27 March 2009

A Day in the Life of ...... Part 2

Well, you have to know that your mother just had a 'mega tantrum'. I had spent over thirty minutes writing a wonderfully witty and insightful article, then pushed the wrong button and it disappeared. It is a good thing none of you were here.
So, anyway I will attempt to recreate it and try again [that is why this is titled part 2. Part 1 is lost forever somewhere out in blogger space.]
I had mentioned that there is just not much activity on the ever exciting HOUSE OF HARRIS blog site. In fact, when we do have a posting there are not even many comments which leads me to believe that no one out there is even reading them.
Hence, I am going to bore you all into doing better. I had the inspiration to each week take a day and tell what we do on that day. When you sons were on your missions I always wished that you would tell me what you do during the day. Now, you probably have never wished your parents would do that, but you are going to have to suffer through it anyway.
For my first day I am going to pick Monday. Now, to you ex-missionaries you might call this our P-day, and it is because by the time the day is over we are 'pooped'. We are able to sleep in a little longer on this day but seeing our age it doesn't happen anyway. So up, dressed, we grab a plastic grocery sack and out we go for our weekly 'trash pick up'. President and Sister Babb, our first counselor and his wife take the outside streets surrounding the temple grounds and we do the inside grounds. Now, you would think that it being the temple and dedicated grounds there just would not be any trash at all. WRONG!. The sad fact is that there is a lot of trash on the grounds. When asked why people just drop their things where they stand the answer came back, well it is just a tradition!!! Interestingly enough a lot of it is tucked away in bushes and shrubs, [I think they do try to hide it] so we do a lot of bending and stretching [good exercise for us]. This usually takes about 45-60 minutes. You would be shocked, surprised, amazed and all the other adjectives you can come up with when you hear what we do find on the grounds; anything from dead rats [which Dad picks us] to beer bottles [left over from bus drivers who are hired to drive youth groups here for baptisms]. Most of it though is wrappers from crackers, gum, candy, etc. Dad is thinking of keeping the next bags we pick up and taking them to our next PPI with the Area President. Maybe he can talk to the Stake Presidents about this. It is very sad.
We then come in, shower, have a little breakfast and usually will do our grocery shopping. The grocery stores here are very nice and modern and usually will have just about anything that the US stores will have, just not maybe at the time you want it. We do have to wait for the US things to arrive via air I suppose or maybe ship. But we certainly do not suffer from want of anything to eat. The time it takes to shop is not very long but the time it takes to clorox wash all the fresh fruits and veggies takes over an hour sometimes.
We are then ready to do our scripture and other reading. Then of course there is the nap time which is a must on the day the temple is closed.
I will usually use this day to bake as I love to give out cookies and banana bread to the gardners, office staff, etc. This is a fun thing for me to do.
From 7-8:30 we have our Family Home Evening here in the Casa de Huespedes [Guest House. There is a room just for meetings which we all gather in]. Once a month or so I will show a 'popcorn and movie' night here in our apartment which the seniors all seem to enjoy.
Well, loved ones there you are. I know this should generate some really thought-provoking comments and I welcome them all.
Remember next week, I will tackle the exciting Tuesday, so stay tuned for more in the life of...!

4 comments:

The Wi Family said...

Thanks for sharing Grandma. Sounds like you're staying plenty busy--it reminds me of P-days on my mission--I never looked forward to them, because there was never enough time to get everything done that I wanted to, and sleep etc.
I used your cookie recipe the other day and though they are not as good as yours I must say that I did a pretty good job.
I'm sorry that I have been slacking on posting too..

Stuart said...

Mom, I'm sure I shared my mission routine with you. If not, here it is: Wake up at 6:30. Study scriptures until 7. Study language from 7 to 7:30. Breakfast and shower and stuff from 7:30 to 8. Try to leave the apartment at 8 and go tracting. Return home at 12 for lunch. Leave apartment to return to tracting at 1. Knock on doors from 1 until 8:30 or 9. Return to apartment and have dinner (in Germany, lunch was the big meal, so dinner was light and late). Go to bed by 10 or 10:30. On a typical day we might have 2 or 3 discussions. Your days sound a bit more exciting. Thanks for sharing. Stuart

jennie said...

Yep Mom It worked - I am quilted (is that a word?) into commenting. I love the blog but I am just not very good at commenting and nothing picture worthy happens usually - unless of course you would like to see a picture of my latest bruise :)
I am sure that The next few months however will be filled with picture taking opportunities. Thank you for sharing your days - that is a nice thing for missionaries to do (even though I already knew everything about your mondays - maybe tuesdays will bring a surprise so I await anxiously your next post!
I love you

symonie said...

Wow. Now on Mondays I can tell Nina and Satchel about Gma and Gpa's garbage adventures. :) The past couple of months there have been articles about the DR in the Friend and New Era. We had a FHE where we read one of the articles and looked at all the pictures and talked about Gma and Gpa serving a mission there. It's fun to get more details to share with the kids.
Looking forward to hearing about your Tuesdays!