This weekend I was planning on taking a load of stuff to the local outside flea market that is still open since it hasn’t turned bitter cold yet. I have taken a good amount of time to gather up and sort a bunch of stuff, besides deciding on the price to ask and then tagging it all, and have the van loaded ready to go. So what really is upsetting is that the weatherman is telling us that there is a slight chance of rain coming our way. Not that I ever put any faith in what any weather person predicts, but it still makes me a bit uneasy.

I decided to go ahead and continue with my plans, but now I have to gather up some tarps to take along to protect everything in case it does rain. I’m afraid that I might only have those ugly blue tarps out back, I’d much prefer to have clear tarps so that people can still see what is on the tables and continue selling to the customers that still continue to shop even through rains. And I really don’t like the look of those blue tarps, never have, seen to many in the yards of trailer parks I guess.

Have received a request for a rain chain for Christmas from my Aunt Peggy this year, who happens to be the greatest Aunt of all times in my book. She is my mother’s eldest sister and has always been like a second mother to me for as long as I can remember. She has always lived close by, while the majority of my relatives have moved out of state, some out of the country entirely, so I have had her in my close personal life since day one. I know that I can trust her and depend on her for anything and I would do anything in my power to help her in any way that I can so I’ve started looking around for these much anticipated rain chains that she has been talking about here recently.

I have found a company online that has these chains rain on their website that I have enjoyed looking at today, I had no idea that these rain chains were getting so popular and that there would be such a wide variety of them available. Now I have to try and decide which one to pick for her. You’d think it wouldn’t be a hard task since I know her so well, but I do struggle with making discussions such as this when it comes to something for some one other than my self.

The weather has finally turned cold and wet. I have to admit that summer is totally gone and that winter is fast approaching.

We had a freeze warning last week, so I’ve moved all the potted plants indoors. I have not yet seen frost on the ground, but I don’t want to take any chances.

Last night it dropped about 20 degrees and started raining. Today is a cold wet day that screams for comfort food. I could really go for meatloaf or mac and cheese tonight.

This has been a horrible summer for Texas and the Western states. I have been reading about fires in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado ever since March. These states have been suffering a long drought and hundreds of wildfires all summer.

The best thing that could happen to Texas is for one of the hurricanes down in the Gulf of Mexico to come ashore and drench the entire state for 2 or 3 days. It is critical now. Over 5,000 people have been evacuated from the Austin area and a record number of homes have been burned – almost 500 homes in just the past 3 days. This is horrific and my heart goes out to the good people of Texas.

This is the big Labor Day weekend when everyone wants to have a last fun weekend outdoors. But unfortunately, the weather forecast is for cooler days and lots of rain. Today is not raining yet, but you can feel it in the air and you know that it is coming, sooner or later. Let’s hope we all get at least one good day out of the weekend to do things at the lake or the beach.

We are going to head out to the river and just let my daughter splash around in the shallow water by our favorite picnic spot. The river bottom is not too mucky and not too rocky at this particular spot. I cannot tell you where this special spot is – it is our family secret and we don’t want a lot of other people to come there and spoil it.

I guess that I have the summer time blues, the should make a song out of this…wait they did already, it has been hot and wet which makes it very humid. I can not stand the heat and humidity as well as I used to stand it. I hate to sweat and humidity is a key ingredient in sweat. I am very ready for fall and winter to get here and the sooner the better. I can deal with the cold a lot easier than I can the heat and humidity. Give me a blanket and a fire and I am set for the night.

I hate to say it but we have had enough rain to last us for a while, we need a sunny day so we can get out and do some fun stuff. There is a nice carnival set up at the mall and we have not gone yet because of the rain every day, we do not want to be there if it starts with the thunder and lightning. We missed a great fireworks show last night because of the rain. I was surprised that they still set off the fireworks; we could see the flashes over the trees. Rain go away.

We took our grandson David to get his hair cut and while we were there we decided to get our hair cut too. It was raining so hard it was horrible, the lightning was very scary too. We noticed a couple of trees on the way home that had been struck by lighting and I was very glad that we were inside during the worst of the storm I have a very healthy fear of lighting and the damage it can do a good friend of ours was killed while standing on his porch smoking and it was not even raining at the time of that storm.

For a couple of days we had beautiful weather the birds were singing and tree started budding out, and then last night it dropped into the low teens and put a quick stop to all the thinking about spring that was roaming around in peoples minds the last couple of days. I knew we were due for another cold snap and I kept our plants inside even after it hit the high sixties for a couple of days. Now we can start putting out the plants and getting ready for spring I think that was the last gasp of winter. I hope I am right; I am ready for spring.

We are under a tornado watch, and it looks like we could be in for a bad storm this time. It is coming at us in waves and each one seems to get stronger and stronger. Last year we had some early storms that were very strong. I guess March is going out like a lion this year, but it came in like a lion so it should go out like a lamb. Oh well March is a lion this year on both ends. Now we are under a warning for Davidson County so I guess I better go get under cover.

The movie of the same name was pretty lame and that is how I think of the actual ground hog day holiday that some people celebrate. I do not think that a little rat type critter can predict the amount of winter left by seeing or not seeing his shadow. I much more live by the length of the fur on the caterpillar, long fur long winter, I think this is a much more scientific way to predict the length of the coming winter. I can not deal with a rat having that much control over humanity is the bottom line to me.

After the ice storms we have had over the last couple of weeks it is time to wash the salt and dirt off my truck, I hate to wash it in the wintertime because it is so cold but it really needs to be done. I will run it through the automatic car wash to get the salt off and then take the brush to it to get all of the crusted dirt and road grime off. My Tahoe is white so it shows every grain of dirt and seems to attract the road salt when they salt the rods for ice and snow. I know that I will feel better after I give my truck a bath, so I will make sure it gets done this weekend.

Now it is floods devastating mid America, it seems like it has been one thing after another this year. Mother Nature has had a very bad year. There are also fires raging in California again, the cycle continues. Japan just had a 7.2 earthquake, this has been a horrible year for natural disasters. Here the drought is over so it seems and we made it through another tornado season so far and gas is under $4.00 a gallon so all is not bad so it seems.

The forecast is calling for strong storms tonight again, that is just not what we need at work tonight. I hate to double bag the papers but if we do not then we get a bunch of complaints and that is worse on me than double bagging. I have to pay someone $5 for every complaint to redeliver them and that at times hurts bad. I hope we get good weather tonight, crossing my fingers.

Spring is just around the corner and I for one can not wait. I am so tired of the wind and the rain and the cold that we have had this winter. I love to go fishing and that is one thing that is very hard to do in the winter. We do get a few days that can be used for golf or fishing but not many this time of year.