Traveling In Comfort & Other Gifts

At the risk of jinxing things, I have to say – it’s so much easier to travel with the children the older they get.  We did twelvish hour journeys on both legs of this last Christmas trip, because it’s a longer drive to Stoeltings’ in North Carolina than it is to Wades’ in Alabama.   That’s 3-4 hours more per day in the car than they were used to spending and they endured it all with fairly decent cheerfulness.  I’m seriously impressed.  We didn't even once have to threaten to stop the car for dire consequences (which astounds me because I often have to use that threat on the eleven minute drive home from church each week).

This year we picked up a power inverter, which made possible the charging of their tech as needed, and the use of a laptop on a platform for videos.  (We watched the annimated film "Rio" which has some very humorous lines about a Minnesotan and her inability to Samba.)  The power inverter made for rather a jumble of cords between the front seats, but since my needs are low tech (book, pen, paper) I could work around it.  My great desire was to play with the fountain pen set which I got for Christmas.  Not terribly easy to do on pothole ridden highways, but I struggled on valiantly. 

My resolution this year is to get much more disciplined about my writing, so something lovely to write with seemed appropriate.  I don’t compose well at the computer.  My first drafts of things are usually longhand.  So, if I ever do get novels published, there will be actual manuscripts for my estate to eventually auction off.  Feel free to roll eyes here.

The fountain pen set is lovely.  I’m not ashamed to say that I bought that gift for myself.  It’s what LH and I do when we know what we really want.  Unless we have a brainstorm about gifts for each other, we simply set a budget and get what we really want for ourselves.  Not romantic, but then love (for both of us) is not conveyed through routine gift-giving occasions.  LH wasn’t good at that when we were first married and, somehow, I’m not good at it anymore.  We do, however, delight in giving little unexpected things and in watching each other enjoy our newly acquired possessions.  I got a new sewing machine for Christmas and John came into the dining room to inquire after each of my joyful squeals of discovery.  It threads the needle for me!  Well, it does lots of other more sophisticated things, but that was the single most exciting feature.  I enjoyed watching him with his new video game and yes, after 20 years of being an exclusively Microsoft man, he actually broke down and bought an iPod.  What will become of us?!

It was an excellent visit with Uncle Dieter and Aunt Michelle.  Their hospitality is wonderful and we had really missed being within an easy drive of them.