it's so crazy for me to have left at the height of fall time after lots of pumpkin carving and flip flop wearing, and come back and it's winter! and it gets dark at 5pm! and not only is it thanksgiving, but christmas is also in the air! it's shocking. i lost a whole month!
the trip was... good (to be expounded on in future posts) and the journey home was EXCRUCIATING. I chose the worst itinerary ever (stopping in brussels was a romantic notion i guess) and was on two back to back ten hour flights, then landed in new york and had two more back to back 3 hour flights. by the end i was living on airplane food and very little sleep and developed some odd dreams / hallucinations and digestive problems. but after 26 hours in the air, and 36 hours traveling all together, i made it home to see my very happy boyfriend.
the next day (after 4 hours of sleep thanks to my 12.5 hour time change) i put it down at the thanksgiving dinner table, and then had killer nausea and cramps the rest of the night until i reached my 6pm bedtime. the last few days i've spent catching up on sleep, working a semi-conscious triple time day at work (got my email inbox from 700 down to 100), looking deep into david's eyes, playing with my black dogs, and regaling my parents with my epic journey (and enjoying such american perks as 4 lane highways, fresh coffee, pizza, football, beer, wine, bathtubs, superstore commercials, clean water to brush my teeth with, costplus shopping (from which everything is 'made in india' but is not sold at indian prices), and QUIET and SILENCE. also, we indulged in a REAL tree this year and david found us a $37 winner down at lowe's in the valley. normally he gets put down by his liberal hippie girlfriend, but after my trip and seeing the problems of this big wide world, i'm choosing my battles a little wisely-er and let the man get a real live ten year old douglas fir, straight from my dream state, Oregon (the Christmas tree state if you didn't already know). we have started decorating her in style with our latest muse, owls, which coincidentally is a very popular animal this holiday season. slowly slowly we are finding more and more ornaments and i highly suggest going to target for some cheap / cute ones (only $2 a piece, i was surprised). also we decided to just decorate the tree in white this year so i have already spray painted the ornaments we bought and they look very nice and crisp on our tree.
in other news, my mother, Michelle Barbara Palmer, turns 60 years old today. i'm heading over to her house for some breakfast and presents (as my first act as a recently appointed 'only child'). i will document with pictures that will post to the world wide web early tomorrow. hasta!
