Leon Ain't Got Nothing On Us

(Please forgive the poor grammar in the title ;))

The palm tree in our front yard covered in ice. And say hello to our OSU lawn gnome, lol.

I have to laugh at the extreme irony that the first named storm we had to deal with since moving to Florida was a winter storm. I mean, seriously?!?!

Leon brought our part of Florida a sheet of ice over the roadways and especially the bridges. You need to understand the amount of bridges around here. Like I said in my other post, the Mister crosses four just to get to work. During the course of the storm, every major bridge in the three counties of northwest Florida closed. The bridge that leads to the main gate of NAS Pensacola (where the Mister works) was closed. At one point, the only way he could have gotten to work was either by air or boat.

Something else you need to understand is that Florida isn't equipped to deal with winter weather. At all. Northern states have machines that salt and sand the roads. We had to wait for the ice to melt. I even saw on the news, workers who were chipping away at the ice covered bridges with shovels. I also think that it's ironic that whenever northern states experience widespread power failures that Florida sends up power trucks to help out. Where were salt truck to help us out?

My girls had three days off of school and the Mister had two and a half days off of work. And you know what? I really enjoyed having my family home while not being able to go anywhere. We didn't lose power, unlike the almost 50,000 other people in our area who did, and our pantry was full. It was nice being home, warm, fed, and together for those days. For the Mister, it was like free days of leave. However, Florida doesn't build inclement weather days into the school year so they have to make them up. Our county has applied to not have to make up those days, but so far and until and unless that gets approved, they are taking two days off of their Spring Break. We had planned on taking a family vacation during that time and now we don't know what we're going to do.

Overall, we made out pretty good during Leon's wrath. Some of the plants in the backyard are probably going to have to be pulled up in the Spring, but I've seen a lot more plant damage in my neighbors' yards. I didn't cover any of the shrubs or bushes up. What can I say? This is a rental and I think the shrubs in this yard are ugly, lol.

Did Leon visit your town? How did you fair?

'Tis the Season?

I have a long and convoluted story to tell. Hang on to your shorts.

After that cold snap we had, freezing temperatures equals a cold snap in Florida thankyouverymuch, the weather did a turn about and we had a warm front come through. Being the heating/air conditioning Nazi that I am, I opted to open windows rather than turn the air conditioning back on. I'm sorry, but air conditioning isn't happening at my house in late November/December. Remember that if you ever want to visit in the winter.

Anywho...

Our rental management company informed me that we were "due" for a home inspection on December 5th. I have a hard time believing that the timing is sooooo coincidental when he just happened to mention it to me on the phone when I called for the second time to tell him the heat pump wasn't working. (Remember when I posted that the heat wouldn't come on and we had a repair guy come out? Well, it turned on once and then wouldn't come back on. AC either. Turns out that the outside unit had a short that caused a thingamajigger in the inside unit to break. It's all fixed now and it wasn't our fault.) So, between the heater being broke and the high temps we've had, my electric bill for the past month was less than $100. Beat that! I digress. Again. ANYway, because of the inspection, I went on a three day cleaning frenzy. I vacuumed every one of those days. We also got one of the book shelves built, sanded, stained, sealed, and loaded with books that we've been intending to build since the movers broke ours. I completed all the organizing, unpacking, and decorating that I've been putting off for five months. The house looks pretty good if I do say so myself.

Today, I wrapped the first Christmas presents. I went to put them under the tree, but the tree skirt was a bunched mess, all wrapped up around the trunk because the cats won't leave the tree alone. Cat owners commiserate. I figured I'd vacuum up the needles while the skirt was mostly out of the way before straightening it. When I hauled out the vacuum cleaner, I noticed that it the canister needed emptied from the last time I vacuumed. When I went to do so, I saw that there was a sludge build up all around the bottom of it. Because the epic cleaning took place during this warm front with obscene humidity levels, the dust and dirt combined with the excess moisture in the house and formed a layer of ICK in my vacuum cleaner. I had seen a post on Pinterest a while back on how to clean your Dyson so I figured I'd do a Google search to see what I could come up with because, frankly, I was afraid of running water all over my $600 vacuum cleaner. I found a YouTube video that demonstrated how to take apart and rinse all the various components of your Dyson. They had a yellow Dyson and I have a purple Animal, so I had to figure out some stuff of my own, but I bit the bullet and washed it out. Talk about disgusting. Just when I thought I had cleaned everything, more nasty, dirty, sludgy water would pour out of it. It was freaking nasty. I'm sure living in San Diego on a canyon for three years contributed to the excess of yuck. I mean, we had an amount of dust in that house that you wouldn't believe. I didn't realize how truly dusty that house was until we moved into this one.

