My next 40 years

Where do I begin?

2011-07-12T12:45:00.000-05:00

I've been wanting to write my thoughts down for a long time now but never really knew where to start.
I guess the beginning would be a good idea.

Even though my parents divorced when I was 10 years old, I think I had a really good childhood.
I mostly grew up in the country and at times we had horses, chickens (which scared me to death), a few turkeys, there was always a dog around and cats that always seemed to be multiplying.

Although I don't really remember my dad being around much, my mom says he was. I know he was always there to go to church with us on Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings and Wednesday evenings. I was raised Southern Baptist so when the church doors were open, we were there. Besides, my uncle was our preacher and I'm sure if we didn't show up, he'd be calling wanting to know where we were. Actually, going to church was some of my favorite times as a little girl. I loved going! I loved the music, the fellowship, the style of preaching, Bible school, everything!

The church I went to growing up: Hillview Baptist Chuch

I have an older brother Mark, then there's me, a sister Christine and the "baby" Melissa.

That's the 4 of us below. Probably around 1973

I seemed to be the "little mother" to my siblings. I think I've now come to realize why I rebelled at 15. I had so much responsiblity put on me after mom and dad divorced. Mom had to go to work and me being the oldest girl, everything fell on me. Mom would call me from work and tell me what to lay out for supper, how to fix it, what clothes to throw in the washer, etc...although at the time, it didn't seem like a big deal to me, maybe it was...It was just something that had to be done, so I did it.

I can remember when it was time to clean up, my sister Chris always seemed to have to use the bathroom and she'd come out right when the last dish was done. I tried telling my mom many times but she would say "Well, maybe her stomach hurts"

Every night at the same time???

Anyway...I remember it like it was yesterday when mom and dad sat all 4 of us kids down on the couch and told us they were getting a divorce. I was totally shocked and devastated. I think I took it harder than the rest of them, although I don't know why.

I remember mom and dad going somewhere that night and I went to bed listening to the radio.

A song came on by Anne Murray called "You Needed Me"

First time I'd ever heard it and I cried and cried.

To this day, anytime I hear that song, it takes me right back to that night.

Funny how a song can do that.

Maddy

2009-09-04T13:05:00.002-05:00

Maddy rolling from her back to her belly.

MY FIRST MOTHER'S DAY AS A GRANDMA

2009-05-13T17:00:00.006-05:00

This was such a special Mother's Day for me this year.

My first year as a Grandma!! Nicole made it even more special by sending me
a Grandma card from Maddy, a card from Nicole and Joe and Flowers!!

Al bought me a Red Rose!

I'm keeping them forever!!

Birds, Bunnies and Squirrels

2009-05-05T09:05:00.010-05:00

I guess little animals just love our place! This year I've seen so many baby rabbits, birds and squirrels in our yard!

Somewhere around Mid-April, I noticed a bird nest right outside the back door in that little pine tree. I also noticed that everytime I went out that door, a bird would go flying out of the nest so I decided to take a peek inside!

Three Robin Eggs!!!

So the next morning, I decided to check on the eggs again and two of the eggs had hatched!! Ugly little things aren't they?? Later that day the third egg had hatched.

I took another peek in the nest yesterday. They finally have feathers but they're still ugly!! The daddy actually helps take care of them too! We've seen the mom and dad hunting for worms for them.

Ok, so yesterday, I notice in the landscaping out front that something's been digging and trying to make a nest. I know this is where a mama Rabbit had her bunnies because I've seen them all over the yard.

Yesterday on the other side of the house, I noticed another bird nest in the water hose holder so I went to take a look:

4 Robin Eggs this time!

The mother is very close by so I don't mess with the nest much. I'm afraid she might swoop down on me and peck me to death!! Birds freak me out!!

I just took these pictures while standing on my front porch. He was probably 10 feet away from me.

HOW WE SURVIVED THE ICE STORM OF 2009

2009-01-31T19:52:00.017-06:00

NIGHT 1

Wow, what a Storm!!! We got hit with a major ice storm Tuesday evening, January 27, 2009. I went to bed around 10:00 PM and as I was laying there saying my nightly prayers, the power went out. From then until morning, it was like laying there listening to a war going on around us. If you've ever stood in the middle of a forest and heard a tree crack and fall, imagine the sound of that except a tree or a limb was falling every 30 seconds all around us. Transformers were blowing every few minutes. It looked like the 4th of July in the sky.

