Hurricane Update

Yesterday morning Scott and I woke early, probably out of nervousness, to finish preparing for the highly touted "Frankenstorm." I was delighted that the school cancellations were reported on Sunday night, although to be completely honest I had no intention of sending Robby out in 80 mph winds. I was relieved to hear of Scott's school closing because I knew that our little family needed to be together to ride out this storm.

I worked to clear a path to the safest part of our house, underneath the steps in our garage. I am hoping that we won't have to retreat, but I wanted to be prepared. If a tornado warning is declared, the last thing I wanted to do was contend with boxes of Christmas decorations, wrapping paper and assorted metal tins blocking access to our safe zone!

Scott visited five stores before securing ice for our coolers. We packed them full with milk, hotdogs, cheese and Robby's medications. Looking at our six coolers and counter overflowing with junk food, I think we might have been a bit overzealous in our preparations.

As the rain began to fall Scott and I made a final mad dash outside to grab firewood. We filled our fire rack, which we moved inside next to our front door. Bringing the wood inside, although seemingly a good idea at the time, was perhaps not our best idea.  Within 15 minutes large black ants were marching out of the wood and exploring their new home!

We quickly moved the firewood back outside and piled it against the house, under the overhang. In the meantime, Charlie Cat had a great time hunting for little bits of protein!

Robby, Scott and I moved downstairs when the winds began to pick up.

**If we lose electricity, this is where my blog post will end. Rest assured that we have done everything to remain safe and to prepare for an extended outage. The winds are picking up, the trees looking like they are bowing in unison. At this point I'm expecting to see Dorothy and Toto fly by our window!

I am worried about a tree landing on our house, so we are going to "camp out" in our safe spot. Wish us luck! **


UPDATE--  power is back on. Our house survived without damage! I suspect our day will be spent helping the neighbors clean up- they were not nearly as lucky.