Planning for the Unknown

is H.A.R.D.

My family has never experienced a hurricane before, so now that Isaac is on it's way, we are getting to experience all kinds of new things and a few somewhat familiar things too.

For example, things fly off the shelves here just like they do in Northern Virginia when there is a threat of snow.  We went to the hardware store yesterday and there were stacks of tarps, gas cans, batteries, etc set out for people to purchase in preparation.  And there were definitely people buying.  We even saw someone buying a generator (the biggest he could get of course).

We went to a discounted bread store on Wednesday (keep in mind the hurricane wasn't even a tropical storm yet I don't think) and there were people stocking up.  We were there to stock up too but just because it was time to do so and they have an extra 20% off on Wednesdays.  I do admit that I got a couple extra loaves of bread in case we find ourselves without power and eating lots of PB&J or PB&H.

We've been able to talk about how the track of the storm is affected by weather in other areas.  We've been able to discuss the kinds of damage usually caused by tropical storms and hurricanes and how thankfully this one will not be as damaging as Andrew (the 20 year anniversary of landfall was yesterday so it made the news). 

We are just North of the Action area.  Our rental house is even closer to the Action area.

It's all well and good to read all the emergency preparedness flyers from the various agencies, but when I was looking into my yard today I got to thinking... they say to put your lawn furniture away and other loose items in your yard.  What about large potted plants?  Will they be heavy enough?  What about the glass table top that is not actually attached to the base of the table in our lanai?  What about our grill? 

At this point, my plan is to pray, store what I can, and pray some more.  Although it's unknown to me, nothing is unknown to my God so I'm just going to leave it up to Him.

Making an Appointment

Lately, I have been booked s.o.l.i.d.  I've either been showing houses, meeting clients to work on contracts, or making phone calls - lots and lots of phone calls.  That's why it was very important to schedule some family fun time. 

We have season passes to Busch Gardens.  Over the summer they have later hours as well as an acrobatics show and fireworks display as the park is closing.  We knew we were about to run out of time to see the fireworks display so we scheduled a trip for last Wednesday.  Unfortunately, life and work happened and I couldn't go that day.  Luckily we didn't tell the kids our plans so when we ended up being able to make it on Thursday they were extatic.

Right before we got there we drove through a thunderstorm.  It was still raining when we pulled up to the park at 6PM.  We sat in the car for 5 minutes while the rain passed.   The temperatures dropped substantially so that was nice.  And many of the people who got soaked decided to leave the park.  There were still lines, but they were shorter I'm sure.

Of course the boys went to ride the coasters.  The thunderstorms meant they didn't open right away but they still got to ride multiple coasters including one pretty much at dark.

My daughter and I went in search of the animals.  Unfortunately, the thunderstorms meant most of them were not out.  We were able to see a few animals though including these beautiful flamingos. 

And she rode the carousel an played on the biggest moon bounce I've ever seen.

After all the rides closed down they had an outdoor acrobatics, light, and lazer show called Kinetix (pretty cool stuff).  The grand finale was a fireworks display... also very cool.  One of the best displays I've seen in a long time.  Can't imagine what it's like to live nearby during the summer since they do it every night the weather cooperates.

It was so nice having a little break.  Needless to say, I didn't know the following week (last week) would be so hectic.  I am SO glad I got the break.  It made this last week more bearable.

She wanted her picture with something.

Bringing Things to Light

I have a thing about clean bathrooms.  I hate having nasty bathrooms.  I also hate cleaning them, but not more than I hate using a nasty bathroom so a couple days ago I spent about 30 minutes scrubbing my shower.  I. mean. scrubbing.  I used a course brush and even a toothbrush to get in the grout lines.  When I was done, I felt pretty accomplished.  My shower was "clean."

Or so I though...

Yesterday my hubby decided to put a new light bulb in the shower (you know those extra white ones), and now my shower looks like I didn't even touch it the other day.

Ugh!

Rockin' It

Have you ever had one of those days where you felt like your wheels were spinning and you were just getting nowhere?  Yeah, me too.  In fact, it seems like I've had a lot of them lately.

Today however was not one of those days.  Today, I had a great day.  Don't get my wrong, I was busy, but I felt like I accomplished a lot of things.  I made contact with a new client who seems very serious about buying soon (yay!).  I worked on organizing the accounting work I've just started working on. 

And the thing that made my day... spending time with each of my kids.  I helped my daughter work on a lapbook we put aside a long time ago.  And my son and I spent some time reading about the history of robots.  And of course I had to see his most recent computer program in action.

Today I realized two things about myself:

1. I like to work under pressure and
2. There is no greater feeling of accomplishment than spending time with my kids (even if it means something else gets put off till after they are in bed).  After all, who doesn't like it when their kids tell them "You rock!"