Tag: weather

March Madness

And by March Madness I don’t mean basketball… Instead, I mean our mad weather. Our county (and many others around us) is under a Winter Storm Warning starting tonight at 10pm and lasting until Monday morning. They’re currently predicting 5-7″ of snow for the storm (which is an improvement upon earlier predictions of 8+”). However, we’re in that odd transitional time between Winter and Spring when models have a hell of a time making good predictions as it is (and then compound them with the climate change we’ve been unleashing on our planet and I’m just shocked that they get anything remotely correct!) so I’m not holding my breath yet for (yet ANOTHER) day off on Monday.

So far we’ve missed 9 days this year. I’m rather pleased that I had gotten my chemistry classes a week ahead of last year’s because that extra time has helped me be only about a week behind after all of this weather. (I’m more worried about chemistry than physics because of the college curriculum and their college-supplied final exam.) In physics I’ve dumped a couple of projects/labs to keep close to my usual timeline. And Advanced Problems is always an evolving course as it is. (I’ve added in some forensics lessons this year and removed a couple of other projects because of that.)

I am one of the few people I know who isn’t actually sick and tired of snow. This next storm might finally put me over the edge (though I doubt it – unless the power goes out or something). However, I really miss taking long walks and riding my bike on the bike paths. So yeah, I’ll be just fine with winter making its departure felt. My weight-loss regimen has been affected by the weather too. Less exercise, more snacking because I’m at home instead of at work… I’ve yet to get as low as I was before Thanksgiving. (I was soooo close to being under 200lb back then too. Now I’m just happy to stay under 210.)

So Winter, I know you’re around for another 20 days or so, but I’m OK with you leaving early so that I can get some walks and rides in soon! But if you do decide to dump 5-7″ on us tomorrow, please leave the electricity alone, OK? 😉

What the F…..ebruary?!?

Um, what the heck happened to February. Usually this is the longest month for me and it drags like a dragging thing. But it has zipped by (Flowed by, perhaps, to maintain the alliteration) and ends tonight. Sheesh.

I blame the few sunny days that we had this month. Normally Feb is gray and bleak and rainy and icy. But we had several sunny days and even some snow. Today we had a 2-hour delay, which was wonderful since it was Parent/Teacher conferences which means we’re there until 7pm (or later for some teachers). I even got to meet two of my students’ mums tonight.

As you can see, I didn’t post at all in February, until today. Mom even e-mailed me wondering if I was going to let an entire month go by uncommented upon in this journal. I had decided on my walk home tonight that I would finally post. And here goes!

I’d like to promise that I’ll be more vocal during March, but I dunno if I will. I guess we’ll find out on the 31st!

The 1200

I don’t pay much attention to what number of post my (now admittedly very rare) LJ posts are, but I just happened to notice I had 1199 entries under my belt before I started this one up. So, yay for number 1200!

So, what have been up to since I turned 42? Well, Amy got home safe und sound. School’s been pretty normal (though the cold & flu season is going on). I finally got caught up in grading. (The catapult research papers were a bit long in the tooth when I finally graded them.)

Yesterday, we had a sunny & almost warm day – nearly 50F. Dad grilled us New York strip steaks and they were so tender and very tasty. I was able to take half of mine home & tonight sliced up 1/4 of the leftovers to put on my salad. Yummy.

Also yesterday, I did my semi-regular trip down to the Bookery for my Doctor Who magazines. When I went to Jeet India afterwards (as I always do on said trips), the place was GONE. Just an empty space in the strip mall. Very sad. So I decided to get fast food Thai at Tik’s Thai Express. Good pad thai, tasty crab rangoon, and only so-so satay. Had the leftover pad thai for lunch today. (The good news? When I checked at home, it turns out they’ve merely moved locations. Will get to Jeet next time I’m down there!)

Decided to give the 2D version of The Hobbit a try today (before it leaves the theaters). Was surprised to see other folks in the theater. Still a very fun movie, though I think I prefer the high frame rate. Wish they’d do 2D at HFR.

