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["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

The weather boob said last night that we *might* have a little rain today.

Sooo, with the above weather report in mind and a nice windfall in hand,  I 
finally collected money on an old court case, we headed off this morning to 
the big city on a quest for an electric stove.  I had finally reached the 
point where I was dreaming of taking a 20 pound sledge to the new gas stove! 
I told DH either was either a new stove OR no more pasta!  He's Italian, so 
that was a threat near and dear to his heart <g>

Since I won't be able to afford my dream stove (induction) unless some long 
lost rich uncle appears on the doorstep, I was forced to face reality.  With 
my list of gotta haves in hand, we hit the pavement and found what I wanted 
that is within the budget dictated by the old court case.  A 5 second 3,000 
watt power burner, a warming burner (very low watt for fun stuff like 
melting chocolate and butter), a "true" simmer, a convection oven, a warming 
oven AND only $40 to delivery my new "toy" over two hours away from the 
store!

After I did my happy dance, we stopped at a couple of stores to pick up some 
miscellaneous stuff that the little local stores in our valley don't carry, 
had dinner and then headed off for home.

About 15 minutes out of Redding some serious rain started in.  This was good 
since we hadn't had enough rain so far this season to do more than damp down 
the dust.  We're thinking "great, finally some rain."

About then the winds start in and the radio reports "winds 30 to 40 mph in 
the valley and winds gusts in excess of 45 mph in the mountains."  Great, we 
are in the mountains and about then we get blasted.  We're guessing more 
than the 40 mph since we are driving a "boat" and it was being pushed almost 
off the road.

Well, foolishly we thought, "it can't get much worse than this and we need 
the rain.  We'll just keep it slow and steady."  WRONG!  Next we get hit 
with torrential rains that the windshield wipers can't keep up with.

~~sigh~~  We are sure it can't get worse.  Riiigggghhhhtttttt!  Tulle fog is 
what gets thrown at us next!  So now we are at the stop and crawl, then 
hurry up in the spaces where there isn't fog and then back to stop and 
crawl.

We get home.  Get the fur babies in the house and start unloading the 
Suburban.  We drown getting the first load in the house but before we can 
turn around and get back to the vehicle, it is snowing.  Finally get 
everything in the house and stoke up the woodstove and we've already got an 
inch of snow.

> From this morning (sun shining, birds out singing) at 6 to 11 tonight we've 
managed to pack a whole 60 days of weather into less than 24 hours!  This is 
one weird winter.

Lynda, who is happy anyway as she will no longer have to wait for what seems 
like hours for water to boil and will be able to once again make Bee U Tee 
Ful loaves of San Francisco style sourdough bread!  YIPPEE!