Rita Approaches

Well, as you can imagine, I have been glued to The Weather Channel since yesterday. I really think I'm as prepared as I can be. The latest indications are that the storm will make landfall a little to the east of Galveston, which is good for me. It means that my area, up on the northwest side of Houston, won't get the worst part of the storm, the part the media calls the "dirty side."

Of course, we'll see a lot of wind and rain and all I can do is to hope and pray that my house holds up and that the roof is firmly attached and stays that way throughout the storm.

It was a beautiful morning this morning, ironically. I took a walk around the neighborhood (instead of in front of the TV) and noted that finally some other neighbors appear to have taped windows etc. I even saw one house with plywood over the windows. Lots of houses not protected at all yet though. Even if we don't get the worst of the storm, it makes sense to take precautions.

I also got to meet some neighbors I hadn't met before and we made a pact to check on each other after the storm to make sure we're okay. One of the neighbors even had a lady with her that she sort of picked up in Walmart -- the lady and her family were evacuating from League City and by the time they reached Tomball this lady was seriously overheated. My neighbor (the one I just met) offered to let them come to her house, shower, have something to eat etc. which they did. The elderly lady though, took up my neighbor's offer to just stay with her while the rest of the family went on in a northwest direction. While I was chatting to them, the lady managed to get hold of them on her cell phone - they had made it out past Waco.

It's amazing how situations like this bring out the very best in people.

Preparing for Hurricane Rita

Well here we are, about 36 hours before we start feeling the effects of Hurricane Rita, which the TV crews just *love* to tell everyone is the third strongest/biggest/whatever hurricane ever recorded. Boy, they are just loving reporting this -- "the traffic is backed up for 12 hours leaving out of Galveston" (smirk) "Cars are overheating on the freeway, causing even more chaos." (sneer) "Gas stations have lines of cars going up the block waiting for gas, or are out of gas entirely." (grin) It's all the reporters can do to keep from going "woooooooo hooooooooooo!!"

For a variety of reasons, I decided to ride it out at home. Seven of those reasons are draped around me as I type -- the cats of Cat's Place. They say that the evacuees from Galveston are being allowed to take pets with them, but I shouldn't think anyone else has seven cats! In addition, I'm 85 - 90 miles inland, well away from storm surge and I'm not in any flood plain so flooding won't be an issue.

I know we'll have high winds and heavy rain and it's the winds I'm dreading. There was no plywood to be found, of course, by the time I took notice of the storm and started looking. So I got rolls of duct tape (camo duct tape was all I could find, so perhaps the hurricane won't see my house with all the camoflage - hey, you never know, it *could* happen) and taped all the windows with a snappy Union Jack motif. I don't know how much good that will do, but perhaps it will help prevent broken glass from flying all over.

I've got gallons and gallons of water for drinking. I'll fill up the bath tubs with water for flushing etc. I've got candles and a flashlight and spare batteries. After the storm, if we still have no power, I've got a gas grill in the garage so I can cook on that. I think I'm about as prepared as I can be.

Now I just have to hope that we don't get a direct hit and that it's not as bad as everyone is anticipating.

I've made a few video clips of preparations and will keep my digital camera with me during the storm. This is the sort of thing you have to record for posterity.

Wish me luck everyone -- as I wish luck to everyone else in the path of this humongous storm.

Typoglycemia

Read this quickly and then look at it a little closer. I think you'll be surprised.

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I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to rscheearch taem at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.

The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Such a cdonition is arppoiately cllaed Typoglycemia :)-

Amzanig huh? Yaeh and yuo awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.

GOALLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!

(You have to imagine you're listening to a football announcer from one of the Spanish TV stations in order for the Title of this post to make sense, LOL!

I mentioned a couple of times in this blog over the past six months, that I have been dieting with the Nutrisystem plan. I actually started another blog so that this blog wouldn't fill up with boring diet posts (see, I *do* think about other people sometimes )

Well, I can finally announce that I actually reached my goal, much to my surprise, a couple of days ago. However, with the way my weight fluctuates up and down every day, I thought I'd wait until it was actually staying at or below 140 to announce that I finally reached my goal.

In fact, I've lost another pound since then, proving that the tough part is yet to come -- finding that fine balance between eating right, and "dieting".

But yes, I'm pretty pleased with myself at the moment. I just have to make sure I don't completely blow it by pigging out at every meal because "oh, I can do this now, I'm at my goal."

My thanks and eternal gratitude go to the people at Nutrisystem, who set me on the right path in my weight loss journey, and to NS members like ChristinaGray and amysmithr who were there every step of the way with encouragement, cheer-leading and recipe ideas. I couldn't have done it without you guys!