This week is supposed to get bloody cold. Tuesday to get no higher than 11F. (My sister says MN is to have a high that’s -2F tomorrow. Brrrrr!) Wonder if we’ll have a delay on Tuesday with the very low wind chill temp. (It’s happened before.)

At any rate, those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, keep warm & drive safe in the snow/ice. Those of you south of the equator, keep cool! (Dern that climate change!)

Beautiful Day!

According to my computer, it’s 82F outside, which I can well believe. All of my windows are open & letting in the fresh air. Linus is asleep on the computer desk and Lucy is asleep somewhere else in the house. 6 out of 10 windows have brand new pet-proof screens, and when the weather returns to normal, I’ll have the other 4 replaced as well. (No more Linus-sized hole in the living room window – yay!)

I got the quote back on the landscaping for my house. The design looks great, but doesn’t utilize native plants. (Apparently the nursery doesn’t actually have many native plants to sell). Still, the quote was in my budget and I think I’m going with it after a check to make sure at least none of the plants are invasive species. (I wonder if it’s even legal for nurseries to sell invasive species. No idea.)

I’ll need to *sniff* have the Bradford Pear tree taken down in front. I hate to have a live tree cut down, but its twin already fell on my house and was removed and it’s only time before it follows suit. I’ll be getting a flame maple for my front yard which, theoretically, only gets to 20′ tall.

Not going to do anything with my back yard yet. Maybe next year that can be my home improvement project. I have 2 black walnut trees in the back already (both weeds that have really taken to the place) and want at least 1 maple in the back as well. And I need a place to sit & read under a shade tree. 🙂

In a bit, I’ll go on a nice walk through town. Lunch today was Chinese Buffet, so I need some activity points to counteract that. Heh. (I am NOT a WeightWatchers poster child, that’s for sure!)

So let’s hear it for beautiful days, open windows, and sleeping kittens!

Vernal Equinox

Yay for the Equinox! The days will get longer & longer until Summah!

We are 3/4 done for the school year. We have one week this week to start the 4th quarter, and then it’ll be Spring Break (woo!) And when we return to school? 8 weeks to go. Wow. 2 months…

Have had some nice warmish days the past few days, so I’ve gotten some walking done. Alas, my ankle started hurting on Thursday (no idea why) and was so bad that night I could barely sleep. But thankfully it’s getting better and today was nearly normal. Hasn’t stopped me from walking.

I made garden vegetable soup and beer bread today, so the house smells nice right now. And my sandalwood candle is burning here in the library. Yay for nice smells.

Hope folks are enjoying the changing seasons. I know that I am. 🙂

The Februaries – not too bad this year!

Well, February decided it needed to give us one more storm before giving way to March. Yesterday we had no school due to the freezing rain and snow of Thursday night/Friday morning. So yay for the day off, but boo for winter sticking its tongue out at us again.

We actually had school last Monday to make up one of our snow days so far, and were apparently the only school in the county who met on Prez Day. But thanks to yesterday’s storm, we got a 3-day weekend in February anyhoo. 🙂

Usually February is my bluest month. But this Feb wasn’t as bad as the past couple ones have been. I even managed to go somewhere for a weekend! Usually when I make weekend plans for Feb, I wind up getting sick, or having piss-poor weather to drive through, or just wind up not being in the mood to socialize. But last weekend, I headed north to visit elsaf and spend a couple of days with her and judiang.

The original plan was to stay till Monday, but the rescheduled school day put paid to that idea. So instead I drove up Friday and left on Sunday. I had hoped to stay until after lunch on Sunday, but Michigan decided it wanted a February snow storm, and I timed the departure to give me the best weather for the drive down. I left at noon and only got a bit of snow in Toledo and a small amount of sleet in Findlay (which I mostly missed by eating lunch in Findlay).

