A Good Day to Stay Home

It seems like a good day to stay inside.  With school cancelled, staying in out of the rain sounds like a very good plan.   We've been through enough real hurricanes to know the difference between this tiny little storm out to sea and the big ones headed straight for us that need to be taken seriously.  

I have a stack of string blocks to work my way through, a quilt waiting for borders, gaggles of geese and a basket of midgets.  Lots of choices and plenty of time.  Can't beat that.  

Thrilling Thursday Surprise

I was busy telling my AP Biology students that there was no way they would cancel school for tomorrow because Sandy was not going to come anywhere near us.  I was quite adamant about it until I was interrupted by an e-mail announcing that school is cancelled for tomorrow.  Y'all in the north can have your snow days, we are taking a hurricane day!  I wonder how much I can sew in a three day weekend of intermittent rain bands?  I have a diet Mt. Dew, a closet full of fabric and plenty of motivation.  WOOOHOOOO!!!

Rainy Day

Because Debbie brought us lots and lots of rain today, the kids wanted to go bowling.  We are still watching to see which way she will go and if she will get any stronger.  Hurricanes are just part of the charm of living in Florida. 

Done Done

I finished up the quilting on Old Hurricane Road this weekend. This is my first experiment with sybolism in my quilting. The swirls in the pinwheel and four patch area represents hurricanes and the spikes in the bricks represent palm trees. I haven't had tons of time to work on it (work, kids, cleaning, laundry, meetings, girl scouts, LIFE) but I did manage to finish the last of the handstitching on the binding this afternoon.

I even got it put onto the bed in the study/guestbedroom/sewing room. It took a bit of reorganization to find the daybed in there under all of the fabric, but a little sorting and putting away made a big difference. It will all need to be cleared out in a couple of weeks when my mother-in-law comes to visit, so it's good to get a start on it. I love the way the big flying geese are flying around the edge. I think the daybed shows that off nicely.

Only 7 more school days until winter break. We are all feeling a little grumpy right about now so I hope the week off will restore our spirits! It may be just my imagination, but everyone seems to be a little stressed right now.

I spent a big chunk of the day shopping for new insurance. I had to get the new car added on, so I thought I'd go ahead and get some more quotes while I was at it. We've kept our car insurace with State Farm because they have our homeowners. They are now plannning to pull all of thier homeowners insurance out of the state of Florida, so I might as well shop around. Finding car insurance was pretty easy, but I'm struggling on the homeowners. Everyone seems to think our house is worth twice as much as we paid for it even though the market has seriously crashed and we'd be very lucky to be able to sell it for what we owe right now. There are 13 houses for sale on our block, 5 of them are short sales, and then there are three forclosures that I know of that haven't come back up for sale yet. I guess I'll keep shopping, it's still a long time before hurricane season comes again.

Watching the Tropics

I would need three eyeballs to watch all the storms in the tropics right now. I'm exhausted just thinking about them all! Hannah has taken a turn for the better and shouldn't impact us much, a little wind and a few rain bands should just about do it. Now the weather channel is trying to talk us all into getting all worked up over Ike. I wish they didn't always try to make it sound so much more serious than it really is. It's too much of the boy who cried wolf. Not being willing to live my life in crisis mode, I'm tempted to just ignore them all, but I know I can't do that either.
I was cleaning out some old papers yesterday and found my hurricane shopping list. It was put out by the Mormons who are very good at being prepared for the worst case scenario. I remembered most of it when I did my hurricane shopping before Fay, but I forgot a couple of things that I'll add to the list the next time I'm at the store. Still, I've decided that the most important foods to have in a hurricanes are Cheeto's and Frozen Pizza. Anything to keep the kids happy is a good thing in a crisis. Maybe I'll add m&ms and activity books to the list.

