A FEW OLD SAYINGS COME TO MIND . . . .

In every life a little rain must fall.

It never rains but it pours.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Etc., etc., etc.

When I last blogged I mentioned that severe weather was on the way. Well, the forecast was not wrong. We began having showers a little before noon yesterday, and the sky was very ominous all day. A little before two the storms began, and I switched to the local ABC affiliate to see what was happening. The local weather guy began tracking what was happening locally, and bless his heart, he was on until about 10:30 p.m. I wasn’t with him the whole time, but I’ll explain that.

The storm spawned a tornado which touched down in the south part of “our fair city”, curved toward the airport, went back up, then headed downtown. There the force of the winds were strong enough to topple the steeple of one of our landmark beauties, First United Methodist Church. (Sorry, I don’t have a before picture, but the church is at the end of a street which inclines upward so that it has the sky as a background---very dramatic, very beautiful.) Unfortunately, a car had stopped for the red traffic light in front of the church.




The man in the car crushed by the church steeple was not killed, nor critically injured. He has a broken sternum, wrist, a few other injuries, and will have to wear a body cast for a few weeks, He was unconscious only a brief time, and was aware of the effort to get him out of the car which took almost an hour. Everyone thinks that is a miracle, and I do too. Look at that car!

It kept raining throughout the afternoon. Jaz had asked me to pick up Oyster at her after school program because she, Jaz, had a five o’clock dental appointment. (That’s a whole ‘nother story.) A woman from the program walked her out under an umbrella in the downpour. I almost lost it when she gasped just after we drove away, and she said she'd left her webkind in the bldg. Of course, she shouldn't have had it there in the first place. So, I drove around the block and got out with umbrella to take her back in to get it. A couple of hrs. later we wouldn't have been able to get out of that neighborhood due to flooding. I stayed at their (Chill & Jaz's) house until Jaz came in from the dentist's, and I arrived home just as another of the major storms started, about 6:45 p.m. Of course, it was raining the whole time I was driving around with lightening and thunder, but the streets weren't flooded yet. However, by 7:15 Stratford, the street beside my house and where my driveway is, was flooded and stayed that way about three hrs. until it finally went down to curb level. When I arrived home, had closed the gate, but was back under the carport gathering my stuff, there were two separate lightening flashes followed by deafening thunder, the kind that vibrates your bones, really scared the bejeebers out of me, and I began to wonder if I could make the run over to the house without getting struck by lightening. Obviously, I did, quaking all the way.

Anyway the rest of the evening was spent checking the weather news which included several more "rotation" warnings but no more tornadoes. There were apparently three in the afternoon: the one which hit our city, one in the city across the river, and one which hit a small town which is a few miles east of there. There a tree fell onto a house cutting it in half. Thousands are/were without power across the area, and many won't have it back until sometime Saturday. So far it's been o.k. at my house with only a couple of flickers. This is rare as our neighborhood is usually one of the first to go.

This morning as the light finally came I discovered that a Ford Explorer (?) had gotten stuck in my back neighbor’s yard. A police car sat behind it this morning for about an hour until the wrecker came to tow it away. I knew a number of foolish people kept driving down the street beside my house last night. What part of don't drive into flooded streets is so hard to understand?







There was one fatality---a 20 yr. old drove into a tree, and two other cars also hit the tree at different times. However, the accident report was not very clear, so I'm not sure what happened there. That was in NW part of the city in the vicinity of one of the lakes. All the schools were closed today and a number of streets as well. It's been a genuine mess. I'm feeling very lucky.

Here you can see how far up into the yard the flood water came shown by the leaf line.




This evening my weather guy said our neighborhood had 7.15 inches of rain. Added to the 15 inches we've already received this month we've more than set a new record for October here. I sincerely hope we don't beat the Nov. record this year.

But, guess what! When I checked the area that was flooded I found some gifts. I’m thinking there will be a pecan pie in my holiday menu this year. YUM...my favorite.




Sometimes life gives you NUTS.

PICK OF THE DAY

The weather forecasters and Homeland Security have warned us that rain today and tomorrow may produce as much as 2 - 9 inches. Since we’ve already had 15 inches of rain this month the ground is saturated, and the dogs are insulted if I make them go outside for a few minutes.