Our one full day together allowed us to have lunch at Uncle Harry’s deli (mmmm, matzo ball soup and sauerkraut sandwich! – it was a vegetarian Reuben, so basically a sauerkraut sandwich and it was very yummy!) and see The King’s Speech. We all agreed it was an excellent film. That evening, Elsa christened her kitchen proper (our main reason for the visit) by cooking us and her bro & sil some lamb shanks, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and pear halves cooked in Merlot and served with ice cream. Excellent meal and actually not too bad for Weight Watchers Points (as best as I could determine).

Anyway, March starts this week, which means that Winter still isn’t over and could dish us out other days off if it so decides. But we’re even closer to Spring (and Spring Break for that matter), which is a very good thing indeed.

Yet Another Weather Post

Ah, the joy of winter means loads of Internet posts about the weather. And this one is no different.

Well, yesterday the Ick did indeed come. We wound up with about half an inch of ice on the ground. Then last night, the winds came up strong and blew all of the ice off the trees in front of my house. Blew it all at my house. I woke up around 3am thinking the kitties were body slamming each other on the floor (yes, they do that from time to time), but no kitties were to be found. (They were both sitting quietly in the living room). Then I realized all the ruckus was being caused by ice slamming against the front of my house.

This morning, I saw lots of little ice shards on my front porch & front lawn. Heh. (And oddly enough, no ice on the tree branches.) Thankfully, power has been on continuously (despite a few flickers) and I only lost Internet late last night and it returned late this morning.

I managed to get all of my grading done that I had brought home, though I had forgotten to bring my gradebook home. Thankfully, I was able to log onto Progress Book and enter the grades directly into that. I love living in the 21st Century.

We’ve already gotten the call that we have no school again tomorrow. So yay, another day off. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get to finishing my application for Advance College Project – a program whereby I’d be teaching chemistry to juniors, and they’d be able to get college credit for it (from Indiana University). I think it sounds exciting and could be a great opportunity for our students. Here’s hoping I get the job!

The Calm Before the Storm

Today was a sunny albeit chilly day. Although the walk into work this morning was a bit severe (even with corduroy pants – I was regretting not wearing long underwear as I turned the last block), the walk home was rather pleasant.

But tomorrow, it may all be icky. The forecast tonight is 100% chance of icky, tomorrow, 80% chance of icky, followed by tomorrow night 100% chance of icky changing to snow (or rain). We are currently in a Winter Storm Warning (it was a Watch all day today and has just been upgraded to Warning) and one of the local networks is saying this may be the Winter Storm of the Season!!!!oneone!!!

Although I’ll believe that when I see it, I am a bit concerned about the chance of power outages. I have my cell phone and iPod charged up. I should do the same with my netbook. (OK, it’s plugged in now.) My flashlight is charged and I have loads of candles (all nice & smelly candles). Oh, and I know where all my blankets are. I’ve also warned the cats, but they could care less.

If the weather is only half of what they’re promising, we likely won’t have school the next two days. And we’ve used up our 3 alloted calamity days for the year (the Friday after my last LJ post was another snow day), so any we miss now, we make up at the end. That isn’t a big issue like it was last year. We don’t have to be out of the school building by a certain date. And we now have air conditioning. So I ain’t worried about that.

The wonderful coincidence about all of this is that it was February 1st or 2nd when I broke my arm 12 years ago – by slipping on the ice on my way into work. So I have no desire to go into work if there’s any ice on the ground. No sense celebrating the anniversary with a new break, eh? 😉

Anyhoo, for those of you also encountering this latest winter storm, or for those of you with other exciting weather issues, keep warm (or for you antipodeans, keep cool), keep safe, and try not to slip on the ice!

I Don’t Like Ike

Thankfully, I don’t live in an area that hurricanes visit. However, Ike sent some of its wind our way yesterday which has, apparently, made quite a mess of the country roads and caused power outages in places. So at 5:40am or so, our superintendent called to say we were on a two hour delay while they waited for enough light to assess the transportation issue. Within the hour, we received our second call – school is closed due to impassible roads and students & staff without power. (Most of the schools in the area are as well.) I’m grateful that I didn’t have any trees down and the power only fluctuated but never went off completely.

