a few minutes changed.
Our mission was geographically small enough that the Mission home was never more than 2 hours of travel time from your area. Consequently we would travel for conferences at the mission home quite frequently. Our December Zone conference was one of those times; we went into the mission home had trainings in the morning and then were invited up to President's home. The mission office and president's home were on the 3rd and 4th floors of a church building.
The climb of a flight of stairs from where we had been recieving training to president's home might as well have been a 10,000 mile transpacific flight. All of my defenses were immediately swept away by the feel of carpet underfoot, the tasteful holiday decorations including a tree, the holiday music playing softly and the smells of holiday baking. I'm not sure if this was the intended effect but suddenly I was dealing with a barrage of emotions that I had been quite content repressing.
Within 20 minutes or so I had my sea legs back on HMS Homesick, and just decided that I would enjoy it till it was over and after that I'd be just fine. We had some testimony sharing and caroling and were hopeful that we'd eat something baked 'Western' style and then be on our way. But nope there was one more 'surprise' from our mission mom, who came out carrying a basket of brown envelopes with bulges of various girths.
Letters from our families for everyone. I thought are you kidding me? Don't get me wrong, I love letters as much as the next guy but I do not want to sit on carpet under a Christmas tree eating Christmas cookies reading glad tidings from my family who I was beginning to really miss. Death by letter was not what I wanted to kill my resolve to embrace a Korean Christmas.
My momentary hopes that I would be the one missionary without letters were dashed when I was handed a considerably more beefy envelope that most of the missionaries around me. With my heart in a figurative tourniquet, I tried to keep myself from being washed over by emotions. My mantra, 'Don't think, Don't feel, Don't think, Don't feel' allowed me to get so far as the seal broken on the first brown envelope. I was relieved by the sight of another envelope that had carried the contents over the Pacific.
All around me missionaries were reading their letters. The few Koreans among us were done and I think were trying to figure out what the big deal was. Inspiration struck as my defense strategy changed to be eerily similar to that of a 14 year old girl: retreat to the bathroom. So I Moaning Myrtled my way back to the bathroom. Once inside I got bold enough to slide open the airmail envelope and pull out a stack of folded letters all on different holiday paper, tied with a gold bow and gift tag that said to Elder Hart love your family. Mom might as well have been there handing them to me.
The levees broke and I'm hopeful that no one heard the guttural sound I made that likely sounded like I'd been disemboweled. I think at this point my guardian angel intervened with the thought that far outstripped the genius of the first--Operation Toiletpaper--just don't read them now. When my mind processed this, the relief was instant.
My emotions in check I exited the bathroom and went back out to enjoy brownies and ice cream with the other missionaries. My brown envelope bulging out my from the inside of my jacket [at the time it was the only bulge under my jacket]. I would read the letters but it would be at time when I could unabashedly enjoy them and now was not that time.
That time was early the next morning before my companion had woken up and I had some alone time. I did cry but my emotions were back to normal well before the missionary day began. I was in a healthier emotional state after this event. I could more fully experience joy when I had acknowledged certain aspects of sorrow and longing inherent with my circumstances.
Looking back at this memory I have two thoughts, first there are missionaries that I should write, they appreciate Christmas letters the most.
Second nothing evokes a stronger desire to be with loved ones than the Christmas season. While in a perfect world we would be able to gather those we love the most in one place to share a cup of cheer, circumstance and even mortality, both often meaner than the Grinch, create some vacancies around the Christmas tree. We need not be ashamed to experience the grief, sorrow and longing created by these gaps just because there isn't a Christmas song that heralds the duality of emotion inherent with Christmas.
Sorrow and joy are often two sides of the same coin--love. Heads or Tails the coin remains a coin and loses no value. Life was meant to be an emotionally rich journey we shouldn't try to mute it. Create spaces that allow you to experience an appropriate range of emotions of this holiday season, they are all a part of your inner who.
Korea was also westernized enough and Christian enough (particularly where I was in Seoul) to have a few touches of Christmas splattered in unexpected places but it wasn't the 80 proof Christmas Spirit that assaults the senses with every step in many places in the US. This meant I could 'gak' about the cold without getting sneers from merrimakers.
Finally for me, Christmas will always be inseparably tied with home. I can't imagine how homesick Christmas in a more traditional Christmas environment would make a missionary. As it were if I didn't want to think about what I was 'missing' by being 10,000 miles from the holiday homefront, I didn't have to fend off reminders on every doorstep.
