12-24-08 Wednesday (I'm Married)

Happy Christmas Eve! It's snowing. Strange, huh? It's 10am, and I think we have 2 inches already. They expect it to turn to rain at about noon and hopefully helping to melt it all down. I'm hoping we can still get out to make it to the mall. The DOT can't keep up with the weather. The news reports are in full disaster type broadcasting again. I think tonight will be a very interesting evening at the mall. I would think there's a lot of people behind on their shopping. The mall closes at 6 so we'll mosey over at about 1 or so.

The humorous part right now, is watching the TV and seeing 5mph traffic behind plows on the major interstates. The plows and deicers are taking up all of the lanes. I'd be instantly stressed! This is a good reason to move south. As beautiful as some of the northern states have been, I don't want to deal with this crap on a fulltime basis. These mountainous areas are interesting too because they have micro-climates. It's so varied all over here. The weather report takes a lot of time to get through each little area for their forecasts.

We made it to the mall today. It was a tri-level mall, laid out very well with a skating rink in the middle of it. Some of the department stores were 4 levels. For most of the shopping trip, we didn't see as many pained faces as we thought we would. There were plenty of them, don't get me wrong, but with the economy and the snowed in days, one would have thought we'd see people laying around in fetal positions, rocking to the voices in their heads that repeatedly tell them, "you've lost, go home".

It's nice to be home though. My feet started to feel like a blister was close to rearing its ugly head. The roads were fairly clear. Less travelled roads had large ruts in them from tire chains breaking partly through. That made for a rough ride but nothing worse than us taking an offroad trail. It's all good.

We may have developed a leak at one of the bedroom windows. For a while we thought it was from condensation but a towel we've been laying on the sill is way too wet. We haven't had this problem since the awning. The awning is not over that window so I'm not sure. At this moment, I'll reserve stamping this entry as a misadventure until we figure it out. We think that perhaps we need to reseal (CAULK) the window frame. I know where Jim gets his love of caulk... from Grandpa Kelly. Many a joke circulates in the family about GE Silcone. Anyway, the constant icicle dripping action isn't helping the situation, I'm sure. Jim went partly onto the roof and knocked off more chunks of ice. The temperature is about 35 this evening so things are slowly thawing. It will be a long time before this city fully thaws out. WE, however, won't be here for that.

I've probably mentioned this before, but I'm so excited to get to California. Especially to meet fellow bloggers I've chatted with. We so crave interaction, and outside friendship. We've met some people in Seattle, Colorado, and Georgia (Sorry if I forgot another place). Jim and I get along VERY well, BUT there's only so much to talk about when we're together all the time. I suppose, assuming that the friends we've made in California read the blog, that we won't have much to chat about with them since the blog covers all that. A pro about the blog is keeping friends/family up to date with our adventures and it also serves as a PRICELESS travel journal. The con is that there's not much to talk about on the phone or in person.

Funny, it's difficult to walk through a mall without Kiosk salespeople trying to grab your attention. The worst is the cell phone people. I typically ignore them and look away. Oregon's kiosk people weren't cell phone sales but other items instead. They started their approach with "Can I ask you a question." At one point I blurted, "I'm married". I then started to think about other stupid replies to give, although I never got another opportunity to use them. "Crest Whitening", "My religion forbids it", "Not tonight, I have a headache". There's so many silly replies. Maybe the next mall trip, I'll try them out. I understand these people are trying to make a living but I feel like I'm at a fleamarket. On a cruise, Jim and I were in Labadee (Haiti) at the Haitian Fleamarket. Boy, were they pushy!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!