Aftermath of Irene

It's been awhile since I have updated....The week before this one was extremely busy. Aside from being at school and preparing for the upcoming school year, we were also preparing for Irene, the hurricane that was creeping up the coast towards us. Lowe's, grocery stores, drugstores....empty of essentials...bread, milk, ice, anything that could be eaten without refrigeration..as well as flashlights, batteries, etc.

It was crazy to see this happening and honestly, I didn't really understand why everyone was getting so hyped up.

Well, then the storm hit.

I was actually gone for the weekend - my husband was home alone to face the storm with our dog and two cats. I was at a bachelorette party in the mountains, where we experienced rain and some wind but not much else. He, on the other hand, experienced hours of strong winds, heavy rainfall and watching trees and power lines fall as if they were twigs and string. We lost power at some point during Saturday evening...and we have yet to get it back.

I felt horrible for being gone but would have regretted not going. Being Catholic though, it's hard to avoid the guilt of being gone during such a frightening time. When I arrived home on Sunday, I had already stopped at Wal-Mart to re-stock on things that we may need in the coming days. Josh (husband) was already raking the yard of the leaves that had fallen and covered our yard...he had about 12-14 large piles, along with some very large branches. Luckily, the only casualties to the storm were one piece of siding and our power. Everything else was shaken up and the trees are surprisingly bare for just the end of summer, but fine.

While our neighborhood was okay, the roads throughout our county were littered with downed trees, power lines trapped below them, and houses that had fared much more damage than us. For the last few days, we have not done much - schools are either flooded or closed due to electricity issues - we have stayed a night at family's house and go over to shower and cool down in her air conditioning. We've gone to Panera or libraries periodically to charge up the computers or cell phones but there just isn't a lot to do....that we can do.

So this is how I ended up in the neighborhood library. I got one of the last tables on the second floor and am watching the Red Cross pass out free lunches to the people in this community. Everything is charging up and I am cooling down as time passes. I can only hope that our power returns soon...I am in need of some down time with air conditioning in my own home....a shower without driving somewhere...and a refrigerator that doesn't smell like spoiled food.

Sigh....