So this morning I received two phone calls - one at 6 a.m. and one at 7:15 a.m. The first one confirmed what I already suspected - a two-hour delay. The second surprised me with -- Snow Day! Looking outside I saw maybe two inches at the most of snow on the ground - even though the forecast was calling for snow throughout the day.

I debated for a few minutes whether I should use this as an opportunity to sleep in a bit and do some housework/school work, or get all the stuff done that I was going to attempt to do after sunset tomorrow. It wasn't a difficult choice - especially when a co-worker agreed to go with me.

We started off by making our first foray ever into the local mall. I was actually quite surprised by the variety of shops in the mall. We checked both JCP and Beall's for an appropriate dress (royal blue for mom's wedding) and found absolutely nothing. Before leaving the mall though, I checked around to see if someone could put a new battery in my dad's train watch for me. The jeweler at JCP did it - $10.xx So now I have a working watch again.

My co-worker reminded me of the Cato's near Wal-Mart, so we went there to see what we could find. No dresses, but did find a very pretty blouse/tank combo and skirt in something pretty close to royal blue. $58.xx I sent a picture of it to my mom, and she liked it. I plan to look for alternatives when I get to ABQ next Friday, but at least I have something on hand in case nothing turns up there. (If I do find something, then I can return this outfit here.)

Next we went to the bowling alley. My friend had never been bowling before. I love to bowl, but am not very good at it. Unfortunately, the bowling alley was not open.

So we decided to go eat lunch. This was my first time eating at a sit down restaurant since this past summer, so that was very nice. I got a veggie burger w/swiss cheese and mushrooms, sweet potato fries, and a slice of cheesecake. Mmmm mmmm! The waitress put my friend and I's bills together for whatever reason - my friend already gave me $7 towards it, and will give me another $5 on Monday. Our total bill was $32.xx + a $5.67 tip. (I didn't ask my friend to pay tax or tip.) (This came out of my Fun Money budget and is my pre-birthday treat to myself.)

Next we headed to Wal-mart. My friend did her shopping for her students Christmas presents (using money donated for that purpose) and I did my grocery shopping. My first real grocery shop for December. I bought a few special things to celebrate my real birthday tomorrow. Sparkling grape juice and Russel's French Chocolate Mints. The total was around $40 - but included cat litter which had a $1.50 coupon on it. I need to crunch the numbers to figure out what the actual grocery cost was.

On the way back we saw gas for $2.98/gallon. I had filled up on Wednesday for $3.19/gallon. If I'd realized the huge price difference, I would have only gotten a couple gallons. Oh well.

We were planning on doing our walk tonight after getting everything put away, but the wind had gotten super bitter cold. So I'm hoping that tomorrow will be MUCH warmer. If not, I'll still have to walk in it in order to complete my pact for the week.

One thing I did not get taken care of today due to being out all day was calling my car loan credit union to figure out how to set up an account. I guess I will have to try them in the morning. (If they're open.)

When I checked my mail I had an envelope from my grandma - forwarding a piece of my dad's mail. I was kind of surprised I didn't have any birthday cards. When I saw the one from my grandma, that's what I thought it was. I think part of me was kind of expecting to see one from my dad... even though I *know* that won't happen.

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Throughout the day I kept getting alerts on my phone telling me the latest updates on the school shootings. I usually have my volume off, but had it turned on last night so I could hear when the phone rang for bad weather news. It just got worse and worse as the day wore on.

My heart is so heavy for the families who lost their little ones today, and for the families who lost a brother, sister, mother, father ... It is just totally senseless.