Spring is in the Air!

And in Oklahoma, that frequently means one of two things.

1)  Pollen overload.  We've had that for a few weeks and it's been a really bad allergy year for me.  Otter's not too bad off, but I have been miserable quite often.

and sometimes we get this one:

2)  Tornados.  We have definitely had more than our share of them.  Just from last night's series of storms.  The forecasters had been saying for about a week that conditions were looking like it was very probably going to be one of those "bad" days that we get every few years.  Well, for once, they we right.  Wish that they were wrong!

It was rainy off and on yesterday but it never got quite as warm as it was supposed to.  That's what saved us from having to deal with the really bad stuff.  We didn't have too much rain in our area, just a lot of wind but not much else.  There was rain, but it wasn't heavy or constant.  The wind was pretty strong, but we have had stronger winds.  We had the tv on, we have lived in Tornado Alley long enough to know that we need to be listening at certain times.  We went about our normal evening, dinner & misc. stuff.  But then we started to hear the first warnings and we pretty much stayed in front of the tv all evening, we were in the living room while Bill was working on a pachinko he's refurbishing.  We could tell early on that we were going to be ok, although we expected more thunder than we actually got.  (We did hear a tree frog at the height of the rain!). But it was pretty bad, north into Kansas was not good but the worst part was east from Oklahoma City (Norman was hit particularly hard) to south & southeast of us (Henryetta area).  We started seeing reports of damage and probable loss of lfe almost immediately and it just got worse and worse.  I have seen some of the reports today, there were probably 5 deaths attributed to the storms.  It could have been much worse.  The property damage from something like that is tremendous.  It's hard to describe the total devastation a tornado can cause.  We came through Oklahoma City just a couple of days after the May 3, 1999 storms and unless you've seen it, it is impossible to find words for it.  No word yet on the EF scale strength of the tornados (there were many, probably over 30 total in the state) but I won't be surprised if at least a few of them are big ones.

OK, subject change!

I realized yesterday that I don't have any crochet projects waiting on me.  That almost never happens!  I have Bill's blanket, but it's an ongoing project since it's using up ends & pieces of yarn (and I don't have any at the moment).  But I don't have anything else started!  I'll have to see about changing that.  I have a couple of planned projects, but none that are actually started.  And the planned projects are all small things.

Toadles:  Froggy and I have a project.  You've already seen the first part of it - the Liberty Falls Chicken Ranch.  But now we are on to something else.  Be afraid, bro.  Be afraid!

Otter has 1 1/2 weeks left of school.  Then she's got the entire summer before her.  She's planning on getting a job.  She'll have enough to keep her busy, if she can't find a job (which is a possibility with the general belief that we have a bad economy - which we don't believe, by the way), we'll find plenty for her to do!  I'm sure she won't mind.  :)

I went to three thrift stores today.  And didn't find anything at any of them!  I'm looking for something for Bill.  Which I think I saw Sunday but that was before he decided he needed it.  So I'm thrifting with a purpose now.  Well, I generally already am.

We had tacos, nuclear rice & refried beans for dinner tonight.  And I finally got the whack-a-mole made that was originally on Sunday's menu.  Tamales & chili Sunday, and now tacos.  I think that maybe I'm on a Mexican food kick.  Well, I frequently am!

It's good.  I'm from south TEXAS.  It's natural.