These are all the parts of my Dyson that I cleaned. The two in the back are both pieces of the canister and the three in front are parts of the two filters. P.S. My kitchen was painted that color when we moved in. I no likey.

So, if you have a Dyson, don't be afraid to take it apart and clean it. In fact, if you have allergies, hay fever, or general lung sensitivities, I highly recommend regularly cleaning your vacuum. Probably with a dust mask or something if you have "limp lungs" (what movies is that from??). Dyson recommends rinsing the filters every three months. Just be prepared to go without your vacuum for about 48 hours while it dries. I'm sure mine will take longer with this lingering humidity and rain we're having. I'm going to give it 72 hours at a minimum just to be safe. I don't want the dust to combine with any moisture that might be on the inside of the canister. It'd defeat the whole thing. Just be sure to check out an online "how to" video before attempting to clean your Dyson. I take no responsibility if you decide to throw your entire vacuum in the tub without knowing what you're doing first.

Where the Hell Am I??

It's COLD here. Maybe it's not Vermont cold, but it's freaking cold nonetheless. We've had freeze warnings the past two nights. Our daytime highs have been pretty chilly too. I knew, logically, that it gets pretty cold in northern Florida and it's even been known to snow from time to time, but I think I was hoping that people were exaggerating. I don't have enough winter clothes for this place. Seriously.

What's more, our heat doesn't seem to be working. We, supposedly, have central air and heat but when I switched the thermostat over from "cool" to "heat" three days ago, the heat never kicked on. The current temperature in my house is 63. Do you know how hard it is to make yourself get out of bed in the morning when you know it's that cold and there's no heat coming? Considering that our forecast high for today is only 55, I don't see the house warming up all that much today.

When we first moved into this house, we had a very respectable-sized woodpile in the backyard. In the last three days, we've seriously depleted our supply of wood due to the fact that the fireplace has been our only source of heat. Having an open concept living room/dining room/kitchen, it really doesn't heat much though. It raises the temp about three or four degrees. As a result, we've been sitting and/or laying on the floor in front of the fireplace, lol. Even Bailey is cold. She wears a sweater all day with her bone blanket draped over her back plus an extra blanket at night to sleep.

Three good things come from having your house uncomfortably cold: 

1.) It's cold enough to put my pretty comforter on my bed and I sleep really well.
2.) The water in the glass next to my bed stays nice and cold all night.
3.) I should have a nice decrease in my electric bill with it not being hot enough for the ac and no heat.

I'm calling the rental management place as soon as I post this. I'm hoping they open at 8 am.

It’s a Blustery Day in the Neighborhood

Nobody in my household got very much sleep last night. The wind is blowing so hard that the house is creaking loudly. The Mister and I have been up off and on since 4 this morning. The funny/bad thing about it is that today is trash day. The girls put out our trash and recycling last night before it started raining. We got up this morning and all THREE paper grocery bags of recycling are GONE! I feel really bad that all that stuff is blowing around the neighborhood but we had no idea the weather was supposed to get so bad. Cleanup is going to be a bitch.

The wind also blew over our grill and our patio chairs. The grill is way to heavy for me to lift by myself and the Mister is at work so I’m hoping the propane tank is ok. Ugh!

In other news…

We have worked out a semi-solid moving plan.

