It is 71 degrees and surprisingly sunny

But the wind is gusting up to 58 mph and the rain is coming. We're staying home after all tonight and will celebrate our friend's birthday tomorrow. The Herbie (trash bin) and Rosie (recycling bin) have been taken to the kerb but the recycling one keeps falling over. I chased a lasagna carton down the street earlier. The trash one has its top off, but everything's in a bag at least in that one.

I had a blood draw today with YKWIA. Our doctor does it two weeks before our appointments. It went quickly, so we ate at a Subway afterward, went and got some medicine from the pharmacy, went to the library, and we were still home by 6:20 or so. I took out the bins, fed the animals, and he let the dog outside. Not
W I'm lying down and stretching my back out some.

I'm hoping we don't lose electricity with the wind, but I'm charging thing up things now just in case. Earlier we were on the road and the traffic lights kept going off and back on. There are some questionable boughs in the maple trees out front as well. So here's hoping it will all be alright.

Take care!

It is a dark and stormy night

The wind is hypnotic. I'm certainly not going to see any meteors tonight (the Leonid shower peaks, and it's dark of the moon, which means normally it would be great viewing). It's been quiet and restful today. We did a few errands this morning but I napped for a bit this afternoon. Tomorrow we're not having the game, as Brenda is under the weather with some sort of crud, so I'm going to put off the notes. But tomorrow I plan to be active, doing some laundry and other things around here. I'm looking forward to a busy but short week ahead. And then there's Thanksgiving and getting Friday off as well. Yay!

I haven't been on the computer much at all lately, so I need to at least blog on my phone. Or get on the laptop and actually write rather than just going on Facebook. It's so easy to share things there, I don't have to even write about it, and that's a pitfall. I want to write. I should write. I will write.

I've been having some trouble with my hip lately. It's very painful to get up from a sitting position, probably because I'm sitting too much at work. It seems to be muscular, as it improves with walking and stretching. I'm hoping I can stretch enough to get it to settle down, as I feel like a little old lady. Hell, worse than a little old lady.

It's just 9 pm. I'm resisting going to be early. Maybe I should read. If I listen to music I'll most likely just fall asleep. Besides, there is a black cat perched up on top of two pillows and two blankets on my bed right now who will be most wroth with me should I disturb him. :) The dogs are in the kitchen, having been out in the driving rain briefly after being fed. The kitchen floor is very muddy as a result.

I think I'm going to do some job searching. I like my job, and my workplace, but I'm not giving up being a librarian, either. UK has a government docs position open, and there may be some others. Good night.

A storm's brewing

And the wind really picked up,  so I ran outside and put the window boxes on the ground.  The one on the right flew off the sill overnight and was upside down on top of the plant this morning and so I righted it,  put it back up,  and hurried to work.  This evening I swept up the lose dirt,  packed it back in,  and watered them so it would be a little heavier.  But this was a pretty high wind,  so hopefully this will help.  They're very pretty,  even if the one is a bit flat now. I put a broken piece in the soil to see if it will root.  We'll see.

I was going to wear a skirt tomorrow

But the winds are supposed to be 25 to 35 mph,  gusting to over 40. Maybe that's not such a great idea. #ThingsThatWomenandScottishMenDealWith

Drat

I thought I was firmly ensconced in my home for the night. Alas, I need wine for a libation tonight. I'll go after trick-or-treating and before 'Grimm'. Drat. Drat. Drat. Have I mentioned how cold and windy it is out tonight? I really need to take the trash out, too, and thought to put that off till tomorrow morning.

Today I:

1. Got my hair cut at Supercuts (see the picture included).
2. Went to the public library and picked up two books and some music CDs.
3. Got some items for the fish tanks, including a non-LED bubble circle and a clip-on light for the small aquarium. The bubble light that came with the tank has all the colours that fish can see, and it's very bright, so I'm probably torturing the poor thing. I also got filters for that tank, some water conditioner, and some power strips and a thumb drive while at Meijer's.
4. Got a few clothes and household items at Gabriel Brothers.
5. Straightened up the house some.
6. Finished the game notes.
7. Managed to eat a Morningstar Farms Tomato Basil Pizza burger on a soft wheat bun. Not bad for 6 days after some fairly extensive oral surgery.

