Things I Learned From the Ice Storm: December 29, 2007

1.  Aquarium fish can live for almost two week in freezing cold water with no food.  I seriously thought they were dead, so I was prepared to buy more before Squeaks saw them, but when the power came back on and the water warmed up, they were just fine again.

2.  If there are branches falling everywhere, your brand new truck will get scratched. 

3.  Don’t buy a $700 generator, as your power will come back on the next day.

4.  Don’t just assume that you don’t have much in the fridge, so it’s okay if it goes bad.  We had a bag of chicken breasts (uncooked) that leaked all over the place after two weeks of no refrigeration.  We now refer to it as the Chicken Incident of 2007.  It was almost worse than the storm.

5.  Enjoy the fact that gas prices won’t raise one single penny while there is a state of crisis.  People were getting busted for price gouging, so every station was terrified to raise their prices.  We enjoyed almost a month of low gas prices, even over the holidays.

6.  I really do love my home.  There are days I can’t wait to leave, but now I appreciate this place more than ever.

7.  Life without DVR is almost not worth living.

8.  My child is an angel and sleeps long hours at Granny and Papa’s, only to return home to her early waking self.  I guess I should be thankful I got a week of sleeping in.

9.  It’s eerie when even Wal-Mart has no power.  It made driving at night a very scary experience.  I felt like I was in a bad horror movie and something was just about to jump out at me.  Maybe I read too much…

10.  Cleaning up fallen trees is a never-ending process.

11.  It’s fun to try to have sex in your parents’ house.  Sure they know you do it, but it’s different when you’re in their home, trying to be quiet and sneak in a quickie.  We felt like kids again.

Getting Over Myself December 14, 2007

George W. Bush has proclaimed my part of Oklahoma to be a disaster area.  It’s official now, although I could have told you this 6 days ago.  I’m going on day 6 of no power, no running water, no being able to live at home.  I’m so thankful that my parents have been able to maintain power throughout this ordeal, so that we all have a place to go.  I’m really trying to stay positive about that fact, but it gets hard.  We have been told that it doesn’t even look like we will be in our homes by Christmas, so that’s the hardest thing for me to swallow.  We are discussing buying a generator, just so we can stay at home.  FEMA is reimbursing half the cost of generators, but I feel guilty taking their money when we really don’t need it.  Plus I don’t have a lot of faith in FEMA after the whole Hurricane Katrina madness.

But Squeaks is going wonderfully.  She loves being around her Granny and Papa.  Her cousins have been over every day to play and she thinks life is great.  Thankfully she’s sleeping very well, so I am really not having any problems with her.  The Hubby hasn’t been around, as his company has put him up in a hotel across the street from work so that he can make it in every day.  It’s nice of them to do it, but I’m ready to see him!  All in all I’m in better spirits today than I have been, but we’ll see how long this holds up!

Sucky, Sucky, Sucky December 11, 2007

An ice storm has decided to tear Oklahoma a new one.  I’m homeless for the time being, as we have had no power since 5 am yesterday and the temperatures are below freezing.  We’re staying with my parents until we get power, which “they” say won’t happen until at least next week.  I’m assuming longer, as we went home tonight to check on things and there isn’t a power pole standing within two miles of our house.  We lost all of our trees (and we had a LOT of them), possibly damaged our roof, and are living out of grocery sacks until we can go back home.  I am very thankful that we have a place to go to, but I’m sad that I can’t go home to my own stuff.  I’ll post more when I’m not so down about things.

Oooh That Smell July 11, 2007

As evidenced by all of your concerned questions, I guess it’s pretty widespread news that Oklahoma has been hit by some torrential rain. We are all right and managed to escape the flooding, but barely. All of the roads around our house had been closed down, except for one. The rivers were dangerously close to the highways and lots of people around us lost their homes. Thankfully we live on a pretty big hill, so everything was below us and we managed to stay above the flood plain.