• 3/8 – The movers come to pack the house.
• 3/9 – The movers come and load the truck.
• 3/10 – I have cleaners come to clean the house.
• 3/10-3/11 – We do any repairs and/or painting that needs to be done.
• 3/10-3/11 – We have carpet cleaners come.
• 3/12 – We hit the road. Our first overnight will be in Atlanta.
• 3/13 – We drive to Pensacola, Fl for a bit of sight seeing then onward to stay overnight in Gulfport, MS.
• 3/14 – We drive from Gulfport to San Antonio to visit with Dana and her family.
• 3/15 – Visiting in San Antonio.
• 3/16 – Drive from San Antonio to El Paso, TX for the night.
• 3/17 – Drive to Tucson, AZ to visit with another friend of ours.
• 3/18 – Arrive in San Diego.

Of course, this is just a preliminary plan and I’m sure things will change, but this is my ideal idea. ;) This means that we have to have everything completely ready to go by March 7th. That means that including today, we have 58 days to get ready for the movers. Big UGH!! But really exciting at the same time.

We’ve started looking at houses for rent out west. Base housing isn’t off the table and is probably where we’ll end up, but we’re still looking. While reading listings, it occurred to me that people are pretty stupid. I can understand why people don’t want pets in their rental properties. However, some people’s reasoning isn’t reasonable at all. One listing said cats ok and small dogs will be considered. In my experience as a pet owner, small dogs do just as much damage if not more than large dogs when it comes to chewing and not being house broken. To say that this is the domain of large dogs is preposterous at best. As for cats, cat pee is way worse than dog pee and cats scratch walls and carpet and stuff. Chances are because we have two 55 pound dogs, we’re not going to have much of a choice but to move into base housing. Why? Because most people are uninformed twits.

Snow in the South Part 2

It didn’t snow. It didn’t get cold enough. It rained. They delayed school for two hours for rain. Sadly, even though MCB Camp Lejeune and MCAS New River had two hour delays this morning, MCAS Cherry Point, the Mister’s base, did not. He wasn’t happy.

I’m not bothering with pictures. Rain is rain.

Have a great weekend!

Snow in the South

As I sit here composing this post, I can’t help the shaking of my head or the feeling of silliness. I’ve had the luck to live in several different parts of the United States and in living in different parts of the U.S., I have experienced several different climates.

Having spent the first 20 years of my life in mid-Ohio, this is what I consider “normal”. I compare everything from neighborhood layouts, architecture, and traditions to how I first experienced them in Ohio. Ohio has very distinctive seasons:  cold winters with bare trees and snow, mild springs with lots of rain, summers that are hot and humid with strong thunderstorms, and mild autumns with changing leaves and cooling temperatures. I would guess that out of all the United States, the midwest has four seasons that you can actually tell when they are happening.

I only lived in Florida for six months, April until September. Spring until very early fall basically and it was a long time ago. All I really remember of it is HOT HOT HOT! Very humid with kickass summer storms and a few hurricanes thrown in to make things interesting. You could practically set your clock by the afternoon thunderstorm that rolled in from 1-2 in the afternoon almost every day.

Then we had California. San Diego county is unique in that you can experience almost every climate in the one county. It’s very temperate along the coast, hot and dry inland and in the deserts, cooler with occasion winter snow in the mountains. They say that you can snow ski and surf all in the same day in San Diego county. We lived inland and the summers were very hot and very dry. Winters were mild. That was it. I loved it though. I remember one time during the Santa Anas that it was so hot that when you walked outside your skin would tingle with it.