Here is my hurricane kit food list compliments of the Church of Later Day Saints:
two cans of meat 12-24 oz
two cans of vegetables 14. 5 oz each
two cans of fruit 15 oz each
one can of pasta 15 oz
one box of macaroni and cheese 7.25 oz
one box of flavored rice 6 oz
two cans of pork and beans 15 oz each
one box of hot cereal 18 oz
one package of powdered milk 9.6 oz
one package of biscuit mix 8 oz
one can juice 11.5 oz
one jar peanut butter 18 oz
one jar jelly 14 oz

This is compact enough to fit in a medium rubermaid tub and is to be sealed and stored in a safe place during hurricane season. When a storm warning goes into effect, you are supposed to add a loaf of bread and put a gallon of milk in the freezer. Then turn the refrigerator all the way to cold and you are ready to go.
Other than watching hurricanes as background, things are good around here. We had our "Dad's out of town must eat McDonald's" dinner tonight and watched a movie. Very festive. Everyone got a good bath and headed to bed early. All the kids are bummed about having school tomorrow because mentally they were ready for a hurricane day. I'd rather have school than deal with Hannah right now, but maybe I'm just an odd duck.

Girl Friends and Gossip

One of the advantages of having a husband out of town is that I can galavant around town and feed the kids junk food and nobody notices. Today was full of galavanting (I'm guessing that's not really a word -- 'cause spell check is yelling at me). After work, I came home and made some Girl Scout phone calls. Then Sydney had her first Daisy meeting today after school. It wasn't a girls meeting yet, just a parent meeting to fill out paperwork and pay dues and such. Did I mention already that I was lucky enough to find a new leader for Sydney's troop? I lived in fear that there wouldn't be any volunteers, and I'd end up running two different Girl Scout troops AND being school coordinator (YIKES!). So I am thankful to have found a competent, willing and happy volunteer. So I entertained the girls while the new leader chatted with the moms. From there is was time to drop Anna off at her friends house so they could play before Wednesday night youth group. Anna is a member of her church, but we're not, I guess that's a story for another day. So, the mom of Anna's friend is a good friend of mine, and one of my running partners. We went inside for a bit and chatted while the kids played. She is recovering some chairs in her family room, and we looked at fabric swatches -- how fun! Then I rushed home to do some girl scout phone calls and another girl friend, who lives in the neighborhood, and also has a husband out of town, brought her two boys over to play. We ordered pizza for dinner and shared gossip. Her gossip is always more interesting than mine, so I just listened mostly. After they left, I shooed the kids off to bed and graded papers until my fingers were numb. Now I'm headed off to bed so I can be bright and cheery in the morning. I can usually pull off this whole superwoman single mom thing for about three days, so I'm guessing I'll be ready for a melt down by the time Kurt gets home on Friday. But for now, It seems to be working. Hanna is steering away, and I'm ignoring Ike, 'cause otherwise, I would go a little bit crazy (well maybe a little more crazy). The storms really do almost always go somewhere else -- it's simple statistics, right? Anywhere else is just a much bigger place than right here -- more area means more probability of storms being there than here. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Ying and Yang

Look what I got in the mail today! These goodies are my prize from Amy's 100th post giveaway. You may remember that I was the lucky winner. Such a cute assortment of fabrics, and this adorable little bag with the cutest, tiniest little squares. Thanks so much Amy -- I love it! So as you can see, for me, it was a good day.
I think the happiness of my day must have been counteracted by my husbands. He was due to fly to the west coast today for business. With a flight leaving at 6 something, he drove home to see the kids on this way out of town. So far so good. He was going to hang out with them for an hour or so while I went to my faculty meeting at school. Hugs and kisses and out the door to catch his flight in plenty of time.
The phone rang at about 5:30 as I was putting the finishing touches on preparations for my Girl Scout meeting tonight. He wanted the frequent flier number to use in trying to reschedule his flight which had been delayed by an hour, causing him to miss his connection. He did manage to rebook onto something later coming out of Dallas, which gave him 10 minutes to catch his connection if he could dash madly through the airport. It was supposed to leave at 8. So I was sure the phone ringing at 7:30 couldn't be good news. Sure enough, he wanted me to look up the number of his dentist so he could find out just how bad it is when the temporary crown pops off following an emergency root canal. I ran my meeting between phone calls while trying to explain that maybe I would be more helpful when my house wasn't full of 10 screaming, running girls.
I eventually told him that maybe the fates were trying to give him some subtle hints that this trip wasn't "meant to be". My Buddhist running partner would probably explain exactly how his karma was trying to warn him off. I'm still not really sure where he is, somewhere between ORL and LAX with his temporary crown in his pocket.
No OHR progress to show today, for obvious reasons, but the house is company clean, I have two new girls in my troop and the house is quiet and calm. For tonight, that is enough. Let's just hope it's not the calm before the storm.

