Post-Christmas Quiet

Since Christmas, things have been very quiet.

Other than going to work, Joshua and I have just been staying home.

We stayed home for the rest of last week, and we were still eating my mother's holiday food on Saturday. Finally, late on Saturday afternoon, we went out to play racquetball, and on our way home we stopped at a food store, and we bought our first food for our apartment in almost a month!

On Sunday, Josh and I went to church. During service, we sat with my parents, and it was the first time we had seen them since the previous Tuesday night. When my parents, after church, asked us whether we wanted to do anything that afternoon, we suggested that they come over to our apartment to have lunch and to spend the afternoon, and to have dinner with us, too. My parents have not been over to our apartment for almost a month, and we thought we might extend some hospitality to them, given how much they had extended to us over the holidays.

My parents must not have had a better offer, because they accepted our invitation. On our way back to the apartment, we stopped at my parents' house to pick up their dog, so that he would not have to spend the entire day by himself, and we all returned to our place, dog in hand, for the rest of the day.

Josh and I prepared a very nice garden salad and some pasta--Fettucini Alfredo, our favorite pasta--for a quick and easy lunch, and then we all spent a very quiet and a very restful afternoon, playing scrabble, talking about the world situation, and talking to my brothers on the telephone. It was a very nice and a very peaceful afternoon.

For dinner, Josh and I cooked a pot roast for my parents, served with all the trimmings: mashed potatoes, lima beans, stewed tomatoes (made from scratch, and one of my favorite things to make and to eat, and one of my Dad's favorites, too), sweet corn and a salad made with apples and nuts and celery and a couple of other ingredients. For dessert, we had homemade tapioca, served while still warm, another of my Dad's favorites. My parents enjoyed the food--and so did the dog--and they enjoyed their day with us and they did not go home until shortly after 9:00 p.m.

It was a very nice Sunday.

Now, of course, Josh and I are back at work this week, and work seems to be drudgery, given that the holidays are over and given that nothing new or exciting is on the horizon short-term.

However, the nights are nice.