A Satisfying Saturday

It has been a quiet day here at Apartment 48. Melissa and I stayed in bed until 10:00 this morning, reading and perusing the internet. I read over my friend Sunny’s sermon for the week and caught up on all the news. (Sunny called me later in the afternoon–it is always fun to talk to her as she’s currently a Navy chaplain in Japan.) We finally got up for breakfast because I was starting to get hungry. After breakfast we tackled our big project of the day–finishing our unpacking job. Needless to say, I didn’t make it into work today, but since I’d already put in 4+ hours of overtime this week, I’m not feeling too guilty.

Anyway, Melissa and I worked solidly throughout the day until almost 5:00 (excepting a short break for a mid-afternoon snack of cheese and crackers). Then, while I went for my daily run, Melissa began dinner. I returned to the apartment with just enough time to do my push-ups, sit-ups, stretches and weight routine before my parents arrived. Sadly, I was in the shower when they got here so I wasn’t able to see their initial reaction upon entering our apartment. Let’s just say that the ol’ 48 looked a lot different when they were here last!

Melissa made us a scrumptious dinner of pesto with chicken, broccoli and bread (the latter brought by my mommy). I tried to make scones for our after-dinner tea, but ended up putting too much batter into the scone pan. The sucker overflowed all over the stove and all my poor scones came out in a crumbled heap. At least they are edible–the loads of chocolate chips and dried cranberries sure helped!

We had our tea and scones while watching October Sky, a really fine film shot in East Tennessee near where Melissa and I went to college. )Ironically, we chose to watch this movie on the 20th anniversary of the Challenger explosion.) My parents were watching the movie for the first time. I’ve seen the movie 3-4 times before, but I still cried anyway. I’ve discovered that watching a movie over again can be bad because I know when all the emotional moments are just around the bend. As a result, I start tearing up extra early. At any rate, October Sky is really a great movie based on the autobiography Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam. Read it. Watch it.

Now it is bedtime. It is so nice to crawl into bed knowing that the apartment is in order. I can even break out my boxed set of Calvin and Hobbes that I received from Michael for Christmas. I told myself that I wouldn’t open it until I had an orderly apartment in which to read it...

Grace and Peace,

Peter Nathaniel Ott