It started at 1:40 am this morning.  I know ’cause it woke me up and I looked at the clock to see what time it was, not believing that I had only been asleep for two hours.  I thought one of the cats was scratching at something in the bay window.  Instead it was the Christmas wreath hanging outside and blowing against the window.

I decided not to get up, after all, what could I do about the wind and things blowing around.  But then something outside fell, crashing on the side of the house.  So I got up to take a look.  The winds were blowing like crazy!  Still, I couldn’t go out and take down the wreath at 2 am in the crazy winds.  So, after being awake for about an hour, I finally buried myself under the comforter trying to shut out the noise of the winds and finally fell back asleep.

When I woke this morning at 7 am, the winds were still blowing!  I went outside and pulled down the wreath and a garland that were only partially hanging at this point.  Out back the pool was filled once again with leaves and other debris.  (Well, shit!  The pool guy was just here yesterday and cleaned it up from the last storm!)  The glider that Patrick and I fished out of the pool last week blew over into the wood fence and knocked a chunk out of the fence.  The gate on the pool equipment enclosure had one of the hinges (really large hinges) ripped off.  And, once again, the street decoration was leaning precariously after having the tie-downs torn away.

I moved the glider, positioning it against the house where I think it will stay in place.  I took down the street decoration out front and moved it to the side of the house out of the path of the wind.  I also moved a lot of branches from the driveway so that I could get the car out to head off to work.

Driving was an adventure, negotiating around downed limbs and trees everywhere.  After an extremely windy day, I was happy not to find any damage when I got home tonight.  All I had to do was empty the pool skimmer (damn that water is cold!) since it was clogged after running all day.  Will clean the pool tomorrow before the filter comes on so the skimmer doesn’t fill up again.  Still gotta take down the lights on the house tomorrow as well as the spotlights at the curb that were illuminating the street decoration.

It’s supposed to stay windy all weekend, so I may be cleaning up debris both days.  Oh well, at least I don’t have to go anywhere for two days…and I’m looking forward to catching up on the sleep I missed last night!