Sandy Things...

Hurricane Sandy means:

Making mac and cheese...while the oven still works.

 Cozy socks from South Dakota (purchased especially for times like these)...

A dog who stands guard at his storm watching post...

A transformer that blew up in flames on the street in front of our house the moment that night fell...

Power that is lost.

And days that are ALL about the essentials...such as morning toast made on the gas stove top...

Generator-sharing with a neighbor to save some of the perishable foods...

Fresh firewood cut from the fallen trees...

Gas lines...

And walking around town only to discover that YES losing power for over a week is FREEZING and plain terrible...but it is not the end of the world.  We are surrounded with multiple examples of how blessed our home actually is!

Like, the fact that we have a fireplace to keep our feet warm every morning!

This is NOT our front yard...

This did not fall on my head...

 And this tree did NOT land on our house...

Now, before I sign off I just want to give my Grandma a birthday shout out! 83 years young today! And for a birthday gift, her power came back on yesterday. THANK THE LORD!

xoxo
L

EDITED TO ADD: Our power came on after 8 days!!! We can no longer see our breath indoors and it is a beautiful thing!  Now just praying that everyone else can get up and running before this Nor-eastern hits...

Sandy is Here!!!

Reporting from Northwest (i think?) NJ here.  Hurricane Sandy is coming in full force with wind gusts in the 20-30 mph range and light rain.  Landfall is likely to hit late tonight, and our last day in the city was supposed to be Wednesday morning, leading Jeff and I to officially leave city life early. Womp womp.

As of 7pm Tuesday, all of NYC transit (MetroNorth, LIRR, Subways, etc) had been shut down, with NJtransit following shortly behind. These closures led me to believe that if Jeff and I stay in the city for Sandy, we will undoubtedly have to move out of the apartment IN a hurricane and move into a friends apartment since no transportation will be running on or off the island. Boo. Risking power outages and major branch wreckage at home seemed more worth it than completing our month long NYC adventure.  So that's what we did. We're home! And we have company!  

My parents and their dog have since joined us seeing that they reside down the shore and whole darn place has been evacuated.  With good reason. Here is a picture of the house across the street from my parents (they set up a camera in their window).  Mind you, the hurricane hasn't even really hit yet!!!

How scary is that?! The bay has picked up so much that they now have a 100 percent unintended waterfront property. I know that my parents are really nervous for some of their most prized possessions such as baby books and photo albums, but my Mom is really just praying that the island withstands Sandy and that her house survives. Period.

Meanwhile, I'll just be here worrying the MASSIVE Red Cedar trees that are surely trying to kill me. Why are they so tall?!
Ack!

Storm pup - Rufie

Praying that Sandy doesn't lose her ish too much.  BE KIND SANDY!!!