Months go by...

So - the last time I wrote, my son turned 15. The very next day - BOOM. Power outages, ice storms, trees crashing on the house, people rushing for generators and bottled water. I don't mind to tell you that the first night seemed to last an eternity. Because we had no electricity and the temperature was in the single digits, we all piled mattresses in the library (the only room in the house with a wood burning fireplace). We listened as our park-like trees were cracking under the pressure of the ice. It appeared as if when the first one fell, the rest were like dominoes and continued one after the other. Eventually, we would drift to sleep and CRASH, the trees would hit some part of the house. We have a massive house so when it rattled, my nerves would stand straight up on end. We lost several gutters, part of the roof, and sadly, my greenhouse. Even worse, our dog's dog house is placed under the biggest tree and when first light hit the next morning, I noticed he was standing under what looked to be a chandelier of glass. The tinkling sound the limbs made when they touched each other was too much for me. I took a calculated risk and ran under the tree to get him. He stayed with us for the next few days, because there was nothing that could be done in the meantime. Of course we forgot that the sump pump in the attic needed electricity, so when I went downstairs to get another flashlight...four inches of water met me at the bottom of the stairs. Naturally, I freaked...it was dark and I wasn't sure what the heck I had stepped in. Poor Jeff asked me if I had good news yet. So - we did what anyone living like the characters from Little House on the Prairie did and got in the four wheel drive, made a trip to the hardware store, and recreated what we considered to be the best sizes for the sump pump pipes that we had to now replace. That only took most of the day, and then we hooked it up to the generator. We rotated the sump pump and the refrigerator...which ended up being useless because you never know what has gone bad and what hasn't.

We were out of school for the rest of the week and on a delay when we did go back. I can only imagine what some of my students went through. As it turns out, we were fortunate. We had each other, some common sense, and a little ingenuity, and a ton of prayer to our Heavenly Father to get us through. I can't imagine having problems of any size and not being able to take them to the Lord. I just can't.

Anyway - all is well now. The adjuster has been here twice, the insurance is paying for most, and we have hauled off (in excess) of 13 loads of trees/limbs so far. The yard looks some better, but that doesn't even make a dent in it. Every weekend since then, we have wanted to work some more on the trees, but the weather still does not want to cooperate. It is either raining, snowing, or below freezing on the days we can work on it. I suppose we will wait until Spring finally gets here. That stupid little rodent from Pennsylvania says six weeks. I guess we will see. Coincidentally, the big news now is that the Almanac predicted that particular ice storm to the day, and has also predicted another one in a couple of weeks! I don't know how much stock to put in it - but Mom says she took all of her kids off the bottle according to the almanac. I didn't really want to hear that so I changed the topic.

Anyway - that is what we are up to and for those of you who have missed my mind music, I can assure you that the music never stopped - it may have been humbled - but it never stopped.