Sunday, September 15, 2013

sunday afternoon... the last quiet oasis for a while

Dear all,

Another week at least and Sharon has been a major slacker about writing!

As you can see I am good at starting things, but not always so good at keeping them up or finishing.

Well, instead of trying to go day-by-day over all the adventures I've missed, let me at least start with the last week and work backward from there if I have time and have not fallen asleep over my keyboard.

The past week has been busy at work. It was time to start prepping for a week of testing next week. So there were some colleagues who came to Warsaw from other facilities. I only knew one of them but we went out to eat twice, once with another colleague whom we met for the first time this trip. On days like that, my schedule goes something like this: Get up, get ready, go to work. Work all day. Go home around 5pm, work out as much as possible in the time left. Sometimes after errands. Quickly shower and neaten myself up and then run back out to dinner around 7pm. Get home around 9 or 9:30 and then just chill a bit before bed. So as you can see, there goes the whole day - of course it's fun though!

So this week, I have a couple people coming into town specifically to help me out with my part of the testing, and I foresee more of the same... but it is always worth it to spend time with people. And I like to be hospitable for people who come to Warsaw. I should show them some of the nice spots around town, like the Winona Lake area with the Island and canals. And make them brownies too. I remember a couple years ago I made brownies for some colleagues visiting from Switzerland and from Boston area and I think I packaged each up in its own bag with a name tag... Wow I must have been young and energetic then! I don't think I will be going to THAT much effort this time, but I still have to do something! In keeping with my life motto, "Big sister to the world!"

(If any of my brothers are reading this I am sure I just gave them a great opportunity for some eye-rolling! However as most of you know by now, I genuinely mean everything I say unless i follow it up with "I'm joking!")

And here it is late Sunday afternoon, the last oasis of free time before a very busy week followed by a weekend of flying to France followed by a nice intense week mostly in France and 2 days in Switzerland... Very excited about my first overseas business trip, but a little nervous and worried. Just thinking about everything that has to be done for a trip always makes me nervous. Which is funny because I travel a lot and should not be worried about it. What you have to do is just have a packing list in advance and other than that, forget about it, take each day as it comes and don't start packing till the day before you leave if you can help it. And don't try to figure out every detail of the trip and your connections and blah blah blah because the point is to live the adventure, not know it by heart in advance.

I do have to say it has been so good today to go to church and get several chunks of good Bible teaching, and of course time worshiping God and visiting with the rest of the family in Christ. For lunch we went to Stacey's parents' house. Had a yummy meal and then each person was given a huge piece of pie, I really should have asked for mine to be cut in half, but as soon as I saw it in front of me I couldn't resist... the old old story of Sharon and Chocolate. Never ends.

And this afternoon I made a lot of time to read various things.... that was nice! It is a grayish cool afternoon so just perfect for that.

Well, I hope you are all having a fabulous Sunday. And hopefully this brings you a bit up to date and I will try to be prompter with posts in the future,

love,
Sharon


Saturday, September 07, 2013

the last few weeks... part 1

My dear readers,

I apologize for the lapse of posting! It has been a busy couple weeks, full of traveling and vacation. You know how vacation seems to just eat up all of your life once it hits.

Let's see, my last post was a couple weeks ago on a Wednesday. The next day was Thursday, which is always Bible Study night. To be honest I cannot remember at all what happened. I just recall that we stayed up pretty late talking. And I had to throw together my luggage so I could leave straight from work for the airport the next day, to go to Philly!

I had planned to be in Philly that weekend anyway at the end of a work trip, in order to visit Philly cousins and also NZ cousins who would be there visiting Philly cousins! Berwyn and Veronica and Emlyn. Wel lthe work trip was canceled, but I made my own plans. :)  So I left work early and hopped on a plane. My neighbor on my first flight was a lady who had children my own age, I didn't really start talking with her till the end of the flight, then I found out she had a daughter who had studied at the same university in Buenos Aires as I had! Universidad de Belgrano. So that was a fun connection. The next flight was a bit longer, Detroit to Philly. I had landed in the middle seat of a 3-seat row. On my left was a young lady who I figured was originally from India, on my right was a laid-back gentleman who offered me a paper after I had sat down and the plane was taxiing. At first I thought he was one of those guys I would rather not talk to, but that first perception was quite wrong. So we started talking about the paper and the flight and blah-blah you name it. Well, I thought it was going to be a bit hard then to engage the girl on my left in conversation, but it was not. It just took a while to find a good opportunity to do it. She was very happy to talk and I found out she was going to Philly to visit cousins too! That was pretty much the fastest flight to Philly I have ever had. People on either side to talk to. I mean it doesn't get much better than that for me! :)  Incidentally, I ordered hot tea and got it just late enough, and it was just hot enough, that I had barely started to get in some good sips before the flight attendant came along with the trash and with considerable concern obliged me to throw it in the trash because she was afraid the descent would be bumpy enough that I might burn myself. You should have seen my face. My neighbor on the left could not help laughing in deep sympathy. The landing was quite fun I must admit. For a while we were not sure the plane was going to land because it would be headed down and then seemed to head back up.

Once landed, I went to get my rental car in the now-quite-familiar Philly airport, with the expectation that I would make record efficiency getting from the plane to Jeremy and Lillian's house, since I had done this several times before. And it would not even be totally dark hopefully. Quite. Well I did very well right up until I was pulling out of the Avis lot, and then the guy who was clearing me to leave noted that my car was a step up from the class that I had ordered, asked me where I had got it, and told me that to be sure the charge wouldn't be extra I would have to go back in to the counter. Oh joy. So I did. (and for your information I had gone straight to the space indicated and it was the right make and everything)  I had just gotten everything settled to my satisfaction, mirrors, water bottle, the works, was not too thrilled. When I got in, by good chance I had the same agent as had initially given me my key, and he was ticked off enough at the inconvenience to a customer who had to come back in, that he set me up with my current car with no extra charge. Woohoo! So then, I was off.

The construction area on the highway was extra slow and so I could not shoot down the narrow lane at the same adrenaline-inducing speed as usual, but, just as well I suppose. And I was in the wrong lane to turn at one light in the city but the car catty-corner to me very nicely let me fudge the lanes and turn. And so I finally made it to Jeremy and Lillian's, found a parking spot almost right in front of their house (total miracle!) and was just turning off the car when Berwyn came out seemingly just to welcome me and stood waiting to greet me! What amazing perception to realize I had come! Well, actuallly he had just been coming out to the car for something and happened to see me and realized it must be me. But it was still lovely. What fun to see him again, and meet his wife Veronica and son Emlyn, and of course see Jeremy and Lillian again... pure happiness.  Had a nice time visiting before we all went to bed.

I got to sleep on an air mattress on the living room floor, which was very nice. Konked out until people started waking up the next morning, starting with baby Shanna of course. And then.... but that is Part 2.

Till next time, hopefully very shortly,
your honored blog post writer,
Sharon