Happy New Year! We wish you all a happy 2016!! And, in pursuit of the latter, we are once again packed up and prepared (almost) to leave for another round of cruising in two days. As for being home for Christmas (have I mentioned that we were?)...I loved it!! It's not that we have any family nearby, but we have a family of friends, and it was wonderful to share the holiday with them. I renewed some old traditions and rediscovered little joys that had slipped from my memory during our Christmases spent on cruise ships. Of course, other things had conveniently slipped from my memory too, like snow and ice and wind and bitter cold, and we were also forced to rediscover these, in abundance.
There is lots to tell you, but let's start at the beginning: transitioning home after 87 days in Polynesia to a snow covered world. I swear, we were shell shocked for the first 48 hours. So much had to be done, and all of it immediately, that I found myself wondering why in the world we leave home in the first place. (Perhaps to see said world??) :-)
M&M cookies: Round 1
M&M cookies: Round 2, a week later
Some examples of what we were faced with:
Though 95% of the mail had already been handled online while we were away, it still had to be sorted though to find that remaining 5%, much of which brought with it a problem needing immediate resolution that kept me on the phone most of that first full day at home. The kitchen island and the dining room table became the repository of stacks of paperwork comprised of urgent mail matters, and also the flotsam and jetsam of 87 days away: Princess Patters, photos, souvenir maps and brochures, email addresses of new friends we'd met, passports, coins of five different countries...my OCD nature was acutely challenged.
It didn't help that there were suitcases opened with their contents splayed everywhere (I was tripping over fins for two days before I finally had the mind and time to place them back in a suitcase). In fact, we never officially unpacked, and we never officially packed again. We simply removed and replaced a few things and it all just kind of flowed together. The washing machine ran non-stop for two days, but that was the easy part. Sewing on loose buttons, folding and smoothing out wrinkles (my version of ironing) and putting things neatly back in suitcases took far more time. But we did have the advantage of not needing any of our cruise clothes while we were home. Shorts and T-shirts are not exactly appropriate snow shoveling attire (though I did see the high school kids walking home from the bus through shin deep snow wearing shorts).
G had to reconnect batteries and get the car insurance put back on the cars before we could even drive to a store for groceries. Luckily, our nearly classic cars (with only 60,000 miles on them) started immediately (insert huge sigh of relief right here _______). Our first big grocery shop was on Saturday morning. A Saturday morning in December. The store was packed, and it didn't help that every item we purchased involved reaching agreement about whether it was really necessary or we could make do for a month without it. (Just between you and me, on my own it would have taken 30 minutes instead of the hour it took with my husband's help.). ;-)
It was cold. Even though the temps were initially well above average (that later changed dramatically), it felt horribly cold to us. And dry. And cold. Then, the second night at home, the pilot light went out in the furnace for the first time ever (what timing!), and the temperature inside dropped to 58 degrees overnight. We had to force ourselves to get out of bed to determine what the issue was and try to get the furnace started again. And just to be clear...when I say 'we', I mean G, and 'ourselves' = himself. I'm a tremendously handy wife, but I draw the line at three things...it's the man's job to kill the spiders, relocate the snakes and get out of bed when it's 58 degrees to fix the furnace. But I lent moral support from under the covers with my encouraging "You go, babe!!", then, lest he miss the urgency of the situation, added, "No, really. I mean it. Go!!"
The sudden change in weather and humidity left us with aching sinus headaches on and off for a week, which made doing all of the above things that much more difficult. But, shockingly, we never actually got sick (yay!). Nevertheless, the two of us together had six medical-related appointments in the first week alone. G had only one of them, which means that I spent hours each day driving to and from and waiting at appointments. They were the second half of those 'twice a year' appointments, and I am happy to report that we are fit as fiddles and ready to cruise.
Now, I've documented all that so that I can remember how it felt (it felt bad), but, more importantly, to remind myself that, in the end, we did survive our transition home after three months of travel. Coincidentally, we had some final payments due for Caribbean cruises as soon as we returned home, and I can tell you that it took a good bit of effort on G's part to convince me that repeating all of this again a couple of months from now will be worth it. For 48 hours after we were dropped at the front door with eleventy-seven pieces of luggage, we felt like we were sinking in quicksand with no rescue in sight. Seven full days were required to feel like we again had things moderately under control. It wasn't a coincidence that, on 'Day 8: Home', I stopped hating the fact that we'd be leaving again and actually got a little excited. Hey, I'm going on a (few) cruise(s)!
And just in case I've painted too bleak a picture, it certainly wasn't all bad. Once we got past that rough first week, the good parts of being home for the holidays far outweighed the not-so-mild inconveniences we had endured...
We saw our neighborhood decorated for Christmas for the first time in years as Martha brought us home from the airport, and it looked absolutely beautiful. Ditto our neighbors' homes with all their lights and decorations. I loved it, and it just got better and better every day as more decorations went up.
