Year-End Summary

I keep having plans to post all kinds of pictures and stuff and never having the time or energy to do it.  So here's a rundown to remind myself of what I should write about in the nebulous future.

This year:

• My foot got a Dx (tarsal tunnel syndrome), and with some $$$ and medical care that has gotten better enough that I'm spending more time walking/standing and the old pain on the bottoms of both feet came back,
• The doc says that pain is tendinitis, or at least I think he said that, and we're trying various things to fix that too.  The meds make me loopy at night, but at least it's at night.
• My jewelry business has seen a downturn - every convention and show is different, and they change stuff all the time, and there are a multitude of factors that are beyond my control.
• I'm making some money for groceries by doing lawn and yard work for friends.
• I've picked up a part-time job doing wordpress and such for two ladies who want someone to handle their business website while they do all the businessy things.  The hours are completely unpredictable, but this job is the first I can really put on a resume since college.  And it's work from home.  So, yay.
• I dug a new flower bed and threw every wildflower seed I had collected over the past two years into it.  And planted some of the Dotter irises there too.
• I learned that Granddad's cherry tomatoes are indeterminate and will grow and produce best when planted in the ground and allowed to vine wherever they wish, instead of keeping them in pots (pots works great for determinate Early Girls down in CenTex) or caging them up.
• Other stuff that I need to think about before I put any of it here.

The ice storm is doing its thing.  Our power is still on but it flickers a lot and has blipped once.  We're trying to feed the birds - several websites suggested that peanuts, peanut butter, rolled oats, dried fruit, and raw apples would be appreciated.  Not sure if the birds like that yet, as it got dark too soon after we put it out, but we didn't have any seed.  We'll see if someone eats it tomorrow.  The birds have a water source here, at least, as the pond pump is still on and they can drink from the waterfall or the top of the filter.

Saw someone sledding, country style:

Still Afloat

The weather adventures have been accumulating.  About a week ago, I was at a convention in Houston - could not have happened at a better time, as there is now flooding, and yet another part of a system has parked itself over the middle of town.

While I was there with a friend, I woke up at 7:15 to find my phone saying, "Tornado warning in your area!  Take shelter now!  This warning expires at 6:45."  The tors are really small down here, with a few exceptions.  This one apparently passed about 4 miles away from our hotel, a short-lived F1.  I must commend the hotel staff for not waking up every guest just because we were in a warning polygon for a small tor.  I really needed that extra hour of sleep.

Also at the con, I noted a tor warning over my neighborhood at home.  I called to verify my housemates were safe. Luckily it missed our neighborhood by a good 10-15 miles, and was likewise small.  I have seen pics of the flooding in Austin, but haven't seen any of it with my own eyes yet.  Our house is on a hill, so no worries there.

Then we drove home from the con through the next line of storms - my friend described it as "harrowing," but then she had grown up in the Great White North.  I found the drive quite pleasant, as there was almost no hail, and we had the road mostly to ourselves - in a driving downpour, the biggest hazards are differences in speed between you and other vehicles. The wind wasn't even all that bad - didn't really feel like I was fighting it much.  Visibility did get so crappy that I elected to pull over for about 10 minutes, though.  Nice to hear the thunder.

Upon making it to a travel stop midway, I stopped to talk to a motorcyclist, who told me that my main route into Austin was closed.  It's not like northwestern Oklahoma down here, where the road network has very few coverage gaps.  There are pretty much two ways into Austin from the east, and that's it.  We took the only other detour available to us, and by the time we made it mostly home, the closures on that one due to accidents / flooding had cleared.

Found out later that a small dam in a state park pond had failed, causing the highway on our original route to flood.

Two nights ago, another line went through.  I was standing on the front porch when a turquoise flash lit up the entire sky - followed by a loud, low note like a tuba, then a crack - a transformer had blown.  A few minutes later, another one went.  Really cool sound.

Dad's fine; another one passing NW of Fairview

Circulation passing NW of Fairview, moving NE.  One spun up by Elk City about half an hour, 45 minutes ago, but disorganized enough that it passed right over my dad.

More severe weather on the way for western OK today

So far there's a line of stuff still in the TX panhandle, though not for much longer - moving pretty quick, will be in OK shortly.  The line had an inflow notch and some circulation just north of I-40, moving northeast, but is no longer tornado warned. Looks like two unconfirmed tornado reports from further WSW into the TX panhandle.

There are some discrete cells further south near Childress - as in, separate storms, some of which have or are attaining supercell shape - the pointy, more intense southwest end and the fan-shaped, more diffuse northeast end.  Tornadoes form at the southwest end.  A few of these are currently severe-warned with hail cores.  Discrete supercells are typically the source of the more dangerous tornadoes.  In the past 15 minutes, more discrete cells have popped up behind the line, further north around I-40.

Be safe.

Update: Friday just got upgraded to Moderate Risk too

See previous post.  Friday and Saturday are both likely to be more severe than Wednesday was.

Severe weather possible today, tomorrow, and Saturday especially

Today is middling, tomorrow a little worse, and the NWS has issued a Moderate Risk convective outlook for Saturday over a good chunk of Oklahoma:

The only category higher than moderate is 'high'.  This is two days out, and it could change (get better, worse, and/or the areas affected could shift).  Keep an eye on radar and on the news / NWS radio.

Tornado-warned storm just went between Okeene and Fairview

No spotter on the ground, so no idea if it actually produced a tornado or not.  If it did, it was likely small, because the storm looks pretty disorganized on radar, but it's starting to organize a bit more now as it continues to move northeast.

There's another one barreling up I-44 towards the OKC metro area.

Update:  that one went between Norman and Moore and was fairly weak by the time it crossed 35, fortunately.  But there are two more storms in the queue.

Also, another one is crossing Canton lake and heading towards Fairview, but it looks to be weakening.

Not quite done

I've done 5 events in the past 6 weeks, and have another one this weekend.  Bank account is nice and fat, but it had better be, because remaining in this entire year I only have another 5 normal-sized events and one small one.  I'm exhausted; foot frikking hurts (this after four events and cortisone shot #2, courtesy of my doctor friend in Florida, which did not hurt as much, probably a combination of the lidocaine I asked for plus a location further from the nerve), and I've no time to see the podiatrist before I head off to Houston.

I can at least walk at a shuffle (albeit with pain); this is not the disabling nerve pain I had had (caused by torn and inflamed muscles in my left hip squishing the sciatic nerve, according to a chiropractor I've seen once so far), but some structural problem caused by me not walking on that foot for almost 3 months last year.  It has been ongoing since early October.  Ice helps, but the pain returns almost immediately when I walk again.  I want my feet back already.  I haven't even noticed my plantar fasciitis, as I have been spending that little time on my feet.

I'm not even sure I'm going to the con, because two of the people I live with have come down with gastroenteritis; one 40 hours after the first.  This would imply that it's the contagious norovirus kind, but I'm at 50 hours post-initial-exposure and still no symptoms, so I may have avoided it.  I have gone to the grocery store and stocked up on acidophilus, rice chex, and pepto.  Hopefully I will not need them and will be able to do this con in peace.  I have to make a decision by 6pm Thursday; that's the last cancellation time for my hotel room and if I get sick later and can't make the con, I'm out $180.

There are gardening things happening, and I will try to post pics next week.  I sprouted a bunch of stuff indoors; half of it died because my housemate forgot to water while I was gone; sprouted more, and now they're almost ready to transplant to the sub-irrigated planters I've been building over the course of the last two years.