Glad it's over

These days, I’m relieved when the holiday season is over.  That’s quite a change from the past.

In my working days, I truly relished the holiday season.  Christmas shopping was fun and we’d go all out on gifts and wrapping.   The days off from work were savored.  New Years day meant the end of the fun and heading back into the usual workday grind.

Retirement put a different face on it.

Christmas on the boat meant scaled down celebrations because we had no space for a Christmas tree; nor did we have space to store frivolous gifts that we might have given one another in previous years.

Now that we’re back living on land, we find that holiday season has taken on yet another character – for many reasons.  A small condo means that we can’t have a huge 12-foot Christmas tree.  In fact, a real tree is very impractical.  Living on retirement income after the recession means that the gift budget is tight so we can’t indulge in the excesses of the past.

We did have a great holiday season.  We were able to roast a turkey again for Thanksgiving.  We did have a very pretty artificial Christmas tree decorated with the ornaments that had been in storage while we were cruising.  It was fun unwrapping them after so many years.  And we exchanged gifts as usual and revived our old tradition of a whole ham for Christmas dinner.

But since every day is a day off, the sense of “specialness” (I know that’s not a real word) was just not the same.  Maybe we should have made a point of participating in more holiday events.  We’ll give that a try next year.

As it is, I’m just glad to be rid of the holiday advertising and hype and junk mail from every store in town.  Glad to get back to normal, whatever that is.

 

Happy New Year!

 

Tempus Fugit

Wow!  It looks as though I haven’t had any thoughts in more than two years.  I guess some people would say that’s not a big surprise.

Much has changed since that last post in March, 2010.

In June of 2010 we sailed to New Bern, NC because we’d never been there. The plan was to stay the whole summer instead of heading to New England as we usually did.  It was fun because New Bern was celebrating its tri-centennial and there was a lot going on.  It’s a great little town and we had a good time.

As we were preparing to head back to southern waters in November, Neal had a freak accident.  Trying to get the dinghy in place on the foredeck, he was knocked overboard when the dink shifted.  It’s a long story, but I’ll cut to the chase by just saying that he was rendered unconscious due to ESD (Electrical Shock Drowning) – a phenomenon that occurs in fresh water when there’s stray AC electrical current in the water. I was able to reach him and when I got his head above water he was not breathing.  The rescue squad arrived and got him to the ER. He spent a few days in the hospital.

It was a long recovery and there are lingering after effects. 

After two years living in the marina in New Bern, it was clear that Neal no longer has the stamina for offshore cruising.  We decided to find a home on land.

So we’re now officially CLODs (Cruisers Living On Dirt) and settled into a condo in Florida.

Neal has resumed his cooking adventures. I’m back into my genealogy projects.

 

With any luck I’ll have some more thoughts before another two years passes