A Tale of Ike

We are happy to report that we made it through Ike just fine. We continue to pray for our fellow Texans in Houston and Galveston and surrounding areas that have been devastated. I can't even imagine how they are feeling.

For a few days before the hurricane came I had been taking ice out of my icemaker and putting it in ziplock bags and putting it in my deep freezer in the garage. I also put several jugs of water in the deep freeze. The day before I took everything out of my refrigerator freezer inside and put it in the deep freeze. I only left those things that I wanted to defrost in my refrigerator freezer because we were going to eat them. Spaghetti, Soup, pancakes, muffins, cookies. I put two jugs of frozen water in with them. I filled my teakettle with water and one pot on the stove to boil spaghetti noodles. I baked a loaf of bread in my breadmaker. I also made a spice cake. Hey, you gotta have sugar & carbs during a crisis!

I had gone shopping well before the storm for some essentials. However, I told the boys that we needed to get some Hurricane food and brought them to the grocery store. I told them to think of some fun things we could get. They chose cinnamon rolls, Cheese-its and miniature Hershey bars. They really looked forward to having some cinnamon rolls the morning after the Hurricane.

We all slept in the living room Friday night. I found myself gritting my teeth, so I took some L-theanine, turned off the TV and put on the Christian radio station. Where God is, there is no fear. It was very calming. The wind started to pick up in the evening. We tried to sleep, but the wind and the rattling kept me up. The boys drifted off to sleep, but Greg and I stayed awake. At about 2:30 a.m. the noise intensified and we both jumped up and turned on the TV. The electricity would flicker off and on, so we were able to see where Ike was. I also used my cellphone Internet access to look at the radar at other times. It was a windy night, but strangely, very little rain fell. I listened for tornadoes, but I heard none. I finally went to my bedroom and tried to get a few winks. I fell asleep for what seemed only a few minutes, but the noise of the wind and the bushes hitting my window kept me up. We finally lost our electricity about 6:00 a.m. I am so thankful we had electricity through the night. The wind continued to blow all morning and a little rain fell. When daylight came, we checked our house. We had no damage. Our wisteria vine in the back fell down. Also our potted Norfolk Pine fell over and the tree roots that went through the pot into the ground snapped. Our back neighbor had a large tree that fell. It fell exactly in his back yard and didn't hit anyone's house or fence. Amazing!

For lunch, I heated up some of the spaghetti sauce that was defrosting in the freezer. I also cut up some of the Foccacia Bread from the freezer.

We tried to play charades, but it wasn't very successful. We ate Cheese-its while reading one of our library books outloud to pass the time. We are reading "William Carey, Obliged to Go" as part of our Tapestry of Grace Curriculum. It is a wonderful book about a missionary to India. It was a feeling of normalcy to read to the boys outloud for a while. The windows were all open and the air was heavy with humidity from the Hurricane. We were sticky hot and tired from staying up most of the night. Snugglebunny crashed in the bedroom for a nap and I read to the boys.

Later in the afternoon a friend came over to check on us. As we stood in the foyer, commenting about when the electricity would come on, IT DID! Praise God! We had gotten reports of it taking up to 4 weeks to get the electricity back on. We were jumping around and closing all the windows and turning on the a/c. She called to her family who lived a few streets up and told them to do the same. We then walked to a friend's house to check on the damage there. They were out of town and we wanted to give them a report. Only the back fence had come down in one place. Nothing serious. However, there was a report of a tornado touchdown in the neighborhood down the street a bit where our pastor lived. He was fine. I called a few friends around town to check on them. Everyone was fine. As of this writing, everyone we know has their electricity back on and no damage to their homes. Thank you God for your protective covering during this storm.

Continue to pray for this area. Even though the electricity is back on in some parts of town, many are without electricity. Officials are treating the water as if it is contaminated and are asking people to boil before consuming. Our area is on a water well system, so we are OK. However, food is at a premium at the stores. They are trying to restock and I am trying to do without. I so do not look forward to getting out to the stores. Gas is also somewhat hard to find around town.

Losing our electricity for a few hours and facing slim pickins in the grocery store makes me appreciate them more. I also feel the weight of responsibility of God's blessing on our family. I will not squander it on our family alone. We have made our home available to any in need.

Our poor Wisteria vine had to be trimmed back to nothing! It used to be so huge. Now our backyard looks so bare. However, I still have a backyard. So many have lost their entire homes. Enough whining!

Here is what we trimmed off the vine.