Our neighborhood entrance.

Mike and I are spending most of our time at home in Raleigh since his ankle fusion on November 20^th. Due to his surgery and needed recovery, Mike is non-weight bearing on his right foot for 8-10 weeks. Although he is non-weight bearing, Mike is still working digitally and has as many conference calls as when he is ambulatory.

Being home in Raleigh, especially on the weekends, is rare for us. With our business and personal travel, we find ourselves sleeping in hotel beds and our bed at the beach sometimes more than our bed in Raleigh. But since November 20^th, we have been nesting in Raleigh.

We have settled into a routine. While in one respect the requirement to stay home gives us some challenges, I am finding that it is also providing some benefits. Easy for me to say, since it isn’t my foot, and I am not wheelchair and walker-bound! But our need to be less mobile has certainly changed my routine as well as Mike’s. And some of the changes are good.

Our home (almost) ready for Christmas.

This past Saturday I had the pleasure to spend a day just puttering around at home. I started the day with coffee and magazines in bed for two hours, which was delightful. I then decided to inventory and clean out my gift closet, a task that presented itself when I was looking for a gift that I knew was in there and could not find due to all of the mess. Once I found the gift, I decided it was past time to see what else was in the gift closet, since I knew there should be some Christmas gifts. Not only were there Christmas gifts, there were gifts I had purchased that I had long since forgotten about, and that were purchased for specific occasions, some of which had passed!

Once the gift closet was organized, since Christmas was on my mind (and around the corner!), I decided to finish the Christmas decorating. I left the two trees until our daughter, Chatham, and son-in-law, Johnathan, came over later to string the lights, a task that I have never done and do not know how to do. I had decided that there must be a YouTube video that could help me with this, but thankfully, family came to the rescue! While I waited for them to arrive, I decorated the fireplace mantle, which included hanging the Christmas stockings. Then I finished the other decorating.

These trees are in vogue again.

While I was puttering around, I realized how relaxed I was. That felt different than other years when the decorating had to be squeezed in among other activities, and usually not completed until at least a week later. Having to be home in Raleigh instead of traveling to the beach or elsewhere gave me some much-needed time to prepare for Christmas. I had the same feeling preparing for Thanksgiving. I hope that I remember this next year when there will not be a requirement to be housebound.

There is pleasure in having two homes, with one of them at the beach. But it is also tiring at times, lugging things back and forth, and keeping house in two locations. I realize that this is a first-world problem, and do not take for granted how blessed we are to have such a problem.  And for the next couple of months, we will not be going back and forth much. We will be in Raleigh, reconnecting with our neighborhood. And that is a good thing. One of our neighbors, John, has been over a couple of times to visit with Mike, this weekend bringing us Christmas cookies. He said that he is seeing us while we are in town, for he knows that as soon as Mike is ambulatory, we will be off in different places! Another neighbor, Laurie, made soup for us.  John and Laurie and their families have been wonderful neighbors for many years, and we are enjoying seeing more of them lately.

One of our two trees

It is a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Would you be my neighbor?!