Next, we had Vermont. They basically have 2 1/2 seasons:  Winter, Mud Season/Spring/Summer, and Autumn. You had cold winters that started as early as September. Cold barely even describes it. In the dead of winter with wind chills, you could get frostbite by being outside less than fifteen minutes. And because it was so cold, the snow never melted until spring so it just accumulated all winter long. They make such a thing as roof rakes so that you can rake the snow off your roof so that it doesn’t cave in from the weight. It is the bitterest cold I have ever experience in my life. There were times when it was warmer in Alaska than it was in Vermont. No kidding. Vermonters know how to clear a road better than anyone else I have ever seen. School was rarely cancelled or delayed due to snow but more often because of the bitterly cold temps. Winters would very reluctantly give way to spring sometime in April or May. Then it was time for Mud Season. The snow melts until everything in sight is a muddy, mushy mess. Mud Season was terrible. If you are a neat freak, you can forget about living in Vermont because mud being tracked in was just something that you had to learn to live with. Sometime in June, things would begin to dry out. It didn’t rain all that often during the “summer” months. In the three years that we lived there, I can only remember two days where I wished that we had had air conditioning. The rest of the time, open windows and fans during the day were enough and those had to be shut at night because it would get too cold for them. Then, of course, you had Leaf Season. This lasts for 2-4 weeks before it starts snowing again. Vermonters pretty much hate Leaf Peepers if you’ve ever a mind to drive there to view the autumn colors. They clog the roads and pull over to the side of the road whenever they see a particular scene worthy of a picture. It’s annoying but I did the same thing, lol.

Now we live in North Carolina. This is again, a state with basically three of the four seasons: Hot, hot summers, and coolish autumns and winters, and mild springs. Neither spring nor autumn last very long at all. It seems like one day it’s in the 70’s, next it’s in the 90’s, then it’s back in the 70’s for a few days before that gives way to chilly winters. Summer is, by far, the main attraction. We have very hot and humid summers where the nights only get as cool as the mid 70’s. I like the weather here although the cool months get cooler than I prefer.

The entire country is experiencing a cold snap, North Carolina is no exception. We’ve had overnight lows in the teens and tonight, we’re bracing for snow. Now’s when I have to shake my head at the silliness. They’re forcasting a trace to an inch at the most and they’ve already posted 2 hour delays for the schools tomorrow. Even Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base is on a 2 hour delay tomorrow. They’ve even salted the roads already too.This is when Vermonters would laugh and call us “low landers”. It is so funny to think that less than an inch of snow is going to shut the state down. Still, in a land where people never see snow, the thought of being on the road with these people is scary indeed. I, for one, am grateful that I won’t have to venture out with people that consider an inch of snow to be a lot. In Vermont, people would still be wearing shorts, t-shirts, and sandals with only an inch of snow on the ground.

All in all, I am GREATLY looking forward to being able to sleep in for two hours tomorrow. What a way to start the weekend! I’ll do my best to post some pictures tomorrow, heheh.

Nor’Ida

After one of the most quiet hurricane seasons that I can remember, we manage to vacation in the worst storm of the year. You might think that being in the middle of a Nor’Easter would ruin a vacation, but you’d be wrong.

This was the beach before the storm;

If you’ll notice in the above pictures, the ocean is relatively calm, and you can see how far back the waves are from the dunes. The top pic was taken the day we arrived and the second one was taken Tuesday. It was overcast but not windy yet.

Conditions Wednesday to Friday were pretty bad. The wind and rain were so constant that it made it hard to remember what quiet was like. The wind gusts were strong enough that they shook our house. We could hear the roar of the ocean over the wind and rain and inside the house with all the windows and doors shut. It was eerie to say the least.

This was the beach on Thursday when we walked over to see what was what:

The waves were clear up, and sometimes over, the dunes at this point. The sea foam would fly up and over the dunes clear to our house and it looked like clumps of snow at times. I had never seen anything like it before.

This was our walkway down to the beach. If you’ll notice, there are no stairs anymore. We actually saw several sets of stairs be swept by as we stood there. Lots of walkways were lost to the storm.

Here you can see more foam and get an idea of how high up the wave were beating on the dunes. You can also see where the dunes were already being eroded. At this point in the storm, we hadn’t even reached the worst of the series of high tides that were expected.

Here’s a video:

I think it was Wednesday night that the main road into town was flooded cutting off our way out. Thankfully, the little area where our house was located was almost directly across the street from a Harris Teeter so we had food and supplies the entire time we were stranded. Two of the streets that were in our neighborhood flooded too but were still passable. I’m pretty sure this is the only time I’ve ever been truly stranded anywhere. The road that our house was off of, NC 12 ended at the beach when you drive north on it. Literally. The pavement ends in sand. You can keep driving if you have 4WD or an ORV but I’m sure it’s not recommended during a storm. So the only way out was to drive south on NC 12 back to US 158, or the Bypass as it’s known, but NC 12 was flooded and closed between Corolla and Duck. You can Google Map it if you want.

