This week was a short week for running. I ran on Tuesday and Wednesday and then started my vacation on Thursday.

Monday was a hard day for me. My husband had to go out of town even though his vacation started on Friday. To make matters worse he was traveling to my home city....Chicago. I really wanted to run, but I had no babysitter (my husband) and he was where I have not been since my dad's funeral in February 2007. I moped around the house all Monday.

Tuesday, my husband came home so I was able to get in a quick 3 miler. It was one of my fastest to date and I was not planning on running for speed just running at a comfortable pace. Wednesday was a quick 3 + miler. I had to cut it short because I needed to come home and get dressed to head to the hair salon to get my "hair did" for the vacation.

Thursday was a busy day of closing the house and packing the suitcases and then heading out the door. We are in Tennessee, the Great Smoky Mountains, and so I slowly started to accumulate winter clothes for the kids since October. I still have plenty of winter gear from my Boston days and from working in retail. Since the weight is slowly coming off I am able to get back into some of my older clothes. I went shopping in my dry cleaning laundry basket and found six sweaters. Yay!!!!

We drove from Miami on Thursday and stopped off in Savannah, GA for the night. After a good night's sleep and breakfast, we hit the road again and reached the cabin by the evening.

This cabin is beautiful. It has a bedroom on the first floor as well as the kitchen, dining room and living room. Downstairs have two more bedrooms, and a game room. Both levels have decks. Great place to visit, but I would not want to live here. We are up on a mountain and as a city girl, I do not know how to downshift and maneuver my way up and down the narrow roads. I am going to so enjoy getting back to Florida for a few reasons (flat land and getting back to my half marathon training).

Our cabin is owned by a family. It was one of the few cabins around us that had Christmas lights on the outside. They also put Christmas decorations around the house like snowman soap dishes and Black Bears mixed in with Christmas decorations for a "cabiny" feel with a bit of holiday cheer. Everyone went to bed on Christmas eve and afterward my mother in law put all the presents under the tree so the kids could come upstairs and see that Santa made a stop here. The kids had fun ripping the wrapping off their gifts. We had a quick breakfast and then headed out to see what shops were open on Christmas day. The weather was perfect, in the high 40's to low 50's. The only thing missing was snow, but at this point I have seen enough snow from growing up in Chicago and living in Boston to last a life time.

I had a great day and now I am going to spend a little time with the kids before they go to bed.

Merry Christmas and Happy holidays.

Daphne