Rita vs. Katrina

Sorry it's been so long. The last several days have been tiring, I guess, for lack of a more descriptive term.

So, Rita was a lot worse than I was expecting. There's been some debate amongst people in the town that I live in about which was worse. I think they were about the same, but bad in different ways. Katrina was a fairly quick major wind event. She came and went in about 12 hours. The wind was literally screaming for nearly that entire time, the doors in our house were rattling the whole time. Rita was a lumbering rain event. We got like 10 inches of rain in 24 hours. There was some wind, and it did get to that screaming level, but only for short periods of time (although my dad who lives across the street said that the winds with Rita were worse at his house than Katrina's, but I guess it had a lot to do with wind direction). The bayou flooded and stayed high for about a day. The river flooded and some fishing camps were flooded. I think if Rita had come on her own it wouldn't have been so bad, but we had a lot of trees that were weakened by Katrina and Rita just did them in. The biggest difference was that we didn't lose power for any extended periods of time. It kept going off and coming on. I was pretty amused on Saturday morning. We were under a Severe Storm Warning, Tornado Warning, Wind Advisory, and a Flash Flood Warning. The automated voice on the Weather Channel kept ticking off the list in her ever so pleasant voice.

I did learn two interesting tidbits watching the local weather guy (who I do NOT have a crush on despite what my husband says, but I do find him rather attractive LOL) aka the State Climatologist. The official anamometer(?), the wind speed thingy, in Baton Rouge broke during Katrina with a 100 mph gust. I thought we got a lot of wind, but meteorologists always say we overestimate wind speeds, so I was guessing they were around 50 mph during Katrina. I know for sure we got 50 mph gusts during Rita, and they were nothing compared to Katrina's, so I feel comfortable saying we got in the 100 mph range during Katrina. I also learned all about the Eclipse Phase of satellites. That's why it was hard to get current satellite pictures of Rita right before landfall. The earth was between the Sun and the Satellite in that time.

I am exceedingly crushed at LSU's loss to Tennessee. Talk about kicking us while we're down. Baton Rouge as a city gets depressed whenever LSU loses, seriously, there have been people who actually study this. I hate to see what's going to happen this week.

My chiropractor is making me feel much better. He was pretty surprised at the amount of tension that I have. I'm seeing him every couple of days. He's working on relieving all the tension in my neck and back, it's so bad that it started working it's way down my arms. So he's also treating the muscles in my arms, which is excruitiating when he's doing it, but as soon as he stops all the pain magically disappears. I got a ton of stitching done last night because I wasn't so sore!

I finished Deanna's RR and I finished my first punch needle project. I'll post pictures later. Now I'm working on my Mother's Tree again. I'm trying to get it finished for the Silkweaver Showcase. I'm working on Silkweaver's Cinnamon Roll fabric with GAST Dark Chocolate thread. I discovered a time saving technique that makes sitting in traffic more bearable. Since I'm working 1 over 2 on 40 ct. fabric I precut all my thread and when I'm sitting in traffic I strip all my thread and wind it on a bobbin. So when I'm actually stitching, that's one less thing to do. I sat on one street yesterday for 25 minutes and only moved about 30 feet. So I was desperate to find something brainless to do while I was sitting there.

Let's see what else is going on...Lauren and Maria are finally starting to talk. They're pretty funny. They learned from Eva to demand to watch Spongebob Squarepants. They call it Spa-ba, but I know what they're talking about. They learned to nod their head yes a few weeks ago, that has help tremendously with communication. Maria is learning how to jump. She only gets about a millimeter off the ground, but she's very pleased with herself. Lauren is getting more and more devilish by the day. She's such an imp. I can always tell when she's up to something because she laughs hysterically. I've never seen two kids laugh more than those two. They laugh all day long. They are also the most kissingest kids I've ever seen. They kiss me, James, my mom, Eva, each other all the time. Eva was never like that. She was more of a hugger.

On a different topic, there are some quotes that I feel are applicable to some circumstances I've noticed.

"Never argue with an idiot. The audience won't know which one is which" - Rush Limbaugh

"You're stuck on stupid" -General Russell Honore

"I will allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him" -Church Sign (I'm sure it probably has some more accurate reference)


I have a huge rant about global warming and hurricanes, but I'm just so tired of the whole issue. I'll just say that the people around here that are suffering aren't bemoaning global warming. It's people that live 1,000 miles away and who have never experienced tropical weather systems that are using it as a way to push an agenda. Furthermore, I will get my information from scientists and climatologists that study historical data on hurricanes that have repeatedly said that hurricanes now are no worse than they ever were throughout history. And that history is only 150 years which is a proverbial drop in the bucket of time. Taking people like Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler seriously on a subject like global warming is like taking Tom Cruise seriously about taking vitamins to get rid of postpartum depression. Seriously, who handed them the all knowing crystal ball on these subjects?

I guess that's all I have to say about that. Sorry for the length...I've had a lot on my mind.