Back in the Saddle Again... Post Ike Musings

Finally caught up on housework, email and research, I can sit down and document the highlights of our time throughout Ike and his aftermath.

To begin, we had no damage to house or other property and are very blessed to be able to say that, as we know many who were not so fortunate.  So... our Ike story goes as follows:

The kids were home all of Friday, as we "prepared" for Ike's arrival.  Our preparation consisted mainly of getting the house as clean as possible, washing everything that we had dirty and assembling candle stations around the house.  We did make a trip to Mimi and Poppy's to retrieve a shotgun, just in case.  Really, that is all that we did.  We had already stocked up at the store and filled the tub with water in the event we were without water, so we were able to play... a lot.

So, Ike stormed in during the night while the girls slept.  At 1am, I heard on the news that the Heights area had lost power (an area just north of downtown Houston), so I gathered the sleepy heads to the closet and was herding the dogs to the hallway when our power went.  We settled in after some initial excitement and the girls fell asleep in the closet with me and Bruno - Chris, not able to fit into the closet, slept in our bed with one foot on the floor and a Maglite in his hand on the ready (granted, he only wore his skivies, so ready for what, I am not sure).  

We managed to sleep until about 7am the next morning - straight through the entire storm! Upon waking the first thing Skylar told me was about her dream that God had placed a bubble over our house and kept us safe and in the bubble, it was beautiful with flowers and butterflies everywhere.  When we emerged from the back of the house we could still see the wind blowing through the trees and rain falling, but it seemed the worst was over.  

Saturday afternoon, we ventured out into our neighborhood in the continuing rain to get an idea of how the rest of the folks had faired.  We found that our little area of the street did well, but many trees had fallen - over 40 total - and were in/through houses, on power lines and across the roads.  Walking toward the back of our neighborhood, we saw some horrific sights of up-rooted 70 - 90 ft oak trees and 70 ft pine trees that were snapped off like toothpicks at about 25 ft up.  It was crazy.  

Then, another storm came through on the heels of the hurricane, lightening dancing everywhere and dumping several inches of rain on the already sodden ground.  In the low-lying areas around here - and there are many -  there was much flooding.  It only added insult to injury, sadly.  Indoors most of the day, we had a mani-pedi party and played games.  We began working our way through our perishable food and drinking our still-cold beverages before that opportunity vanished completely.

For 2 weeks, we lived without power.   God sent us a cold front to help us out for the power outage, but we could have used a bit more compassion regarding the mosquitoes, which were out in droves and seemed larger than normal, too.  Chris went into full Grisly Adams mode with his beard and I learned how to do my hair without a blow dryer.  We used our camping gear for cooking and lighting and enjoyed the company of our neighbors more than we ever had before.  Everyone gathered in the yards daily for conversation and generosity abounded as folks shared ice, generators and a cold beer.  Life slowed down to a snail's pace and it was good. 

Laundry piled up and it was bad.  The girls and I played "washer women" with the big wash tub one day and hung laundry on the line outside, but it still wasn't the same.  No one ran out of unders except Chris, who had the unfortunate experience of having to wear line-dried skivies for three days, which will forever be referred to now as "scratchy skivies".  They were very stiff and probably not rinsed as well as they could have been.  Oh, well.  

The girls actually played on the enormous piles of laundry (which I call Mt. Washmore, which took me 3 days and 15 loads to scale after the power came back, but I digress) and would have a "what's stinkiest?" contest by smelling a dirty something and comparing it with other dirty somethings in the piles.  That made me throw up a little in my mouth...

The girls started back to school after a week of being off without power.  It was good for them to get back into the swing of things after such a long distraction.   Chris went back to work, but had to set up shop at his folks' and then our friends', the Timm's, because we still did not have power and internet was not working either.  Most of his clients were understanding, but some were not - which is bizarre and quite un-cool of them.

That's all - we are back to "normal", as if there is such a thing.  We actually had fun in the aftermath and liked the pace of things.  We may have a monthly "No Power" day where we shut off our power and light candles, etc.  We will see.  It was really no worse than an extended camping trip for us and for that, we are truly and abundantly thankful.