Rainy Day Here To Stay

Welcome to fall, the season of rain. Cold rain. Here in Maine, in terms of precipitation, we have the season of snow, followed by the season of light warm rain and mud, and then the season of storms, and finally the season of cold hard rain.

It certainly is feeling quite fall-like at this time. There's a definite chill in the air, a crisp edge to the wind and the cold soaking feeling of the rain. None the less, I love fall. LOVE. IT. I enjoy these rainy days, I like curling up with a blanket and a steaming cup of cocoa while the rain pours down. In fact, that's what I would LIKE to be doing right now, but t will still be quite a few hours before that will happen. About 3 and a half actually. Instead I'm sitting in my chem offlab (otherwise known as my very infrequent study hall) typing up this post and freezing because this school is so darn temperamental in its temperature. When it's hot outside, it's scorching inside, when it's cold outside, it's like an igloo inside. 

I really just want to go home.

Really.

This study hall is stupid.

And boring.

Get.

Me.

Out.

Of.

Here.

Please?

My other classes this morning were not so bad. Real Life was OK, and APUSH was actually really good and fun! I am liking the class a LOT more than I thought I would. French will be tedious as my last block, and this study hall is torturous. 

Hate study hall. Hate it. 

You know what? This post was supposed to be about loving fall, and rainy days and it turned into a tirade against study hall.

I apologize. 

But maybe I should just end this post, and wish a was at home with some hot chocolate and stop boring you to death?

That sounds good....

Irene

Yesterday was an interesting day because of the hurricane, and as you can tell, we made it through OK, because here I am typing out this post :)

It actually wasn't too bad here all things considered. For one, it really didn't rain much at all. There were some spurts with heavy rain, and a lot of light showers, but the brook didn't flood and the marsh didn't flood, and the little hill that my house sits on didn't become an island, so that was good. It WAS really windy though! I was glad that we had moved all of the porch furniture and the badminton net and stuff because if they had been out there....they would be gone. It was actually pretty cool and a bit scary to see the trees across the street wave and bend, and our weeping willow became much more like a whipping willow if you ask me. Also a lot of people around us lost power but ours just flickered several times but didn't go out for more than 30 seconds. I guess we were lucky!

My mom and I were able to make it up to church in the morning which was nice, although there were NOT a lot of people there at all! No more than thirty, and that's streching it. Our church was actually one of the only ones that stayed open too.

I got another good chunk of homework done, just a little bit left for today and tomorrow...

And my friend Lucy decided to have a hurricane party with me and our friends Anna and Mackenzie. We ate a lot of junk food, especially brownies and doritos, and because we're marching band geeks we watched National Treasure. It was really entertaining even though I've seen it a couple times before because Lucy was talking the whole time, Anna was like "Shut up Lucy I've never seen this movie before and I wanna watch it" and Mackenzie and I payed close attention to the music and shouted things like 'OOOH!!!! That's like measure twenty-five in our opener!!!' Oh what marching band geeks we are...

Anyway, it was a pretty fun day all in all, and it is beautiful out today which means we'll be able to have rehearsal outdoors as planned- which is good.

How did those of you also in Irene's path fare?

Hello Baseball, I See You've Taken Over My Life

Goodness gracious there seems to be a lot of baseball action going on around here lately!

Which is why I suppose, if it seems to be taking over my life, I should do a little post about it.

I guess we all like baseball in this family.

I played softball for several years.

My brother has played on several teams throughout his life.

My mom has come and cheered on every game.

My dad has coached teams of both me and my brother.

We all love the Red Sox and our AA team the Sea Dogs.

Yeah, we like baseball.

And yes, it seems to be taking over my life at the moment.

Over here at least, we're quite happy that the Sox have turned things around and have been pretty much demolishing the other team in the majority of games that they play which is pretty awesome. Turning on the TV to watch the game can be pretty fun.