But before all this weather began I went out this morning to gather whatever might have appeared in the garden over the last week. Take a look. You may be as surprised as I was.




The oregano has come back with a vengeance, and, yep, another two dozen jalapenos. Uh-oh, here comes the thunder again; have to unplug the computer. . .AGAIN!

IF I WORKED AS HARD EVERYDAY . . .

as I've worked yesterday and today, my house would be clean and tidy, there would be no flab on my abs, I would go to bed at a reasonable time, and my cholesterol would be in the normal range again. Guess there's a lesson to learn here. Sorry, I'm talking to myself.

I told you about the big furniture purchase a couple of weeks ago for the guest room. I have really felt apologetic about the bed, and the whole room, for so long. Right after I got the new stuff to the carport we had torrential rains, and two days later I called Travis (remember the airport taxi service) and asked if he could help me move it into the house. I was afraid it was going to be severely warped by all the dampness and possibly just plain get soaked. So on Monday he and Jane came over and helped me move it into the dining area of the house. Thank goodness, they did. We wound up having twice the average rainfall for a month in our area in about a week. No way I could have kept it protected.

Anyway, yesterday I finally decided to bite the bullet and get as much as possible out of the guest room and get ready for the new/old stuff. I took down the bed, removed the headboard & footboard, put the mattress & spring against the wall. Then I emptied the drawers of the chest o'drawers and removed it. Then I moved the sewing machine over about six feet. Here are the before pictures. Remember you can click on them to see them enlarged. I'm trying to save space. Oh yeah, I didn't start taking pictures until I had started stripping down, so things are somewhat disheveled. (That means sometimes it looked better/worse than this. This is where I store Xmas presents throughout the year, so it varies.)















































Jazz came over a little after eight this morning, after taking Oyster to school, to help me move furniture from dining area to bedroom. She even took away the old chest of drawers to paint and add to Oyster's room (God & Jazz only know where. ) That took us just little over an hour. And she went on to other ventures.

When Goo moved away I wondered how I would ever get my projects finished as most require at least two people to accomplish at various points. But Chill graciously married an enterprising and imaginative woman who helps me with my outrageous plans. (I don't think he told her about me in their courting days.) I am too lucky.

Here's the way it looks now. It's not all done, but this gives you an idea of where it might go.







































I spent the rest of the day washing the new/old furniture with Murphy's Oil;running an errand; doing two loads of laundry; changing the sheets on my bed and making up the new bed; sweeping the kitchen;pledging to public radio; watering the orchids; turning on heat for the orchids tonight; and a few more things that don't come to mind right now. It's been a full day. Here are the last shots of the new furniture. Be sure to let me know what you think. And I promise you, Goo, it is a firm mattress.


























And remember there's now room to walk on both sides of the bed. Isn't that great?

BTW, is anybody else having as much trouble as I am getting things to work on this blog place? Graphics, particularly, are stacking, and I wind up spending 2/3 more time trying to get the edits to work, i.e. get things to show up in the right space.

WEEKENDS ARE KILLING ME!

Well, things have been a bit hectic to say the least. The last weekend in Sept. our orchid society hosted a regional orchid show. It was somewhat smaller than our usual shows, but it didn't mean less work for those of us who do . . . the work. It was not well attended by the public, so that was a disappointment; we had fewer vendors, but that was a mixed blessing. If we'd had our usual number they would have been disappointed because of the light turnout; as it was those there did a decent business but did not sell out as they pretty much did two years ago. Asi es la vida. I think we had a lovely display which you'll see below. No trophy for me this time, but I did win a blue ribbon which is right in the center of the display. My work this time was not to set up the display but to prepare the plant labels (the green ones on the little sticks) the night before set-up. On set-up day I was in charge of plant registration meaning I received the little billets which each society or individual submitted for each plant or exhibit. My committee then had to organize these in folders for the judges to use the next day when they judged plants and exhibits. I had the process in hand, and my terrific committee polished it off in record time. It was a long, hard weekend because there was also maintenance of the hospitality room, schmoozing of visitors, takedown of everything, and those of us who worked it spent at least the following Mon. and Tues. recuperating. Here's our display.