"Normalcy"

Things are slowly returning to normal around here. My school was back in session, and amazingly, most of the kids were back. Usually they protest and stay home until public school starts up again. I was missing one or two from each class, apparently flooded in still, or dealing with the flood clean-up. We had "chapel" in our individual rooms as the auditorium was flooded and they had to remove the first three rows of pews. There is something highly ironic about me trying to lead a chapel service. I guess it says something about that credibility I have established with my students that I can do something so out of character for me and still get away with it. We shared our stories, and of the ones that were there today, the most trouble anyone reported was having to mop up a little water with a towel. I'm sure the stories of the absent students will be very different. Academically it was a perfectly normal day. We reviewed the metric system in Chemistry and did library research for Forensics. All in all it was a very typical and average. What a nice change!
My little guys were home for one more day, and we were lucky enough to get their favorite sitter. She loves to play Pokemon with Ryan and gives Sydney horsie rides until they are both exhausted. It is still raining on and off most of the time, but the "squalls" seem to be getting further and further apart. We went to CiCi's for lunch and everyone is upstairs now, passed out from cumulative exhaustion.
I think that is my signal to sneak into my sewing room and finish up the last bit on a batch of geese that used up my scraps from the border segments. I need to do some string quilts or something to use up the rest of the shirt segments. The textures and weights are all so different that I don't want to intermingle them in with the rest of my scrap stash. It might be a little strange to start a segregated scrap collection. OK, maybe that would be a lot strange.

Finally, an Outing

We finally managed to make it out of the house today! Most of the storm seems to have moved out of our area, and the rain has let up enough to let some of the flooding recede. We were going to take everyone to see the new 3-D movie, Fly me to the Moon, but it was only playing at one theater which is closed "until further notice" . Instead we ended up at Pump it Up, our local inflatable indoor play place. We took two of Anna's friends, one who was over for a sleepover, and the other who was a neighborhood friend who was over to play. We met up with some more of our friends from the neighborhood, so it was a festive time. Then we went to Jason's Deli for lunch and had even more ice cream, which seemed to make all the kids very happy. The deli is right next to the fabric store, so I could pick up backing fabric for Dad's Plaids. So Mom was very happy as well. I think Ice Cream, Pizza and Cheeto's may be the secret to tropical storm survival.


When we went into an actual subdivision to drop children off, we could see extensive flooding and several roads that still looked impassible. Kurt is going back to work tomorrow, although there will be people missing because they still can't make it out of their houses. I'm back to school as well, although public schools are still not back in session. We have a sitter coming for the morning which should help keep the kids entertained. Time will reveal the extent of all the damage, but we are starting to get back to real life again.
I'm itching to go start putting the borders on my quilt and get the back laid out, but I need to remember what I am teaching tomorrow and see if I need to prepare anything. I'm guessing the kids will have forgotten everything in the three days we've been gone, but we will all do the best we can. I seem to remember that we were going to the library for forensic science and we were burning candles in chemistry. Yes, I think that sounds about right. Maybe I can go do a little sewing after all, I should be good to go for school.

Shifting gears

The eye of the storm has passed and turned to the north. Yesterday the trees were blowing to the left. Today they are blowing to the right. Still, overall, it seems to be just a lot of rain, even if the rain keeps changing direction. Kurt went up into the attic last night because a little rain was blowing in one of the the off ridge vents. We usually plug them up for a major storm, but this wasn't supposed to be major. One of the window sills in the front was a bit damp, so we put a towel on it. That of course led to the checking of all the windowsills in the house. In my own neurotic way, I couldn't check the window sills without noticing how dirty they all were. So we have nice clean window sills now. There was also a worm in the foyer by the front door. I have no idea how he got in the house, but the poor little guy was dead and crusty when I found him this morning. There are other areas that are much worse of than us. We got an e-mail from a work friend this morning showing his street with foot deep water. There was a tornado in barefoot bay which is a mobile home community not too far from here. I don't know why tornadoes always seem to target mobile homes.
Kurt went into work again today, even though they were closed. He went in yesterday by accident because he didn't realize they were closed. Today there was some big meeting that he didn't think could wait. The two people he was meeting with live beachside, so I was a little surprised they could make it over the causeway. He wore a swimsuit, I think just to be funny, but he swears it was just so he would get dry faster. He gave me a call while he was headed in, and said there is some impressive flooding going on. Even the main roads are full of standing water. Police officers are directing traffic around the major puddles. I'm not sure where it will all go if we really do get the 7 additional inches of rain they are forecasting.
We are still all crossing our finger here that there will be school tomorrow. I'm not sure what they will do with the kindergarteners. It might almost be better to wait until Monday to start them when everything is a little more normal. I know I'm ready for everyone to head back. They are done being patient and good at home and are now asking to go places and do things.
I got all the border pieces cut out for my quilt, I'll find some time after lunch to get them stitched together. I keep thinking some kind of bias vine and simple flowers might set off the border. Then I think I should just get it done and not clutter it anymore with unnecessary extras. I can make that decision after I get the border put on. I'd love to get it layered up today, but I haven't got anything for the back and I'm not going anywhere today.