My brother, X, has always played baseball at some level, and yesterday was his Little League championship game which was very exciting! X pitched the whole game and his team won the game and the championship with a score of 4-0. He had a good pitching outing and also got a wicked hit, a double, and ended up stealing third and scoring the first run on the next hit. Go team!

Today, although Father's Day, (Yay to all the dads out there!) is also baseball-infused. X has two games for his AAU team and my little adorable cousin, Sammy, has been playing t-ball this year and we're going to go to his game too, which is sure to be adorable.

Plus to add on top of all the baseball craziness, X also is starting on his all-star team! The baseball season seems to never end....

Yesterday we also had some excitement in the form of an early evening thunderstorm. It was kinda weird because while it was a large, severe storm, the sky never did get really dark. It was pretty intense though, because there was so much hail! Seriously, the hail just kept on coming, and coming, and coming. And it was pretty big too. Some pieces were quarter size and most were 1/2 to 3/4 of that.

Finally, I go for my driver's permit tomorrow! Wish me luck! :)

Um...Tornado?

Once upon a time I was obsessed with the weather.

I wanted to be a meteorologist when I grew up.

This no longer really appeals to me, but I do still check the weather often because it does change so rapidly around here. I'm always on the hour-by-hour forecast, especially in the winter when I'm trying to figure out whether I actually need to do my homework because the next day might be a snow day.

I use it all year round too though and I find it really helpful. 

In the summer I'm frequently checking the thunderstorm forecast map, and the severe alerts map, and sometimes the doppler radar, although not as much.

This morning, I heard there where going to be some thunderstorms tonight, and sure enough the hour by hour and thunderstorm map told me as such.

I was excited because I happen to enjoy these storms very much, although not the really really bad ones. 

I was sad today in English when we heard thunder, but the storm didn't actually come.

Anyway, so I was it a good mood through school, la-dee-da, I went to driver's ed, then went to my trumpet lesson, no storm yet, la-dee-da, and got home and sat down at the computer and checked weather.com. 

Hour-by-hour said thunderstorms.

It also said that I had a severe alert in my area. Thinking it was about the thunderstorm, I ignored it.

I checked the thunderstorm map.

OK, so severe thunderstorms. Alright, I can deal with that. Thunderstorms, no problem.

Next, I clicked the next bookmark on my nav bar to go to the severe alerts map.

OK weather.com, here's where we come to the problem. Those bright red rectangles there? Those are very scary rectangles.

They mean tornadoes.

And I don't like tornadoes at all.

I used to think they were really cool and awesome and still terrifying, but now they're just terrifying.

Long story short....I almost got run over by one at an amusement park on a band camp field trip last summer. Really scary. Pretty much something out of one of my nightmares. I do tend to have a lot of nightmares about tornadoes......and I'm always in the car and they just keep appearing everywhere and coming towards me....I can vividly picture about five different tornado dreams/nightmares. Eep. Anyhoo...the point here.

Thunderstorms. No tornadoes, k?

*UPDATE* no tornadoes yesterday....but we're still under tornado watch for today

March Through The Sun

Today? Uh....BRUTAL.

I woke up and honestly, the fact that I showered really didn't mean much after the parade.

Right away I checked the hour by hour forecast online, and learned that it was extremely humid, and also in the high 70's-mid 80's.

Now in middle school, these temperatures are uncomfortable when you're in uniform, but it's ok to deal with. Middle school uniform is only jeans and the band t-shirt, you see. I honestly got a little annoyed when I heard middle schoolers complaining about the heat and having to wear full length jeans.

I mean REALLY? Did they not see what the high school marching band was wearing? 

I don't have any pics from today yet, but I was able to grab one from the fall when we were lining up for our formal photo so you can see what our uniforms sorta are like. 

^^Seriously only like 2 of six rows of the band. And of course I'm in front. Because I'm short. I'm the fourth one in the right in the front row in fact.

