Sunday December 20th

I have spent the last 2 days getting projects set up for me to take on my trip to Dayton for the holiday. Yesterday, I wound, cut and fused 10 troy ounces of fine silver jump rings to weave into loop-n-loop chains. I do realize that I will get a good 8 to 10 necklaces from this day of preparation but I just look at these 2 very small bags of rings. I nod & just sigh at the hours of assembly line work that went into getting me to this point.

But once I do get to this point not many tools are required to finish up the necklaces, so it is a perfect travel project. I do this every year so I do not feel that this time away from my bench it totally wasted.

I also have set my sights on some Dendritic Agates that I picked up at last years gem show. I am gonna set these into square wire wrap settings. I will post images as I get them done.

The only thing that I am not looking forward to is the weather that awaits me in the midwest. On Christmas Eve morning I have to drive from Dayton, OH to Ft Wayne, IN. For the last several years the weather has been horrible either coming or going and the extended forecast it is not looking good his year. I just am hoping that the predictions are wrong. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

It seems I did make a better travel choice this year. Well, the choice was actually made for me… Last year I flew Frontier and all connections take you through Denver. I beat a blizzard out of Denver back to Tucson by 15 minutes. If I had not made it out I would have been stuck at the Denver airport for 24 or 36 hours. This year my flight connections take me through Atlanta. There are two down sides to this travel scenario. The 1st bad part  is the Atlanta Airport (nightmare) and 2nd is the fact that I am having to fly Delta.

I despise the larger commercial carriers these days. There is not one thing that I like about any of them. They do not care about the traveler anymore all they have done is jack up the prices over the holiday and apply Tack-On-Charges to nickel and dime the traveler to death. The ONLY reason that I am traveling this way is that I got a practically free ticket. Oh what we do for family… right?

I am looking forward to seeing my niece and my 2 nephews. I usually only get to see them for these few days each year and I look forward to catching up with them. We are all on FB together and I do have to say that I really like to see what they are up to and just generally keeping in touch every so often. I will admit that it is sometimes hard not to be an adult with them and not just the "cool aunt."

I hope that every ones holidays have started out wonderfully and will only get better as this season progresses.

It is important that all of us remember this time of year is not just a Christian holiday season. It seems that a good many celebrations converge during this time of year...

Hanukkah was in the early part of December this year.
Kwanzaa is celebrated from December 26th to January 1st.
Eid El Fitr - marks the end of the fast of Ramadan
Festivus, a secular holiday created by writer Dan O'Keefe is celebrated on December 23rd.