It's Still Thursday

And is much, much quieter than last night!

Yesterday was interesting, to say the least.  The forecast was that there would be storms, the severity depended a great deal on how warm the day got.  It rained early in the day, and was cloudy most of the day so we were hopeful that it would be cool enough to avoid anything bad.  But it was warm enough to cause trouble.

Otter and her boyfriend had a date yesterday right after school, they went out for dinner and to a movie.  Since neither of them have a car, I was the designated transportation after their movie.  They got off the school bus at his stop and walked to the shopping center where the chinese buffet is and the theater is next door.  They had already asked me to pick them up, and it started raining while I was waiting for them.  We ran BF (Boyfriend will be referred to here as BF) to his house and then Otter and I got home fast because the forecast was getting bad.

We got home around 7:00 and turned on the tv.  And listened to reports of a storm with a well-defined wall cloud that was heading directly for us.  The sirens sounded as it hit the county edge, which is pretty far from us but I still appreciated the warning.  Even though it was still aways (yes aways is a word if you are Texan - we have our own language, remember) from us, it was still a potentially dangerous situation for anyone in the area it was crossing.  When it got closer, we went to the laundry room (our safe spot) and hunkered down.  Along with the beagle, who promptly curled up and went to sleep!  Not sure if the dog was smart enough to know it was turning away from us, or if she is just that dumb.  With Maggie, it could be either of the two.  Anyway, the wall cloud hooked off east so that it went well south of us.  Eventually.  It was a very close call, not close in the sense that it actually sprouted a tornado (although it tried to more than once) but close in the sense that if it had sprouted we would have been in an inordinate amount of danger.  After we got the all clear report, we emerged from the laundry room.  By this time, it was dark and the thunder & lightning part of the storm had gotten to us.  I happened to be looking out the back window at one point and actually saw the wall cloud illuminated by a lightning flash.  It was on it's way due east and we were out of the danger zone at that point, but they are still scary to see.  The entire episode took a couple of hours, more or less, as Froggy can attest because we were texting back and forth - she's the first part of my prayer line!  Then she had to get regular status updates from me.

Shortly after that, there was a report of unexpected rotation that was in our area, about 3 miles NW of us and we would have been in the direct line of fire on that one.  So, we headed back to the laundry room for a while.

The wall cloud eventually lost cohesion and dissolved, or whatever they do.  But it was a rough and tense evening for a lot of people.

We did get quite a bit of wind and rain.  This morning, we noticed that a small limb is off the tree to the side of the garage and Bill thinks that something might have been blown around one of the trees in the front because it looks like it had something wrapped around it at one point.

It was not a night I wish to repeat.  However, since we live in Tornado Alley...  (Yes, Dad I hear you).

On to other things.  Otter's last day of school is tomorrow.  The last day of school for the 11th graders is known as Junior Jam.  They will have food and fun, and she's looking forward to it.  But I think she's really looking forward to Monday.  She gets to have what she calls a Goof-Off Day.  She can sleep in and then she can spend all day doing whatever she feels like.  Then the summer job search starts in earnest, so she's going to try to enjoy every second of her Goof-Off Day.

I haven't had much crochet time this week.  Otter wants me to make her a dachshund, the pattern is in a book I have and looks fun.  I got started on it, I got the nose done but haven't had time to even think about touching it since Tuesday.  Last night, I had the time but not the inclination!  I'll probably get a lot done on it on Saturday.  It uses three different size hooks and they are all smaller than I like.  But the yarn is the standard size, so there is a little more precision involved in making the stitches.  But I love a challenge, and really enjoy doing something challenging involving crochet.  I'll post pictures of it on the craft blog, but it's probably going to take a while.  It is worked in several pieces and then sewn together.

Otter will probably have a movie review on here in the next day or so.  They saw the new Nightmare on Elm Street movie and she said it was good.  Bill wants to know how come (correct grammar for Texans) she won't watch Jaws or Aliens because they are scary and gory, but will go see a slasher movie?