Very Windy Here Today

It was very windy here all night and all day today. The wind woke me up at 4:30 am and Hiker started barking at the noise of things banging around from the wind. I finally got up at 5:30 am because I could not go back to sleep. I went out onto the patio and took down my wind chimes and other yard decorations so they would not blow away. We have very hard winds here in SoCal every fall. I think October is our windiest month. You would think that we would have more red flag warnings (brush fire watches) during the summer but I think we have more in the fall. Back in 2007 Ben and I and our entire community had to evacuate from a fire that came over the hill and headed toward our homes. Thank goodness the community keeps the hillside covered with fire resistant plants. We went on our dog walk with Jean and her dogs and we almost blew away (LOL). Found out from Jean that I have been recruited to be a judge for the costume contest and our community's Halloween party on October 25th. I've never gone to the Halloween parties they have here, but I guess I'll have to this year since I'm a judge (LOL). I decided to flush my water heater today. I try to do that a couple of times a year to make it last as long as possible. This afternoon, I suddenly realized that even though I knew it was Friday, for some reason my mind was telling me it was Thursday. I had planned to go grocery shopping on Friday. So after lunch, I headed up to Stater Brothers to do my grocery shopping. It was so windy driving up there that my car was shaking all over the place. On the way home, I noticed a big tree had fallen over by the junior high school. I'm thinking I should talk to my gardener about trimming back my shade tree in the backyard. The wind was blowing so hard that the “dog” signs I have on my front porch were banging against the house so I had to take them down and put them inside until the wind stops. The wind has my nose running and my lips are so dry.