He dresses better now

And so do I. When we met, I was wearing white shorts and we'll just say my undergarments were not suitable for white shorts, ok? Fast forward a couple weeks. When I first really laid eyes on him, he was sweaty, mismatched, and bouncing a basketball. I'm a sucker for nice eyes.

Our first date was with his dad and then-stepmother at Famous Amos & then we went to a downtown venue on the river. I'm not interested in re-creating that date, any more than I am interested in digging up what we wore that day either.

So today we're taking a much needed leisurely pace, dinner is in the crockpot (ham & potatoes with a packet of onion soup mix and some water if you're curious) and we're making a dent in the Clone's excessive laundry. Devildog left a short time ago to go play softball. I am thankful that his outlet is softball, as there are worse things he could be doing.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to go to any of his games in a long while. It's rather difficult to enjoy watching the game when I have to constantly herd a cat (Blur). She's a busy bugger and containing her is virtually impossible. She, like her siblings, must run and play and explore when ever the opportunity arises. Plus it's been hotter than hades itself here, and when I went outside a bit ago, I could have simply cooked my dinner on my doorstep. If I'm going to miss seeing him play ball, I can be comfortable indoors with air conditioning, and not get bleacher butt. That's not pretty either.

Random Wet T-shirt contest

As I drove home from taking Clone to school, my travel path got gloomier and gloomier looking. The outer bands of Hurricane Irene were swiping the coast and bringing unpleasant weather. I got out of the mom-bus just in time for things to get really intense. I decided I needed to bring in the flag that Devildog posted on the fence since it was going to get ugly today. Well that got me, and my shirt doused with rain even more. The bottom edge of the flag pole gets hung up in the bracket because it's curling up a bit. Then the garage door didn't like the correct code and I had to re-enter it. Meanwhile I'm getting pummeled with rain and that garage door couldn't open fast enough. I got in the house and it looked like I got hosed down for a wet t-shirt contest that I didn't want to enter.
And it's supposed to rain like that again when I go back to get Clone from school. The rainy day dismissal should be realllllly interesting. We'll see if the new principal has changed that too.

The view across my mug

This is sometimes my view as I sip coffee from the bench on the front porch.
It was warm today. I was surprised since just a week ago it was most definitely NOT warm. So I took my coffee outside. I thought it was a little ironic of sorts to be 70 degrees by 10 a.m. yet, the tree was definitely dropping leaves.





Last week I was NOT wearing these, even while inside the house. Last week we were shivering with the freezing temperatures, wishing we had carpet instead of cold-retaining tile. Persnickety Ticker told me tile is brutal in the winter. Of course someone should slip Mother Nature some HRT. This menopausal weather is annoying at best.









Mmmm. Coffee. Devildog snagged the cup I used for the first round of coffee when I was away from the kitchen. So this mug is round 2's vessel. It was a housewarming gift, along with 3 others with similar phrasing and different colors. This is my favorite because it's purple.






And this view - would be the bane of many neighborhoods. But here, it's a bit of a welcome view. My FIL is visiting and has his dog Ashley with him. She was rescued from the Ashley River and as I understand things, she rescued him too. A few years ago, he was in a very dark place in his life. Ashley was apparently abused, and is a tender, sensitive & empathetic dog. Mini-Human loves Ashley, even though the dog has limited tolerance and hides after a while. So when this camper is in my driveway, there is dog hair on my floors. And we get to visit with the FIL I knew was there all along. It was hidden for so many years by those dark clouds.

Well digger's what?

Ever heard the phrase "colder than a well digger's butt"? My mother used to say that every time it got cold enough to chill her bones. Since there wasn't a lot of meat on her bones, anything 40 or below was such a temperature. I live in Florida, and have Floridian blood and not much meat on my bones. So, what would this cold Floridian be doing at 2 in the morning besides blogging and waiting for the mini-human to demand milk? Knitting herself another scarf because she can't find the black one she knitted herself over a year ago-maybe two years. I know it was at least that long ago, because I had it on my birthday trip to Disney, and that was in January of last year. I recently got a random skein of yarn from someone, and since it's soft and not a horrid color, and a single 50 gram ball of yarn only goes so far - I decided I needed a new scarf. Plus it's freaking cold here. It's not getting any higher than mid 40s this week during the day, and down into the 20s at night.
I'm very grateful this weather held off till after the Gator Bowl. Someone gave Beast tickets but he decided he didn't want to go, so he offered them to me and my brother. He's a Gator fan like Devildog, and my brother and I are Seminole fans. I don't know that I would have gone if the temperatures were this miserable-for-Florida low. I'm wondering what it's going to be like on my birthday. Last year was *supposed* to be in the 60s, but the cold front got stalled over us and my freshly impregnated self was miserably cold at Disney.

