Wildfires--

For those of you who know where we live, yes, we are being affected by the Southern California Wildfires. Again.

The Santa Ana winds are awfully strong-- much stronger than they were in October 2003, the last time wildfires whipped through our area. In fact, I'm not even sure there were Santa Ana winds in 2003. But there are now. Averaging 35-40 miles per hour, and sometimes hitting 60 miles per hour.

We closed up all the windows around 1:00pm this afternoon, when the smell of smoke and the darkened sky became evident. But that hasn't prevented the ash, the soot, and the smoke from infiltrating just about everything.

Our home is in no immediate danger. We are not listed among those who should prepare to evacuate, and we have not been evacuated. We do not anticipate being evacuated. And for that we are quite grateful.

But the smoke is pretty bad. Our eyes burn. Our throats are scratchy. Our sinuses are being challenged by the smell of camp fire.

To combat this, we are camping out in the master bedroom tonight-- the whole family: dog, kids, us. We've turned on three hepa-filter air purifiers in there, and although it's really loud, the air quality is significantly better.

Our public schools are closed tomorrow. We don't know if the preschool is open. We don't know if Jason's office is open-- it's closer to the fires than our house is. We do know we'll be keeping the kids indoors, and maybe heading off to Aunt Tiffy's if the air remains clear(er) up there.

We'll keep you posted.