We're still here!

Hurricane Sandy has come and gone and our area of Virginia was by far one of the luckier ones—few power outages, little flooding, and no major storm damage.  The stories from the coast and north of us are terrifying and I do not take lightly the fact that I can comfortably rest in my own bed each night, with Frances and George in their own rooms, knowing that the heat is on, we have plenty of food in our working refrigerator, and transportation around town.

With the uncertainty of the storm’s impact, area schools closed Monday and Tuesday so F, G and I had a lot of inside time together.  They colored:

One of my personal favorites from the week--All Things Christmas by Frances.
Can you find Santa, Rudolph and Frosty?  Baby Jesus also makes an appearance (in green).

Played with Marshall (a lot!):

Somewhere under that pile of blanket lies a very patient (and warm) dog.

Watched movies:

Yep, apparently in natural disasters I break my own rules of no movies during the week.  When you’re unsure of whether the power will go out at a moment’s notice, a movie during the day doesn’t sound so bad.

And even enjoyed a trip to Monkey Joes, the perfect place to alleviate cabin fever:

Frances wanted to test run her Halloween costume at MJs.  All systems a-go.  If it can survive an hour at moon bounce heaven, it can survive anywhere.

In between enjoying all of these activities with the kids, I became a domestic madwoman.  Without knowing whether we’d lose power for a day (or more), I washed every inch of clothing in the house, cooked those “rainy day” frozen foods stored deep in our freezer (because in a pinch cold cooked food is better than frozen raw food any day of the week), vacuumed the entire house, mopped the downstairs, cleaned the bathrooms, and even polished the silver. 

I know, the last one was a stretch; but I was getting desperate towards the end.

I have no idea why I reacted this way.  Obviously I was nervous about losing power and not being able to cook and wash clothes.  But I think I was feeling helpless and realized that there was so little I could do to help the family that I did everything I knew how to do; it was my own way of protecting our little nest.  Not to mention the fact that I had about 5 days’ worth of nervous energy pent up inside to release and no other way to dispense of it.  Don’t worry though; once I realized the storm had come and gone with little effect I promptly took a nap.  I can only be but so productive before my body starts to rebel.

And with that, I am off to do some last minute preparations for Halloween (test-eating the candy is a job that should not be taken lightly).  Have a great trick-or-treating night, everyone!