September Memories

Last September we experienced our first major hurricane. It was quite an event for me even though I grew up on the west coast of Florida. Hurricane Ike came ashore in Texas and boy did things look different around here after he left. Thankfully, we were only without power four days at our house. A little cool front came and kept us cool. Each night we had 12-15 people at our house to eat. I had a generator keeping one of our refrigerators going so neighbors would bring me food from their freezers. We all ate really good.

This is how things normally look around here:

After Ike this is what we saw when we walked out side:

The park near our house looked like this:

Another Memory:

I know we all thought back to the day of September 11, 2001...where we were and what were were doing. I remember seeing something briefly on the TV about the World Trade Center being hit by the first plane. I turned off the TV so it wouldn't scare my daughter and we rushed on out the door to go to school. I drove across the street to pick up my neighbor's son who carpooled with us. She walked out and asked me if I saw the Pentagon had been hit by a plane. I told her "No, it was the WTC. Not the Pentagon." Sadly we were both right.

Speaking of Memory:

I received this from our Community Association Office last week.

They forwarded this man's picture. He has amnesia. He was found beaten up and left for dead in Richmond, Georgia. He has very little recollection of his past and no idea who he is. Linguist have determined from his accent that he could possibly be from Texas, Oklahoma, Indiana or Colorado. Someone out there has to be looking for him. I felt sad for him and decided to post him on my blog. You never know.

Here is the link for more information regarding him:

