The Howling Wind

By the time I left work yesterday, the weather had turned quite nasty thanks to Ivan. The rain was pouring in buckets, and the wind gusts had picked up to about 35 mph. That made for an interesting trip home. I had to go a lot slower, because my tires are a bit on the worn side, and my car has the tendency to want to hydroplane. Of course, knowing my luck, I had to stop by the grocery and the gas station. By the time I finally got home, I was soaked clean through. What good is an umbrella in 35 mph winds? Nada...I found that out. Anyway, I finally made it home, and Casey cooked a great quick dinner for us. I managed to catch the 2nd episode of Joey last night, and it was better than last week's. I sure hope that it does well this season. After that is when the fun started. Casey and I discovered several months ago that we had a small leak in our kitchen. Nothing major, and it was only bothersome if it was raining really, really hard or the wind was up. Well, last night certainly fit that bill. Our small leak became a HUGE one in short order. We started out catching the water with a typical mop bucket. To our horror, we soon discovered that we were emptying it about every 25 min. We switched to a 5 gallon bucket. Overnight, I ended up emptying that 5 gallon bucket 4 times. That's how much rain we had. Nearly 20 gallons of water poured through my kitchen ceiling last night. We put the 5 gallon bucket out at 7:30 p.m. I emptied it around 9:00 p.m. Then I emptied it again right before bed at 11:30 p.m. (Yes, I did finally sleep and like the dead too!). I got up again at 1:30 a.m. and emptied a nearly overflowing bucket. Finally this morning, I emptied it once again at 5:30 a.m. At least I got my workout throughout the night!! SHEESH! And the wind....the wind was horrible. It got higher and higher throughout the night. I know it's NOTHING compared to what the folks in Alabama and Florida endured, but it was pretty bad weather for our area. You could hear debris flying through the air and hitting the sides of the house. Rain was blowing down, past the flue into my chimney because of the wind. Over at my Mom's, it ripped her wooden arbor in half and tossed it across the yard. Garbage cans were everywhere this morning, and a lot of Murfreesboro was without power. That's all I'd like of that for a long time. Fortunately, everyone is safe and all is well this morning. It could have been a lot worse, and thankfully there were no tornadoes or storms accompaning the wind and rain. I just have a lot of yard cleanup to do over the weekend.

Not much else going on today. I'm just glad that it's Friday. I'm looking forward to my weekend plans. Mom and I are planning on attending the dog show on Sunday. Monday will be pretty much dedicated to taking her back to Nashville to see her specialist. I'm nervous for her, and neither of us know quite what to expect. I'll just hope for the best. I'll be updating the photoblog shortly, so everyone feel free to have a look. Everyone have a great day! TAH!