The next weekend Jazz and I finally had our often postponed yard sale. The first tentative scheduling was in April, I think. It's hard to remember anymore. We ran into other events, bad weather forecasts, and personal illness/malaise. Then we ruled out mid-summer as just too hot and found the same problems haunting us in the fall. Persevering though we finally placed the ad and launched our endeavor; unfortunately when I arrived to start setting things out the first day of the sale Jazz came to the door looking like death on a stick with a migraine headache. She mustered in though, and we went through with the sale. Although we planned to start the sale at noon she'd had a doorbell ringer at 7:00 a.m. Go figure. We didn't make as much as we did on previous sales, but we did gain some space, and we managed to unload two items we really wanted to get rid of---a mower for her, and an edger for me. Just like the beginning of the sale the purchaser of these two items came after we "officially" closed the sale and were putting things away. However, he had cash and came close enough to our prices, and we couldn't say no. Would you?

This weekend was supposed to be the downtime weekend. I went on my usual round of estate sales on Friday morning and bought a couple of 45's---you know, for that turntable record player I bought last month. I thought they might be of interest to my grandchildren when they come to visit. One is "Does the Chewing Gum Lose It's Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?" Now where can you hear that anymore? Interestingly, it has the same song on both sides of the record. Does that tell you what a hit it was? Or did this guy only have one song in his repertoire? (Probably.) The other one was "Joy to the World" by Three Dog Night. I had this previously, but it was on eight-track (remember that?), and the eight-tracks are long gone as well as the means to play them. Anyway, I loved that song and its infectious good cheer. When I went upstairs to the bedroom that had been made from part of the attic I saw a most unusual very sturdy double bed with a cedar lined drawer built into the footboard and a matching desk/chest of drawers. Both pieces were quite unique. Oh, well.

Well, I went back this afternoon when prices had dropped to 50% off to try to get the 45 record I didn't buy yesterday---"I Am Woman" by Helen Reddy and to see if they had either of the record racks they had yesterday. I didn't really have any way to take care of/store the 45's I bought yesterday. DUH! Unfortunately, Helen was gone (Damn!). However, when I went upstairs to look for the record racks I saw yesterday one was still there. YEA! And it fits in my alleged entertainment center. But guess what! The unique bed and desk/chest were still there too. But not anymore; they are now in my carport.

Are you ready for the miraculous part of this story? Transport of these purchases is always up to the purchaser. Of course, my first instinct was to go to Chillax (he with the truck) to see if he might be able to go to the house on Sun. when the buyout people came to haul away whatever was left. The operators of the estate sale didn't know when they were coming yet, so that was "iffy." I left his store with the understanding we would try to work that out. Thirty minutes later he called and said he was going to put a sign out and close the store, and he and his friend Mark would go pick up the furniture, so I should call the Magnolia Estate Sale people and let them know he was coming. You can bet I did. I met them there with quilts, etc. to act as furniture buffers. (Wish I had time to tell how we almost killed a woman with a bed spring.) You in the family know that this is probably a once in a lifetime event . . . that Chill would close the store to fetch estate sale purchases. MUST HAVE BEEN A REALLY SLOW DAY! But I am eternally grateful for his benevolence, and neither of us has to go to bed wondering how we're going to negotiate all this tomorrow. I haven't mentioned that tomorrow afternoon we have the orchid society picnic/auction, have I? If it weren't for the business meeting where we really have to do some serious business I would blow that off. I don't need more orchids. On the other hand, the guest bed has been a source of concern for a long time. It was originally (?) my parents' bed, then my Aunt Janie's, then mine. And for the past 16 yrs. the guest bed. It is very wobbly. The new/old bed is not, and it will match another piece of furniture in the room. WooHoo!

No doubt, you see where this is leading. Now I have two pieces of furniture for the next yard sale. Maybe we can put "antiques" in the ad. And I have major work ahead of me to clear out the old and bring in the new. It looks like the circle is unbroken.