The Day was Crazy

Many, many thanks for your kind words, thoughts and prayers during our visit with Hurricane Irene. We had no damage, we didn't even lose power - although there is a clearly defined line in our neighborhood of who has power and who doesn't.

NOT my house.

Witness this, the house of my neighbor - it fell on his house at about 1 a.m. and the fire department arrived at 6 a.m. to post signs telling people to keep out - while he was asleep inside the house.

This storm was no joke. We experienced several tornadoes yesterday, wind gusts that blew trees around and the ocean water crossed the entire beach and came up on the boardwalk.We recevied more than 16 inches of rain, reported one station. I'm going to look for the official amount tomorrow.

We heard all of that on the news. We didn't step out of the house. Well, my son did - but I'm convinced he has a death wish. We handled it pretty well, with power flickering but no outage, until the back side of the storm came. The winds were more brutal than ever then. Our upstairs a/c has been limping along for quite a while and apparently decided last night that it was too afraid of the storm - so the a/c unit called in sick and it was roasting upstairs.

The rain had slacked off, although the winds were still fierce, and my hubby made the executive decision to open the windows.It was much cooler - but it was loud. I mean, really, really loud - I had been sitting in the little girls room since 8:30, waiting for them to go to sleep and reading a book for review. I looked over, thought both of them were asleep, and went out to pee.

I really had to go. Alas, it was not the wisest decision of the night.

My spectrum kiddo was not yet asleep, even though it was already 10:30 - and she sat up, pulled the covers over her head, and began to scream. And scream, and scream. I ran back in, scooped her up, plopped down in the rocker, and we reverted remarkably quickly to the coping mechanisms of years past - I brushed her with the therapy brush and sang the two songs that would always calm her down - The Wheels on the Bus and Baby Beluga. I sang and brushed and rocked and held for 2 hours until she stopped crying and went to sleep.

We woke this morning to clear blue skies, no more smoke from the fire (yayayayay!!), and the knowledge that we were indeed lucky.

I could do with just a bit less excitement in my life right about now.

School is closed tomorrow - we went three days. But there's no power and huge trees down, and so we will go tomorrow and do yard clean up.

And pray for power the next day.

If you were in the path of this storm, please - check in. Let us know how you fared.

Comments

[maggie]

Carmen, I'm so glad you guys made it through! I was thinking about you all and saying some prayers!

[bama Cheryl]

Thought about you the whole time while watching the storm coverage on TV. So glad you and your family are OK (despite the frantic night).

[Vicky]

So glad to hear y'all are ok, with the exception of the a/c.

[Megan]

Glad to hear you all came through OK. I hope your A/C makes an inexpensive recovery.

We didn't have much excitement here in Charlottesville, but the wind was enough to blow a tree onto my neighbor's car. It was a small tree, and much to my surprise, the car was undamaged except for some scratches.

[Dianna]

So glad to hear you guys - minus the a/c - are alright and made it through. Hope school's back in session soon!

[Laura H]

Good news Carmen! It sounds as if the a/c and your spectrum kiddo were the worst of it, and I'd call that a success :) Glad you were able to get the kiddo calmed down; that must have been so scary for her.

[Nicole]

Glad everyone came out of the storm okay! I'm sorry it hit you guys, but I am thankful we didn't get hit.

[UKCraftySal]

So relieved to hear you are basically OK. have been thinking about you all so much. Hope the school clear up goes well, and the kids (and you!) are back to their normal routines soon.

[Writing complaint letter]

God helped every one!

[Pat]

Glad to here you came out okay. I live outside Washington, DC and I thought Virginia Beach was getting it worse than we were. I was relatively lucky, I only lost power 15 hours on Sunday. We luckily had cold water, but because of the no electricity, no hot water. And because I have VOIP phone service, because of the power situation, no phone. But hundreds of thousands of people in the suburban areas of Virginia and Maryland are still without power because of flooding and downed trees, so I can't complain.

I tried to catch storm updates on my transister radio on Sunday and, of course, the only stations my antenna would bring in were ball games and sermons. LOL

[Becky]

I survived. We never lost power but it flickered on and off all day long. My cable, phone and internet are back. We were blessed. The rest of my family has no power. My brother lose his detached garage to a huge tree. Praise the LOrd it fell the direction of the garage and not the house. Please pray for the mother who lost her 11 year old that day. That apartment is about a mile from my house. It was so sad. They were taking a nap together in the same bed. She made it and he did not.So sad.

[addy]

So glad you all survived with minimal worries.

[wholesale nfl jerseys]

I've given in to a schedule, too. I've learned the hard way that I do much, much better with a highly structured day, and to keep myself from feeling as though I'm running all.day.long., I pad my schedule a little bit. I know it's not going to take me half an hour to clean up my tiny apartment kitchen after supper. But the extra 15 minutes (or however long) I get once I'm done is time I can put my feet up or play "Roar" with my son. It's making me a saner person.... at least for all outward appearances.