So, as you can see, our uniforms consist of black bib pants, black marching shoes, black gloves, heavy formal jackets, and Aussie hats with plumes, although we went without the plumes today. :'(
Only our faces show, which means during the cold shows in the fall, we're kept nice and toasty. Today, we were too toasty. Way too toasty.

We were in uniform at eight this morning, and did warm-ups and block before going to the beginning of the parade where we just waited around and roasted for a bit before step-off at ten-thirty. I had already begun to overheat and the sun was still hiding behind some clouds!
Of course, right at step-off the sun decided to show its bright shining face and make the temperature spike yet again.
This of course made the whole of the rather long parade route almost unbearable in our stifling uniforms.
Sticky, sweaty, gross, you have NO IDEA how relieved I was at the end of the parade to be able to strip off my jacket, and pull off my gloves and hat. Felt soooo good.
Now I know why they wait to collect and clean the uniforms until AFTER Memorial Day....

Anyway, after the parade I also had my first driver's ed class which was good! It's back to school tomorrow which I'm not that excited about, but I'll deal with it. It's the home stretch after all!

Feels Like Summer

It is a really good feeling when it feels like summer, and there are always these little signs that make me switch my mind from spring into full-blown summer mode. Sometimes this can be a bit of a problem when it starts feeling like summer in March and there's still several months of school left. Not good. 

It feels like summer because I know that school will soon be over. Teachers are talking about finals pretty much every class, my SAT is a week from today, senior graduation is also in a week, we've had our final concert (it went really well!), we've hit our last long weekend, and teachers are starting to tell us we need to start studying for our final. It also makes me really really happy that I shouldn't have to have some of my teachers ever again. Which is good.

It also feels like summer because of what I'm wearing. I'm routinely walking around in flip flops, skinny jeans with the bottoms rolled up and cute summer tops. Light and floaty and summer-y. Awesome.

I think that the biggest indicator for me though, is that heavenly summer smell that drifts through my window. You know....the one that smells like grass and sun and wind and dirt and grills and amazingness? It is probably my most favorite smell. Just beautiful.

What makes you feel like it's summer?

A Depressing Forecast

Well, I don't know about where all of you guys live, but the weather forecast around here is pretty much depressing. 

In other words, it's rained since last Saturday.

On

and

on

and

on.

It refuses to let up.

So today in biology, I had a free moment, so I looked up the most recent forecast, which said that it was going to be raining through Saturday.

And then Sunday and Monday, it's supposed to be quite nice and sunny. High 50ºs, mid 60ºs, going to be some good normal May in Maine weather, which is awesome after all this rain.

Except for the fact that after Monday,

it's

going

to

rain

for 

another

whole

week.

Honestly? This is just sad.

I'm working wicked hard in school right now, studying hard for the SAT, practicing a bunch of audition and performance pieces, and it's not even nice out to distract me and take my mind off of quadratic equations and meiosis/mitosis, and circle theorems and immune system structure and function.....

And I know distraction is usually viewed as a bad thing....but.....I really wouldn't mind some right now.

Signs That Spring Has Sprung

Ahh spring. Though it's gray and dreary out right now, the signs are all around that spring, if not sprung yet, is certainly in the midst of springing.

One sign is that it's RAINING. Not snowing, not sleeting, it's raining.

Honest to goodness, lovely unfrozen droplets, falling from the heavens,

melting the gross, dirt-encrusted, black, grimy, slushy, wet, snow.

These first few weeks of spring are when I am most happy to see the rains come. It's poured for a day already and I could't be happier about the weather. BUT, as I told my parents, I will love and embrace the rain until the snow is all gone. After that however, it is only allowed to rain at night, or once a week during the day. 

But of course, if it's raining, it means that the temperature is rising and must now be above 32º. YAY. It's  been 3 months plus of coldcoldcoldcoldcold. It's about time for some heat! The past two days, the temperature has actually gotten above forty. Awesomeness. Warmer weather, in turn, comes with a new spring fashion. It still means I'm wearing jeans (not warm enough for shorts yet!) but they are accompanied by light weight, brightly colored, short-sleeve or three-quarter length shirts instead of my winter garb. Who knows? I may even pull my hair back, or put a nice head band in.  And best of all- FLIP FLOPS.