Another video:

Anyway, we passed the time by playing Apples to Apples, doing crafts, and playing pool and foos ball. It was nice actually. We were all cozied up in the house with plenty of food, lots of things to do, and each other. Here are some more pictures:

Stairs and other debris floating by.

What was left of the stairs to the beach. Also, about half of the bulk of the dunes were gone. We estimated about 5 feet of the width was washed away. You can also see that the ocean had receded back away from the dunes.

This was the road next to our house. Our side yards flooded but that was it. Our house was actually ideally situated because we had very little standing water whereas most of the neighboring houses had much more.

On the drive home Saturday, we saw lots of flooded yards and roads still had standing water on them. Nags Head seemed to be the hardest hit in the Outer Banks. Many roads off of US 158 to the beach were still flooded and blocked off by the city. Some people also lost their homes in Nags Head. I saw footage of Rodanthe on the news and The Serendipity House, which was the house in the movie, was in the ocean. It was still standing at that point and I haven’t heard if it made it through the storm.

I hear so many people say how they don’t understand how people can live so close to the ocean. But you know what? I also hear people say how they don’t understand how people can live in California with earthquakes and fires or in the north with all the cold and snow. Is there any place on earth that is completely untouched by Mother Nature’s rage? When you take into account all the places that have oceanic storms, earthquakes, forest fires, landslides, avalanches, tornadoes, flooding, and droughts, there really isn’t anywhere that is 100% safe. You take the good with the bad. That’s life. The Outer Banks is gorgeous most of the year and rich in history. I guess it’s the bad that sticks out most in people’s minds though.

And We’re in Business!

I am officially in business. I finally applied for and received my business license last week! Woot! I figured it was about time. It’s actually past being about time but hey, better late than never.

In other news…

We’ve been having the most excellent weather. It’s been in the 70’s and 80’s for a few days now. I LOVE it. I have the windows open in the house and I’ve been wearing shorts and sandals. It’s supposed to cool back off to seasonal temps this week, but it was a sweet taste of spring while it lasted. As for daylight savings, as usual, it sucked. I wish we could do away with it altogether. The youngest child walks to her bus stop in the dark now. How much fun is that?? It’s also a lot harder to wake up in the complete dark as well. I just don’t like it at all.

AND!!! I have lost a total of TEN pounds now. Woot woot!! Yup. I’m still going strong on the dieting and exercising. My plan is to lose 1 1/2 pounds a week so I’m ahead of the game still. I ran for five miles on the elliptical yesterday and I’m actually going to  hit the streets with the Mister this weekend. I’m nervous about running for real, but he says it’s about time, lol. I’m hoping I don’t chicken out.

In the world of being a gadget whore…

The Mister and I got BlackBerry Curves last weekend. I figured with having four business e-mails (and counting) and a couple personal e-mail addresses I could use a mobile way of checking my e-mails. BlackBerrys are good for a lot more than that, but it’s a start. ;)

Also, I downloaded a Kindle app for my iPod touch and I LOVE it. I’ve been really reluctant to buy a Kindle and for a few reasons.

1. 1.  I like to own my books. This means that any books that I digitally download will also have to be bought for my bookshelf. That’s one book for the price of two.
2. 2.  Kindle makes it waaaay to easy to download new books and I would have to learn a way to control myself, lol. I’ve had the Kindle app for less than a week and I’ve already downloaded and read five books on it. I’ve been on reading roll.
3. 3.  They are freaking expensive!! I don’t know if I can justify spending $359.00 on this gadget which is only the beginning of the cost. Refer back to numbers 1 and 2.

So, I figured the Kindle app was a compromise. Kindle e-books are cheaper than most other e-books and if I ever do get one, all the books that I’ve downloaded will work on the actual Kindle as well as my iPod. Ho hum.

