Start Spreading the News!

The news about us going to Thailand has been spreading around our families and a few friends, but mostly by word of mouth. It’s about to become common knowledge because we just mailed out our Christmas newsletter! Not that our Christmas newsletter is equivalent to the evening news but we send it to quite a few people whether they want it or not. Sometimes I’ve wondered if we should include unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of the Christmas newsletter for those poor folks that really don’t care to hear about the yearly goings on at the Decker household.

There was a time when I was against Christmas newsletters because I thought they were so impersonal. However, I have since discovered that with families as large as ours, handwritten notes to every family member at Christmas time is quite impractical unless we both quit our jobs for the entire month of December. I also realized that when I received Christmas newsletters from others that I got a lot more information about what was going on than from the handwritten cards. I was reluctant at first and only sent out short little quarter page newsletters, but for the last four years I have done a full double-sided newsletter. Karl and I do try to make it interesting but I will let the recipients be the judge on whether we are successful. I do know that we enjoy all the holiday cards and newsletters that we receive. It’s one of the things that we love about the Christmas Season.

In addition to spreading the news to our friends and family, I have just resigned from my job. When we made the decision to go on this trip we knew that it wasn’t likely that I would be given a leave of absence. We agreed that this opportunity to travel for several months was one that couldn’t be passed up. Even though we have talked about this, there is still a little apprehension as we take this step. After all, we are just regular people not financially independent or anything like that. I think a little apprehension is natural for this situation and actually the feelings of excitement, enthusiasm and freedom are a whole lot stronger. For those that are doing some worrying on our behalf; don’t! We’ve planned well and should be just fine while we look for new jobs upon our return.

Before I close this blog entry, I do need to make a note that some of our Christmas newsletters got printed with out our email address that we will be using while we are in Thailand. I’m not sure who got the newsletters with out an email address, but everyone got this blog address. So, if you want the email address please post a comment here and ask for the address. I have to approve all comments so I’ll get your message and be able to send you the email address. I don’t want to post the email address on the blog because then we’ll get all kinds of junk in that email address.

24 days to go!

- Elizabeth