For example, in the winter, an example of my usual attire would be this:

Dark washed jeans, purple and black plaid converse, long socks, and a tight black sweater. Silver treble clef earrings and necklace, hair worn down. Always down.

Today, for example,

Jeans, a medium washed pair, blue flip flops, a white knit short-sleeved v-neck, silver earrings, and my hair is going up as soon as I finish this post and take a moment to pull it back.

The air is warm and wet, the birds are singing, I'm wearing flip flops and life is good.

March Musings

Yo peeps. LOL, I guess I'm feeling a little gangster (or 'gangstah' if you want to say it the way we Mainers do) Must be the new shirt I'm wearing...kinda gangster, grunge-like. Or maybe I just really wanted to start my post with 'Yo peeps'. I dunno.

Anyway, some musings on MARCH.

March is our 3rd month (duh), but in the time of the Roman empire, March, or what they called it, Martius, in celebration of their god, Mars. Just a little fun fact for ya :)

So now that it's March, I am so ready for the snow to disappear. That would be fantastic. I want it to get warmer and sunnier, and have the birds singing, the grass to grow, and for the early spring flowers to pop up from underground.

I'm tired of the snow....so I'm desperate for winter to end and not go on into APRIL as it has in the past. Seriously, a few years ago we got little snow during the winter, it was pretty mild, we got through March, it seemed like spring had sprung....

and out of nowhere, in the middle of April, we had two huge blizzards.

That wasn't a lot of fun, especially when we thought winter was gone.

This winter though has been pretty chilly and we've gotten a bunch of snow. The band room has been absolutely FREEZING since, like, November because the heat didn't turn on.

It was literally 51º (F) in there yesterday! Brrr! So cold, I had to use my plastic mouthpiece.

And then today, March first, what do they do?

THEY ACTUALLY TURN ON THE HEAT.

And once the heat is on, it's quite nice in the band room, actually. 70º (F) this morning to be exact. It was quite nice! My only question is....why couldn't they have just turned the heat on last December?

So that's March so far....I always find it a long, and often boring month, so I sure hope it goes fast!

SnowDays

SNOW•DAY (n) 

1. A day you get out of school because of excessive amounts of snow.

Ex: I was really happy because today was a snowday.

As mentioned previously, we get a lot of snow up here (usually) during the winter. Just happens to be one of the perks of living here. (Although SHOVELING the snow is not an added bonus.)

Unfortunately, these past couple of years, though we've had good snow, it's come at un-opportune time.

On weekends,

Vacations,

During the day,

During the night....but stopping well before dawn....

We haven't had our share of good 'ole snow days, lately. 

I used to hate snow days. Now I love them.

Something about them makes you want to squeal with excitement and act like a little kid again.

Which is fun...I mean, when you have a snow day, you just HAVE to follow:

The Snow Day List

1. Squeal with excitement when you wake up and see lots of snow on the ground, and realize your parents turned you alarm clock off 'cause there's no school.

2. Don't go back to sleep but run around the house a couple times.

3. Eat breakfast slowly while playing video games with your brother.

4. After getting mad at your brother for always beating you, take your time and read the comics.

5. Beg and plead your parents to let you have a friend over- they always relent in the end.

6. When said friend is over, challenge your brother and his friend to some sort of competition whether it be on the Wii or a ping-pong challenge, etc.

7. Declare you will most certainly win, if you do, rub it in his face, if you don't, stick your tongue out at him. 

8. Eat something warm and yummy for lunch, like mac'n'cheese. 

9. Make popcorn for you and your friend and go upstairs to watch a movie.

10. After the movie, go downstairs and go outside to play. Say that your brother and his friend are welcome to join you, but hope that they won't.