I think that brings you all up to date. Work has been pretty crazy but now that I’m settling into a routine, I hope to be able to blog more often. It’s just that by the time that I’m done sitting at my computer for hours working, I don’t feel like being in my office anymore. I don’t even play games on my computer these days. I’ve been reading books on my iPod, crocheting a throw, and hanging out on the couch in my off time. Excuses, excuses, lol.

Snow In North Carolina

The snow in our state has been such a huge deal here. If it hadn’t been for other goings on yesterday, this would have been the only thing on our local news. All of our city and county government offices were closed yesterday as well as all the schools and local colleges. I’m sure northerners are laughing at how a couple inches of snow completely incapacitated our state, lol.

The girls got both yesterday and today off of school because of the weather. Even the Mister didn’t have to go to work until noon today. The girls got off really lucky because they didn’t have school Monday because of the holiday, Tuesday and Wednesday because of the weather, and Thursday and Friday because of teacher work days. So they ended up having the entire week off of school.

Here’s a picture from this morning:

I also took a very short video yesterday of the dogs playing in the snow. I tried uploading it here but after 3 hours of waiting, I gave up. It’s online:

In other non-snow news…My dad had surgery yesterday for his PAD. They had to take some artificial arteries and use them to bypass the blockages in my dad’s right leg. He hasn’t had a pulse in his foot for some time and it’s also been cold because of the lack of blood flow. Today, his foot is warm and it has a pulse. It’s amazing and we’re thrilled for him. I just got off of the phone with him from ICU and he’s in great spirits. He said that it’s weird to have his right leg and foot warm when the left is still cold. They’ll be performing surgery on his left leg after he’s had time to recover from his right leg. Anyway, I just wanted to share my good news and ask that you keep my dad in your thoughts that he continues to have a smooth recovery. Thanks! :)

Laying Low

I’ve been keeping a low profile the past few days. The Mister had yesterday and today off of work as did the kids. I haven’t checked my e-mail or answered the phone since Friday, lol. Do you know how wonderful that is? My mini-break is over today since I have to get some work in which means I have to open Outlook but it was nice while it lasted.

The girls were supposed to go back to school today but they cancelled school on account of all the snow we got:

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Scary, huh? The entire eastern part of North Carolina is closed today. It’s probably for the best since snow in these parts tends to panic people. I remember a time in Vermont when we already had about four inches of snow on the ground and it was still snowing so hard you could barely see and they still didn’t cancel school for my kids, lol. At the time, I thought it was a bit ridiculous but there had to be snowfall of an epic proportion before they cancelled school up there. As much as I hate the snow and cold I was still hoping just a little bit that we would get the 3-5 inches that was forecasted. Hannah has never seen the snow and I think she’d be really funny playing in it. Bailey always was. She liked to snuffle her muzzle in it then come back up with a snow beard. It always made us laugh.

Well, since I have done nothing, I have nothing else to blog about. Our plans for today include staying inside because of the snow and it’s quite blustery outside with the wind chills. I made a nice pot of chili for dinner last night which we’re going to have for lunch today and then I’m making homemade chicken and noodles for dinner tonight in honor of the “snow”, heheh. Fun times.

Day of People

Despite the crazy drivers I encountered today, my faith in humanity is pretty high.

First of all, it rained. All day.Lots of rain. But you know what? This is North Carolina. People here shouldn’t be strangers to rain and they should know how to drive in it. The oldest child’s school is 2.5 miles from our house. Round trip, it took me 25 minutes to drive to and from her school and in those five miles, I saw police, fire trucks, and ambulances responding to two traffic accidents. 25 MINUTES to drive FIVE miles. Friday, there is a slight chance of snow. We’re in some sort of cold snap. Anyway, if it snows, the oldest is just going to have to miss school because I’m not getting on the same roads in snowy conditions with people that can’t drive in the rain. Nope. Not happening.

