Water @ MindSay

Well, we, the kiddo, the husband and I are still without power, so is my mom.  My sister and her fiance have power so we are all at their house.  It is sooooo nice to be in a place with lights!

We all lucked out, though.  My house had minimal damage -- just a gutter fell down a bit and a lot of  small tree limbs fell.  The absolute amazing thing I saw was that the two small lanterns that tristaprez bought me and hung from the roof of my deck in the backyard didn't fall or break! They looked completely untouched!  At my mother's house, the neighbor's tree fell over into her backyard and landed on top of the storage shed. Neither the shed nor the fence that separates their yards was damaged. 

As most of you know, Ike was a bad mutherfucker, but luckily there wasn't much flooding -- even in Galveston which has areas that are pretty much gone.  Ike's deadly force was the wind. 

The aftermath is what is making everyone short tempered.  Trying to find gas is an adventure akin to the legendary journeys of Hercules or Gilgemesh.  The poor husband has sat in long lines for hours and just when he's about to be the next in line, the gas station attendant comes out and tells them they are all out of  gas.  When this happened the second time he was pissed off to no end.

According to the news, many people in my area won't have power until at least the end of the month! Last time I checked callmeroger, torridgirl and saturnfreeway are still without power.  If anyone knows how whatethelsays is doing, please let me know. I know this is a rambling post, but I'm just trying to catch you guys up with what's been going on in my neck of the woods. God knows I'm behind on so many blogs and replies that I just gave up trying.  I just want you all (Ya'll) to know that I appreciate all of your kind thoughts and prayers. Ya'll really know how to make a girl feel good. :D

What I Learned from Ike

• People these days don't just thrive on electricity, but communication.  For me, the suckiest part was not knowing what was going on in the outside world and not being able to reach my friends and family.  When I was able to watch television via my battery powered t.v./radio/flashlight/compass most of the news was about the hurricane.  I saw almost no world or national news.

• No water is way worse than no power.  After flushing the toilet with rain water I collected and having to take a bath by using a partially consumed bottle of water, I quickly realized not having water is damn near uncivilized!  I still had enough water left after the bath, to brush my teeth, by the way.

• Kids deal with adversity better than adults.  As I've mention before, we waited the storm out at my mother's house.  After the storm was over, the kids in the neighborhood had a grand old time. They pretty much had a block party everyday.  The parents barbecued and the kids played until the sun went down.  When my kiddo came inside, she kept wanting to tell stories around the candlelight.
  

• James and  Jayme  are the best!  They called and checked up on me everyday. Poor Jayme was worried sick about all of her Houston buds.  They have also been helping out people in their area by providing food and supplies.  They are true sweethearts!
  

why we have a store dedicated to bottled water, just minutes away from my apartment, when Toronto has some of the best tap water in the world.

seriously. its tasty stuff.

i was afraid that i would have to buy a brita filter or something when i first moved here, but i actually enjoy the taste of the stuff.

if you'll excuse me i'm going to get a glass of tasty tasty tap water.

My dirty, dirty drawn on toesies & foot.








Our pathway in the backyard at night. I loved the lighting.


This was taken at night as well.

Now for a nice candlelit bath to try to relax while it rains.

Been talking to my cousin in Mississippi. They evacuated on Sunday,August 31 2008. They live in Pass Christian, and my Aunt in Long Beach. 
Lynn said 13 feet of water in Pass Christian.They just finished their house after Katrina and losing everything in it. They did build up though! 18 feet in the air! Hope the surge is over. 5 more feet and it will be in their house. Right now just storage room on bottom level in water. House safe right now. Still has the door intact. Whew! They traveled 2 hours northward to escape. Haven't heard any news about Long Beach area where my Aunt bought a house. She still owns the concrete slab where her house was before Katrina. She did not rebuild in same place. Could stand in her driveway and see the Gulf. She lived Very close.
Keeping my prayers flowing for them!
Two pictures of my cousins house as being built........


UPDATE:10:45 pm Mississippi time:
Lynn said pray hard...water rising again!
Check out www.sunherald.com for pictures
 

<sup>Oh my! I haven't written here since June 4th! WOW! Got busy I guess and didn't have time to do much. I'm going to try and get caught up now! Way too much happened over the summer to get everything in, but here goes:
Vacation was ok. Went to a resort in West Virginia, just myself and Husband. For our anniversary mostly.Anniversary number 27! We stopped at Antique malls and shops along the way. Had fun doing that. It was cooler up in the mountains of West Virginia. One night we caught the full moon and went to a pond to lay back and watch it rise and light the sky up, and see a million stars shining brightly. It was a bit chilly that night. But it was awesome.We stayed at this resort for 4 days and 3 nights free of charge if we took their little tour. It was worth it to stay free!The place was nice, but I wouldn't want to live there! With gas prices this year, we couldn't afford to do much of anything. We used 1 tank there and 1/2 tank back. At filling my van up for $85 dollars a pop, that was expensive enough! We bought some antiques, but not a lot. We both were out of work for the whole week in July, and we traveled all over western North Carolina to some Antique malls we had been wanting to go to.

This a picture of the sun setting from our room at the resort through the woods.Nice.
Here's some of the full moon pictures. My camera didn't quite capture the best of
it!

I guess you need a faster lens to capture the fullness and brightness of it.My camera made it look tiny, and it was so huge!
Here's one of the moon in the sky and its reflection on the pond surface. It's pretty cool. Looks like two moons!

             
The other one is a close up I tried to do.

 One morning in late July we got up on a Saturday morning and spied a deer in the back yard. Not unusual as we live in woods and woods surround us, and we live near the Yadkin River.Here's a couple pictures of it:
             
It wasn't afraid of our dog, and the dog was just sitting and watching it!

One Sunday in early August we went to Cracker Barrel to eat after church, and this strange car was in the parking lot! It had a license tag, so it was driven there! Check it out:
  
Pretty Cool hUH?  People were in the parking lot and taking pictures of it left and right! So low to the ground! Low Rider!


Below here is a picture I took today, August 27th, on Lasater Rd, in Clemmons NC at the water wheel. The wheel wasn't turning because of the huge volume of water, it was awesome! The lake was overflowing the dam and the little bridge I was standing on was shaking as the water roared under it! I took a video too. Hope to get it posted soon! We about drowned today! Some areas got 12 plus inches of rain. We have about 7" in our rain gauge! Areas are under flood warnings and watches. We had tornadoes in the area also. My radio at work kept going off with the warnings and such this morning. It was raining very hard.

     



It's taking forever for the video to upload. I will post it tomorrow! For now I need to sign off!  Will catch up some more tomorrow!</sup>