So Where Are We?

As far as the sale of the house goes, that is. I know you have wanted to ask, but were probably afraid to.

Well, as you may have guessed, we are in a one step forward, two steps back sort of situation. While we weren't going to make our September 1st deadline, I was quite confident that we would have made it in the month of September. That is, if a little thing called Ike hadn't shown up.

We are back up in gear though. We are shooting for the end of this month. Pray hard that we make it. Just today the hubs was up and down on the ladder patching up the water damage. All of that will have to be sanded and painted. The yard is looking pretty good, but we need to put out some mulch. I have started going through the kids' clothes and have bags lined up in the hall that need to go to the Salvation Army. I have been trying to complete some projects that have been left too long. You know, stuff.

One of the biggest issues right now is that Hubs is a general contractor. He is so busy right now because of hurricane repairs that there just isn't enough of him to go around. We'll get there, just not as soon as we had hoped.

I'll keep you posted. Haha. Posted! Get it? I crack myself up.

Official Declaration

I am calling it good.

We, as a household, are officially back to normal. Whatever that means.

Our yard has been cleaned thoroughly. Our debris has been picked up. Aunt Sarah is back home. Yes, we still have a little water damage to repair. There is the small matter of damage to the trailer and car, but neither one of those things is driven on a daily basis. For all intents and purposes, we are on with our lives.

Good-bye, Ike.

It Was Finally Our Turn!!

Yesterday, we were the blessed ones. It was our turn to have the heavy hauling guys come to our house and pick up the mounds of broken limbs in front of our house. We were so glad to see them. We brought them lemonade and cookies. We thanked them and told them how grateful we were.

I know, I know. They are getting paid and paid well to help clean up this city. But without them, well, I can't even imagine how long it would take.

My husband is a general contractor and has talked to more than a few of the people who have come to Houston for the clean-up. One man said that he would spend a month down here and double his annual income. Not too shabby.

Still. We are grateful they are here to help out. And I'm really glad to be able to see down the street when I pull out of my driveway. It's been kind of a game of chance every time you pull out into the street.

There's a Storm Coming

I don't know if you read Beth Moore's blog, but you should! Of course, it helps if you know a little something about Beth and her family. But sometimes, it just doesn't matter.

Her daughter, Amanda, wrote a very poignant post yesterday. If you have just been through Hurricane Ike, it will touch you. If you have read the news lately, it will also touch you. If you are living in the world today and don't have your head under a rock, it will touch you.

Go read it here and tell me what you think.

Home Again

We are back. More about our trip later. First, a few observations after being gone from a hurricane ravaged city for 5 days.

Things that have changed:

• My mother finally has power at her house. (So glad not to have to beg her to come over every time we talk on the phone.)

• Most of the schools have reopened.

• The grocery stores have both refrigerated and frozen items stocked again.

Things that have not changed:

• Our library is still closed.
  

• Most of the traffic lights are still flashing.

• The streets are still lined with dead trees and limbs.

We have already retrieved Aunt Sarah from her friend's house. Her building now has power, but the elevators were damaged and are still not operational. They have no hot water. There is also the small matter of water soaked carpet that hasn't been dealt with yet. The common areas of the building are all stripped to the concrete sub-floor.

As a city, we still have a long road ahead of us to get back to normal, but there is evidence that we are getting there. However slowly it seems.

Sanctuary

I always like to say that with one shoulder pushed way up and dragging one foot behind me. I'm weird that way.

My lack of posting has been mostly due to just feeling rather overwhelmed by the whole mess of things. It has also been due to the fact that we are a shelter. No, we don't have cots lining our living room or PODs with lines of people waiting to receive MRE's and water.

We have had Aunt Sarah staying with us since last Sunday. Although she lives on the second floor, her apartment is on the south side of the building. The sheer force of the rain pummeling her windows caused seepage. She had very squishy carpets. Oh, and no power or water. Things were pretty bleak at her place.

Unfortunately, all of our bedrooms are on the second floor of our house. Aunt Sarah and stairs don't get along so well, so she has been camped out in our living room. We don't really use the living room for much, but we do walk through it every time we come in the front door or go up and down the stairs. I feel bad that she has so little privacy, but she seems OK with it.

