OK… the last three days:
Thursday
While playing with Loki, he bit my foot. I put some neosporin on it, called my P.A. (who told me that it would probably get infected and to call him tomorrow if it did), and resolved not to pet Loki again with my foot. At least he didn’t kill me while I was trimming his claws…
The two services went pretty well. We didn’t have candles for the 5:00 service because the person drafted to be the Altar Guild person didn’t know where they were. The 7:00 service went OK — it finished with me not feeling like it was Christmas because it was a contemporary service and we didn’t do a lot of the “Christmas carols” and we didn’t have BIG organ and all. I pondered going to the BIG church in town for their 10:00 service but we were invited out to someone’s farm for “coffee” (read: TONS of food), so I decided against it. (It had been 8 hours since I’d eaten and I’d done twice as much church as everyone else.) Coffee was fun and we socialized for a good 3 hours. Afterwards, we went to Church #1 and rang the bells with a bunch of parishioners. Good old-fashioned small town/rural fun!
Friday
I had to take a Xanax to get to sleep, so I woke up at 10 to the sound of Jon’s cell phone. It was a parishioner inviting us over for dinner. We already had a lunch invitation so this meant MORE food. I also had an aching foot, so I went in and got antibiotics for it. 12 days of Augmentin — can I be any luckier?!?!? (It’s the horse pills too, so I have to actually *eat* when I take them.) When we got back, I opened presents. I got some great presents:
books: Sounds of the Eternal: A Celtic Psalter and P. Allen Smith’s The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible
CD’s: a bunch of St. Olaf ones, some classical Christmas choral ones, and one of Norwegian Christmas carols.
clothes: the “Pastor’s Wife of an LQPV Eagle” sweatshirt, a fleece pullover from the best clothing maker in the world and a gift certificate to the best clothing maker in the world
DVD’s: Luther from my brother who is in shock that we didn’t see it in the theater
Misc: ornaments, some magnetic poetry affirmations, chocolate, MONEY
After that, we prepped to go over to a confirmand’s house for lunch. It was good food, great people, and great conversation. They’re wonderful people and their exchange student and I had a great conversation. Her English has improved so much. 🙂 We left after I slaughtered them at Balderdash. 🙂
At the second home, I had duck and pheasant for the first time. The pheasant tasted kind of like buffalo (which tastes like a dark beef roast) and the duck tasted like dark turkey meat. The orange sauce on the duck was great. After dinner, Jon and one of the adult sons played guitar and we jammed for a couple hours, singing Christmas carols and some secular stuff. The best thing: hearing “Norwegian Wood” and then their adult son playing some of “Jennifer Juniper” for me. (I’m named after the song and I love it.) We also managed to put the words of “Jingle Bells” to the tune of “As the Green Blade Rises”. We ended the evening with a game of “90’s Trivial Pursuit” which resulted in the girls slaughtering the boys (well… ME slaughtering the boys).
Sunday
I woke up this morning feeling really nauseous and called some parishioners and see they could take me to the later service. They could, so I went back to sleep after Jon left. My alarm didn’t go off, so I woke up at 10 and had 15 minutes to dress, do my hair, and grab something to eat before my ride got there. Church went well and afterwards, I came back and went to sleep again. When I woke up, we ordered pizza.
Such is life in Lake Wobegon…