King Of the Wild Winter Weather

I'm thankful I had counseling at noon today. I was finally able to bring in my latest small bag of donations to the Friends In Deed Thrift Shop. I was going to do it last week, but I remembered I had counseling this week and decided to hold off until today, since the store is about four blocks from the counseling center anyway. I didn't see anything interesting in there (and all those wonderful kids' books were gone - bummer!).

The Collingswood Variety Store is across the street from the thrift shop, so I headed there next. Unfortunately, their selection of WebKinz had greatly diminished in the three weeks since I last went there. The raccoons were gone (good thing I got Sundance when I did - they must have heard about the raccoons being retired), but they did have a few others left. There was a whole shelf devoted to the reindeer. I guess they either overstocked them or they weren't all that popular. Anyway, I decided on another horse. The only stuffed horses I own are my two equine WebKinz, Rose the Pink Pony and Nicholas the Clydesdale. It took me a while to find a horse that didn't look like he was either pulling apart or made by Pablo Picasso (with one eye over the other). I finally chose a gorgeous all-black horse with velvety fur and big brown eyes.

Meet King, the Black Frisian/Stallion! (WebKinz calls them "Frisians," but his label still says "Stallion.") King is our certified genius and our official nerd and cult movie fan. When you buy your 10th WebKinz, you're allowed to pick a special bed. Being the movie lover I am, I had to choose the movie reel-themed one. I liked the bed so much, I made King's room a half-room, half-movie theater, with King, of course, as the operator (using the red and black rock star theme).

I stopped briefly at the Treehouse Cafe for hot chocolate before going to counseling. Scott and I discussed my New Year's and the following weeks, and I told him about my anxiety regarding going to college and becoming a librarian and the current job market. He said that the best thing I could do was research, both online and in libraries - research jobs, what the job market is like, the market for librarians, what other things I could do, etc. I'm still afraid my limited skills won't leave many options.

I went home quickly after counseling to have lunch, then went back out again and over the tracks to Uncle Ken's to do laundry. It began to rain a little just as I left. I put in my laundry and chatted a bit with my dad. He wanted to know if I'd seen my sister Rose around. No, I haven't. She started Rutgers Law School (again) on January 7th, and I haven't seen her since she brought over my Christmas presents from the family in Cape May County.

My stepsister Jessa came down a bit later and asked me if I wanted to play Mario Party 8. As we competed against a computer-controlled Mario and Luigi to see who could "invest" in the most hotels, I happened to turn to a window that leads onto the roof. "Hey," I exclaimed, "it's really snowing!"

So it was. Sometime between putting the laundry in the drier and that moment, the rain had become big, fat snowflakes...and they were sticking. They continued coming down as we finished our game (Jess won), and they were still coming down when I got my laundry out of the drier and Jessa and Dad took me home. (Jessa had an ice skating party this evening.)

About half-way through my pilates routine, the snow began to change into rain, and it's been coming down as rain ever since. Saturday should make up for it. Apparently, according to Yahoo!Weather, we're supposed to get snow in the afternoon (good thing I'm off that day). It doesn't say how much. I just hope my customers don't get word, if they haven't been spooked by today's weather already...