11. Go outside and pelt each other with snowballs.

12. When your brother and his friend finally DO follow you outside, say your cold and go back inside. You don't want to have your face continuously pushed into a snowbank.

13. Make hot chocolate, and drink it quickly before your friend has to go home.

14. After she leaves go upstairs and blog about your awesome day so far.

15. Your shirt's still wet from outside so you take a warm shower and your mom yells at you for using up too much hot water.

16. Curl up by the fireplace with a good book, something that never gets tiring. Like Harry Potter.

17. Eat a nice warming dinner, preferably your favorite soup. 

18. Play games like Apples to Apples with your family.

19. When your parents say it's time for bed because you've had a busy day and you have school tomorrow, complain.

20. Go to bed and wish for tomorrow to be a snow day so you can do it all over again.

Yep :)

  

 

Can You Spell Blizzard?

BLIZZARD OF CHRISTMAS 2010

Breathtakingly beautiful,
Limits of its power? There are none.
Incredible, in every aspect.
Zealous in wreaking havoc to those it strikes,
Zapping its victims with wind, ice and snow.
Awesome, amazing, and astonishing.
Raw, brutal storm.
Dangerous and sometimes deadly.

The Blizzard Is A'Coming

First, I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! I know I did. 

Now, we're getting ready for a doozy of a storm. Some of you living in New Jersey or the Carolinas may know what I'm talking about because this particular storm has probably already hit you.

Not snowstorm. Not flurries.

A good 'ole fashioned nor'easter.

BLIZZARD.

 Yesterday that said heavy snow with wind. Now, it says blizzard.

When this is yellow, it means severe, but not too bad. Orange is like medium. RED IS BAD.

And just look at this! They're expecting 10-16" of snow....guess Hannah Marie and I will be able to play out in the snow this week like we've hoping. If you live on the East Coast, why not share your story of this storm in a comment? It's sure to be a good one!

Snow Love

Obviously....all I had to do was write a post about how sad I was that we didn't have any snow, and the forecast changed again! Now it's predicting snow from 4pm today RIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY! And not just flurries either, but plain 'ole snow. I may just get out of that bio test after all ;)

I had finished some history homework and was chatting on gmail with some friends from band camp. During a pause in the conversation I checked my facebook for updates and the first post in my newsfeed was I status that one of my friends had posted that simply read 'SNOW!'. Reading that, I threw up my window shades and there it was coating the ground, and coming down hard from the sky. Blessed, beautiful snow. Oh how I love thee. Quickly, I shut my laptop, raced downstairs, jumped into some snow boots, pulled on my pea coat, grabbed my camera and I was out the door. I actually got some shots that I'm pretty pleased with. Hope you like them!

Crunch.

The lights look so pretty in the semi darkness in the snow fall.

Especially our lovely dove of peace!

The bird house is slowly covered in snow.

Snow clings to another feeder and holiday lights create pretty bokeh in the background.

Simple snowy landscape.

My favorite one of all, this one is being entered into Horsefeathers' Words for Snow contest, because my favorite part about snow is how pretty it looks covering the lights :)

Still Dreaming Of That White Christmas

"I'm....dreaming of a white Christmas. Just like the ones I used to know...."

But all I'm doing is dreaming, because I'm thinking that it's doubtful to happen. Last week, the forecast predicted a huge snowstorm coming our way last night, simply *dumping* snow upon snow on us all through the night, Monday, AND Tuesday. I was even hoping (and thinking it was even possible) for a double snow day because if both Monday and Tuesday were canceled, well, our biology test would be have to be pushed until after vacation which would have made everyone taking that class very very happy indeed. And even if that didn't happen, we were sure to get Monday (today) off, right? With that much snow? Certainly.

Certainly NOT that is. And that is why I am sitting in my first block study hall typing this post instead of curling up by the fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate at home. But why? Well, the forecast changed!