The only thing left on my list is to watch The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, so that I can send it and Suddenly, Last Summer, back to Netflix. I think I'll do that in just a bit. I need a break, as I've been going pretty strong for some time. I think I'll get some water, blow out the candles in this room, and go listen to some music or maybe read for a bit in the bedroom. :) My, it's gotten windy. It was sunny for awhile earlier today, but then the rain (thankfully, not snow) came in, and now it's quite wild-sounding out there.

Came home from physical therapy

and took a bath and then laid down on a heating pad for a bit. Then YKWIA called and we talked for awhile. Now I think I'm going to take some ibuprofen and head on to bed. It's been a quiet night. Tomorrow will be much colder than it was. Our school system is on a two-hour delay due to the low temperatures, which is at least better than the week they were off last week (one day for Martin Luther King, Jr Day, the other four for weather). The wind is howling outside, and it's only 11 outside right now, with subzero temps forecast and wind chills of about -10 degrees possible. Brr...so tired of this!

I am somewhat concerned

The wind is quite fierce outside and although it's hard to tell how much snow we've had (it's largely blown off the vehicles to drift on the ground), we did get some. One local parkway was shut down earlier because a salt truck went over on the highway. It's been pretty crappy for those out there, and I'm staying home. However, even at my house, my windows are creaking horribly with the wind, like they might crack and break. They have cracked before, and were replaced, and ever since then, the wind actually comes through the window a bit, so they must not have weatherstripped well. I have a windchime and sheer on the inside of the window, normally still, but even they are moving a bit. There's a lot of howling and creaking going on. The air is full of snow, but I can't tell if it's falling out of the sky or moving a bit from the ground. Some obviously is from the roof. Not good. Here's hoping the windows don't fail.

I'm getting a little tired of this whole 'polar vortex' cycle

of snow followed by brutal temperatures. We're warming up today to the 20s with an additional 3-6 inches possible of snow, and then the temperatures are going to plunge in a day or so back to the subzero range. Our homeless and warming shelters are full, the electrical grid is somewhat delicate and people have lost power. And we're lucky compared to places in the Northeast as far as the snow goes. The sustained cold really has been a problem.

I was going to try to get an oil change on the car tomorrow, but that's not going to happen. On top of the snow issue, there's a whiteout possibility as winds whip up and blow the snow. I've already told A and YKWIA that I'm not coming over tomorrow, and that we can try to do the grocery run on Sunday. The main roads were dry this afternoon; but streets in residential areas such as mine are still packed snow with a glazing of ice on them as slush froze in the cold temperatures--another few inches, or even just one or two, will make it all the more difficult to get to those main roads, which are going to take a day or so to get clear again. While I was at their house earlier, I dropped off a DVD from Netflix so they can get cozy and watch it tomorrow while it snows. My plans are to catch up on a few things here. I didn't watch 'Grimm' tonight, for example, as I took a nap, but I recorded it and will watch tomorrow. And there's 'Downton Abbey' to consider. But there's also game notes and stuff around the house I can do. I also need to call Brenda to see is she can take me for some oral surgery that's coming up in a couple of weeks. I've got it set up so I can stay with friends afterwards so they can watch me for a few hours' afterwards and then I can drive home the next day.

Last night I filled up the fish tanks as they were getting low, especially the big one. I was a little worried about the heater blowing without enough water covering it. Besides, that's gets the fish squared away for awhile. I also changed the carbon filter in the big tank. I didn't realise it, but I'm out of the cartridges for the small one, and so I need to get a pack of those from Meijer's soon. I really want to vacuum the gravel out in both tanks; I may do that tomorrow if I can get it to work. Those self-starting vacuums never work well for me--I can never get them to start right--and I'm sure not going to try to do it by suction after I have oral surgery, so maybe now is a better time.