Not our house. ;-)
Between snows, on the two whole days when we could actually see the grass, G mowed and I raked and trimmed and we got both the front and back yards cleared of leaves. And, after we did, we took the time to do some outdoor Christmas decorating of our own. We kept it very simple; I remember too well, some years ago, before we started this 'winters at sea' thing and only cruised three weeks each year in January, having to literally dig the Christmas decorations out from under two feet of snow to ensure they were taken down before we left. This year's decorating involved simply hanging some Christmas lights on the deck and front porch, but it's the first time that's been done in six years, and I loved it.
I made pot after pot of hearty, warming soups, stews and chilis, something I adore doing but understandably don't often make in the warmer months when we're home. Every soup was a little different and none of them followed a recipe. I just chopped and added and chopped and added, until I felt like stopping, and we enjoyed the smell of something good simmering away nearly every day, plus the convenience of having a hot meal ready whenever we wanted it. G observed that it was just like being on a cruise ship; I looked out through the windows at the heavily falling snow and thought not so much.
I wrote out Christmas cards and wrapped packages with a cup of hot tea at my side and a fire in the fireplace and the old movie, 'Miracle on 34th Street' playing on TV and snow falling outside and it really doesn't get any more cozy and Christmas-y than that.
There were lots of the twins' basketball practices and games to spectate (let's forget the snowy evening driving in pre-Christmas traffic and the feet shuffling on black ice required to get to them), and cookie baking and Christmas light viewing (Bring hot chocolate! With whipped cream!) and breakfasts at NeeNee's and card games and then another round of cookie baking and even paper chain making (a tradition started when they were 3-years old that they surprisingly wanted to repeat) and...it was all simply perfect.
Thank you, Staples, for selling packs of red and green construction paper AND cutting it into strips for me! Also...not our house. ;-)
And it wasn't just the boys' games that I watched; after several years when our sports options were limited to what was shown on MUTS, and last year on the Pacific Princess where we didn't even have that, we had multiple games on multiple networks on our own version of a big screen to choose from. Accompanied by the usual texting with friends expressing elation or frustration, the weeks at home were largely centered around the NBA and NFL and college bowl games. Happiness. Pure happiness.
So, it was, in the end, a wonderful four weeks at home for Christmas and, given my preference, I would be home for the holidays every year. My husband, however, would not. Except for the two days spent cleaning up the yard, and the multiple days he spent with a snow shovel in his hand, he felt entirely cooped up in the house. What I saw as cozy, he saw as confining. He hated having to wear eight layers of clothing to stay warm. He was unable to start any projects and it drove him nuts. Luckily, he knew how much this meant to me, so he refrained from driving me nuts, too (most of the time), and for that I am grateful. But I predict our next Christmas at home may not occur until home is someplace warm (still, I haven't given up hope!).
Finally, I spent a lot of time contemplating whether I really wanted to blog about the second half of our winter season. In addition to the nightly preparation time, I'm always on the lookout for blog-worthy adventures, feeling quite remiss when I have nothing of importance to report. Then, when blog reader AryMay wrote to tell me that she was also keeping a (fantastic!) travel blog, and confided that it was so hard to make it entertaining, I thought, oh no, am I supposed to be doing that, too??
It didn't help that what we're about to do is 'easy cruising', and though it's a welcome change from the effort we put into getting the most out of our Polynesian travels, it's simply going to be one beach day after another, with lots of rum and lots of walks (though maybe not in that order). It's hard to make that into an interesting read day after day (and I should know!). Couple that with the fact that I will be able to phone Mom using AT&T every few days, keeping her posted on our whereabouts, and I was strongly considering taking a break. After all, I've had perfect attendance since starting this blog over four years ago. Maybe it was time to call in sick. ;-)
But then I've received such truly touching emails from readers saying things like there's been a serious illness or a family issue and they couldn't cruise this year, but my blog got them through the winter (I
almost fried1), or that they've lost their spouse and aren't
cruising anymore but he used to love it so much and reading the blog brings back
those memories (I did fry2)...
I was really quite torn about it all.
But I was enjoying a breakfast out with G on Day 8: Home (that magical day when we felt in control of our lives again), and, unsurprisingly, we were reminiscing about our South Pacific travels. G asked, "Remember me playing the ukulele on Matira Beach with that guy? What was his name?", and I picked up my iPhone and went to my blog post for that day and could not only tell G that, of course I remembered it, and would always remember it because it's in my 'diary', but even better, I could show him a photo of him playing the ukulele on Matira Beach on Bora Bora with the man named Iti.
In that one moment, I realized I had to keep doing this, even if no one (including Mom) follows along. Some day, when we are old(er) and grey(er) and can no longer travel as we do, we will look back at that photo of G playing the ukulele with Iti and read about our day on the beach in beautiful Bora Bora. And the time spent blogging will be inconsequential compared to the memories that it will provide.
So, slip on your flip flops and mix up some margs...here we go again.
(Have I mentioned that life is good? I know I have, but have I mentioned it lately?)
:-)
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