Today, Friday November 25, we awoke to the realization that we had spent our first holiday in our new home and far from our close loved ones. This Thanksgiving was both good and a tad bit sad. First time in over a decade and a half that we were not within close proximity to the kids and grandkids and able to spend the Thanksgiving Holiday in their company. Oh, there were several years when we were unable to gather all together, things like the Coronavirus Pandemic that kept us all within our own household circle and no large gathering. Just this past year, when we still lived in Alexandria, Char and I spent Thanksgiving in our condo, but did spend Christmas eve day with the kids and grandkids. A couple of years, when we lived aboard the Misty Lady we spent a holiday just the two of us. We did manage to gather together with the family for Christmas Eve day. My son and his family usually spend Christmas Day with Becky’s mom and dad and we have sort of made it a tradition to spend Christmas Eve with them and my daughter. But yesterday was the first where distance precluded a family dinner and a chance to catch up in person, with the grands, my son and his family and my daughter.
However, the Bride (Charlotte) and I had a pretty darn good day within the confines of our new home, and our new city! We had a great meal, the Bride outdid herself, with a terrific homemade quiche for our start of the holiday day. It was really great and the fact that she made it from scratch (not store bought) made it all the more wonderful. The breakfast quiche was followed a short while later with an appetizer of warm Brie and a nut/maple syrup topping along with crackers for spreading. We watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and simply enjoyed the day, in our new home.
We did make plans to travel up to Northern Virginia for the Christmas Holiday to spend the day with the family and enjoy a Christmas celebratory meal. That visit will require our leaving our house early in the morning and driving the almost 200 miles north. We will spend the day, exchanging gifts having a Christmas meal and then in the midafternoon, point the nose of our little Buick SUV southward and return home to Newport News to the fur babies, Duchess and Penny.
So, to any of you who might still be reading the maunderings of this old senior citizen, here’s hoping your Thanksgiving was great, with good food, friends and family and lots of love all around. It is a day for reflection and renewing hope for a better future for all of us, the world over.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all.
Author: harv1941
Just a summary, I am 84 years of age, retired in July 2013 and settled down to promoting the dangers of bacterial meningitis, which killed my beloved son, Mike in 2009. My wife, Charlotte, and I embarked on an adventure of live aboard cruising, aboard a large Blue Water motor yacht. While our beginning was rather fraught with hurdles, we continued to look forward to the day we moved aboard the Misty Lady and cruise the eastern seaboard and associated waterways. After more than four years of life aboard this Bluewater Motor Yacht, I developed an advanced problem due to interaction with medications and experienced rather frightening balance problems. Therefore, getting on and off the yacht was fraught with danger of falling between the docks and the boat's hull. Walking the docks was also problematic considering that our yacht club docks were all floating docks and my balance problem was a danger during the walk from our yacht's docking slip to the clubhouse or out to the DC Wharf facilities and our car housed in the yacht club's reserved garage. SO, we had to regretfully put the Misty Lady up for sale and move back on shore. We moved on shore, first into a condo apartment in Alexandria, then after two years there, we relocated to the city of Newport News, in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Our original desired location was in the city of Hampton, Virginia, which is the oldest English-speaking settlement in the United States having been established originally in 1610. My ancestors came to this country through this settlement in the mid 1600s and lived in that area for around 100 years before beginning a migration of one portion of our family toward the west.
I looked forward to moving back to this area and exploring the roots of my family, both maternal and paternal ancestry, but we found a great house in the Newport News area and became ensconced in the terrific neighborhood of Kiln Creek. My wife, being still actively employed, received a substantial offer in a position with a government contractor firm back up in Northern Virginia. So we put the Newport News house up for sale, receiving and accepting an offer withing two days. We then relocated back up to the city of Alexandria and into another high rise condo. My wife reached a point where considerations for retirement were becoming very important. She indicated that she really didn't want to retire in Alexandria, so once again we began a house search in the Tidewater area, this time in the City of Williamsburg and in a community restricted to 55+ age owners. We found the ideal location, initiated the sale and closing for our retirement home. We then put our condo on the market. Alas, the market was not as robust as before so we had to change asking price a couple of time, but finally the Alexandria Condo was sold. Now we are set to enjoy the great locations found here in the Tidewater/Hampton Roads area, considering that we are history buffs and there are literally hundreds of historical sites in this segment of our nation. Of course living in Williamsburg is the epitome of history living life.
So, now we are in our retirement home, in a great retirement type community. A great clubhouse with a fine dining restaurant, a grill/pub, an award winning PGA designed golf course and miles of walking trails. Looking forward to my wife's eventual full retirement and the two of us visiting all up and down the east coast historical spots.
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Misty Lady Thought and Comment 