Now that everything has started to dry out, I’ve discovered something horrible. When the flooding recedes, it leaves a horrible smell in its place. Imagine about a month’s worth of dirty diapers, some huge piles of dog shit, and a bunch of rotten food and you can start to imagine what we’re smelling around here. I thought it was bad here at the house, but it’s worse in other places. I went running last night. When I got to the bottom of the hill where all of the flooding was, I almost couldn’t run because breathing that smell was unbearable! Needless to say, I quickly turned around and headed for home. I’ll have to find other modes of exercise until this stench leaves us.

But the rain is supposed to start again tomorrow. Grrr. It can’t rain this weekend — I have Rocklahoma to go to and it’s outdoors!

Thanks for all of you who were concerned about us! Sadly not everyone was as fortunate as we were, so keep them in your thoughts.

Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head July 2, 2007

I’m getting by day by day and tomorrow I’m calling the doctor, so here’s hoping that things will be looking up soon. And as if things weren’t bad enough, the weather has to come kick me while I’m down. For those of you who don’t follow Oklahoma’s weather (so that’s all of you!), we have been having an insane amount of rain lately. Twenty inches in 2 weeks, and that we just the start. Towns are being evacuated, all the rivers are flooding, and streets are being shut down. Torrential rain is making life pretty shitty, as I can’t even take Squeaks outside to play. The poor girl has been cooped up for far too long!

The Hubby is calling this a monsoon. At first I laughed at him, but I’m seriously starting to go along with his thinking. And you know that means I’ve been stuck inside too long, when his ideas are starting to sound good!

I’ve already got the shirt planned out in my mind: “I survived the monsoon of ‘07″. There’s big money in this, I swear.

When a Noun Becomes a Proper Noun May 7, 2007

Once more, Oklahoma is being hit by severe storms. One more day that we haven’t seen the sun, but the humidity has been enough to make even the dog look like Napoleon Dynamite. The newscasters around here get a massive hard-on for this kind of stuff, as evidenced by the constant scrolling at the bottom of the television screen about Thunderstorm Warnings! and Tornados Watches! (because apparantly capitalization of key words means the difference in small storm and Life Threatening Emergency). But as much as we need the Rain and as much as I love to sleep during a good Thunderstorm, I’m sick of this. Being stuck inside the house with an 18-month-old is enough to make me want to bang my head against the wall. Truthfully she’s not that bad, it’s me that gets bored too easily. It’s as if my normal functions cease to exist when there is Inclement Weather. The house becomes trashed, the laundry piles up, and there is an inch of dirt on the floors. It would seem that I could catch up on such things while being stuck indoors, but instead I am also delayed for rain.

One day last week the storms got so bad that we were advised to Seek Indoor Shelter. In Oklahoman, that means get your ass in the house and in the most interior room you can find as your house will be blown away. The bad part about our new house is that there really is no central room. The rooms are so large in our house that they are all connected to an exterior wall. There is one tiny closet off the kitchen that currently holds a bunch of junk and I had deemed it earlier in the season as our designated storm shelter. When the meteorologist said to Take Cover Immediately, I was throwing junk out of the closet, waking Squeaks up, and flying to cover. The Hubby was at work (taking shelter in the bathroom), but he called to say that a rotation was right over the top of our house. Lovely. I was terrified but Squeaks thought it was great. She had her library books, a flashlight, and a box of Tedddy Grahams. What more could a kid need? She rolled around on the blankets I had on the floor and snacked for the majority of the time, while I was figuring out how to anchor myself to the floor with her underneath me if need be. Thankfully the storm passed quickly with no tornado touchdown, but it made me aware of how quickly we could lose it all. I’ve lived in OK my whole life and have witnessed many twisters, but thankfully none have hit my home.

So tonight I will stand vigil. By vigil I mean that I’m afraid to go to sleep because I’m afraid a tornado will blow us away without my knowledge beforehand. As if I can do anything to prevent it even if I do know about it, but at least I could prepare myself. And do you remember this great new guard dog I got? She’s hiding behind the couch because she’s scared of the thunder.