Sun. morning, February 6, 2011

Hi, Everyone,
I sure appreciate your stopping by and checking out my website and hearing from you.

This past Monday night the ice storm hit really bad. It started out as freezing rain and then everything was covered with ice. Then later in the morning, around 3:30 a.m., more freezing rain on top of what was already there. Then around 5:30 a.m. the temperature went up to 40 degrees and the ice melted on most of the trees, but the yard and walkways were still covered with ice. It is still a skating rink out there!

The branches on the trees, shrubs, etc. were really hanging low with the heavy ice coating everything! I woke up Tuesday morning around 1 a.m. and right away noticed the house was cooler. I asked hubby when the power went off, and he said around 11:30p.m. on Monday night.

When we both got up, hubby went down to the basement, brought up the kerosene heater and placed it between the living room and the dining room. We had filled containers with water the evening before just in case. Well, I got the tea kettle started on the kerosene heater, lit some kerosene lanterns, and many candles. I knew I would not go back to sleep so we just stayed up and waited it out.
After the water reached boiling, I ran it through the coffee maker, put the coffee in a thermos and enjoyed our morning coffee! You just have to improvise when dealing with the outside/inside elements!

We were fortunate the power outage only lasted until 3:30 a.m. here, but (according to the T.V. station), many were out of power and would be for days! Some cities north of us still are waiting for power. I'm sure the crews are working as hard as they can. What is hard sometimes, (learned this from the major snow storm Feb. 2010), the power crews often times have to go out into fields if lines snap or a tree falls on the lines. That has to be hard to navigate and to restore power! Not all power lines run along the roads for easier access, but can be in more remote and off-the-road areas.

The kitty cats were very confused with us being up at 1 a.m. and were not sure what to do. Usually they sleep, but decide as long as we were up, they might as well play!
Kallie-kitty brought me her favorite fake mouse, so I threw it for her for about an hour!

School was closed for two days, so now there are three makeup days and we just got into February! I sure hope the Governor gives back the 5-calamity days again to the schools instead of just three. It would certainly help!

We even had freezing rain yesterday morning and later in the afternoon and it looks like more bad weather is coming this week. Our back yard is still an ice rink with a little snow on top of it. Goodness, enough already!

Even thought the groundhog says, "Spring in six weeks" we just have to wait and see on that one, but it sure would be welcomed at this point!

Yesterday I decided to do some house cleaning, besides the usual laundry chores. Well, I worked for about seven hours and made great progress. So today I'm going to keep going as long as my back holds out. It was really hurting last night, so I got out the hot water bottle, sat in my favorite chair in the family room and let it work on my back. Well, bummer! I didn't have the stopper tight enough I guess and the water bottle leaked on my P.J.s, bathrobe, the chair cover and the chair! So, I changed P.J.s, draped the chair cover over a dining room chair and went to bed!

When I had my WISH group last Monday, two of the girls had read my books during the course of the sessions. They were kind enough to give me reviews and I'll post them today on my website under my first book. They are great gals and have progressed wonderfully and I am so proud of them!

Gotta go for now. Stay safe, and think spring!
Take care,
Becky :)