Where to start? The days leading up to the hurricane were a mess. People were doing all kinds of last-minute shopping to prepare. Getting gas was impossible. Matt and I pretty much just stuck close to home. Matt took down everything in our yards that might cause problems as far as the wind, but we went to bed that Friday night feeling pretty calm and ready. The actual storm, to us, didn't seem that bad. We woke up a few times, but for the most part were able to sleep through the storm. The windows rattled quite a bit and the rain was coming down hard. People who lived in older neighborhoods dealt with the sound of falling trees all night. We didn't have that problem. We woke up the next morning and were thinking that Houston faired very well based on our neighborhood. Part of our fence fell down, but nothing major. (Our backyard)
What we didn't realize was the damage was much worse everywhere else. I tried to take more pictures of some of the fallen trees with their huge root systems, but the camera malfunctioned for a few days after the storm. Most of the trees were cleaned up by the time our camera decided to work again. It was amazing to see all the trees that just completely uprooted and fell down or that snapped in half.
The days following the storm were pretty boring actually. There wasn't a call for work groups right away, so we spent the next few days hanging out with family, suffering together without power. The first week was actually exciting...no one was getting power anytime soon it seemed, so everyone was in the same boat. We ate dinner with my family every night and almost every morning eating up everyone's perishables. We ate really well that first week...BBQ chicken, fajitas, steak, roast in a dutch oven etc. A cool front came through the second night after the storm, so the temperature would drop in the upper sixties at night and stay in the seventies during the day. That made being stuck in a house in Houston with no air conditioning bearable.
It was when week 2 came around that things started to get tough. The cold front left. My house would get up to 84 degrees during the day and cool down to 81 degrees at night. Not fun. There was no more good food so we started in on our food storage. Canned soup and spaghetti gets old real fast. Matt and I started sleeping downstairs on the floor since it was slightly cooler downstairs. After three days of sleeping on the floor, I was all done. My hips hurt so bad. Caleb seemed to sleep alright, for Caleb that is. (Ever since I dropped the last nursing of the night, he has started waking up 2 to 3 times per night again. I feel like I have a newborn again, and I'm sick of it.) We stripped him down to just a diaper every night and he seemed to stay cool enough. As far as keeping cool during the day, Caleb had 2 baths a day (he loves baths!), and we would play outside in our baby pool a lot. Anyway, week 2 was miserable.
The other hard thing about that second week is that you would hear rumors about people getting power, and it would make you so bitter that you weren't one of those people. There are four of us in my family that live in Houston, and you would think that at least one of us would have had power. We were all going to move into whatever house got power first. Ironically, we all got power the same day within hours of each other. We got power on Friday, which was day 14 without power. My house got power around 2 pm which was when I was over at my friend's house checking email and writing my last blog post about not having power...more irony.
It was so hard to stay positive after that first week. It was obvious at church the Sunday following the storm which people had power and which people didn't. Everyone without power looked a little more rugged and seemed more irritable (I know I was!). But it is hard to discount the blessings over the last two weeks.
1. The damage definitely could have been worse. There were several stories of people who moved their children out of their bedroom just as a tree fell through the roof. Or just looking at the placement of where the trees fell instead of where they could have fallen to do more damage. God didn't prevent the storm, but He was definitely watching over us and protecting us.
2. People had ample time to prepare to minimize the damage.
3. The cool front that first week was a HUGE blessing.
4. Without T.V., video games, internet, etc., there is definitely more time on your hands. Neighbors would sit out on their lawns and talk to each other. There was so much socializing and playing going on. There was more time with family. On the days that Matt didn't have to go out and help, it was nice to be able to spend time as a family.
5. I got to read a lot. :o) Because it's getting darker earlier now, it would be dark before 8 pm. Matt and I would just go to bed and read for a couple hours every night with our flashlights. I also got to read every day during Caleb's nap for almost the whole duration because there weren't many other tasks to do such as cleaning etc.
6. I think I've gotten the most sleep I've ever had during those two weeks due to going to bed so early each night.
7. Matt's uncle let us borrow his generator once they got power so during that second week we were able to use fans and get rid of our cooler and start using our fridge again. We still suffered at night though as far as the warm weather simply because the gas for running the generator was too expensive that we would turn it off around 1 am every night. We only tried to run it around 9-10 hours a day, which worked out to $10 a day, but that would put you at a $300 electricity bill each month! That's 3x the amount we normally pay to keep cool in the Houston summers. Electricity is so cheap compared to gas! Generators are so annoying, however, due to their loud noise. They sound like a very loud lawn mower. It was frustrating to listen to that sound all day and sometimes all night as some people never turned it off!
8. Another of Matt's uncles drove down from Willis and assisted Matt in wiring the generator to our house. That allowed for us to turn on lights, run the a.c. if we wanted to, use appliances, watch t.v., etc., but only when the generator was on obviously. This made my day as I could start using my oven again and do some laundry! The ironic part is that we got power the very next day after they did this, so it only benefited us for that one night.
9. We have a gas stove. This allowed us to do a lot of cooking still.
10. The blessing of having so much family near by that we could suffer together with :o)
I have to also include the top 10 things I missed, in order, which were affected by the lack of electricity:
1. I missed my computer and the internet! I hated being cut off from the world and not know what was going on. I missed blogging and reading others' blogs. I missed checking my email each day. I missed scrapbooking on my computer. Unfortunately hooking your computer up to your generator could cause damage to the computer, so even with the generator we could not use the computer.
2. I missed air conditioning! Matt more so than me because he has a warmer body temperature than I do so he would just sweat non-stop, and he can't sleep when he's too warm.
3. Having no lights to turn on was so annoying. None of our bathrooms have windows so even during the day they were dark. We used flashlights and candles, but it was so annoying to shower in the dark, give Caleb a bath in the dark, use the bathroom in the dark, etc. It was so nice to be able to flip on a light switch once we got power!
4. Garbage disposal makes fourth on the list actually. Think how many times you run your garbage disposal and how smelly it would get if you couldn't run it. Obviously I didn't stick food down there during those two weeks, but before the hurricane, I didn't think about running the garbage disposal so there was already gross stuff down there.
5. The washer and dryer were very much missed. We had nice friends who had power who let us do laundry about mid-week, but it got backed up pretty good. (Thanks Stacie for letting me come over and do a load!)
6. I got really tired of washing dishes by hand so the dishwasher definitely makes the list.
7. Even though overall it was nice to have a break from the television and watching movies, we still missed both quite a bit. It would just get so boring at times.
8. I actually missed vacuuming quite a bit. I vacuum our downstairs' rooms (piano room and family room) probably twice a week because of crumbs or grass or whatever. I hate when those rooms aren't vacuumed.
9. I missed my blow dryer. I pretty much didn't put any make-up on or do my hair (besides a pony-tail) for two whole weeks. It was a nice break, but I missed being able to get "dolled" up on occasion. (The whole hair thing was annoying, however, because I got my hair cut about a month ago and so now all my hair doesn't fit up in a pony-tail any more.)
10. The refrigerator is last simply because living out of a cooler wasn't too bad, but I definitely missed the space and ease of the fridge.
That pretty much sums everything up. Life is finally back to normal. It's amazing how much easier it is to smile and be happy now that we have power. I definitely won't be taking the above-mentioned things for granted any time soon! Looking back, the hurricane experience was very humbling and made me grateful for the simple things in life. I was so grateful to feel prepared as far as food storage, water, etc. and grateful that our church emphasizes this so much. Hopefully things will be calm for the next little while. :o)