Physical therapy is going well and I'm already finding some relief with the pain and numbness in my arm. Tomorrow I'm going to do my exercises, since I'll have time, as well as maybe a little of those workout DVDs I ordered, if I can rearrange the living area nicely for more room. I have PT again on Monday, and then have my teeth cleaned on Tuesday. No word yet on whether we're playing the game or not on Sunday; that'll depend on the snow and Brenda, I suspect. Better to go ahead and do the notes tomorrow though, just in case.

Okay, I woke up around midnight for awhile, but I'm ready to go back to sleep. Have a good night, and stay safe and warm.

It is so blustery out there

that a tiny amount of wind is getting through my normally decently sealed windows and making the wind chimes in the window chime just a bit with the huge gusts every now and then. The wind is positively howling, perfect for Halloween, I suppose. What have I actually been doing for the last two hours this Samhain eve? Listening to the Pandora 'Loreena McKinnitt' channel I have set up; in other words, enjoying some lovely Celtic music and relaxing. That was in the bedroom. Now that I'm in the living room, and there's no music, the wind is really loud. We're supposed to see gusts over 40 mph, and I think that's definitely happening.

Here's a little appropriate music from Loreena McKinnitt to chase the wind away:

The wind is cutting outside

making it seem much colder than the 39 degrees it said on the weather. I walked home from the ophthalmologist, my eyes bleary and dilated, and was quite happy to get inside. At least there isn't snow like in Chicago, but still...it was over 60 degrees yesterday.

I spent most of the morning feeling run-down and tired, although I perked up when I went to a meeting. The library was just so quiet, you would think that I could have maintained some sort of focus, but that wasn't the case, although I managed to get a few things done. By 2:15 I was leaving for the doctor's office, and it turned out a co-worker was leaving too, so she gave me a ride.

I spent a couple of hours at the ophthalmologist's, waiting to be called, then getting my vitals and history, then going back to the waiting area, then getting my eyes numbed and my pressure checked, followed by dilation and returning to the waiting area, then getting my optic nerve looked at, then waiting, then finally getting the good news that there is no sign of diabetes in my eyes, nor has the pressure reached a point where we have to do anything more than continuing semi-annual visits. Yay. My great-grandmother, who was also diabetic, lost much of her sight as a result of the disease, and I don't want to have a similar problem.

After the visit, I talked briefly with a friend on the phone and made plans for tomorrow, then headed to the still-open (I'd thought it had already closed) library for a very quick wi-fi connexion to download a couple of updates on the tablet. I scanned the new books briefly and then headed out into the wind, finally getting home and, having not eaten since 11:30, scrounged for some food. So you would think I would go straight to bed, but I'm not exactly sleepy, just tired. I should check and see if 'Grimm' or 'Supernatural' are on tonight. But I don't know if I can hold out till then.

It must be hard being made mostly of bits of fluff sometimes...

Although even the mama duck rolls at one point. Actually, this was how walking near the Patterson Office Tower was when I was at the University of Kentucky.



Thanks to YKWIA for the link.

Defensive parking

First it was the ice storm; now we're encountering strong winds (up to 50 mph, with gusts up to 60 mph) and storms that have the potential to knock down trees weakened from the ice and create more power outages (and there are still people without power from the ice storm here in the state). It hasn't been too bad in Lexington today, although we had hail, but it sounds like a path equal to the highest destruction during the ice bore the brunt of today's storms, with tornado warnings, although as far as I know, none touched down.

During all of this, it's been very important to park and drive thoughtfully, avoiding trees, especially large ones. There are a couple of decent-sized trees that overhang my parking lot, for example, or the mature trees in the Chevy Chase area, where I often drive getting a friend from work. Today instead of parking in a driveway I parked in front of the next house. That house had already lost its tree in the ice storm, so there was nothing to fall. It sounded better than my car getting hit by a tree or being trapped in the driveway.

Oh, well, at least we had several nice days of warmer temperatures and a little sun but at least no rain. Today a cold front came through, so I don't know if temps will stay mild or not.

I'm ready for some boring weather.

This is pretty neat

Watch a dust devil spin in Martian arctic

YKWIA saw it on his news gadget yesterday, and then it popped up on my reader, too. I can't get the animated picture to run on Blog*Spot, so if you want to watch it without reading the news story, go to the source at:

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/273145main_15996-browse.gif