Awesome but extreme weather

Let me start out by saying that the weather this week has been fantastic.  It's the first week I haven't worn some form of jacket/sweater to work every day, the first week I've been able to wear a dress without leggings or tights, and I've really enjoyed it.

But we've had a couple extremes, and some of those I could live without. 

One:  On Monday it was 86 degrees outside.  Chris and I got off work, came home, made dinner and ate, and then decided to take a walk around town at about 7 o'clock.  It was bright and sunny out, warm but a little breezy.  Perfect weather for walking - we thought...

We walked all the way downtown to check out this bakery people have been telling us about.  Then we turned around to head home.  We hit the bottom of our street and all the sudden we noticed dark clouds rolling in.  We picked up the pace a little bit when we felt the first raindrop.  

For about 30 seconds we got hit by no more than a couple drops, but the sky was going from bright and sunny to completely dark and ominous in no more than a minute's time.  I mean, it was sunny when we turned up our street.  So we decided to run.

And the sky opened up.  

We were still running and over two blocks away when hail started pelting us - and it hurt!!  We didn't get more than half a block closer to our house before we were completely drenched through.  Since I was wearing flip flops and running got really hard once they were slippery and wet, we just walked the rest of the way home.

We never stood a chance.

And then about 5 minutes after we got into the house, it just stopped...

...Until that night when we had thunderstorms that woke even a sound sleeper like myself up in the middle of the night.  When we woke up the next morning, lightening (or wind) had caused a tree branch to fall on part of our neighbor's house.  

Two:  93 degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday.  I love warm weather, but 93 degrees during the first week of April is definitely extreme.  We've already had to turn on the a/c in the house at night because we can't fall asleep - the house is too hot.  I definitely didn't want to start using the a/c already in April.

Three:  Pollen.  Everywhere.  Those of you with allergies, and probably even those of you without allergies can relate.  The rain can't even wash it all away it's so bad!  I thought that after the storm on Monday we'd come out to clean cars in the morning, but even then they were yellow.  That wasn't the worst thing though.  The worst was today.

I had to walk across campus this afternoon to drop something off.  I'm wearing these brown, flat shoes, but by the time I got back to my office, they looked almost green.  It's disgusting.  

And my feet and legs are covered in a thin sheen of pollen.  I couldn't even do anything about it while I was at work.  All I wanted to do is take a shower and wash it all away.  (Sorry if you don't want to see a picture of my foot, but I figured the pollen was much too disgusting not to share.)

Anyway, I hear the thunder starting to roll in and just saw the first flash of lightening.  Since the storm Monday knocked out our cable and internet for the day on Tuesday, I'm going to post this in case it goes out again!