Snowy Saturday

It's still pretty cold, when I got up it was 36 degrees and that was apparently the warmest time of the day. It did not snow last night like it was supposed to, but it started snowing about 10:30 this morning. It was not a heavy snow, but it did come down for several hours. We didn't get a whole lot of it, and it only stayed around for a while. But I'm not complaining! It should get into the mid-teens tonight. Parts of Tulsa still have no power and it can't be easy to deal with when it's this cold. A few prayers would probably go a long way. As of Thursday, my in-laws still didn't have power.

Otter did not have school at all last week, they were still closed on Friday. Hopefully, they will be able to open on Monday. They are now two days over the built-in snow days. There are two holidays, Martin Luther King day in January and President's Day in February, school will be in session on both of those days to make up the missing days. Any more missed days will probably have to be added on to the end of the school year. There are supposed to only be three days this coming week, Thursday and Friday are holidays already and then of course the next week for Christmas break. Except that it's actually called Winter Break. But not by me, I'm not politically correct! That's probably a rant for another day.

There have been a few stories of price gouging and a couple of scams in the last week, but I've also heard a lot of stories of people helping others. Like Trina, checking on her elderly customers on her paper route. A local radio station has organized a firewood giveaway so people can get enough for one or two fires to keep warm. The Maytag store has hooked up all their machines so people can do one or two free loads of laundry, as long as they bring their own detergent. The libraries have announced that people can bring in their cell phones & laptops to charge the batteries. Several churches have opened up as shelters for people with no electricity. Things like that. It's good to know that there are still good people in the world.

We're nearly done with our Christmas shopping. Otter and I were originally going to go tomorrow, but with the iffy weather forecast we decided not to wait. She went to work with me Tuesday through Thursday, we went shopping Wednesday and Thursday on our lunch hour. Then she stayed home yesterday, and I stopped on the way home. Just a couple more things that we need to get, and of course I haven't gotten Otter's presents yet because she was with me. It was a lot easier when she was tiny, I could buy her presents while shopping with her and she was too young to know or care!

Only one more week of work, then we're on vacation! Well, I am - Otter and Bill have the week after Christmas off as holidays and then he's taking another week off after that as vacation. Otter and I have a dentist appointment Thursday, she'll go with me to work that day. Then Friday is the last day of work for the year as well.

We are probably going to lose the tree in the back yard, the one that we thought was barely touched. Bill noticed something yesterday - we can see daylight through two of the branches. Not through the leaves, but through the branches themselves! They are both split but it didn't show at first for some reason. Possibly the tree will still survive, but it's not looking good. It's not a big tree to start with, and these are two major branches. We still have a lot of trimming to do, Bill's gotten a lot taken care of in the front but not all of it. The tree on the side is still waiting on us to get to it, and then there are the two in the back. But we are making progress.