Goodbye Earthquake, Hello Hurricane Irene

I'm starting out on the positive, hoping to avoid the negative.  The weather her continues to be wonderful with temperatures in the low 80 and low humidity.  We even bonused today with a nice breeze.  Today is Wednesday - grocery shopping day!  I'm sticking to a routine, hope that's a good thing.  I downed my coffee, you know I can't function without coffee!  I thought about jumping in the shower and then thought about the time it would take - nawww for what?  The grocery store?  Nawww - I planned on taking a walk later this afternoon, maybe then.  I put my hair into a ponytail and headed out armed with my list.  I went to the Giant only today.  There certainly is a monetary difference between Giant and Shoppers Food Warehouse (SFW), close to $100 difference, yikes!

It wasn't busy except for the employees, it must have been stocking day.  Every aisle had an employee stocking the shelves.  I can't never get the timing of grocery shopping right, they're always stocking the shelves.  With (Hurricane) Irene due to visit, I figured I'd scoot down the wine aisle...decisions, decisions.

In Virginia, you can buy beer and wine (low alcohol levels) in the grocery store.  I thought this was a big deal when I moved here from Maryland.  I'd never heard of such a thing.  In Maryland (when I lived there in the late 70s), you could only buy beer and wine in the "Package store".  That's what my parents called the liquor store.  We don't have liquor stores in Virginia.  We have the Virginia Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control (VA ABC).  The state of Virginia  determines what its citizens will drink (VA ABC orders and stocks all stores).  My liquor of choice (for Hurricane Irene's visit) is Vanilla Kahula.  I enjoy my White Russian (Skye Vodka, Vanilla Kahula and Fat Free Milk).  I can't have more than two a nice, it is very filling.

After the grocery store and liquor store, I headed home to unpack and make a salad for lunch.  As I turned the corner and headed down our street, I see this in the middle of the street.  Ladies, you should use the sidewalk even if you can't be side-by-side.  Notice the double yellow line (no passing) on my street.  They'll find out no one but me pays attention to the 25mph speed limit.  Hope they make it home safely!

I had the groceries put away by 12:45pm.  Wells Fargo, who we are refinancing our mortgage through, called and left a message.  Wells Fargo holds our current mortgage.  I called John at work to let him know they called.  John informed me that things are still slow at work.  He plans to burn more of his leave and take the rest of the week off, he would be home shortly.  John returned Wells Fargo's call shortly after he arrived home.  Turns out there is confusion in the numbers Wells Fargo says they "did not quote".  John was under the impression our mortgage would drop by $194.  Wells Fargo now states it was $94 they quoted as our new reduced mortgage.  We are not refinancing through Wells Fargo.  We also belong to a Credit Union.  On my laptop, I pulled up mortgage rates from their website and showed John.  He said the Credit Union's mortgage rate was better than Wells Fargo (funny, I thought he would have already checked?).  Tomorrow, we're going to the Credit Union to see if the numbers really work.

I had my salad and watched my soap opera.  I still needed to squeeze in a walk even thought I feel like I've done alot of walking already (more than a regular day anyway) at the grocery store and liquor store.  I'm trying to push myself when the weather presents itself.  You can see what a beautiful sky we had, although not completely blue this afternoon as it had been previous mornings.  There was a 15mph breeze and it felt lovely.

I decided to head down my street on my regular route.  That hill yesterday did a number on my thighs and butt, which is good, just can't do the hill on back-to-back days.  Yeah, my legs were very sore this morning.  It took all I could muster to get going today (patting myself on the back).  I find after I have walked my legs stiffen easier when I'm not moving.  I suppose that's my body telling me to keep moving?  Humm, I must remember to ask Pam (the trainer) during our Saturday Walking Group.

On my shorter walk this afternoon, I noticed a neighbors car, which initially I thought was a import car.  I expected to see the steering wheel on the "opposite side" than we have ours.  I was surprised to see it wasn't, it was on the regular side.  I looked closer, this was a Volkswagen!  I'd never seen one like this before, have you?  I'm use to seeing the VW Bug or the VW Bus or maybe the Jetta once in awhile.

Keeping in the positive, I think Hurricane Irene will affect the coastal areas here, not inland.  We'll be okay here in Northern Virginia (fingers crossed).  We'll probably get some wind and rain, not hurricane/category strength.  John is thinking of buying some plywood to board up windows and doors here.  Clearly, he thinks the worse.  We are also going to buy gasoline for our generator tomorrow.   He's going to check tomorrows weather to see if we need to swing into Lowes for plywood.  If Irene does change her current projected path, which is just nicking the Virginia and Maryland coastline and she heads inland, it won't be until Saturday afternoon sometime.  My fellow bloggers, it's better to be prepared, hope you've taken initiative to prepare if you are in Irene's path.

Food - check, Beverages - check, Bottled Water - check, Gasoline for generator -  check, Candles - check, Laptop and Camera charged up - check.  Go ahead Irene, stop by here for a visit, we'll be ready.