Yeah, we may get flurries, but they'll just melt...not add up. Ugh. Monday blues would have been avoided if school was canceled. And do we have a chance of that white Christmas? Maybe I guess. I suppose the forecast could always just.....change again ;)

Blown Away

Yesterday was totally awesome! Yes, maybe that statement was totally cliché, but it's true! After our weekend off last week, the marching band was back at it yesterday, ready for the second half of the season. However, it was more than a little chilly, and the wind was going crazy! During practice I felt so bad for our drum major because it looked like he was going to fly right off the podium! There were times too, when I would be trying to march and the wind would suddenly have a particularly strong gust and I would feel myself get pushed back and forth and nearly toppled.

By the time the show started, the wind still hadn't died down and was blowing as forcefully as ever! Part of our uniform are these great black aussie hats that we stick towering black plumes into. They look amazing. However, because of the wind, there was a lot of plume carnage lying around at the end of our show! There was also a judge who picked up the fallen plumes and was totally waving them in our faces as if to say 'Is this yours?', WHILE we were performing! Luckily, my plume did not fly away, but stayed where it was supposed to on my hat.

Our performance itself was also quite spectacular. We had added in a vocal soloists, some new guard routines, a choreographed visual in the ballad, and some thinning in the beginning and we nailed all of it! I was very happy with the performance, and apparently the judges were too, because they gave us all fours. Yay us. (The staff will let us live.....)

After retreat we headed back home, but once we got back to the school we were off again! Pretty much all of the band members went to the nearest Friendly's, where we had a great time. I sat with five other good friends and we had a blast! It began when the waitress brought us our menus and my friend Kaylie asked if we could please have the kids menus. Yep. That's us. High schoolers eating off of the Friendly's kids menus. Good times. Other funny moments were when we got our bill and were trying to figure out how much each of our meals cost and the tip, etc. Harel, being the math loving kid that he is whipped out his phone and calculated the tip, while all the rest of us were trying to divide in our heads. It was pretty epic, plus just the fact that we were out at Friendly's at almost midnight just makes it fairly entertaining by itself.

It was such a fun night and I'm so excited for our two remaining shows in the 2010 season!!!

Chill

Brrr! I cannot believe that when marching band started I was complaining of the 102º weather! Well, I can....because 102º is rather hot....but that's not the point. The point is, those last few weeks of marching band are more than a little chilly.

And it doesn't help that we practice at night. When it's colder. Really, it's quite funny watching all of us do our little penguin waddles across the field because we have so many layers on! 

My protocol? As many layers as will fit on my body. Often, it's a lot like what I'd wear skiing!

It goes somewhat like this:

UnderArmour shirt

Regular t-shirt

Riot sweatshirt

Marching band jacket

Long john bottoms

Gap sweatpants

Thick socks

Plaid converse

The thickest gloves I can wear and still be able to play trumpet in

A nice warm hat

And of course, drill book and trumpet, complete with plastic mouthpiece.

You've got all that and you turn into a regular trumpet-playing penguin. Like I said, quite funny really. 

And the best part? Our two minute breaks every hour when we can grab some hot chocolate (Thanks music boosters!) and warm up a little.

I just have one quandary with all of this. How are we going to accomplish the choreographed visual for the ballad which requires ease of movement if we're all fat 'ole penguins?

Hello Fall

Happy Autumnal Equinox everybody! (I said that to everybody in school today and they're all like 'Autumna-whata?') In other words, it's the first real day of fall! This makes Cornet Crazie happy. *psycho look* Now this is the really ironic thing: it's been like real fall weather the past few days. Sixties, mild, windy. very cool, very fall. And then there's today, the equinox, and it's EIGHTY degrees outside. Crazy!
Anyway, here's an update of what I've been doing:

I have my first tests tomorrow

I've had a couple French quizzes already, and a math quiz every day, but my first real tests or tomorrow in honors bio and geometry. I've been studying a lot so I think I'm ready.

