The Day After...

...playing at Grandma's house.

One of the singed hills off of the toll road:

The sky was blue and beautiful, except for the puff of smoke coming from the part of the canyon that was still burning.

The Most Beautiful Sight in the World

The water-dropping helicopter!

The fire near our house is amazingly keeping its distance from us. It has burned withing two miles to the west of us, two miles to the north of us, and is now curving around to within three or four miles to the east of us.

It looks like by tonight we will be surrounded on three sides!

But we are safe.

I feel so bad for everyone else, especially the military personnel that are having to evacuate their homes at Camp Pendleton.

Pray for a speedy end to these fires.

The smoke seems a little worse tonight. It also, disconcertingly, smells like bacon.

So in addition to making me cough, it is making me hungry. Then I feel guilty, thinking of the poor, little, delicious, crunchy animals out there.

And I feel guilty for being so self-centered, when there are hundreds of thousands who are in a worse position.

If the smoke isn't better tomorrow, we will probably take the kids to my mom's house near the beach. They were starting to look a little tired and were complaining of nausea.

But hopefully the sea breeze will kick in and push the smoke away, and it would be extra nice to have some miracle rain, or at least those military planes that hold tons of water.

Another view from behind my house:

View from behind my house. It is still a couple miles away.

This is the hill behind my house. The houses at the top of the hill are under voluntary evacuation. I think at this point they are safe, and the fire is burning east into the canyons.

*cough*

The wind has shifted, so we are safe from the fire for now.

We are praying for everyone else. And coughing.

I haven't been blogging, because I am still working on the house.

I started painting the walls, with a brush, not a roller, because I am terrible with a roller. So it is slow going, but very rewarding. I can't believe I waited so long to paint.

Other than that, not much is new. I am loving our hot, dry fall weather.

Well, this is not very exciting reading, but I am still here, and reading everyone's blogs every day!

If you are not over in my favorites, and you have a blog, leave the link in the comments. I am looking for some new blogs to read.

Thanks! :)