Let it hail, let it hail, let it hail!

What? Lame? Yeah, I know, but I purposefully do not live where it snows so this is the best I’ve got:

Someone had asked me on Facebook if the cats were spooked by the sound of heavy rain on my skylight. No, they sleep right through it, BUT, the hail last night was LOUD not only on the skylight but also windblown into the windows and french doors and they were not amused. Both of them sat in the dead center of the floor as far from any window as they could with their ears flattened back and eyes quite wide looking to me for reassurance. Of course, I was no help since I was running around turning on outside lights and then opening doors to step out and take pictures! I’m sure they thought I was quite nuts. Which is a nice switch for a change 🙂

Of course, last night I dreamed that there was another hail storm with literal golf ball sized pellets and I also dreamed that we were at my parent’s house and their roof was leaking. Funny how I have those leaky roof dreams a lot. But then, throughout my child hood we had a flat roofed house which did leak & they were constantly up there patching and re-tarring and such. Those telltale yellow stains in pop corn ceilings always make me cringe. Then I had my own leaky roof issues here with rain actually drip drip dripping in over the bridge. Went through two rainy seasons (thankfully mild ones!) with pans set up to catch the water (which I then recycled to water the indoor plants of course!). I am so happy that I was able to get the roof repaired a year ago and that it WORKED because this season the rain is endless & is coming down in buckets each time. Had to be 1-2inches yesterday which really is a lot for this area.

Anyhoo – I had a couple of moments learning today that I didn’t want to forget.

1. Fingerless gloves – how did I not pay attention to the fabulous hand warming utility of those wonderous things? I admit to recently feeling a bit wistful about owning a Snuggie. I’ve not been willing to pay to heat my house since it really is quite a high price for what amounts to a few days out of the year so it can often get down into the low 60s and after four layers, well, it’s kinda bulky and *still* my hands are cold. But, I don’t want to wear full fingered gloves because, well, I have this iphone & laptop addiction dontcha know? But then a twit-friend posted a photo of fingerless gloves that she had *just* finished knitting (after also posting that the temps in Seal Beach this morning were down to 34!) When I drooled with jealousy, she sent me a link to Etsy and five minutes later I had ordered a pair of handmade, washable fingerless gloves for $8! Can’t WAIT until they arrive!
2. I do believe I have OCD. A mild form at any rate. Or, this is just my hyper competitiveness raising it’s head to a new level. But, I think it really is more of an OCD thing. Which I kind of always suspected because there are certain things that I do that must be done a certain way, in a certain order, though not necessarily the same one. Hard to explain, but once I start something in any particular pattern, it must be finished that way. Or, let’s say, I had to turn off notifications on my iPhone because if I see that little red indicator, I cannot relax until I’ve cleared it out. For instance, right now, one of my tabs on Firefox is for my Gmail and it is showing (2) unread messages & I wont be able to get up from the laptop without first clearing those out. Compulsive, yes? But what made this become more obvious to me was this new fitness challenge that we have at work through a website called America On The Move. They gave us pedometers and we have to record our step counts in this program with a goal of Hiking the Appalachian…errr (sorry, that’s still the first trail I associate with the word “hiking”  – thank you South Carolina)…Coast to Crest Trail. The program also generously allows you to convert all sorts of other exercise besides just walking into your step count. So, my 60 mins of circuit training moves me over 17,000 steps each time. You can also put in vacuuming, gardening, dancing, yoga, pilates etc etc. Pretty cool. The goal is to complete the trail by the end of April. Piece of cake thanks to my workouts, but that’s not what it driving me. It’s the competition. They posted the Top 10 weekly winners at the end of last week and I was *pissed* that I wasn’t on it!! I was mad that someone I know (and don’t particularly like) is ahead of me! Grrrrrrr!! So, juices flowing here is what I did yesterday: I tracked the radar for the rain storms and made sure to head out in between to ramp up the steps! Today, I paced the house up and down the stairs for 30 minutes reading twitter on my phone. When I went to the grocery, I parked waay out back, I walked up and down every aisle even though I didn’t need to, and then I unloaded my groceries one bag at a time!! How ridiculous is THAT? And? I’m pissed because I only have 4100 steps at 2pm!! Even though I will have a workout today, I want 10,000 steps independent of that. HELP! They have created an OCD step counting monster!!!