Kat with a K

Hallelujah!

I listened to the radio this morning long enough to hear the weather report twice, because I didn't believe it the first time. And then I checked online, because I still didn't believe it. But it's true. The high is supposed to be in the seventies today. The SEVENTIES. That's a civilized temperature! I can't even express how happy I am about this. (Not unrelated: I finally slept properly last night, because it was cool enough not to need the air conditioner!) We're back to the 80s tomorrow, of course, but let me be happy about this while I can. Plus, the rest of the ten day forecast is in the 80s but not the 90s. And there are supposed to be thunderstorms on my birthday! So. That's something.

No power.

Like the rest of New Hampshire, I have no power at home. (Luckily, my office DOES have power, so it could be worse.) Trying to figure out how long this will last and what to do. In the meantime, this means that I didn't get any posts lined up for today the way I usually do. If anyone's been wanting to guest post, now's your chance... e-mail me.

Oh, New Hampshire.

It feels so deceptively springlike this morning.

You'd never guess it's going to SNOW FOR THE NEXT NINE DAYS.

Yes, I like snow. I do. But by late February, even I am getting a little sick of it. Although I'll take however much snow now if it means no snow when I'm trying to go on planes and such next month. Just for the record.

I don't get Groundhog Day.

So. The groundhog saw his shadow, six more weeks of winter, blah blah blah. But the whole thing seems pretty problematic, and yes, I realize I am completely overthinking this, but IT BOTHERS ME. Okay. Here are my questions:

1. How do you know what a groundhog sees or doesn't see in the first place?
2. Are there ever NOT six more weeks of winter? Winter doesn't end in February. That's just ridiculous.
3. For that matter, are there ever ONLY six more weeks of winter? Up here, at least, it's more like three more months of winter.
4. So maybe it's just supposed to be a local thing. But does winter ever end in February in Pennsylvania? Really?
5. Good Morning America just said something about other groundhogs in other places. So their results are local to their places? Otherwise, wouldn't they conflict sometimes?

I know this is just a ridiculous tradition, but apparently it's so ridiculous that it's bothering me.

Whoa!

Weather.com says it's going to be 54 today. I won't lie and say that it won't feel nice, but... that's just not right. Related: NASA says the 2000s were the warmest decade ever.

Ice Storm

Hello! I really didn't mean to be gone this long. Sorry! I promise I will be back.

But for the moment - yes, I am among the hundreds of thousands of people in New Hampshire with no power after Thursday night's ice storm. I stayed with a friend last night, but now I know how to use the woodstove, so I will be sleeping home tonight. At the moment, I am at Panera - thank God for free wifi. But I'm okay, I promise, and I have several back-up options if I decide against staying home.

Frosty!

Yay! Today was the first morning of the season with real frost on the ground and my car as I was leaving for work. Now I'm watching out for the first snow sometime in the next few weeks...

Another Autumnal Milestone

I heard it this morning - they're predicting FROST tonight. Okay, not where I live, exactly, but in the same state. And it's a small state! So it totally counts. I am wearing snowflake earrings in celebration.

I just checked Weather.com and the low in my town tonight is supposed to be 46. I am beside myself with glee.

Why can't the whole summer be like this?

I hate hot weather. Hate hate hate. Well, okay, I might like a few really hot days in the course of the summer, if I could pick which days they would be, and schedule them for a beach trip or something. But in general... blech. I'm so much more of a fall/winter person, and I'd be happy if the temperature never got above eighty. This summer, though, has seemed particularly hot, so I've been miserable.

But we finally got some decent storms last night, and the heat broke, and this morning it was in the 70s and sunny, but not humid. Crisp, almost. Breezy. I drove to work with the windows open, with a big mug of Irish Breakfast tea and some nice Debussy on the radio. Heaven.

(How long until fall?)

A spring surprise

I woke up this morning and discovered that, seemingly overnight, the tree outside my bedroom window had leaves! Little baby leaves, but still exciting. And then I saw that the forsythia a few doors down is in bloom - again, it seems to have happened overnight, although I realize I've probably just been unobservant. I love forsythia. My parents have a whole row of them along the driveway. I wonder if they'll be blooming when I go home for a visit this weekend?

Do not want!

I know it's not at all unusual to get snow in New Hampshire in late March, but this much snow seems excessive. The radio people all need to stop saying we're going to get "an inch or two," because there are at least four inches already, and it's not showing any times of stopping soon. To add insult to injury, the trees kept dropping clumps of snow on my while I was cleaning off my car. And the melting of all the other snow earlier in the week meant that this morning my car was in several inches of snow on top of very wet mud, which made it difficult to get the car out of the driveway in yet another way. Sigh. Spring please?

Not jinxing it.

Hello from my hotel room! I'm in MA for a friend's wedding. As I was packing, I checked the weather, and it looked like it was going to be pretty warm all weekend. (I mean, relatively. Warm for New England in March, which is not really "warm" by any objective standards.) And I almost did the unthinkable - I considered not bringing my parka. Now, I'm a good New Englander, so I immediately realized that if I left my parka at home, there would be a sudden unexpected blizzard, and my friend's wedding would be ruined, and it would be ALL MY FAULT. So don't worry: my parka is hanging here in my closet at the hotel.

Small miracles

I checked the 10 day weather forecast this morning, and I was astonished to notice that the predicted high was above freezing on every one of those days. This is one of the reasons why I love New England so much: even though I know it will happen, every time the seasons change it feels like a miracle.

Rainy afternoon

It's lovely and cold and rainy out, which is my second favorite type of weather for September. (My favorite is cool and crisp.) I worked ridiculously late last night: I had a project that I just wanted/needed to finish. So I listened to podcasts and ate microwave popcorn for dinner and drank lots of cocoa and just got it done. At 9:30. Ack. At that point, there's not much to do but go home, go to bed, get up, and go back to work.

But at least that meant that I got to leave early today (and will again on Thursday). I was going to do some errands and shopping, but as I mentioned above, it was rainy. Really hard, at that point. So going in and out of lots of stores did not seem particularly appealing. Plus there were flood warnings, and my main route home floods out at the drop of a hat, so getting home as soon as possible seemed like a good idea. And, you know, it was just one of those days, when I wanted to be all cozy at home in my pajamas, cuddling my kitten, watching the rain from inside, instead of being out in it.

So I came home a little after three, and it was lovely. It's now 5:30 and I've scooped the litter box, cleaned the bathroom, done laundry, paid the bills, and finished a freelance assignment, so I'm feeling very virtuous. :) The kitten and I are ready to watch Heroes and knit Christmas presents and read all evening.

The world must be ending.

This weekend is the Milford Pumpkin Festival. And the Wool Arts Tour. (And honestly? Aren't those two of the worst Web sites ever? What are people thinking?)

And look at the weather forecast.

Yeah. They're saying it's not going to rain. As I said, clearly the world is ending, because this can't be right.

No really, I'm rather freaked out about it.

(Yes, going to both. Pumpkin Fest tonight and maybe Sunday afternoon; Wool Arts Tour Sunday early.)

Oh my goodness.

It's sunny outside. I think. That's what it means when it's all bright and eye-hurting and there's no water falling from the sky, right?

I'm not sure how I feel about this.