We had another huge storm blow through late last night. Luckily by the time it reached us, it wasn’t tossing out hail anymore and the worst of it passed just to the north and south of us. I’m not entirely certain why storms tend to do this (split when it gets to us with really bad stuff on either side), but I suspect it has something to do with us living on a bit of a hill. At any rate, I was thankful we only got a lot of hard rain and a little wind. The lightning was sure impressive though and a little scary, and as expected when the worst of it hit, we ended up without electricity. Still need to get a battery operated radio. I hate sitting in the dark not knowing what is going on. This time I had gotten up and watched plenty of the weather reporting, so I knew it wasn’t going to be a terrible storm when it got here, but had I been more asleep when the first rumbles of thunder started, I might not have gotten to the TV in time to find out what to expect. Sometimes these storms just come from out of nowhere.

I have to comment on News 8 Austin’s meteorology team. First off, they must have recently updated their radar software. It’s just phenomenal and fascinating the way they can zoom in all the way down to street level, show you all the lightning strikes, hail and potential tornadoes live … and the estimates they are able to make on when a severe storm is going to reach your area are spot on. Also the weather guys themselves are really great at using said high-tech software and explaining, warning and getting the general word out on bad weather. Kudos to the News 8 crew! I hope everyone has a local weather team that is this top-notch and on-the-ball.

I finally went and did the shopping today. Lin announced we are having a severe budget crunch, so I had to cut my already short list down even shorter. I wasn’t all that heartbroken about that, not wanting to spend more time at the store than absolutely necessary, until I got to the store and saw just how little my budget was going to allow me to toss into the basket. I do remember a time not so long ago though when being able to spend $45 on groceries was a blessing, so I am not really complaining. This is just a temporary thing, and in a week or two, I’ll be able to restock everything again. At least the fridge is full of fresh veggies again. I hate it when we are out of salad fixings.

So the weekend arrives again. Being mostly broke, I guess we’ll be hanging about the house and doing some yard work. I’m sort of hoping the DVDs we ordered last week get here tomorrow so we’ll have some new movies to watch. Not that we have caught up on the stack that needs to be watched yet, but most of them now are ones Lin isn’t all that interested in seeing. I think you’d have to strap him down and prop his eyes open with toothpicks to get him to watch an old black-and-white movie. That’s a shame, because some of the older movies are FAR better than the stuff coming out these days.

I also need to finish those art cards for the swap this weekend. I meant to have them done and in the mail this week, but the cat, who is no longer hiding under the workbench and is back to getting into things he shouldn’t, chewed two of them to bits. How’s that for an art critique?! Silly cat. I’d be angry, but I’m really just glad he isn’t moping around anymore acting like he’s about to die. I think he’s even put on a wee bit of weight, which is wonderful. I don’t understand how he can have diarrhea every day all day and be so much healthier than he was when he was eating the right foods and didn’t seem sick at all, but I guess I am just doomed to deal with it for the life of the cat. He’s worth it, and as the plaque in the living room attests, this house is maintained for the happiness of the cat. Perhaps sadly, this is entirely true. So if the cat is happiest eating crappy food and having diarrhea, so be it. Who am I to argue with the true king of the household?

I think I’ll go watch a little more of Return of the King. I’ve been watching about 30 minutes or an hour of the Lord of the Rings movies every day or so for the last few weeks. There hasn’t been much of anything to watch on TV, so I’ve turned LOTRs into a TV series of sorts. One of these days I want to sit down and watch all three in a row, but really … twelve plus hours of LOTRs may be too much for even me, and I’m a huge Tolkien fan. In fact, twelve plus hours of anything would probably make me crazy. I just can’t sit still for that long and maintain focus on watching something.

The cat is now whining. Must be time to go love on him and toss his toys around for a while. He’s so damn spoiled.