Off Campus

I live and work at the same place. Lucky for me, the place happens to be a great place. But still, this presents challenges. On weekends, we can have up to 50 people tramping around. Because it's such a short commute to my office, I often end up here at night working when I could be goofing off. And because we are sort of a public place and half of Litchfield County feels at home here, we have folks drop in even on Mondays when technically we're closed.

Mondays! I have posted about my days off before. Sometimes I get in the car and go exploring, just to get away. I have not done that in awhile, but this Monday, Nancy and I went to New Haven for the perfect day off. We had been given gift cards to Panera's so we had a great lunch. Then we ambled around in a dollar store. (I bought a bunch of cool toys for bingo prizes.) And last but not least, we went to Ikea.

I had never been to Ikea before. I would go back just for fun any time. We admired all the cool stuff, and I wondered what my dream bedroom would look like if I were not a missionary sister living in a subterranean cenacle. I did notice that furniture tended to be very low to the ground. I had to sort of roll over practically on my hands and knees to get out of the couches. But the whole experience was like going to a foreign land. It was just what I needed. I love it here, but it can get pretty intense to stay confined to the property for more than a few weeks.

When I was a novice, one of our sisters told us about her first mission. She was sent to some town in the deep South, I think it was Charlotte. She was from Fall River, MA. Within a week of her arrival, she met a young man at a workshop and proudly introduced herself as a missionary. He replied, "Wow, so am I! I have lived all my life here but in a few weeks my church is sending me to do a year of missionary work in Fall River, Massachusetts."

So there you go. There is just some attraction to go exploring someone else's home town. I am sure that as I write this, there is someone from Connecticut having a great adventure somewhere in Louisiana.