Hurricane Isaac

sorry for the disappearing act last week, but we’ve had to “weather” this storm the past few days! this meant no internet connection for us for 5 very long days.

happy labor day to everyone! although summer is in it’s prime here, i know this means the end of summer for many of you. i am jealous of those of you who will soon be getting a taste of fall.

this is my re-cap of hurricane isaac. this was written on wednesday morning, in the midst of it all. once again, we were spared and feel so very lucky with the outcome.

ahhh, yes…it seems as though in the southeastern region, we all like to take a “staycation” almost every august. we like to “hunker down” and “ride out the storm” in our homes with no electricity, sometimes no water, and debris flying all over the backyard. sounds fun, right? not so. all kidding aside, this storm is such a coincidence because today (wednesday; the day we are experiencing the worst of isaac) is the 7 year anniversary of hurricane katrina.

for me, all of the madness started sunday morning when i decided to take my usual bi-monthly trip to sam’s to “make groceries” – ‘cause that’s what we do in the south! when i arrived at sam’s, i noticed the line for getting gas was about 30 cars deep. then, i noticed a line of people wrapped around the store waiting to get inside. i thought to myself that this was rather odd. once in the store, i could tell people were in a panic. for the first time in my life, i felt like i was the calm one. trust me, that says a lot. i’m usually not the calm one. so i called my husband and asked why all these people were in a frenzy. not one to worry much, he said “yea, there’s a little storm there watching that could come get us.” you must understand that whenever there is a storm mentioned, or worse yet, a hurricane mentioned, people in my area get very intense and nervous. after going through hurricane katrina, i understand this (i was lucky enough to be evacuated for that, though). somehow, i managed to get my groceries super-fast at sam’s and I escaped the 20 person deep checkout line when my good eye spotted a self-checkout line with only a few people ahead of me.

i have always said that i wish we would start school after labor day because it’s just too hot to start before labor day. well, it looks like my wish may come true this year. i had my first grade students for a whopping six days before this happened. to my surprise, it looks like we may be out of school this whole week. so we will get a taste of what it’s like to start after labor day. our little ones come in from recess with purple faces in august because they are so hot. starting after labor day may just be the solution to that. what a novel idea! the rest of the country seems to already be aware of this! maybe, just maybe, with our hurricane history, we should give this a try.

we have been experiencing the full effects of Isaac for about 12 hours now. our families have decided to stay put in our secure homes. we do not take evacuation lightly here. it is a very carefully calculated decision with each storm as to whether or not to evacuate. we have been having very high winds (60-80ish mi/hour) and rain since about 8pm last night. unfortunately, at this point, the storm is stalled. it is literally sitting on top of us right now with no end in site. our meteorologists are saying that we will be lucky if it is gone in the next 12 hours or so. so, what does this mean for our property? there’s quite a bit of debris flying around. our small fence in our backyard came down within an hour of this beginning last night, shingles have fallen, and we have a small roof leak. thank goodness my husband checked the attic or this could have meant a completely flooded living room. and, this is not even a big storm. this is considered rather mild. we do feel extremely lucky that, for some reason, our home has been one of the few in the city that has had power all the way through. yep, we have not lost power. i am totally flabbergasted by this, but i just feel very blessed that we have had power the entire time. i wish everyone would be so lucky because there are people who need power much more than we do.

overall, we are doing just fine. they are asking that no one leave their homes until further notice, so we have really taken advantage of this. We cooked a big pot of gumbo all day yesterday (recipe coming soon!), have fixed 2 great breakfasts, and, quite honestly, are enjoying a little bit of down time. once normal life resumes, i know it will be go, go, go. so, i feel very lucky right now and i hope the rest of the southeastern region does not see too much destruction.

regular blogging will resume as of today. i have some really fun and delish recipes coming up in the next few weeks! i’m so anxiously awaiting fall!

if you made it to the end of this post, you deserve something pretty. here’s a pic of the purslane growing in my backyard that i brought back to life this summer. this pic is from a few weeks ago. it has almost quadrupled in size.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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