Now, why is my faith in humanity on an upswing??? I received a Christmas card from my grandparents today. It’s a might late, right? Well, there was a note in with it explaining that they had sent it to our old address on accident. The new residents’ son accidentally opened the envelope thinking it was theirs. The father took the card and the check, put it in a new envelope, and sent it back to my grandparents in Texas with a note of apology. Can you believe that?? He totally could have just thrown the whole thing in the trash but was so very kind enough to go out of his way to mail it back to my grandparents. I was truly touched. I’m going to send them a thank you card for being kind, upstanding citizens. They made my day a little brighter despite the rain and gloominess.

Freaky!

Is this not the freakiest picture of the sky you have ever seen?

I took this on the way to the oldest child’s school this morning.

And then this one:

I took this one on the way home.

Isn’t it weird? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a weather system move in like that before. It literally blanketed the sky. It’s also bringing warmer temps with it strangely enough. We’re supposed to have highs in the 60’s today and the 70’s tomorrow.

Just thought I’d share.

Wild

It’s been a wild couple of days with the weather around here. Wednesday, the county dismissed schools early because of the wind. I thought it was kind of silly and it totally messed with my work day but what can ya do. Then this morning, they had a two hour delay because of the weather. It’s totally ridiculous if you ask me. They dismissed school early yesterday because of some wind and today the wind is worse and we also have flooding and heavy rain but they only delayed school for two hours. It doesn’t make any sense to me although I greatly enjoyed being able to sleep in two hours this morning. I’m telling ya though, if they dismiss early again today I might scream. Check out this picture I took this morning of one of my neighbors’ houses:

That’s more damage than anyone in my neighborhood got when Hannah rolled through and this isn’t even a tropical system.

Well, there ya go. Two posts in one day to make up for my lack of updates this week. And btw, that picture was taken with my new cell phone, heheh. I got a new LG Voyager and I LOVE it. It’s very neato and has many cool features. I think it’s LG’s answer to the iPhone but I’m not sure. It does have a touch screen with menus you scroll with your finger. It also has mobile TV but I don’t have that activated. I might do that if I travel somewhere though. Anyway just had to blog about my latest gadget fix.

Aftermath

Aftermath??? There wasn’t even a “math”. Hanna was a real snoozer. Not complaining, mind you, just saying. At least we have everything we need should a hurricane actually knock on our door. Here are some “storm” pictures:

No rain, no wind at this point. It was about 7:50 am Friday morning.

Here it had just started raining but still no wind. It’s about 11 am.

Pretty good downpour and some wind now. About noon’ish.

This is a very short video I took of the wind and rain about 3 o’clock Friday afternoon.

We didn’t lose power at any point during the storm at our house. Funny thing about is that we went to a friend’s house to watch the OSU game Saturday afternoon. At this point it wasn’t raining too much but we still had some gusty winds. Minutes before we pull into their driveway, a tree limb fell and knocked their power out, lol. We missed the first quarter of the game and that was the only time we experienced any power loss due to Hanna.

That was our exciting weekend. Even though it doesn’t seem like he’s going to, I hope Ike fizzles out before making landfall. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for all in his path.

First Storm

We’re getting ready for the first tropical storm of the season. This one is supposed to have a very minor impact so I’m not worried or anything. The Mister and I worked hard to get stuff done in the yard before the rain moved in. It was weird because when we went outside it was misting like someone was watering the yard next door and the wind was blowing mist into our yard. It stopped after only a few seconds and the sun never went away. Anyway, the Mister got the yard mowed while I push broomed our driveway. I have a long driveway and MANY pine needles. It was not fun and it’s 88 with a heat index of 96 which made it even less fun. But our yard looks pretty good now. We’re also going to treat the MANY fire ant hills in our front yard. It’s weird because we didn’t have a single one last year but this year our front yard looks like a battle ground. Our next project is to clean out our two outside storage sheds so that we can actually put stuff into them. That’s going to have to wait until next weekend because we’re pooped today and the Mister has overnight duty tomorrow. Here’s a picture of the storm clouds rolling in:

And here’s a pic of our cars sitting in our nice clean driveway:

That’s it for today. I need a shower in the worst way and I think the hot water should be back. Have a great weekend everyone.