The Eye of the Storm

Fay woke me up about an hour ago so I came out to watch the weather channel. I always feel better during a hurricane if I can watch it on radar while it is happening. Usually the power is out by now in a bigger hurricane. The eye is just about overhead right now. The winds seem to have shifted direction already, although it's hard to tell in the dark. They are talking now about her not even going all the way out over water but just skimming along the coast to the north before heading back in again. I just hope she goes far enough to the north that the rain will let up for a while. The south side of a hurricane isn't usually the worst side, but there still seems to be a lot of rain down there. Maybe she will start moving a little faster so that we can have school tomorrow. I'm not sure how many hurricane days are in the schedule, but I'm sure it's not more than three, and it's still pretty early in the season.

The Little Storm That Could

Hurricanes are supposed to weaken over land. It is a well documented fact. So everyone is having trouble figuring out how Fay has gone from 60 to 65 mph since it entered the state this morning. She is supposed to exit the state right about where we live about 2 am and then sit out off the coast for a bit, giving her time to strengthen (just barely) to hurricane strength. Then she's going to boomergang back and hit us again. She is a quirky little storm to say the least. We've had a few power flickers, but so far it always comes back. The rain is more horizontal than vertical now, but we are all safe and sound inside.
I think I'm going to put some geese in opposite corners of my quilt and fill in with strips that are cut the the same length as the blocks. I thought about doing random length strips, but it just seemed too chaotic, the uniform length should add some order and will be easier to calculate as well.
The snickerdoodles turned out wonderfully and left the house smelling all warm and cinnamon fresh. It also kept the kids busy for a good bit of the afternoon, and gave them motivation to eat a good dinner. I enjoy multipurpose projects. I'm supposed to have girl scout leader's meeting tonight, but I'm not going anywhere right now.

Taking Advantage

I have been gifted with two extra days of "vacation". Even with the sound of the rain on the roof, we have power, so I'm getting stuff done. I just finished putting the blocks together for Dad's Plaids. The size is just about right, but I'm still thinking a small border would be good, mainly because I have so many flying geese done. I think I might put those in two corners and fill it in with plain strips. I'll have to start laying some things down and see how they look. Right now, the kids are waiting patiently to make some cookies. I thought the smell of warm fresh snickerdoodles would be good right about now.

The Little Hurricane that Wasn't

These are the palm trees in our front yard. Notice how the trunks remain vertical, the fronds swaying gently in the breeze. I'm sitting here watching the weather channel tell me how hard the "hurricane" is hitting us, and I just can't imagine who they are talking to. It's raining a little bit and occasionally there is a gust of wind. That's it. They seem to be rooting for it to get worse, and maybe it will, but right now it is just no big deal. They've just canceled school for tomorrow. On the bright side of things, the Dad's Plaids top is almost put together and I have a bunch of flying geese units done for the border. I guess I don't need to work on that backup plan of hand quilting if the power goes out. If we get a big burst of storm I'll rush out and get a picture, but please don't hold your breath, it probably won't happen.

Snow Day!!!!

OK, so it's really a tropical storm day, possibly a hurricane day, but that doesn't quite pull up the warm fuzzy memories of snow days from my childhood. I'm pulling out the board games and we're cooking the "good" food from the freezer in case the power goes out. Tomorrow we're going to snuggle up on the couch and watch it rain.
I have a friend who homeschools, and once or twice every year she will wake the kids up by shouting "Snow Day!" and then they will all take a mental health break. The second day of school is not when a mental health day is most needed, but we don't get to choose these things. We'll just take what comes our way.

