Stupid snow day

That's what we had today--a stupid snow day. It snowed all day yesterday--not hard but consistent. It was gathering on yards and cars but the roads were only wet. When I went home yesterday afternoon about 4:30, Tramway as a little slushy but not bad at all. Most everyone had slowed down to about 45 mph (speed limit is 50 mph) except for one overly-cautious driver who was doing 30 mph and the one driver who thought 55 mph was better. That's pretty typical for NM drivers in winter weather--either idiots who apparently haven't gotten the message that just because one drives a 4-wheel drive SUV, it doesn't mean one can stop better or the person who freaks out at the first flake. I'm pretty wimpy when it comes to driving in snow but yesterday, it was just wet. It was collecting on the side street up to my house though.

By the 6:00 news, the district had announced a two-hour delay for today. The snow and colder weather was apparently just what I needed to finally get me out of my bah-humbug mood. When I got home yesterday, I started working on addressing Christmas cards and got almost all of them done. There is just a handful of addresses that I need to get. I also got started on wrapping presents. I had just been putting everything in the guest room, waiting for inspiration or the day before we left for Texas, whichever happened first. Thankfully, inspiration struck and I was able to get everything that needed to be mailed wrapped and boxed and ready to go. We were also able to antagonize the cat a bit with a calendar we bought for my Grandmother that includes bird sounds:

Yep. That will never get old. My comment was in regards to the fact that Jub had just stepped on one of the buttons to make it chirp, not stating the obvious that he was standing on the calendar. He couldn't figure out where the birds were hiding (although he didn't react to the owl hoot). We "played" with the cat for about 10 minutes, until he started biting the speaker.

I set my alarm to sleep in a bit since I knew we'd at least have the delay until 10:00. When I got up about 7:00, I looked outside and told Paul that we probably just had the delay since the roads looked fine. I padded downstairs and turned on the television. I was only paying half-attention to the TV and was definitely surprised to realize that I'd heard correctly--APS had cancelled classes. I shouldn't have been surprised at all given past history of snow days. The first year I lived in ABQ, we had a snow day about this same time of year in which there was no snow left on the ground by 11:00. There have been more snow days that have been similar in the past 10 years. And there have been days when a delay or a snow day would have been perfectly valid and yet we were required to report on time. I don't get it--I have no idea what criteria is used to determine when/why we get a snow day. I've decided to stop even trying to guess what we'll have. So we'll be adding an extra day in May, which won't be much of a day but it is one more day we'll be required to report to work.

Until I have to make up this day in May, it was nice to have today to run errands and get some stuff done so I'll have my Saturday to do whatever and clean the house in preparation for the neighborhood party on Sunday. I had a hair appointment this afternoon at 4:00 and, after I learned of the snow day, had told Paul that I was going to try to move it up. Before I was able to make the call, my hairdresser called to see if I wanted to come in at 1:00. Worked for me. I finished the scarf for my mother-in-law and got a bit more of the wrapping done before lunch. Then, with my fabulous hairdo (it's the same as before but Tammy does it much nicer than I ever can get it to look), I got everything mailed, stopped by Trader Joe's for party food and beverages, went to Sonic for drinks for me and Paul, headed to the mall and Barnes & Nobles to buy my father-in-law's present (the last gift I had to buy) and Sephora for goodies for me, and popped in at the little gift shop I love to get a gift for my secret pal. One of the lovely ladies who works there again complimented Abigail on how well she behaved when I went in there with her, Mom, and Amy after Thanksgiving.

This evening, I finished wrapping all the gifts and Paul and I finished burning the CD's I'm giving to my JLA committee as gifts tomorrow. We still don't now when we're going to Texas and Kansas although we have decided that we'll be driving. And we don't know what we're going to do with the cat while we're gone either. I guess we still have about five days to figure all of that out and heaven knows we don't rush into any decisions.