Here we are, at the beginning of another year. It's like being on a merry-go-round that has lost it's brakes - it just keeps getting faster and faster. 2008 disappeared in the blink of an eye and I know of no way to make 2009 go any slower.
The month of December is always a marathon for me. Well, for any working woman who is trying to send cards, buy or make - and then wrap - Christmas gifts, and prepare the treats and other goodies for when the kids come home or neighbors drop over. With my job as postmaster of our small town, the workload builds steadily from mid November on. There are different waves of the season's mail - first the catalogues to order from, then the orders coming in, then the cards and parcels going out ... and then that last week when all the procrastinators come in and are willing to pay almost anything to get their gifts to loved ones in time for the big day. I see it year after year - paying the extra money for the extra speed sooths the guilt of not getting the job done when they should have.
Age must be catching up with me, though. I have always loved this time of the year. It's fun to work at the post office in all the hustle and bustle. Oh sure, I'm pretty worn out by the time the last truck pulls away from the loading dock, but it's a happy kind of tired. This year I was already feeling the drag by mid month. I felt like the Energizer Bunny who had been slipped a cheap store brand battery! And to think, the doctor put me on iron pills earlier this fall - what would have my energy levels been like if I hadn't had that extra fuel to go on?
Christmas 2008 was not my meal to make. We sisters all take turns and I did the feast last year. We all gather on Christmas Eve for a big meal and open certain gifts that night. The meal was great and the company fun. Christmas Day was a bit different with a visit with friends and no big meals at all - just nibbles and goodies all afternoon and a board game to keep things lively. the four day weekend was a lovely treat and the mail load has been light since then - a breather before we get back into the real world again ...
Glen has had most of the last month off. The oil patch work typically eases off over the holidays and with the price of a barrel of oil so low at the moment, everyone is waiting to see if, or how much, things pick up in the new year. Everyone has a theory about what will happen, but it's the same as the bigger economic world - no one knows and we're all just waiting to see.
Meanwhile, at least, Glen is getting some things done around the farm. When he's running CAT in the oil field he starts his day out with over an hour's chores at home before he goes to work, works a ten to twelve hour day, and comes home to feed bales for two more hours in the dark. Don't get the idea that this something that his wife approves of - she thinks he's nuts and will drop dead of exhaustion some day - but he ignores me and carries on. I think keeping only half as many cattle as we do would be a good thing. I could even be comfortable with getting rid of them all and taking life a little easier, but what do I know?
Oh well. Here we go with another year. Where will it take us? Will the markets and the economy straighten out? What will the price of oil do? I shake my head at what's liable to go on in Ottawa at the end of January - we do not need another election to pay for in the middle of all of this! Stephen Harper should never have opened this can of worms, but Jack Layton's dreams of a coalition government frighten and disgust me. Is there anyone in Ottawa who cares about Canada, and not just their own political carreer?
