Three Days Off!

The heat wave broke, as they so often do, with a summer storm that knocked out power and brought in high wind, rain, thunder, and lightning.  There was no storm in the forecast, so I'm not sure where it came from, but while I was at work the weather bulletins started coming in.  Before long the winds picked up, then the power went out.  We had generators, but nobody else in the neighborhood did.  It was eerie, how dark it got. We could not see even to the end of our parking lot.  The police went door to door with flashlights, checking.  An hour later it was all over, but driving home was reminiscent of the tornado: branches down, trash blowing around, garbage cans in the streets.  I stopped by my mom's and cleaned up her yard in the dark.  She had lots of flower pots and such scattered around, and her garbage cans had blown from the back yard into the street out front.  It's very dark in her yard at night but I think I got it all.  My yard had lots of tree branches, but none that were too big. I cleaned that up, too.

This week was a long one. Early in the week I had a minor accident - a stack of boxes piled against the wall in the supply room toppled over on me when I was putting freight away, hitting me across the back - and things went downhill from there.  We're short staffed because of the holiday, but there is extra work to do as we close out the second fiscal quarter of the year.  This happens every year at this time, but so far we haven't found a way to make it better. You gotta give the staff their time off.

So I went in early and stayed late.  When I finally got home tonight I came in to a messy house, a kitty with an empty food dish, overstuffed garbage cans, and my patio plants all rolling around, toppled.  Not the best way to end the week.  Especially since Walker had the day off.  I thought the dishes, at least, would be done. No such luck.

I'm looking forward to the weekend, though.  I'll get the dang house cleaned, then I'm taking Diva to the swimming pool. It's been open late due to the heat wave, and I'm hoping the extended hours will go through the weekend. I love to swim at night - I sleep like a rock afterwards.  I'm on the hunt for a red oak tree for the side yard, too.  We had to take one of our trees out after it cracked nearly the full length of the trunk.  It was a beautiful locust tree, but we still have another locust in the yard already so I'm going to try the red oak. If I can find one.  There will be fireworks on Monday night, and maybe a cookout, and probably a bike ride or two.  Bring on the weekend ~ I'm ready!