Mental Meanderings

Our 6-year drought is not officially over ... yet. However, there was considerable lessening of the dry conditions as not one, but three tropical storms hit us last week in rapid succession.

Ugh. Ow.

Please don't get me wrong. We desperately need the rain, and more of it. (The groundwater levels apparently didn't rise at all, as parched earth and plants eventually slurped it all in.) We just need it a bit more gently and gradually, instead of having flash flood warnings several days in a row, and great fears of mudslides in areas with wildfire burns.

Our place was fine, with only a tiny bit of standing water in a few spots (see below for my cacti trying to do the backstroke). Others were not so lucky with roads closed due to flooding, livestock threatened, homes threatened and/or destroyed, etc.

My personal "ugh" comes from the fact that barometric pressure changes impact my fibromyalgia, especially as I am finally coming off the frissen frassen steroids at last. It was unfun. Very, very unfun. My body still hasn't settled down, and I am praying it does soon.

There are 4 major in-game events in EQ2 between now and April that I will need to test and report on, and I need all the spoons I can get. Hopefully I can hibernate this weekend with slightly lowered pain levels, since we're supposed to have sunshine through the weekend, at least. {fingers crossed}

Into every life, some quakes must fall ... at least for those of us living in Southern California!  We're actually due for a lot of quakes in the coming year, apparently because of the bigger one back in April.

How many of us know what to do during a big earthquake, though?  I'll be the first to admit that I was clueless until someone posted the following link a few months back, so I'd like to share the knowledge around as things start rattling a bit more around here.  This comes from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): What to Do During an Earthquake  For those of you living in the SoCal area, the following site can also be a handy one to have bookmarked: California/Nevada Region Earthquakes

As "winter" approaches here in Southern California, we're still in a rather nasty drought. Mandatory water conservation is in effect here in Vista, which mostly involves what you can and cannot do with your yard and such.  However, water conservation shouldn't end there for anyone living in a highly populated area, as more and more cities struggle simply for suitable drinking water for everyone, much less irrigation water.

 I'd like to share one of my preferred ways to help, since it allows me to keep alive the much-loved family rose, even with reduced sprinkling throughout the week. It also capitalizes on the fact that I have hummingbird feeders to keep clean, if I don't want hummingbirds killed off by nasty bacteria.

 Rinse water.

Such a simple little thing, but something most of us take for granted.  I now keep a large metal bowl in one kitchen sink, and rinse my hands, various dishes, etc into the bowl. As it fills, I dump the water from it into an easily-filled wide-mouthed pitcher, then dump the water onto the most needy of my outdoor plants and shrubs.  Given how frequently I have to clean and refill hummingbird feeders during the week, this is saving many gallons of water a week.

The other one that I do is more "work", but I try to be good about it. I keep another wide-mouthed pitcher (the wide-mouth makes it easier for filling, and easier means I am more likely to be good about doing it) in the shower.  When I am waiting for the shower water to suitably warm up, I fill the pitcher with the running water. Dumping this out on the plants gets the water back into environment without it having to go through the costly and time-consuming sewage treatment plants, etc.  Yes, it takes extra effort on my part, lugging it from the upstairs master bathroom to the outdoors, but, again, it can be a savings of several gallons of water a week, which makes it worth it in my book!

For those wanting more water-saving tips, sites such as bewaterwise.com are fabulous resources for helpful hints and tricks. (It also gives you a visual of how badly off we are for water as the years of droughts continue in the area.)

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For those wondering how I am doing on the health front, the results from the Savella are still good.  Yep, I'm still in pain. Yep, I still have flareups. In both cases, however, they are definitely lessened, which makes them more bearable. I may be able to do a bit more gentle exercise and the like, which should also help in the long run.

As an example of how much it helped, my father-in-law was just here visiting for a week, and in the space of 4 days, we went to both the San Diego Wild Animal Park and Birch Aquarium. That may not seem like a lot on the sightseeing side of things, but it is more than I had been able to pull off in a few years without ending up flat on my back afterwards for a day.  Yayy for progress!