Day 40, Year 9: Life in the Slow Lane
Date: Friday, November 29, 2013
Weather: Sunny with High in the 30’s F
Location: Home of Bruce and Jane Woodin, West Falmouth, MA
We seem to go at full speed all the time, living life to the fullest. So it is not easy for us to gear down and live life in the slow lane—but we are going to try. For the past few days we have been giving this a try and Mark feels SO much better. Yesterday he was able to eat a regular Thanksgiving Dinner, so the sore mouth is healing. That might have happened whether or not we slowed down, but we’ll not test that. We’ll try hard to keep in this slower lane for the winter.
Mark and I spent our morning at Heather and Jed’s with the boys while Heather and Jed both went to work for a couple of hours. When we arrived, Oliver was running about without his clothes on. This is his favorite thing which he calls going “nay-nay”—(naked). The big boys wanted to go out and ride on their scooters and bikes, but Ollie wanted to ride his little push bike inside–naked. I guess we need a new t-shirt that says, “Nay-nay Biking.” Mark stayed inside with him but eventually persuaded Ollie to come out and join us. It was a beautiful, sunny morning, but cold enough that any puddles outside were totally frozen over. Brrr . . . In the afternoon, we drove to storage to pick up some things and then I dropped Mark off at Falmouth Marine while I ran a few errands. He wanted to visit with Steve and Irene of Star. For the past twenty years or so, they have spent their summers in Woods Hole and their winter’s in the Caribbean. But this fall Steve found out he has colorectal cancer and is spending his winter in radiation therapy to be followed by an operation and then chemo. This is the first winter in many, many years Steve and Irene have spent in cold country, so Mark wanted to go commiserate!
With the arrival of December on Sunday, it is time to start thinking about the upcoming holiday season. We are trying to honor our children’s desire to keep things simple and buy only things that are truly needed. Heather has been reading about the Hundred Dollar Holiday principle outlined by environmental author Bill McKibben in his book by that name. I was all for that when I thought he meant spending $100 on each person, but he is advocating spending only a $100 in total or per family—not easy. Justin and Jo have asked that we try to avoid buying anything plastic and unnecessary things ‘Made in China’—again not easy. In fact, it is almost impossible to avoid buying things made in China, but when possible, we will. Today I walked into The Christmas Tree Shop in hopes of buying fabric gift bags that can be reused. They had adorable bags in various sizes, but all were made in China. It would take me an entire day or more to make bags like these, so it was very tempting to buy them. I picked them up, but then put them back down. I’ll find a simpler way. I agree with our daughter-in-law Jo who wrote recently, “I LOVE the holiday, the imagination, crafty preparation, magic and wonder elements (and the parties and feasting!). So I’ll focus my attention in that direction.