We have a full marching band show

At practice on Monday we finished our show! (it wasn't complete before) We did a run-through of the whole production at the end and it was AWESOME. I can't wait for this week's show, which is a three hour drive away!

I'm running for Class Vice President

The winner will be announced on Friday morning and I'm really excited!!!!

Ahh....I love fall. It makes me happy :)

Plus I'm liking this fall better then last year's so far. Remember last year? Asthma attacks, balancing field hockey and marching band, not great teachers, swine flu...

And there's only a couple months until it'll have been one year since I got my pro horn.

Now that's something to be happy about :)

School... {a random post}

Yawn. You know what you guys? It is FREEZING cold here.

So maybe, 61º really isn't all that bad, but after a summer where days in the 90's were frequent, it's more then chilly. I *thought* I had dressed for the weather this morning when I put on jeans, a nice long-sleeved shirt, long socks and my converse, but I was so cold in all of my classes! Bella seemed to be quite cold as well, but Elránia...good grief. She was in a tank top and capris, and was complaining of the heat! 

The school day seemed to go slowly because of the cold too. Study hall was very long and boring (and there was a window open too!), in English we did a bunch of stuff (but there was still an open window) and then I met up with Bella and Elránia in French and rounded off the day with (:P) Geometry. After school I went to a meeting for our school newspaper, and guess what! I'm gonna be a photographer! I'm really excited, this should be really fun.

Other news I guess is that our first marching band show is on Saturday! I'm really happy, I've been waiting for so long it seems like. So I thought you might want to hear what the original music sounds like- and now imagine it in marching band style. It's pretty sweet. (These are actually it the order of the show.

THE MUSIC OF PAT METHENY

2010 Marching Band

1st half of opener: Have You Heard

2nd half of opener: See The World

Ballad: The Dream Of The Return

1st half of closer: It's Just Talk

(Drum Solo)

2nd half of closer: Minuano

Wind

And blustery it is indeed! The wind is whistling and blowing and is quite cold here at the campground. We went up to the pool where it was just a calm breeze and nice and warm, but me and my dad and aunt came back here to get the sailboat ready, but the way it looks now, it's too windy for a safe sail on our 17 footer. It's days like today that if we went out on the water, we'd want to rechristen our boat 'Scream' instead of 'Whisper'. It's an ongoing joke in the family.

But this windy, windy day also reminds me of a class for confirmation where we spoke about metaphors for God. And the one I liked best was God as wind, because the wind is ALWAYS there. Even when we can't feel it. And isn't that how you want to think of God? Always there, always present?

One thing's for sure if we take this to be true.

God is very, very, present with me today. ;)

Meeting Earl

They say that Earl could be here any time between now and 4:30. In fact, looking out my bedroom window, I can see that he'll be here sooner rather then later. But Earl isn't a family friend, or someone I'm meeting for the first time. Earl is...a hurricane. And soon enough, we'll meet. Right now, this is what Earl is tracking as:

Still a hurricane when he hits us, not a tropical storm. 80mph winds. 80mph. That's windy!

It was all the talk at school yesterday. "Earl's coming." "Hurricane coming tomorrow!" "We won't have to evacuate, will we?"

But then again, we've known we might be hit for a while now.

We've known it's a fairly big storm, with a clear eye, or center. And if you don't know what a clear eye means, just check out this quote.

Sure, we are talking about Hurricane Andrew here in this quote, not Earl, and Earl is really no comparison to Andrew. But the eye is clear. It is still a serious storm.

But this is all in the past week. THIS is today.

"Hurricane Earl skirted North Carolina’s Outer Banks, with the eye of the storm staying 50 miles offshore. However, the Outer Banks were still hit hard by flooding and hurricane force winds.  Some local highways were closed, scattered power outages reported, and at least 400 people spent the night in shelters.

Now, Earl is moving towards New England.  Millions more people could be affected by this storm."

The hurricane is coming, that's for sure. The wind has been picking up just as I type this. We can expect Earl, very, very soon.