First Day of School

Anna and Ryan both hopped on the bus this morning for their first day of school. They aren't nearly as excited about going back as Sydney. She is still so sad that they get to go to school before her. She is sure she is being cheated out of three days of possible fun and games.
We are still watching Fay, wondering if there will be second day of school. Several local districts have canceled, but ours is still listed as TBD. I'm guessing they will make a call after the 5:00 update, although they have been known to do it as early as at 5 a.m update in the morning. They come up with a new path every 3 hours, and each time it seems to shift a little more in our direction. It is not a major storm in any way, it should not cause any major disruptions. All it takes are gusting winds of tropical storm force winds during school bus times to keep the causeways off limits. So while we wait and watch the weather, I'm doing all the things you are supposed to do "just in case" turning the freezer to cold, making sure flashlights and batteries are ready to go, clearing debris out of the yard. It's amazing how much stuff collects out there. I understand the potted plants, yard furniture and bar-b-que grill, but why was there a pair of sandals in the rosemary bush? Yet another mystery to be pondered on a rainy day. I'm guessing we'll have a couple of those very soon. The first rain bands have already hit, now it's just a waiting game.

Chores

The kids all decided they wanted to earn some money this morning and asked for some extra chores. So Ryan did some weeding, Anna vacuumed my car and Sydney swept. Does this mean that at some point children actually become useful? Is it possible that eventually they may do more cleaning than messing up? Well, maybe not, but I'll take any help I can get in that department.
I had a 5K yesterday morning, so Kurt took the girls to their first day of ice skating lessons. They were doing beautifully until Sydney took a head dive at the end of the lesson and almost lost a front tooth. Thank goodness they are still baby teeth, because it still looks a little iffy in there. He dragged them to volleyball and then we took turns with the afternoon birthday parties. There were two this weekend, and strangely enough, they were both bowling parties at the same place. One was at 12:30 and one was at 3:00. So that took up most of the afternoon.
I did manage to get the manatee quilt bordered and spray basted, so I'll save that for my next big batch of quilting. I pulled the Dad's Plaids blocks out again, maybe I'll get those put together today. All of our weekend chores have been carried out with the weather channel on in the background. We're still watching Fay, it doesn't look like it's going to be that bad all the way over here on the East Coast. Still, there is the concern that she will, "pull a Charlie" and make a dash across the center of the state in our direction.

Preparation

I used to be so good about hurricane preparation. At the begining of the season I would go out with my list and make sure the hurricane kit was thoroughly stocked. I would calculate gallons per person per day of bottled water and collect everything safely in a watertight containers stored safely through the rest of the season. Then at the end of every season I would unpack everything and breathe a sigh of relief that we never had to use it. Then we had the two straight years of ridiculous hurricane activity. It was all we could do to try to recover from one storm before the next was charging at us. We were all so good at plywood and generators that it almost seemed normal. Almost.
Then there was the calm after the storms. All that was left were the consequences. Skyrocketing insurance, plummeting home values, yearlong waits for contractors. We learned how to repair drywall, seal stucco and replace shingles. It was our new normal.
And then of course we forgot. Two more years of calm and the memories were fuzzy. Now out of nowhere looms Fay. The memories began to bubble to the surface as I walked through the aisles of the grocery store this morning. It all seemed so familiar: bottled water and canned pasta, dry cereal and peanut butter, batteries and trash bags, bleach and band aids.
The storm doesn't look big, even the worst predictions only show it as a 1, but even a 1 can close schools if it hits at the wrong time. Monday is the first day of school, and that should still be OK, but Tuesday isn't looking so good. I will be happy as long as everything is OK again by Thursday. Sydney starts kindergarten on Thursday, and if I told her it was canceled, the tears would begin to flow. Then she would calmly explain how she waited so long for her first day, and it's not fair that she has to have another home day. I know exactly how the script goes, because Anna's first day of kindergarten was also canceled for a hurricane. Wish us luck and timing!

It Can't Be

We've just begun packing for our romantic Jamaican getaway. Five days at an all inclusive couples only beach front resort with water sports and yoga and white sand beaches. Then in my in box was a link to weather underground, our favorite hurricane tracking site. We all have our favorite sites down here. We know which computer models to follow and when they update them. We've learned the hard way all about hurricanes around here. So it doesn't even have a name right now, it's still just an investigation, but it's headed straight for Jamaica! It Can't Be!