Goodbye Isaac

It was one of the strangest hurricanes we've seen in my lifetime.  Slow moving.   It has moved on to other states but we continue to get on and off bands of rain coming around.  Last night was really strange after being home with my husband Tuesday thru Thursday.It made last night seemed like a Sunday night.  

Monday was when my friend came to visit and we enjoyed the day in the pool. It seems a few days ago.  I can't believe it's Friday again. The next day was all about getting ready and picking up anything that could be picked up and taken away by the strong wind gusts we expected and were warned about.  With all my plants and other things in the yard that was a job in itself.  Like packing for vacation.  Yesterday evening, we unpacked.  Pulled all the plants and other misc items from shed.  Even the garage was full.  Garbage cans, front yard plants, flags and of course the generator and gas cans.  For as long as the storm hung around our town really did fine.  Our biggest problem for a lot of surrounding parishes is flooding.  Not flooding into your floor where you need new carpet.  I'm talking about flooding into homes all the way up to roof tops and covering some homes.  We are so blessed to not have any damage at all.  

We were not so lucky with Gustav.  It took D days to clean the yard and of course as soon as our road was cleared from both ends to get out we had to have a tree top removed from our house and then a new roof.  While we were listening to the radio during the power outage they were comparing to Gustav a  as far as down trees and power lines.  This storm brought that but in very low numbers in comparison.  We were also very fortunate in our amount of time that we endured no electricity.  It started flickering on Wednesday after lunch.  I believe it finally went off for good around 1.  Not so bad durning day but it's always creepy when it gets dark.  Especially with no street lights outside.  

We lost cable, Dish and internet so it came down to reports on the radio and when we settled to one room with hurricane lamp D managed to fix things to watch movie through his computer on tv screen in bed room.  We had the generator keeping both freezer and inside fridge running.  No need for computer since no internet :-(  We also have a portable ac we bought after Gustav but it was comfortable without it and had fan blowing on us and stayed comfortable with just that.  

Thursday morning came and we checked in on family friends.  Who had electric and who didn't.  D was preparing to go and search for gas.  We were down to 2 cans left with no way of knowing how long it would be.  He started calling around to nearby stations.  They were either out of gas or had gas but no electricity to pump.  A friend of ours never lost electric and offered there gas if we would have to drive very far to get some.  As we were planning what to do it came on.  Woo hoo.  We consider ourself very lucky after dealing with 2 weeks for the last hurricane.  The total time was less than 18 hours.  We have family and friends who are still out.  But everyone is fine and dealing with it.  Our electric crews are working as fast as they can to get things back in order.

All day yesterday we had light rain here and there but nothing like Wednesday. It rained from Tuesday night until Wednesday night when we went to bed.  There were still wind gusts yesterday.  Sometime when things were quite you could hear the whistling outside or the push of the wind against the door.  Storms are so unpredictable.  You just never know when your in the clear for sure or not until the professionals say so.  

I am grateful to be feeling so much better as of yesterday afternoon.  Back to my "normal" pain level.  The last two days were pretty intense.  Not that I had anything to do.  Sometime it's better when your busy when I'm hurting that much.  Being bored keeps you focused on the pain.

I went out to run a couple of errands this morning and had planned to get in pool after. After I had lunch and started hearing thunder.  Wow, lot's of thunder and then a huge down pour.  So much that it filled the pool to the top again.  We'll see, maybe it will clear up.  

No luck with the video again.  Every time I try it says "sorry blogger had a error in uploading your video"  I'll have to do some research. 

Pool full to the top

Jax; Dallas needs one of these. 

The things you take for granted someone else is praying for. 

Isaac hanging around

This storm as you know if you've been following has been a slow moving storm. It made landfall at 6:45 pm last night. New Orleans and surrounding areas impacted long before that.

Our electric has been on and off all day. It just can't seem to decide if it wants to be on or off! Right now as of 4:00 pm there are 659,010 customers without power in Louisiana as of 4:20 central time and we're once again one of them.

The barometric pressure with this storm has made my back pain very intolerable. Nothing I've tried helps. I'll survive, but it makes an already uncomfortable situation worse. It's been raining and strong winds since around 7 this morning and not expected to chance any time soon. Overnight their saying. Most times the stimulator is helpful but I have it pretty high and not getting much relief from it today.

The generators running. Ready for the darkness. The minute D started it up memories came flooding back from 08 with Gustav. This is D and ours 4th hurricane to ride out together. Even with the generator running Dish and Cox is out, so we are listening to radio for updates right now. No Cox, no Internet either. We're so spoiled.

Had a few videos to post but blogger app only allows photos, not videos. Will have to wait for internet to be back.

What will this week bring?

