Let It Snow?

I began the day by oversleeping, though I did get up with enough time to start the Cherry-Coconut Bars. They're the last of the five cookies I make, another recipe from The Betty Crocker Cooky Book. They're pretty easy to make, too. Just think "lemon bars" and substitute cherries and coconut for lemon juice. (The recipe also calls for chopped nuts, but a lot of people don't like or can't eat nuts, so I never add them to mine.) They came out very well, much better than last year's. The recipe says to use an ungreased pan, but last year, that just resulted in crumbling bars that stuck to the pan. I used cooking spray on the pan, and they came out just fine. Anything that sticky can't go without some kind of grease.

I was just sliding the Cherry-Coconut Bars in the oven when I got my second phone call of the morning. I'd already gotten one from Mom saying she sent off Lauren's package. Yup, it was the Acme. Could I come in two minutes ago? No. I had cookies in the oven. I came in around 1PM, after I got the cookies out, had lunch, and did some really quick chores.

Unlike Wednesday, I understood why they called me in early the moment I walked in the door. We were MOBBED all day long. Big-time mobbed. Lines-going-half-way-across-the-store mobbed.

First of all, today is a Friday. Many people get paid and do their shopping today under any circumstances (including me). Second, today is exactly a week before Christmas Day. A lot of people were starting their Christmas baking today or are planning to this weekend, or were getting ready for next week's Christmas dinner and company. Third, they're predicting anything from 2 to 8 inches of snow for here over the weekend. Fourth, we had call-outs.

Thank goodness all my customers were in good moods, there were no problems other than the lack of help, and a manger came in for my relief. I had a lot of my own grocery shopping to do. In addition to the usual stuff like yogurt, milk, apples, grapefruit, tea, fish fillets, and cereal, I needed to restock vanilla (a buy-one-get-one sale), parchment paper, eggs and brown sugar after this week's cookie baking marathon. I also bought a couple of card games to put in the Toys For Tots box at the Oaklyn Library.

I have no doubt we're likely going to get snow. The sky as I rode home from work had that pearly-white sheen that says snow. We'll have to see just how much we actually end up with.

Oh, and I actually did manage to get Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off this year, which hopefully means I'll be able to go down south and visit the family in Cape May County. I also have Tuesday off next week. The downside to this is I only have 20 hours, but we get paid for Christmas whether we work or not, so it's probably more like 24. That's fine. I'll take one week of bad hours if I can visit the other side of the family on Christmas Eve.