Less than expected can occasionally be a good thing

So, I expected more out of the "hurricane/tropical storm" (based on all the hype from the media) that went through the area.  I expected huge power outages, no water, hail damage, etc. Fortunately for us, the power only flickered on and off a few times, the water supply remained unchanged, and there wasn't any hail. It most certainly downpoured from Saturday night through most of Sunday, and it was pretttttty windy. It didn't seem much worse than other rain/snow storms I've been in. I know some streets near rivers and creeks around here have become flooded, but I think it's staying localized to those areas. Not sure about wind damage, though, since I haven't been out and about yet.

Tomorrow will be my first day of classes and I'll be taking Medicinal Chemistry/Pharmacology and Physics II.

On an unrelated note, something reminded me of the Skunk River Navy and I found a picture with the rest of the SRN here. {I'm wearing the teal T-shirt!!} I remember having fun, picking up the trash from our designated length of river. (I thought about posting the actual picture on the blog, but I'm not quite sure how online photo sharing works, so I figured I could just link to it).

Not sure what reminded me of that...maybe the start of the fall semester, and all the rain from the past few days? Those are my bits of random thoughts for now.

 I hope everyone is having a calm Monday

Back from Vacation

Phew! It's been quite the busy past 10 days...We had a great trip visiting family and friends in the Midwest. We did a fair amount of shopping and ended up bringing an extra carry-on bag back with us!

The actual flights back east went smoothly and we were quite thankful nothing was cancelled due to Hurricane Irene. Right after we got back to the apartment last night, we headed out to the grocery store to stock up on water and other food. There was no regular or plain water left on the shelves, so we settled for some flavored stuff. We haven't lost any power yet (fingers crossed!) and the plumbing still seems to be working just fine.

So, for today, we will be inside.  Hopefully I can keep updated with the weather online.

Here is a link to the National Hurricane Center with storm tracking.

I hope everyone is staying safe!

Hail

The Mr. had gotten off work, and after a quick jaunt over to the grocery store, we were planning on going to the pool since it was pretty close to 100* at 5:00 pm yesterday.  Our plans were foiled, even though we already had our suits on, as big raindrops began to fall. :( 

It hailed two times, each for about five minutes or so.  It rained a LOT and it was fairly windy, but there wasn't any damage to the cars.. I should have reached for my camera, but didn't know where it was yesterday.

It had been hot and sunny all day long, and the online forecast showed nothing besides clear skies. This storm must have been a "blip" on the radar that went unnoticed. I'm really glad we didn't go to the pool because we would have been pelted with marble-sized ice chunks!  {I'm kind of wondering if the people who were already at the pool got hit by hail or not...it happened pretty quick!} 

Other than that, the Mr. has been very helpful with supper-making and cleanup while I cram in some more study time so I'm very thankful to him for that. One pop-quiz was yesterday, and another quiz is tomorrow.  This class is going fast...3 weeks in and I'm 75% done, holy cow!

Precipitation

It was rainy yesterday, it is rainy now, and it will probably be rainy tomorrow.

I took this picture of the speckled ground, just as it was starting to rain.

Bonus: Rain is keeping the pollen, and my allergies, at bay. Success!

Part of a nice day...I'll take it!

Saturday was rainy and pretty crummy here... There was a high wind advisory with the rain, so we stayed inside and got lots of necessary paperwork done.  Sunday started out chilly, but warmed up in the afternoon.  We got the majority of our pictures hung up, for now.  We ran errands Sunday afternoon, and were able to go for a walk and enjoy the brisk spring air.  The blooming plants sure are nice to look at, but I'm pretty sure they're the source of my allergies right now!  Via the Internet, you can see what I saw, sans the sneezing and sniffling. :)

budding tree

I'm not sure what kind of flowers these are. If you know, I'm curious to find out.

Unfamiliar sounds

Two or three days ago, the weather was really rainy, pretty blustery, and quite cold.  VERY unpleasant to be outside in, so the mister and I chose to stay inside for the evening.  I didn't think the weather was horrible or anything, just really, really icky weather. (Definitely not picnic weather!) We heard a loud siren; it was pretty identical to what we know a tornado siren typically sounds like. Wondering about it together ("the weather's not that bad, is it?"), we decided to ask our neighbor what was going on. 

We had met our neighbor briefly when the movers were in the middle of hauling all our stuff inside, so we didn't have too much time to chat.  Anyway, I knocked on her door to ask her what the sound meant.  Alas, she told us that it was a siren from the local fire station.  That was a relief to hear, but also made us wonder what the tornado sirens sound like around here . . . 

As much as it was a little annoyance, it wasn't really that loud; just loud enough to make us double check.  I really can't complain about a fire station being nearby, since that's a good thing in my book!  I hopped on over to Google Maps to check it out, and it's exactly one mile away as the crow flies.  Thus ended the mystery of the loud siren and our evening resumed to pushing boxes around for fun.