Normally Jaeger’s and my house is perfectly sized for our needs. It’s even big enough for a couple of children when they are young. However, our living room is not appropriately sized for Christmas. It simply can’t fit both my piano and a Christmas tree. Moving my piano isn’t an option since it takes two good sized, experienced men and a sturdy dolly to move. For now I’ve resigned myself to the lack of a tree. However, I’m not sure what we’ll do when we have children. I think a lot of the magic of Christmas is created by a glittery Christmas tree. It’d be horrible to cheat our children of that experience.
This year I compensated for the lack of a Christmas tree by buying a fake wreath and decorating it with the ornaments that would normally go on a tree. I’m not very artistic so I was pleasantly surprised by how well it turned out. Yes, it did take me 6 tries before I got the bow right but my persistance paid off 
Our holday plans included flying to Washington state on December 20, arriving back on the 25th. During this time we were planning to visit my brother up in Seattle, spend a couple days at the beach and then attend the Stone family Christmas celebration. After arriving back in Colorado we planned to fest from December 27 through New Years Day. Unfortunately, the recent Denver snow storm messed that all up. A day before we were suppose to leave for Washington I heard that a major snow storm was predicted. However, I shrugged off concerned librarians’ suggestions to try to reschedule our flight for that night sure that the weather forecasters were exagerating the situtaion (besides, I didn’t have an extra vacation day to spend).
Wednesday morning it started snowing but the commute to work was fairly uneventful. When I walked in to work I was informed that the District had just decided to close for the day. I was surprised because the snow didn’t seem too bad but wasn’t going to complain about an extra day off I stuck around for about an hour to make sure I had taken care of everything before leaving for vacation and then started my commute home. Driving home took longer than going to Greeley. However, the roads were still okay. Around 11:00 Jaeger called and informed me that our flight for later that evening had been canceled. By this time the snow was coming down much thicker. From around 11:00 to 4:30 I kept redialing Frontier trying to get through (kept getting a “we are unable to process your call” message). At one point, I had managed to connect but was disconnected (accidentally?) right as I was being transferred to a real person. Eventually I did get through but by that time the soonest we could get our flight rescheduled was for Christmas afternoon. I was distressed since we were suppose to fly back on Christmas but it’s hard to argue with the weather. We ended up reschedling to fly out on Christmas day and back the following Wednesday, a couple of hours before the Fest began. I really have no right to complain since we were “stuck” comfortably at home instead of the airport and we were still able to spend at least some time with my family over Christmas.
The library ended up closing Thursday also and didn’t open till noon on Friday. I spent most of Sunday doing “winter cleaning.” Not surprisingly, cleaning isn’t my favorite activity. As a result I sometimes um . . . skimp certain areas such as the top of the refrigerator. However, since all Jaeger’s friends coming for the Fest seem to be ridicously tall I decided it was a good time to glance at the refrigerator top. Yup, it was dirty
Much to my relief we did successufully arrive in Portland the following day. We arrived at the Stone celebration after everyone had finished eating and just a bit before it was time to open presents. They had saved food for us but we had eaten in the airport and so mainly consumed too much dessert We had to leave fairly quickly after opening presents since my brother had to be at work by 3 AM the next day and needed to get back home.
Today we left Washington. PDX is one of my favorite airports. It has an small Powell’s Book outlet inside security. Even though the outlet is minature compared with the main store it is still vastly superior to the normal chain bookstores one find within airports. In addition to new books they have also have a small selection of used books. I didn’t find anything intriguing enough to buy (Normally I don’t buy books unless I’ve read them several times already. There’s just too much risk buying books without having read them first). However, I spent a contented 45 minutes browsing their excellent selection. The only qualm I have with their airport store is the lack of a section for romance books. However, I was surprised to discover they had an erotica section (only about 4 books but it was still impressive they had shelf space for it).
I’m currently in the air flying back to Denver (which is why this entry is so long). Assuming all goes well we should arrive a couple of hours before the Fest begins. I haven’t been able to come up with any new computer projects for the Fest. I probably should refine my website a bit (the blog search seems to mess up the formatting). However, maintaning the website doesn’t sound nearly as interesting as creating it. At this point, I’m planning to use part of the time to look at my retirement allocation and make some adjustments. I might see if there’s anything fun I can do with LibraryThing (if anyone’s curious I’ve just recently entered all my cookbooks).