Saturday, October 27, 2012

Preparing for the worst...hoping for the best

So last night I intended to get home from the grocery store (my typical Friday night fun outing!) and write a fun post thanking all of you who voted for me on Circle of Moms.  I am now officially in their Top 25 Home Management Blogs!  There are some interview questions that I need to get started on, and hopefully, this first blogging award I've received will gain me some new followers who (for some reason) are interested in my musings!

But at any rate, I didn't write last night.  The grocery store took DOUBLE the time it normally does because of this stupid Frankenstorm that has people in multiple states along the East Coast worked up.  Of course, these people weren't my usual Friday night crew, who, like me, are solo shoppers who are very efficient.  In fact, some people seemed to treat it as a Fun Family Friday Outing.  Oooh look.  There's the bottled water.  Let's all stand in front of it and do a math lesson.  If CL&P tells us we need THIS much water each per day and we lose power for SEVEN days and there are FOUR people in our family, how much water will we need?  Good job!  And how many little bottles will it take to make ONE gallon of water?  Good helping everybody!  Ok, now let's take up this entire aisle.  What should we buy?  Who likes canned corn?  Who wants Chef Boyardee?  I turned into the cranky lady muttering to herself about these people encroaching on MY shopping time and creating all this stupid stress!

We are right on the line between hitting the liquor store and being totally screwed.  So we're hitting the liquor store BECAUSE we're going to be totally screwed.

Don't get me wrong, I was stocking up as much as anyone else.  But stocking up confuses me sometimes.  We have water and batteries and flashlights of course (thank goodness, because Stop and Shop was pretty much out of batteries).  But it's the food part that I'm always thrown by.  "They" tell you to get canned goods.  But pretty much anything you are going to eat that's in a can is going to taste awful unless you heat it up.  So I didn't get any of that.  Last year I distinctly remember not being able to find bananas anywhere, so I did get bananas.  I also made sure we have bread and peanut butter, plenty of baby food, dry cereal, etc.  I didn't get gas because the lines were five deep at 9:00 and I was already exhausted from fighting through the grocery store, so that's on the list for today.

Up until last year, I was not a storm worrier at all.  I would get very annoyed when snow would be predicted in mid-January and people would race to the store and clean them out of milk and bread.  I always felt like yelling "YOU LIVE IN NEW ENGLAND AND THEY ARE PREDICTING 6 INCHES!  Come on!  That's sledding snow!"  Of course, up until last October, any storm prep was just Adam and I and a nursing baby. 



Madison was totally fascinated.  We actually lost that archway planter shortly after this picture was taken.  The weight was just too much for it.

But last year, the weekend before Halloween, we got HAMMERED.  It wasn't a ton of snow, but because the trees still had their leaves, it left quite a mess with downed trees and wires.  We were out of power for six days...and we were among the lucky ones.  We lost a lot of food, but our long term damage was pretty minimal.  Parts of CT went almost two weeks without power, and many people sustained major damage to their houses.  Towns cancelled all Trick or Treating because with all the clean up of branches and wires, not to mention dark, cold homes, it just wasn't safe.

And not only were we in the dark, we were cold.  The temperature would get up into the 50s and 60s during the day - beautiful for a New England fall - but drop way down at night and our house was freezing by the first night.  That first night we pulled out the down blanket and got Madison into bed with us...and no one slept a wink.  That morning it was hard to drag ourselves up, first because we were exhausted and second because the house was just so chilly.  That morning we met some friends at the mall, charged our phones, and were lucky enough to find a hotel for Madison and I for the week (a plus to Adam's travel is he has a TON of hotel points and enough status to claim a room).  Adam was away for business, and school was closed, so Madison and I would spend the day with people who had power and nights at the hotel.  I was pregnant at the time and VERY grateful.

This year we're getting an eerie sense of deja vu.  It's Halloween weekend and people are going crazy preparing for the absolute worst.  I want to cry at the thought of yet ANOTHER Halloween being cancelled for the girls, but at least they'll have some chances to celebrate.  The girls are napping NOW in preparation for two parties this afternoon!  I'll make sure they live it up...just in case!  And I'll be avoiding the stores.

Thank you, truly, to everyone helping who has helped me grow my blog.  I'm really appreciate all the support and encouragement I've gotten.  Thank you for making this a Top 25 blog!
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