Tap Tap Tap

Aug 30, 2011

• I’m not even going to try to write a real post right now, so might as well start off in bullets!
• We survived Hurricane Irene.  The contents of my fridge and freezer did not, but hey, it needed a good scrub anyway.  The bigger issue is when grocery stores will actually have stock again.  While the one closest to us was open the day after, pretty much all it had on the shelves were cleaning supplies (useful, as I hadn’t a very good supply of those, and my floors are super muddy thanks to the big white dog) and some less than choice cold cereals.
• We were incredibly lucky.  There are many folks still without power and who had significant flooding.  I hope that their lives can return to normal as soon as possible, as 24 hours without power was rough, and the seven to ten days that they originally quoted us would have called for some extreme creativity in meal planning..
• Clearly I need to rethink my disaster planning techniques.  There was not nearly enough wine, non-perishables, or non-electronic diversions to keep us fed and occupied.  Well, in all honesty, I had enough yarn to keep me knitting for a good year (although I hadn’t printed out the patterns to go along with the yarn, so I would have had to start designing), and C had enough books to keep him going for a while, but I think A was seriously regretting her decision to clear out her bookcase a few weeks ago because she “would never ever read those books again.”
• M probably would have been OK, except for the fact that while I had a way to boil water, and a french press, I did not actually have any caffeinated coffee in the house.  He resorted to breaking open some k-cups, but apparently the coffee quality was ehh at best.
• Also, my plan for recharging cell phones using emergency battery-operated chargers failed miserably and we had to resort to charging in the cars.  At least I had the foresight to put gas in those.
• On a completely different note, assuming that things in the school district are running somewhat normally, which I assume they are since the BOE is still meeting tonight, the kids should get their teacher assignments tomorrow.  Which makes it feel almost official that school will be starting next week (assuming that the school gets power back, it looks like it is on one of the blocks still out).
• We are all ready for school and a routine.  It has been very clear this summer that no one in this house operates well without a routine.  For all of their bluster, the kids never really strayed from their school-year bedtime, and the weeks that there was no camp or other activity to give some structure to the day made us all a bit fidgety.
• How are all of you doing?  Any of my knitting friends up for a back to school knit a-long?

It is the little things that give me hope

Aug 16, 2011

Today, someone in my house who is under the age of 10 needed to throw something out.  At the exact moment that this person needed to discard his or her trash, I was taking out a full bag of garbage and had yet to replace the bag in the can.  And, for the first time EVAH, someone under the age of ten reached under the sink, pulled out a new trash bag, and put it in the trash can BEFORE disposing of their trash.  I cannot begin to tell you how incredibly happy I was to return to the kitchen and discover that my 40 billion lectures on proper trash disposal etiquette had finally paid off.

There may be hope for them yet.