Greetings from NH!

It was a LONG journey here...but I finally made it Wednesday morning at 2:30am.

It all started when I missed my 6:40am flight Tuesday morning. $50 and about 30 minutes later, I was booked on a different flight getting me into Boston with about 1 hour to get to the bus station to make the last leg of the journey to Lebanon. After fumming and complaining to my mother, I plugged in my IPOD and deciding to let out my frustration by knitting. After about an hour, I wandered around the gate area and fantasyed about being in the lines for the planes headed to Amsterdam and Paris. Finally, with a serger for Juliann packed strategically in a rolly-bag, I finally boarded my "re-booked" flight only to discover that my bag would not fit in the overhead compartment! I wasn't about to give up so easily...not now! So, I finagled and manipulated the suitcase, the stuff in the suitcase, the serger...no luck. I tried under the seat in front of me...ha...that wasn't gonna work either! The plane is really starting to fill up, but luckily the seats next to me were still empty. Since plan A, B, C, and frankily all plans but Z didn't work, I did all I could think: I unloaded my suitcase and frantically pulled the serger out of the suitcase--since it was the source of my suitcase-storage-problems--pulling the thread out of the machine in the process. I heafted the machine up into the compartment, shoved my now nearly empty suitcase along side it, and flopped into my seat just as a young dad with a small toddler came to my row to sit in the window seat. The middle-seat passenger followed close behind in his torn jeans, scruffy haircut, and plugged in IPOD.

The flight went by rather quickly and before I knew it, I was in Detroit. I made my way to my connecting gate, but stopped to check the screens to make sure I was actually heading to the right gate. Well, the string of bad luck continued...the flight was delayed. Because of severe rain and subsequent flooding, flights into Boston were being delayed. With the delay, there was little to no chance that I would land in Boston with enough time to catch the bus to Lebanon. There wasn't much I could do but wait and hope the airport cleared up so we could leave on time. In the meantime, I rearranged my suitcase items so I didn't have another awkward situation with the serger when boarding the next flight. I spent about an hour arranging and rearranging all of my things, but finally decided that the best option was to shove all my carry-on items into the rolly-bag and carry the serger by hand. (Let me tell you, I didn't come to this conclusion lightly since the serger is quite heavy when having to carry it all over a large airport.) As the scheduled time for the flight came and went, I decided to treat myself to a smoothie, so I took a walk around the airport--serger in hand--and enjoyed all the funny looks people gave me. I decided that the weird looks were motivated by two things: either people had never seen a serger/sewing machine before and therefore were looking to try and figure out what the heck I was carrying, or they realized that I was carrying a sewing machine and had to double take to make sure that in fact I was carrying a sewing machine through the Detroit airport.

Okay...I'll cut to the chase. I landed in Boston, hurried as fast as I could to get the luggage that arrived with my originally scheduled flight, only to find out that I had missed the last bus to Lebanon for the next three hours. I talked to my mom, joked with Rob and Juliann and made my way to the bus stop to get my ticket. I got to the bus stop around 10:30, stood in line for a while to get my actual ticket, then waited to board the bus. I got on the sparsely seated bus, fought a stomach ache, and settled in for a nearly three hour drive in the pouring rain on an old greyhound bus. At 2:30am Wednesday morning, I got dropped off in Hanover only to find myself awkwardly standing at a street-side bus stop waiting for Rob to pick me up.

The best part of the day was Claire's cute little tired face when she jumped out of bed to give me a hug. I surprised her with the quilt I made and happy to say she drags it happily around the house for most of the day. :) That's just what an aunt loves to see!

Pictures (and hopefully more happy stories) surely to follow...