Kid Drama

We had a rough night with the kids last night. They were fighting like cats and dogs, which is something they rarely do. Both of them ended up in bed at 8 pm on a Friday night. Much screaming and crying ensued. For their punishment today, I made them write letters of apology to each other and then to us, the Mister and me, for their behavior. They also have to clean the kitchen. I gave them a choice: It was either the letters and the kitchen or they were going to be grounded to their rooms for the entire day, no tv, no computer. They chose to write the letters and clean the kitchen. Just now, the oldest child comes in and asks me, "By cleaning the kitchen, did you mean the WHOLE thing???" I replied that of course I meant the whole thing. Then she said, "Man! I should have stayed in my room!" LMAO!!! Kids. They are so funny.

In other news...

I completed my first day's work yesterday. My hours are restricted until my boss can get a feel for what I can do so I have a light load this week. I would be willing to put in three times the amount of work, but I understand her reasoning. I really can't wait to dive in and grind the stone though.

It's raining here again. And it's COLD. It's only 61 degrees right now. I had to go around and close up my windows cuz my house was getting chilly. The rain is supposed to clear out tonight and be nice the rest of the weekend though. Yay!

O Christmas Tree

We went out and bought our Christmas tree last night. It's a fine, fragrant Fraser Fir from western North Carolina. It's one of the nicest shaped trees we've ever had. Christmas trees are a bit more expensive here in N.C. than they were back in Vermont. I'm sure our drought isn't helping matters either. We're in the middle of getting it decorated. We put the lights and half the garland on last night. We ran out of garland because I don't normally put garland on my tree so we had to put off the rest of the decorating until today. I can't wait. We also got Gobstopper and Sweettart flavored candy canes to put on it. I've never seen them before this year.

Yesterday, I forgot to mention that I like movie A Christmas Story. I had never watched it before I married C but now we watch it every year. Ho, ho, hoooooo!!

Because of the season and because it's 78 degrees at my house today, I decided to list why warm weather can be inconvenient.

1. There are more bugs because it doesn't get cold enough to kill them off.
2. You have to leave your summer and winter clothes out basically all year because you never know when you're going to have a 80 degree day in the middle of December.

That's all I could think of. Cold weather sucks.

Nose to the Grindstone

I've had my butt in my desk chair and books open as far as the eye can see all day. My business exam has me stressed out most of all. There was a ton of information crammed into the shortened summer semester and I have no idea how I'm going to remember it all. But enough whining.

It was a gorgeous North Carolina day. An abundance of sunshine and temps that didn't make you want to die. I actually sat outside and read my mail today. Then I came back inside and studied some more, lmao. And since that's all I did today, I have absolutely nothing of interest to blog about. Sorry.

Oh. Did anyone watch the meteor shower last night? C and I went out a little after 10 pm eastern time and didn't see anything. The freaking roaches scared me too much to stay outside for too long though. Damn things are as big as small dogs down here. Sheesh.

I Don't Feel Like Blogging

It's 95 with a heat index of a 111. I just got back from running an errand and it was miserable. It's so hot that my a/c is having a hard time keeping up. It's been on all day and the temp in my house is 76. Granted, that's better than 95 but I have it set on 72 and it's getting uncomfortable inside. The bad part: It's not even the hottest part of the afternoon yet and tomorrow is supposed to be worse.

I Felt So Cut Off!!

My Internet was out until about 4:15 this afternoon. :( We had some pretty good storms come through last night and the lightning messed up my cable and knocked out the Internet completely. IT SUCKED!! I am so completely lost without my Internet. You all know how I am. When I was finally able to log on, between my book club, my RSS feeds, and my regular e-mail, I had 66 messages waiting for me and none of them were junk mail. It took me a minute to sort through it all.

The wet weather and high humidity brought the mosquitoes out in full force. I was bitten on the bottom of my foot today, of all places, and it hurt like a SOB let me tell ya. I've never been bitten on the sole of my foot before and I hope it never happens again. It felt almost like a bee sting.

Our weather is mild compared to what some of our friends are getting ready to go through. There's a typhoon (hurricane for us Americans) headed straight for Japan. Right now it has winds of 145 mph. I'm sending good thoughts their way but I'm worried for them.