hooray!!!

sometime tomorrow i'll be over the mid-atlantic homeward bound. i am so very excited to see everyone, especially at christmastime.

i've been sitting in my office absolutely freezing today trying to get the last few bits and bobs done before heading to a meeting at 3:30 pm. i'm officially turning the out of office greeting on in 20 minutes time.

all the prep is done, apart from the packing, which some would argue is the most important. it'll be an adventure trying to cram in all of the christmas presents with my normal allotment of clothes, so there will definitely be some laundry in the offing when i'm home. watched it's a wonderful life last night so will just have to catch up on some christmas specials in canada.

i'm looking forward to snow, snow and more snow so hopefully it won't get too mild at the end of the week! it would be great to get some tobogganing and a couple snow fights in ;)

i'll be seeing most of my canadian readers very soon, but to everyone else have a very merry and happy christmas!

words to live by

...for at least the next week anyway. admittedly, i've been getting a bit worked up about getting things done before i fly home for christmas, about my boarded up window not being fixed and the general craziness that ensues at work before taking time off.

last night my friend jessica quite rightly said, whatever doesn't get done before you leave is simply going to disappear as soon as the plane takes off.

so that's the principle i'm going by now. it would be great to have the house spotless, but hey, it's not as if anyone is going to be there. it would be great to have all of the loose ends at work tied up, but nobody is going to be working over the holidays anyway. and all the baking for the weekend will get done.

a couple things have continually brought smiles and excitement:
- the vinyl cafe in podcast format meaning that i can listen to stuart mclean anytime of day or night
- humming the song "driving home for christmas" repeatedly
- watching national lampoons christmas vacation on sunday and thinking, wow...that's what this year is going to be like!
- the thought of meeting my niece amy for the first time
- snow for christmas

...although i just checked the 14 day trend on the weather network and apparently it's going to rain christmas day. drat. but it won't matter, cause i'll be at home.

it can only get better

...cause it can't get worse. it was a really bad week and i'm not going to say much about it other than the icing on the cake last night, which was waiting in the rain and cold and it taking 2 1/2 hours to get home from work. it usually takes me 40 minutes max door to door.

nevermind, that's all behind us and everything is coming up christmas. the gallery had their christmas shopping evening, which is always the signal of the festive season. the local primary school comes to sing christmas carols and i usually have my first mince pie of the season. the online advent calendars are in action, which are brilliant because we indulge in enough sweet things at this time of year.

*and* i've wrapped christmas presents, the christmas baking ingredients are all in the house waiting to be made into goodies, and it's only 12 days until i fly home!

hahaha....that just made me think of bob and doug's 12 days of christmas...woot!!!

glasgow girls

on one very rainy and windy day, janine, carole and i headed out to the burbs of glasgow to the *house for an art lover* designed by charles rennie mackintosh and margarent macdonald, but only built about 20 years ago. it was absolutely beautiful and a great little attraction. really lovely cafe.

in possible the prettiest setting was this glasswork in a fireplace. a couple was getting married that night at the venue and the room was all decked out. if i lived in glasgow, this is definitely where i would want to get hitched!

carole and janine looking as happy as they do in the food section at marks and spencers ;)

we three in our wee flat called *my place in glasgow*. fabulous accomodation and would definitely stay there again! we had a great time, but as usually time flew by and seemed much too short.