November 26

1 WHOLE WEEK without a puff on a cigarette and 11 days since I quit! I will honestly say, NO it's not easy but I can't slip up anymore because there are no cigarettes in the house so that is a YAY for me. I have told both my kids and they are happy for me.

I need someplace to jump up and down but at the same time say BAH HUMBUG. I am really sick and tired of reading all about every one's decorations and trees that are up. I was NEVER one to put up a tree before Dec. 20, I think that is the earliest I ever put one up. I just can't stand looking at the thing for that long. My family has always been real scrooges about decorations so I just don't bother. My DS did ask me the other day if we wanted a real tree or a fake tree for Christmas so there IS some hope. I KNOW he and his GF want to put up our tree and decorate the house and have it ready for when we come home. I think I burst his bubble by telling him to wait so I am going to call him back and tell him go for it.

Now on the other hand and THIS YEAR ONLY, I am so excited! I want to put on Christmas music, I want to put up decorations here, but I know I will only have the let down and depression of having to take them down again when I get over jet lag from the flight back on Jan 4. I suppose if I had Winter decorations I could but those up, but it's still Autumn.

I've asked both of the kids if they had any special dishes they wanted me to cook for Christmas dinner. DD told me she wants sweet potatoes, squash and pecan pie, DS doesn't care. There is only 1 MUST have for dinner and that is HAM, weather it is a spiral sliced, roast or whatever, it WILL BE PIG MEAT!

Bring on the Eggnog, fruitcake, candy canes, Christmas candy!

I have been keeping track of the flights we are taking to get HOME for Christmas. First off the flight out of HERE is a god awful, morbid flight time, leaving at 04:10AM, meaning we need to be at the airport by 1AM, UGH! It's a 5 hour flight to our European destination then a 3 hour layover. For the first time in YEARS we are flying an American air carrier, which neither one of us is happy about but we went for cheap not comfortable and friendly This flight leaves Europe anywhere between 5-20 minutes AHEAD of schedule and arrives in the US anywhere between 10 minutes to an HOUR ahead of schedule, how can this be? I've checked several flight trackers and the airline website and they all say the same thing, arrived early. Now this early arrival would be WONDERFUL for us meaning there is a 99% better chance we would make our connecting flight HOME but I have been on flights that have arrived early only to have to sit on the plane for 1/2 hour to 45 minutes while we wait on a gate to open. I wish there was some place I could e-mail to find out if these flights were indeed an hour early arriving and was the flight allowed to get to a gate and disembark early. We've never been to this airport and not exactly sure what the immigration, baggage claim and customs lines are like nor how long it takes to get from these, through security and to the departure area of the next flight. I personally am going to stick with my Here-Europe-Boston route for my summer trips.

I stitched last night again, I got one side of an ornament for an exchange done and started on the back side. It is really a quick stitch, I just can't seem to get the ambition to sit down and stitch much of anything. I have a whole pile of stuff I want to stitch but just can't, even though this is the month long Stitchathon on Needle Nook. Mainly I want to get a couple of things FINISHED before I start anything new.

Last week I got my monthly newsletter from Vee & Co. She has these cute new designs called Name Flakes, they are so pretty, I just have to order some for the girls in the family. http://www.veeandco.com/8869.html I don't think they would get done for this Christmas but they are so nice.