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with gusts up to 80 MPH in some areas (and "only" 60 MPH in others). I was shopping a couple towns over when the wind nearly took me right off of my feet...and I'm not exactly a lightweight <g>. A neighbor of mine kept texting me to see if the power was off in our neighborhood (she was at work). Our power never so much as flickered but a couple streets over, my aunt lost power around 3:00 PM Friday and didn't get it back until noon on Saturday. Which frankly was a lot sooner than many people got their power back but not soon enough that she didn't whine, pack an overnight bag and stay at her son's house and then bring a bag of perishables to our house Saturday morning to stick in the freezer until her power was restored. The perishables are still there...

Our store, along with all of the downtown area in that town, also lost power some time Friday afternoon. I was scheduled to work Saturday night...my store manager repeatedly texted me to let me know the power was still out but she never bothered to tell me not to come in. I put on nice clothes, did my makeup, drove the 20 or so minutes into work...the door was locked. After I opened it with my key, SM came running up the stairs (from the back door, you have to go down five steps to get into the store but you can just walk, or roll, into the front door) and told me she was "just about to text me to tell me to stay home". Um...thanks? My shift was supposed to start at 3:00, it's a 20 minute drive in and she knows I'm always at least 5 minutes early but she thought 2:55 was the time to text me to tell me to stay home? I noticed the co-worker who was also working Saturday night with me, who drives in from the west side, was not there...*she* must've gotten a text in a timelier manner. Yes, I'm annoyed by that.

On the one hand, yay, four days off in a row! I was just thinking about how I used to take a week off at least once, and more often twice, a year at my previous two jobs but with this job, I've worked 20 months without having any more than 3 consecutive days off (and that only happened once; usually I'll have either 2 days off in a row or, more often, my days off will be scheduled in such a way that I don't have consecutive days off in a week). But OTOH, that's a shift's pay gone. I've already tightened the proverbial belt to the point of nearly gasping for breath...looks like this month I might need to dip into the savings, which I've not had to do in over a year.

Then yesterday, the high winds returned and dislodged a number of shingles from the roof. Now I live here but I'm not the homeowner, and Dad almost never involves me in any decisions about the home's upkeep. I'm thinking we're overdue for a new roof. Dad says it's been "about 20 years" but he also often thinks the 1970s were 30 years ago, so there's that. I did put in a call to the guy who kindly went up on our roof and nailed a few shingles down back in 2024 after the tornado touched down at the end of our street. Unsurprisingly, he's a li'l busy right now. I talked to him briefly this morning and he said he'd try to come by this afternoon but no promises. I'm a bit confused...Dad said that the "new" roof 20 years ago (or likely more) was placed over the old roof. I've never heard of such a thing. What I *do* know is we've had some rain but so far no leaks. Praying that continues till we get this roof thing figured out.

ETA--yesterday at this time, it was 75°. Today, it's 40°, and it's supposed to go down to 20° tonight. Brrr...