Eileen’s suffering from some pretty severe sciatic nerve pain in her back, bottom and legs. She’s scheduled to go to the doctor tomorrow. She has been doing stretches and finds that walking is better for her than sitting.

Yesterday, she delegated our weekly trip to the Farmers Market to me. So I chose a Christmas tree for us as she instructed and brought it home along with some other stuff like mushrooms, turnips, and parsnips.

Last Thursday, she and I got up very early and drove to Grand Rapids. The day before we rented a fancy schmancy 2019 minivan to drive while our Subaru is in the shop in Grand Rapids. We rented a vehicle because Eileen doesn’t like to drive her mini in the winter. So She drove the Subaru and I drove mini van. The drive over was quite harrowing for me. New cars are always a bit like trying to learn a new cockpit or computer. This isn’t too bad in the daylight. But it turned out to be a bit scary in the dark and rush hour.

However, I made it. Unfortunately, I had gotten confused. We were scheduled to bring our car to the Subaru dealer in Grand Rapids NEXT Thursday. The service manager was kind enough to tell us we could leave it and he would work on it as soon as he could. He wasn’t sure he could get to it before next week, but that still sounded better than taking back to Holland and returning to Grand Rapids next week.

We had breakfast in Grand Rapids and did some Christmas shopping at Schuler’s Bookstore.

Eileen and I have decided that we will both buy our own Christmas presents this year. I know this is not as much fun, but Eileen finds it difficult to buy me stuff. But of course I don’t.

Barb Phillips stopped by for a visit yesterday. She taught Eileen how to make those little scrubby things that Eileen’s Mom used to make. While they were doing that, I bought my Christmas presents. I decided to buy some books I have been wanting. I managed to find them used at very reasonable prices.

So, now I have some very cool books coming my way. They included the bio of Emily Dickinson I mentioned recently as well as the odd Dante translations. I also purchased three volumes of Robert Alter’s translations of books in the Old Testament. I am feeling very spoiled, but I saved a ton of money by purchasing these used.

Today was Rev Jen’s return to work. She is still healing but I think she was glad to be back. I was certainly glad to have her back even if she takes it very gingerly for a while. While she was ill, I was finding church work a bit onerous. I enjoy what I do: leading the congregation and choir in song and playing organ and piano. However, I am quite fed up with religion in general. It doesn’t help that the country and the dang globe seem to be going to hell in a handbasket.

But anyway, the choir has been sounding stellar. I played a couple of really cool pieces by Scheidt today based on Savior of the Nations Come (our closing hymn). The congregation was in a bit of jubilant mood and did a lot of applauding including applauding after the postlude. When was the last time Scheidt inspired applause in a congregation? But as Eileen pointed out, it seemed to be in support of the player more than recognition of the cool music. I’ll take that.