Side note about the game...my brother was in awe of it all, as it was his first FSU game ever. The shuttle bus had 80% FSU fans and 20% WVU fans. My brother and his goofy self came up with a little ditty he kept singing all afternoon.

"Hush, hush, what's the fuss?
Mountaineers to the back of the bus"

With these temperatures, the Mountaineers would feel right at home, and probably wouldn't call it well digger's butt cold. Plus mines get colder than wells anyway.

How's the weather for Dad?

I gave Devildog his Father's Day gift - a certificate for a 30 minute massage. If I could have gotten him an hour massage I would have, but it wasn't available. He looked at me and said "you need this more than I do". No, I need an hour and a half or two hour massage, mostly because my sciatic nerve is in varying states of compression.
I was in the room when Devildog was flipping channels between the NASCAR race out in the California desert and the Atlanta/Boston game in Boston. I almost envy Bostonians and other New Englanders with temperatures below 80 degrees. Here in Florida, it's been around 100 degrees. At 2:30 PM when I was eating my post-church lunch, Devildog flipped over to the Weather Channel to get the current conditions. It said real temperature was 97, but the heat index (you know what your physical person says the weather feels like?) was...are you sitting down in a safe chair? I'll wait, I really don't want to knock you over because the heat here does enough of that without my helping. Ok, as I was saying, the heat index - yea, 109 degrees. As in- Hell came out of its depths and decided to play in my neighborhood. It can return to rightful place anytime now, like yesterday would be nice. I am fine with 92 degrees, because that is a cakewalk by comparison.

This heat is enough to make any crazy person reconsider leaving the house. I know plenty of SANE ones that are hiding indoors too. And there's no leaving the house after dark either. At midnight it was still 91 degrees even. Hell hath no fury like its own presence outside your door.

Cabin Fever

It has literally been raining since Sunday afternoon, virtually nonstop. There have been periods of spit-on-you drizzling, and actual spots of NO rain falling, but it has been raining since Sunday. Can some of these businesses shut off their sprinklers for a few days? It's overkill to be running the sprinkler system when it's raining EACH DAY for free. It's looked like this all week. As I finish this post, another deluge is plummeting from the clouds that I snapped a picture right as I started this blog post. I stole the other picture from Persnickety's blog because nothing I found accurately portrayed the week's weather in my opinion.

Because it's been raining so much, the kids haven't been outside to do anything this entire week. All the kids are going bonkers, including the Stowaway, who is probably going to get nicknamed Thumper. I took Clone to Chick-Fil-A the other day so she could run around and play for an hour or so to get some of the energy out of the way. Last night friends C&S begged me to let Clone come to their house to play because their own child was firmly wedged in their unsunny places and they needed to sit down without an extra pair of little legs in the way. It was nice to not have Disney channel on the tv for a while. Except, the teenagers went no where and there was no quiet in my house anyway.

This morning, I was lazing in my bed because it's comfy and cozy in there. The kids keep trying to lay in my bed and hang out when I'm in there escaping or resting. GO AWAY! It's MY bed and yes, it's cozy because I made it that way! *ahem* sorry. Anyway, I was lazing in my bed and avoiding my parental duties to the two teens and a Clone because I am also a slacker mom who raised her spawn to be independent beings that can get their own sustenance in the mornings, including brewing a pot of coffee for the household. There arose with such a clatter - 0r more like a bunch of screeching, and yowling - the sounds of feathers and fur flying. The teenagers were pushing each others' buttons and the Clone was shrieking for them to stop. They went to blows a couple weeks ago in front of her, poor girl.
After I got out of bed and did my own shrieking, things settled down a bit, but I was still ticked. I refused to let them explain what was going on, why, how etc. I just didn't want to get in the middle of it. I need to set up a box office in the front yard, so I can make some extra money selling tickets to their fights. It might compensate for some of the stress they cause at least.

