Tuesday, May 7, 2024

Stormy May Weather

So far May has been pretty stormy. It hasn't been bad...just some rain, thunder and lightning, and a little bit of wind. We were actually in a "particularly dangerous situation" tornado watch yesterday as they were predicting large hail and tornados in our area. Some schools and businesses in our area even closed early because the PDS is generally a rare situation. But...we didn't even get any rain except for misty sprinkles off and on throughout the day. They kept pushing back the start time...first 4pm, then 6pm...but the line of storms split as they came near us so it all was all to the north and south of us moving northeast. Lots of people were like, "but it could still happen!" I mean, anything COULD happen...but it was highly unlikely since the line of storms had already moved past us. 

Honestly...it happens a lot. There are legends that say it's because of the rivers and/or the Native Americans originally here which have protected the area...but I don't really know much about it. But 9/10 times whenever they predict any kind of really bad weather (snow, tornados, whatever), it doesn't happen anywhere near as bad as what they were predicting. That's not to say it can't happen...but the number of times we've watched a storm die out before it got here or went around us has been VERY frequent. In the last 10+ years that I've lived here with Johnny...I only remember hearing the tornado sirens going off twice, I think. They used to go off all the time when I was a kid...but that's because they would sound if there was a tornado anywhere in the county so people started largely ignoring the sirens because it didn't mean there was an actual threat in their immediate area. I don't remember when they made the decision to make them more area-specific, but I think it was a good idea. 

The weather caused some issues with air travel. Johnny's brother was in town for his high school reunion. He'd stopped by on Sunday to hang out for a little while and pick up a few things for their mom. Then that evening, they went out to eat at a sports bar in town. They had a really good time. But his brother's flight ended up being delayed and then finally canceled. The passengers were put up in a hotel overnight, but then the flight today was canceled and there were issues with making the connecting flight. So it was all a mess.  

In other news, I made it to 750 sales in my Etsy shop exactly 2 weeks after I'd hit 700 sales! :) I'm pleased with the growth of my shop...especially when compared to last year. It's also pretty good considering I don't do a whole lot of promoting of my shop. Every once in awhile I post a TikTok video if I think about it. I do post comments sometimes when there's a post in the Ehlers-Danlos Memes FB group that matches pretty close with one of my stickers. Most of my traffic (almost 90% this year and 75% last year) comes directly from Etsy searches and SEO. 

That's about all I can think of for now. This week seems to be going by SO slow! I'm ready for the weekend! :P