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1007umga.html

~~~

Lastly, I wanted to share with you about Dr. Margaret Nikol. Paige and I heard her speak today and share memories of her life growing up as a Christian in Communist Bulgaria. Her mother, father and brother were all martyred for their faith. I wish you could hear her story in person. She has speaking engagements all over the U.S. Check out her website http://www.intl-impact.org/. She will be in California, Oklahoma, Texas and Illinois between now and the end of the year. You have to see her if you can.

She still has such a burden and a heart for Bulgaria. She translated the entire Bible into the Bulgarian language and in 1993 took over the first copies of the Bible that those churches have had in years. She's has since provided Bulgarian believers with over 600,000 copies of the Bible in their language. One memory that she shared touched me so much. She told of her mother's death. The Communist had poisoned her and brought her home to die. As she lay dying, Margaret and her younger brother were with her and she told them that the prayers she had prayed for them would follow them their entire lives. They did. She prayed that Margaret would be a musician and she was. By the time she was four years old she was playing organ and piano in their church. She prayed her brother would be a Pastor and he was. He was martyred two weeks before the Berlin Wall crumbled. Both of his sons are still pastors in Bulgaria. The story is incredible. I wish she would write a book. I'm glad Paige could go with me to see this Hero of the Faith and hear her memories.

What Gulf Coast Women Learned from Ike

This appeared in the Houston Chronicle today. It was entitled Fumbling in the Dark, We've Learned. I picked a few funny ones that apply to women and renamed it What Gulf Coast Women Learn from Ike.

* Manicures are a sign of civilization
* Coffee is possible without Starbucks
* That neighbor who knows how to use a chainsaw
is your new best friend.
* Hair can dry without a blowdryer, but it may not
look the way you planned.
* What looks acceptable by candlelight in your bathroom
will scare you when you look at yourself in the mirror at the
office.
* Baseball caps go with any post-hurricane ensemble.
* You can't train yourself not to flip on light switches
when entering a room.
* You have neighbors.
* Garage doors aren't magic.
* The storm treasures your kids are finding
really belong to your neighbors.
* It's easier to ignore a dirty floor when you can't see it.

Ike

Well Ike did come get us.

I found this note scrawled on a flagstone in our

cul-de-sac island.

The "calm before the storm" ~ Some neighbors gathered in the cul-de-sac to visit before the Ike came. Ike came in during the night on Friday night. We lost power around 6:00 am Saturday. Orginally it was tracking to the west of our area, but the eye ended up passing about 20 miles to the east of where we are.





Below I'm posting some pictures of the mess from Hurricane Ike. These are pictures of my yard. We faired extremely well compare to some neighbors. Our house has no damage that we know of. At least 5-6 trees fell on houses in our neighborhood alone of about 50 houses.

This is what we found the next morning:

A top from a tree down in the back yard.

That big blob of green between the two flower beds doesn't belong there. It belongs in the top of a tree in our front yard.

This is a picture from our local park:



Times like these provide (force) opportunities to do some deep cleaning.


But the Hero was......

THE GENERATOR!

Yes, this beautiful generator came through for us. Buster went to Home Depot on Friday morning at 5:30a.m. and stood there for 2.5 hours and came home with this beautiful designer color lime-green generator. It truly was worth it. It kept our 2nd refrigerator going for the 4 days we did not have power.

God in his mercy blessed us with natural air conditioning so the temperature was very comfortable. We spent lots of time with neighbors eating together, helping each other out. There was no TV or video games so there were lots of kids out riding bikes and playing outside.

Those are the good things hurricane Ike brought to us.

Also, can you guess if this is Paige's room BEFORE Hurricane Ike or AFTER Hurricane Ike????

Your guess is as good as mine.

;)

The Power is on

Hi Friends and Family:
We finally have power. It came on last night around 11:20 p.m. We are SO happy.
I'll post some pictures from the storm tomorrow. We are safe and no damage to our house, just lots of clean up.

What I like about Ike...hmm...let me think....

Can't think of anything I like about Ike. My kids like the fact that school has been cancelled tomorrow. So here he comes. That little trail of yellow and red dots are just south and west of our house.

We're as ready as we can be. We are in a No-Evacuation Zone. So storm surge is not a problem for us. But I've got a full tank of gas. I paid $3.27 per gallon. Not too bad considering... Enough pop-tarts and diet pepsis to last us a couple of weeks.
The "officials" are already telling us we could loose power for up to two weeks. Let's hope that doesn't happen. We do have plans if we need to leave. Thanks Uncle Jack and Aunt Doris.

I received this funny e-mail yesterday from a friend about hurricane cocktails.
Keeps times like this on the light side. So here is some hurricane humor for you.

The e-mail read....


MANDATORY EVACUATION
1 1/2 oz. Absolute Ruby Red vodka
1/2 oz. vermouth
ClamatoPrune juice
Combine vodka and vermouth in cocktail glass. Fill remainder of glass with equal parts Clamato and prune juice. Stir. Drink. Ask next-door neighbor whose tree blew over and crashed onto your roof - even though you'd warned him for months to uproot it - if you can use his bathroom. Repeat.

CATEGORY 5
1/2 oz. vodka
1/2 oz. tequila
1/2 oz. rum
1/2 oz. bourbon
1/2 oz. gin
Sweet-and-sour mix
Splash of fruit juice
Combine vodka, tequila, rum, bourbon and gin in a tall glass. Fill remainder of glass with sweet-and-sour mix and splash of juice. Stir, then garnish with an inverted drink umbrella. Drink during peak storm hours,and vow not to believe anyone who tries to tell you the hurricane that flooded your garage and destroyed your shed was just a Category 1.

CONE OF PROBABILITY
1 oz. cinnamon schnapps
1 sugar coneP
our the schnapps into the sugar cone. Every time you hear a TV weatherman say, 'cone of probability,' bite off the end of the cone and down the shot.
If you hear Jim Cantore say it, drink two shots consecutively. (they should change this to the 'Cantore Zone'.... Have you ever noticed that, despite all the cone of probability talk, if Cantore is parked in front of your house your rearend is toast?)

FEEDER BAND
2 oz. Midori
2 oz. rum
1 scoop vanilla ice cream
After your home loses power, combine Midori and rum in a cocktail glass. Add a scoop of the vanilla ice cream that is melting in your freezer. Stir, and drink through a straw.

BEACH EROSION
1 1/2 oz. Goldschläger
1 1/2 oz. apple brandy
1 pack Sugar in the Raw
Combine Goldschläger, apple brandy and sugar in cocktail glass. As you drink, seriously contemplate moving your Yankee a** back to New Jersey where it belongs.

DOWNED POWER LINE
1 1/2 oz. rum
5 oz. Jolt Cola
Combine ingredients in a cocktail glass. Drink while trying to figure out how the heck you're supposed to go two freakin' weeks without television and AC.

FLOOD ZONE
2 oz. Kahlúa
2 oz. Baileys Irish cream
4 oz. rum
Serve in a 6-ounce glass and laugh-cry deliriously as the mess spills all over the countertop.

COLD SHOWER
2 oz. Blue Aftershock
4 oz. Sprite
Combine in a cocktail glass with crushed ice you received after waiting in line for three hours at a mall parking lot. Take a deep breath, sip and scream like a little girl when the cold beverage hits your tongue. Repeat.

LOOTERS WILL BE SHOT
1 oz. Jack Daniel's
Splash of sarsaparilla
Rock salt
Load both barrels of a shotgun with rock salt. Climb to the roof of your house with gun, bottle of Jack Daniel's and can of sarsaparilla. Fill shotglass with Jack and splash of sarsaparilla. Watch for looters. When you spot one, blast him with rock salt. Drink shot. Repeat.

THE CHAIN SAW
1 oz. Goldschläger
1 oz. Rumplemintz
3 oz. Jim Beam
Splash of vermouth
Combine Goldschläger, Rumplemintz and Jim Beam in an empty soup can. Add splash of vermouth. Drink. Remove chain saw from garage and attempt to cut up fallen tree limbs in yard. Ask neighbor to drive you to hospital when it all goes horribly wrong.

BLUE TARP
1 1/2 oz. Curacao
2 oz. pineapple juice
Splash of lime
Combine ingredients in a leaky paper cup and serve. Wait six to eight months for someone to repair the cup. If you're impatient, hire an unlicensed, out-of-state contractor to do the job for an exorbitant sum and pray he doesn't hurt himself in the process.

Hopefully none of these cocktails will be necessary.
We'll keep you posted.