I gave birth to it :-(

What a week end.  D worked in the yard everyday after work to get ready for Saturday when he had help coming.  He had everything framed up and ready to go to get going on the deck.  As usual the evening before I was pretty apprehensive about having guests. Over night guests at that. For one thing it rained from around 7pm until 10 so everything was soaked all over again. So my OCD was kicking in about brining mud into the house. Secondly I just never know from day to day when I get up what I will feel like.  This past week has not been one of my better weeks.  More bad days than good. Which meant less exercise.  Which means I'm not sure what to expect on the scale tomorrow.

I know I wasn't the best hostess to my company.  Watching everyone work out side and I mostly inside was hard.  I had to fight the blues.  I used to be outside doing what everyone else can do.  I look like I can do anything if you just look at me.  I'd go out every now and then but felt pretty useless just standing around watching.  A one point I pull out my antigravity chair but felt bad to be sitting around while they were working so hard.  Even D's sister jumped in often when they needed another pair of hands for leverage. 

Getting ready

tarp necessary for shade and rain cover

you go girl, what a team

We had to make them stop for lunch and they ate outside working with the sub in hand.  Sister in law and I ate inside and visited a bit so I had a minute to sit down and relax.  I just hated being left out so bad I tried to hang with them all day and it simply wore me out.  Silly huh?  Doing nothing, absolutely nothing made my back hurt so bad. About an hour before we had dinner my sister in law, her niece and myself decided to get int the pool for a while.  Kind of felt guilty since the men were still working.  We cut up with D's niece quite a bit and I know that has something to do with my back pain today.  A little to much movement.  It started drizzling so our clue to get out and get food ordered for dinner.

Right before we ordered food it started to rain a good bit.  Enough so we scrambled around picking up all the electric tools feeling it wasn't safe.  They continued to work with the last boards they had to do, even in the rain.  Determination I tell you! We ordered the food and had a hard time getting the guys to stop.  They were so glad to sit down to a good meal and a cold beer.  Great food from Mason's Grill.  We love that place.

This morning I heard everyone moving around and I was hurting everywhere.  I stumble down the hall and get stares from everyone.  Brother in law asks about why I'm moving so slow.  I'm sure he was thinking, "uh, D and I should be moving like you"  I told him this is every morning.  For some reason after I'm in bed all night I have the toughest time to make my body move the first hours or so.  I told him ask me again after all my meds kick in.  He laughed.  Then D said, yeah. That's what I do, stand back until her meds kick in.  Unfortunately today was one of those days that the meds never kicked in.  The stimulator either.  I made myself go out after our family left to take care of getting gas, (we have a storm heading our way if you haven't heard) because I know the lines and the prices will grow over next few days.  I managed to get a few clothes washed but mostly resting trying to control this flare up.

D of course spent another day outside.  Some small areas around edge of the pool were still left.  The ladder had to be put together and installed.  I love it!  It hangs straight down so it doesn't interfere with swimming laps around the edge of pool.  He got in the pool a couple of times.  I would watch him and wanted to so bad but thought I couldn't drag it out of myself.  I did though.  I really wanted to try out the ladder and run the vacuum to make sure pool was clean.  Having a guest to tomorrow to visit.  A long time dear friend.  We'll swim and just lounge around.  Good day to do it because after tomorrow we may not see much sun for awhile.

Isaac seems to be heading our way.  Our Governor has declared state of emergency.  I watched Weather Channel most of the day while resting and doing laundry.  Just since we headed off to bed last night and checked in this morning changes had happened.  We're all praying this storm stays far east as it can.  I keep thinking, what do we need?  I can't think of anything.  There has to be something.  D agrees.  We're good.  He has gas for generator if needed and both automobiles are tanked up.  Wow, just something else for me to be anxious about.

Tuesday is my disability hearing.  Of course I'm wondering how the storm will effect this.  All the lower parish state offices have been closed for until farther notice.  If by Tuesday they close federal offices, there goes my hearing.  Seems a little selfish, but it's been a long wait and I'm clueless as to what will happen if delayed.  I just want it to be over, I'm so nervous about it.  

I'll check in tomorrow with my weight for the week and an update on what LA is up against with Isaac.  Lets pray it doesn't cause any more deaths than it already has.  Predicting to land near New Orleans around 7 Wednesday night.  The longer in the gulf the more things change.  I hope to get up and find that darn thing just made a turn for the east but this is unlikely.  

Gustav left us without electricity for two weeks.  The neighborhood we lived in at the time had plenty of old big trees with power lines every where.  Here everything is underground so we're hoping if we do loose power it won't be anything like the past.  

Be safe everyone and make sure if you are here where I am your prepared with everything you need.  Medicines, important documents.  If you are a sick or pain patient you want to check NOW that you have enough medications to last a week.  Food for a week and some bottled or gallon water.  I've just seen on the news that some stations in Baton Rouge ran out of gas today.  So glad I pushed myself to go out this morning when I really wasn't feeling up to it. 

Awe...sweet

Dallas loves the deck.

In for a swim

right before dark

today, installing ladder

nice and clean for my company tomorrow

He thinks this was built for him :-D