A little while later, Beast was in the kitchen and I forget what he did or said that made me look at him like I did, but I broke out the "mom stare". He stared back. After a few seconds of that he said "I guess what we have here is a good old-fashioned Mexican standoff." I continued to stare at him. Beast looked around and said "Wait, there are no Mexicans here. Let's go to Home Depot!" I continued to stare, attempting to retain the poker face, but it was failing. Comedians.

Race ya!

Fay, Forever and Fickle Fay...is still not completely outside the borders of Florida. She is faster than she was before, but still...

While in our vicinity, she was moving at 1 and 2 miles per hour in any direction, now she's going 8 mph west-ish. Aside from the fact that the girth of the storm was so large, we probably could have walked faster out of town than Fay did/is.


And, having been cooped up in overcluttered snug quarters for two and a half days, I ventured out of my dwelling. I had to drive across the yard to leave because the driveway was covered in dropped oak branches. I had to get to Hobby Lobby and hope they had rosary centers, buy one and get to the nearby post office by 1 PM so I could overnight the package to my aunt in Missouri. See, the weather was supposed to be craptastical on Thursday, and that would have allowed me to mail a package to Missouri Friday to be delivered by Monday. Nope, no dice. So I had to spend three times as much to send it Express instead of Priority. My aunt is worth it though. No rosary centers at Hobby Lobby, and by the time I got through there, it was too close to call getting to the post office before closing. I decided the main post office was my best option to avoid further stress on my part. The Clone and I did a little shopping, went to a friend's house to get one of her rosary centers and after finishing the incomplete rosary, we left for the post office - CLEAR across town. I got my package shipped off with a commitment from "Nor rain, nor sleet, nor hail, nor snow..." that it would arrive Monday afternoon.

In the midst of all this, were phone calls throughout the day to my friend H to check on the progress of her labor. All is well and the baby arrived in good health, and H will now sleep on her stomach for a few days...probably propped up with pillows to keep from squashing the milk laden mammaries.

And all of this on race day in Bristol.

Did you want to drive there?

This is my Dad's oak tree. It is rooted between his front fence and the street. His house is off to the left. Sis captured this picture with her cellphone. She tells me that the tree split in half and fell over into the neighbor's yard across the street. Since Dad's house is 82 years old, I am guessing the oak tree is around 100 years old too. If I understand her correctly, sis told me there is the main trunk and some little offshoot branches still intact.

Boy Scouts are Always Prepared

I'm tired and kind of eh today. I'll blame it on some sort of seasonal affective disorder. Hurricane season, but a season nonetheless. In case you were unaware, Florida has two seasons: Hurricane and non-Hurricane. The city has been battening the hatches. The wind blows backwards here and power goes out. The day started by waking up at least an hour late, and driving behind yet another left lane loon. You know, the ones that drive 5 or 10 mph BELOW the speed limit and do so in the LEFT lane? Then I serviced a store in absolutely record time. Took a friend to a doctor appointment, and a few other associated errands. I got home and by then I really was exhausted. However, in my travels today, I was witness to a couple crash aftermaths, and one had more police and community service officers than vehicles involved in the crash. I'm glad I didn't have time to sort out that paperwork. Then there's the whole means of the hatches being battened.

Yes, those are pallets of cinderblocks parked inside the sheds.

Now out of curiosity.... what about the swings?



As I pulled into my parking spot at BJ's, I happened to catch this view in my mirror:

They're chained inside the canopy.
I didn't get the picture of the bulldozers and backhoes that were parked alongside a major highway. It was a Caterpillar parking lot so to speak.

And as I catch weather updates, it seems that the Fay is very much a Southern being. She's moving slow and strolling leisurely along her way.

I never loved the name Fay

And now she's got schools closed for a couple days. The schools that JUST opened this Monday as a matter of fact. And people thought Florida (or at least this district) was stupid for adding "weather days" to the calendar like northern districts add snow days. Well it's a good thing they're in the school calendar now. It's shaping up to be a nice dumping of rain and wind. I sat through Hurricane Fran in NC 12 years ago. I'd much prefer to avoid a similar repeat.