After the wind was done, we got a bit of rain too. But the rest of the day is supposed to be just cloudy. And the weather for the rest of the week looks perfect – sunny & in the lower 70s (°F). Mom and dad are heading to the Lake today – hopefully the nearly dead tree either survived the wind storm or fell towards the lake rather than on their cottage. They’ve promised to call if it’s the latter so I can share the burden of the worry & frustration.

So, Trina, what are you going to do with your unexpected day off? Work on college stuff, actually. And clean my kitchen. So my goal is to be productive today. Wish me luck on that! 🙂

Summer Festivals are Go!

Well, B-WISER is done and I think everyone had a great time. I know that I did. I love B-WISER week because at the end of it my jaws are sore from all of the laughing. We teachers know how to have a great time.

Saturday, I headed off to Mom & Dad’s place at the Lake to give dad the rest of his birthday present (he received the main part – an 8″ Calphalon chef’s knife the Saturday before his birthday). At the Toyrifix toy store near Wooster, I got us both metal spud guns. (I’d seen the plastic ones before, but this is the first time they’d had the olde fashioned metal ones.) He was pleased. 🙂

It was threatening rain that day, but we decided to go to the Country Festival in Maria Stein for lunch. It worked out quite nicely for us at first. It started raining a little as we made our way from the car to the first tent, but once we got into the dry, the rain ceased. It actually was nice festival weather – only little rain spurts and pleasant temperatures.

I started off with a caramel apple. Mom let me have a bite of her corn dog, too. I opted for a brat with kraut (and mustard and onion) and a few sips of dad’s cola. Then I got us some fries from another booth and managed to dump half a bottle of vinegar on it – whoops! Once I poured the extra vinegar off, the fries were pretty tasty. We decided to check out the craft booths before deciding on dessert.

I was dismayed to see the number of charlatans hocking magnets, hematite, and aromatherapy shit. But the magnet and hematite people gave me information fliers which I intend to debunk in my new science course this year. Yay! There were neat things to look at (and some dips and sauces to taste), but we all refrained from buying anything.

For dessert we went to a trailer selling funnel cakes, elephant ears, sugar waffles, and deep fried Oreos. Dad bought us a funnel cake and an order of deep fried Oreos (our first time for them). It was then that things got interesting weather-wise. From our side of the trailer we saw the rain come closer. The lady on the other side of the trailer zipped over to our side – she was wet before the rain got to our side. We managed to stay in the lee of the overhang from the trailer and didn’t get wet. One of the ladies working in the booth had to zip out to get the bubble gum dispenser and remove the hanging signs. She was nearly soaked when she got back in.

When we got our fried stuff, it was still raining hard, so we munched a bit while standing at the trailer (still nearly all dry) and chatted with the ladies working the booth. The funnel cake was the best we’d ever had (I suspect it’s because she got distracted by the oncoming storm and it fried longer than it should – heh). It was very crunchy and still chewy inside. The fried Oreos were not what I was expecting. They were soft, for one thing. And they were VERY tasty. Guess I’ll have to tried a fried Mars bar someday. 😉

The rain slowed enough to let us race to the car. We were quite surprised by how little rain had gotten on us. That trailer was just in the right place to shade us from the storm. We returned to the Lake where the rain eventually stopped and the sun came out to give us a very beautiful day at the Lake.

Supper was steak for me & mom, and sausage for dad. Plus green beans and potatoes. It was quite yummy. I took my requisite nap on the sofa as well. Then it was time to head home. After all, I had a date to watch episode 12 of Doctor Who with the girls. 🙂

Tomorrow I fly off to Chicago to stay at judiang‘s place. elsaf is also coming, so I know the three of us will have a blast.