I don't know how long our little arrangement will last. Her apartment building has power and water but no elevators at this point. We will be gone for a few days. Maybe things will be closer to normal when we return.

First Look

These are some of the first photos I took as we emerged from our house the next morning. Enjoy!

This what greeted us out the front.

And this is the side view into the backyard.

This is our back deck.

The force of the wind and rain was so great that not only did we get water up on the transom over the front door (which had to travel under 11 feet of porch and 2 feet of roof overhang) but also leaves were literally blown into the cracks in the house.

Walking around the neighborhood immediately after the storm gave us some idea of how crazy it got out there. Trees were down everywhere.

But praise be to God, there was really very little damage to houses. There was the knocked over chimney down the street and a couple of dented porches, but no one in our immediate area suffered losses that would cause them to lose their homes or really even have to live somewhere else for awhile. Look at the size of this tree that came down and took out a carport, but completely missed the house.

Much to be thankful for. Much to be thankful for.

Surviving Ike

We are a Gulf Coast people. My mom is from Houston and my dad is from Mobile, Alabama. We have family all along the coast in between those two places. We have a healthy respect for storms. If you live along this stretch of America, storms big and small come with the territory.

We also have a kind of worst-case-scenario mentality in this household. We always have lots of batteries, flashlights, a generator, full cabinets, full fridge, things chargeable fully charged. We just kind of live planning for something bad to happen.

The storm that came Friday night, the one they called Ike, tested all of that. It was big and it was full on here.

It seemed to take a long time getting here. Friday was a loooong day. Finally night came and the winds picked up a little. Still no rain. More waiting.

Our lights went out at 10:37 p.m. It wasn't really bad then. I don't know why they went out so early. That ended the nonstop news coverage for us. That was both a blessing and curse. Really, the constant prattling on about what was to be was getting a little old. On the other hand, we didn't really know what we were in for.

Finally, the real storm hit. I lost track of time, so I don't really know what happened when, but the winds started to blow and the rain finally came.

The last big hurricane I was in was Alicia. This one felt about the same. Except this time I was in a 2-story house. You know, big buildings move a lot during high winds. My bed is up against the east wall of the house. When I first felt it, I thought the dogs where up against the bed. My husband came in and asked if I could feel the house moving. Oh! It wasn't the dogs. I was acutely aware of it after that. It moved a lot.

We heard the occasionally snap of a tree or pop of a transformer. We ventured out onto the porch occasionally to check things out. The rain was blowing sideways, so we got soaked every time we went out there. We slept off and on.

I can say that I was never afraid. We have a ridiculously large master bedroom. Big enough to hold our queen sized bed, a twin bed, and a camping cot. All four of us slept in that room. While not afraid, I did want to be there with my sleeping children most of the night. It just felt better in there.

My daughter fell asleep just after 10 at night. She missed the power going out. She woke up early the next morning when we were doing something in the room. She sat up and drowsily announced, "I wish I could sleep in this storm." HONEY! You practically missed it! The little angel had slept through the worst of it.

We spent the rest of the morning gawking at the downed trees and watching the remaining ones sway. By midday all was over but the drizzle and cleanup.

Ah, the clean up. It still continues. More later.

Yop!

We are here! Our phone/internet service just came up!

Thanks to all for your prayers, thoughts, and concerns. We are alive and pretty well.

We came through the storm with minimal(?) damage. We have 5 pecan trees in our yard. I would say about half of the branches are now in the yard. Maybe not quite that much, but it is A LOT! They didn't hit anything on their way down, so we are good with that. Well, our trees didn't hit anything. Our neighbor's tree took out the side of a small trailer and the back window of one of our cars.

We did lose a few shingles off the roof that resulted in very little water damage.

We lost power about 10:30 Friday night. It returned very early in the morning Monday. Our neighbors on the other side of the street still don't have power.

We were without safe water from the tap for only a day or so.

We had some phone service just after the storm passed, but it promptly went down until just now. We did have some cell service today though.

I have many pictures. I'll post some of them soon. Many stories to tell.

I'm going to bed now. If things hold, I'll try to be back again tomorrow.