Leading up to my first Christmas I had been in Korea for only a few months. I was quite a happy and well adjusted missionary. I liked the food, I was seeing some success, satisfied with who I was working with, and in generally learning to be quite fond of being a missionary and being a missionary in Korea. We were teaching a family (Dad, mom, two kids) who would end up setting baptismal dates for Christmas day. With that to look forward too, it was very easy to convince myself that there is no where I would rather spend my Christmas than in Korea.
Overall I was quite impressed by myself. Not even the slightest pang of homesickness, it didn't really register with me despite my holiday advent pocket Christmas tree. The companion I was with came from a non-traditional family background and wasn't overly morose with the idea of spending another Christmas in Korea and because it was just the two of us together we didn't have much to mope over.
There was one moment of that first Christmas when that was for a few minutes changed.
Our mission was geographically small enough that the Mission home was never more than 2 hours of travel time from your area. Consequently we would travel for conferences at the mission home quite frequently. Our December Zone conference was one of those times; we went into the mission home had trainings in the morning and then were invited up to President's home. The mission office and president's home were on the 3rd and 4th floors of a church building.
The climb of a flight of stairs from where we had been recieving training to president's home might as well have been a 10,000 mile transpacific flight. All of my defenses were immediately swept away by the feel of carpet underfoot, the tasteful holiday decorations including a tree, the holiday music playing softly and the smells of holiday baking. I'm not sure if this was the intended effect but suddenly I was dealing with a barrage of emotions that I had been quite content repressing.
Within 20 minutes or so I had my sea legs back on HMS Homesick, and just decided that I would enjoy it till it was over and after that I'd be just fine. We had some testimony sharing and caroling and were hopeful that we'd eat something baked 'Western' style and then be on our way. But nope there was one more 'surprise' from our mission mom, who came out carrying a basket of brown envelopes with bulges of various girths.
Letters from our families for everyone. I thought are you kidding me? Don't get me wrong, I love letters as much as the next guy but I do not want to sit on carpet under a Christmas tree eating Christmas cookies reading glad tidings from my family who I was beginning to really miss. Death by letter was not what I wanted to kill my resolve to embrace a Korean Christmas.
My momentary hopes that I would be the one missionary without letters were dashed when I was handed a considerably more beefy envelope that most of the missionaries around me. With my heart in a figurative tourniquet, I tried to keep myself from being washed over by emotions. My mantra, 'Don't think, Don't feel, Don't think, Don't feel' allowed me to get so far as the seal broken on the first brown envelope. I was relieved by the sight of another envelope that had carried the contents over the Pacific.
All around me missionaries were reading their letters. The few Koreans among us were done and I think were trying to figure out what the big deal was. Inspiration struck as my defense strategy changed to be eerily similar to that of a 14 year old girl: retreat to the bathroom. So I Moaning Myrtled my way back to the bathroom. Once inside I got bold enough to slide open the airmail envelope and pull out a stack of folded letters all on different holiday paper, tied with a gold bow and gift tag that said to Elder Hart love your family. Mom might as well have been there handing them to me.
The levees broke and I'm hopeful that no one heard the guttural sound I made that likely sounded like I'd been disemboweled. I think at this point my guardian angel intervened with the thought that far outstripped the genius of the first--Operation Toiletpaper--just don't read them now. When my mind processed this, the relief was instant.
My emotions in check I exited the bathroom and went back out to enjoy brownies and ice cream with the other missionaries. My brown envelope bulging out my from the inside of my jacket [at the time it was the only bulge under my jacket]. I would read the letters but it would be at time when I could unabashedly enjoy them and now was not that time.
That time was early the next morning before my companion had woken up and I had some alone time. I did cry but my emotions were back to normal well before the missionary day began. I was in a healthier emotional state after this event. I could more fully experience joy when I had acknowledged certain aspects of sorrow and longing inherent with my circumstances.
Looking back at this memory I have two thoughts, first there are missionaries that I should write, they appreciate Christmas letters the most.
Second nothing evokes a stronger desire to be with loved ones than the Christmas season. While in a perfect world we would be able to gather those we love the most in one place to share a cup of cheer, circumstance and even mortality, both often meaner than the Grinch, create some vacancies around the Christmas tree. We need not be ashamed to experience the grief, sorrow and longing created by these gaps just because there isn't a Christmas song that heralds the duality of emotion inherent with Christmas.
Sorrow and joy are often two sides of the same coin--love. Heads or Tails the coin remains a coin and loses no value. Life was meant to be an emotionally rich journey we shouldn't try to mute it. Create spaces that allow you to experience an appropriate range of emotions of this holiday season, they are all a part of your inner who.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)