More weather

The weather news is all about the major snowstorm heading up the east coast dumping snow in places like Birmingham Alabama that has never ever had snow on Christmas to blizzard conditions in the northeast. Our old hometown is forecasting 12" to 18" of snow. One of my facebook friends said that at 9 PM she walked the dog and there was no one driving on Main Street. People are showing much more restraint than expected. Of course it is Sunday - tomorrow may be a different story. The governor has called up their emergency response team. Here in California we got about 1 1/4 inches of rain yesterday but it stopped overnight and morning dawned beautiful.

Christmas Antlers

Merry Christmas! This morning I donned my Christmas Antlers and went for a walk around our neighborhood. The gym and golf course are closed today so there wasn't much action. Being in California there were a number of children using/practicing with their new outdoor toys. I saw a number of children and adults on new bicycles and skateboards and scooters. The antlers brought a smile to many a face and a hearty Merry Christmas from all who saw me. I did ponder why people seem to be friendlier at this time of the year. Here's to keeping Christmas in your heart the whole year through!

Christmas eve day

I think the mad dash is done. Made 8 dozen potstickers last night - we had a couple of dozen and froze the rest to give to cousin P and to keep. Last night our bank called to say that our bank card had been compromised and our data had gotten out along with many others. They recommended canceling the card, which I did. Then I spent an hour trying to verify that the call was legit. Of course it was after hours and all the branches were closed. My card had already been canceled so I couldn't get through the automated call centers! So I checked all my charges and found they were all ours. This morning I was able to reach a live person and was assured that the call was legitimate and many people had to cancel their cards.

I discovered that my shift at the Thrift store was canceled - I guess they never work Christmas eve, but I didn't know that. So I ended up with a lot of free time and could do the grocery shopping along with the millions of others at the store. It was kind of invigorating to be out and about with the Christmas crazy people.

Chicken Italiano is on the stove and it's off to church for the early service.

More rain on the way...

The Arroyo Grande Creek usually has a trickle of water flowing in it which is usually water released from the Lake Lopez reservoir. Today we went to the swinging bridge in the village to see whether there was "real" water flowing in the arroyo and lo and behold it was flowing quickly

This morning on my walk to the gym I spotted a new water hazard in front of the golf academy's driving range. The pumps on the golf course have been working furiously all day getting ready for the next batch of rain expected tonight.

Rain and more rain

Since the pineapple express started 3 days ago we've had over 7 inches of rain. The Red Cross opened a warming station at the high school which is battling its own water problems. There are many roads closed due to flooding particularly near the ocean in Oceano and Guadalupe. The streets and sewer system is not built for this amount of rain. They said the water treatment plant in SLO usually treats about 4 million gallons of water a day and it processed over 20 million yesterday. Some sewer plants have overflowed releasing some raw sewage into the waterways. There are a couple of levees that have burst and they are waiting for the one in Grover Beach to break. The Arroyo Creek has flooded its banks.

During a lull in the storm I went out and filled up the car with gas and did some last minute shopping. T ventured out to his gym and said everything was fine but the gym was bustling. Even my little gym was very crowded. I did an extra hour of cardio the last 3 days to replace the outdoor 6 mile walk I do every day.

I am waiting for the meteorologists to say we are still below normal in rainfall!

Pineapple express

This is our first experience with a storm system called the pineapple express. This one is starting west of Hawaii and is going to soak Hawaii and then make its way eastward and it looks like it's taking aim at the central coast, where we are. The latest reports look like there is a chance that the brunt of the storm may head a little further south. As of 3PM today we already had over 2 inches of rain today plus the over 1 inch yesterday. Considering we get an average of 12 inches of rain a year, that's saying something.

it's been a long time since I last posted

Facebooking with friends has sort of supplanted the blog but I'm going to try to be more faithful about blogging again.

November flew by with the major events being:
A womenade potluck dinner on the 9th where we tried something new. We asked everyone to bring in addition to their dish to share and their check for $35, something for newborn babies. There is a group called Mama Bears that knits blankets for newborn babies of families in need. The baby items were intended to go with these blankets. As usual, the ladies in this group were so generous and we ended up with nearly 50 packages of newborn clothing. The clothing was separated and wrapped in cellophane wrapping and tied up with ribbon. The numbers are shrinking but every time we have one of these we get a few new people.

On November 15 I held a t'ai chi demonstration with a few of my students. The idea was to show potential students what they will learn and to give a short lecture of the benefits of the t'ai chi practice. I've been teaching it here for nearly 3 years now and there are about 6 people who have kept it up and actually have a t'ai chi practice of their own.

I have started to do some marketing work for the church. So far this has included creating advertising materials for various church events like vacation bible school, senior lunches, Thanksgiving services, brochure of outreach ministries, t-shirts, shopping bags, bulletin board education showcases and banners for Christmas services.

The senior lunches at the church have become very popular. November's was right after Thanksgiving. It was the 4th one we've done. They are held the last Monday of each month. Surprisingly we had nearly 50 people that day. We served beef stew prepared by yours truly plus a coleslaw salad, rolls, and baked apples for dessert. We created a survey to see what people think and the feedback was very interesting. Some people who only attend 1 or 2 of the luncheons commented on all 4 lunches we've had! For the most part the feedback was as expected - folks don't want fish dishes, no cold dishes, no lima beans!

Our daughter, K, was here for Thanksgiving week and for T's 60th birthday which happened to be on Thanksgiving day this year! We had a wonderful time with her showing her sights she didn't see the last time she was here. The weather was much cooler than her last visit when we had 80s at Thanksgiving. She didn't bring enough cool weather clothing. She shared my sweatshirts and we bought a little space heater for her room to keep her warm at night. She is used to a higher heat level than we keep our house at. We visited with P&S and their daughter and had a wonderful Thanksgiving with all the fixings from both families. Everyone had their favorite from homemade cranberry sauce to creamed onions and bread stuffing to Chinese rice stuffing, green beans with mushrooms and a butternut souffle (first time I've made it) which was a star. We were conservative on the pies and had the traditional pumpkin and pecan. K was in charge of hors d'oeuvres and had bacon wrapped scallops, spanikopeta, mushroom stuffed pockets. I'm hungry just typing all this.

The beginning of December is the anniversary of our moving out here. Every bill possible seems to be due the beginning of December - property taxes, insurance bills on house and cars, life insurance premiums, long term health care etc. It's also health check-up time. I got a clean bill of health with everything in the "normal" range. Yay!

I am going to try to post at least once a week. Now when I next log in I can see how I'm doing.