There were times I thought a tree was coming right through our roof. That's how close it felt when it was breaking and falling. Our house is surrounded by trees and I had no idea what we would wake up to the next morning. All I could do at that moment was to stay under the covers and try to keep warm. The temperature got down to 26 degrees that night.

DAY 2

The next morning, I took my first look outside. We had a MESS!! There were trees and limbs down everywhere BUT, thank God not one hit our house!! This was the view from our big picture window at our front yard. We had gotten 4 inches of ice with 6 inches of snow on top.

Look how thick the ice was on the trees.

After crawling out of bed, we took the dogs outside to use the bathroom then kind of just looked around outside at all the damage. It almost felt like a ghost town. There were no cars or people in sight and the power was out all over town.

These are a few more pictures of the damage in our yard.

Not much we could really do at this point so Al and I decided to try and find a place open that had coffee. But FIRST, Al had to dig my car out. Al finally got the car out and off we went. We eventually found a McDonald's open on the other side of town and apparently it's the same McDonald's everyone else found open. lol
It was Packed!!! Power was off in 70,000 homes and businesses around town.

In the 44 years that I've lived here, I have NEVER seen anything like this!

After we had our coffee, we came back home and just sat in the car trying to keep warm. I think we honestly thought our power would be restored at any moment....boy were we wrong!!

After sitting in the car for awhile, we decided to drive around and see how bad things really were. This is putting it mildly....it was total devastation. I thought we had it bad until we saw trees through roofs, trees blocking the entire road, power lines had been snapped in two, trees laying on cars....the radio station was saying it could be anywhere from 6-10 days before power was totally restored for everyone. This is NOT what we wanted to hear!!

I think we sat in my car until 8:45 that night when we finally decided to go in the house and go to bed. OMG the house was like a freezer!! The temperature dropped to 20 degrees that night. All we had to keep warm with were some fleece blankets that Nicole had made us last year for Christmas and a couple of quilts. Trust me, when the temp. outside is 20 degrees and you have no electricity, all the blankets in the world aren't going to keep you warm!! It was frigid! I couldn't wait until morning when I could go get back in my car!! I probably would have stayed out in it that night but I couldn't bring myself to get back out from under those covers!!! LOL

I just knew the electric would be back on before morning though!! WRONG AGAIN!!

Day 3

Al had to go to work but of course, there was no school so I was stuck at home with no electricity. After Al went to work, I pretty much stayed in my car the entire day, except to take the dog outside, until Al got back home from work. It was just way too cold to stay in the house.

Every once in awhile I'd take a drive to see if I could see any progress being made as far as people getting electric back on.

I kept watching our porch light to see if the bulb lit up because then I'd know we had our electric back on because I just knew it was coming back on that day. WRONG!!!

I could hear a generator running next door so I knew my neighbors were staying warm. The neighbor across the street had actually found a hotel vacancy so they were staying there until the power came back on.

We didn't want to leave our home because we didn't want to leave our dogs. Call us crazy, but we do love our dogs and besides, the electric would be back on at anytime right??? WRONG!!

Our German Shepherd Maggie loved the snow! Look at the smile on her face!!

Oh and we're pretty sure we've lost all of our Japanese Koi fish from our pond beside the deck. No electric means the pump can't run to keep the water circulating and the pond is now froze solid. Once it thaws out, I guess we'll find out.

This is in our backyard. Limbs fell across our privacy fence. We haven't really gotten a good look at the damage to the fence yet.

Limbs also fell on the shed in the back yard.

This was our beautiful 40 foot Weeping Willow Tree in the backyard that we planted about 6 years ago. It snapped right in two. Al doesn't think it can be saved.

As sad as I was about losing our Weeping Willow Tree, as I was sitting in my car trying to stay warm, I noticed a Red Bird sitting in the broken tree (that made me smile) so I zoomed in on it and took a picture.

When Al comes home from work, he finds me still sitting in my car trying to stay warm. As we're sitting there talking, we notice that our neighbor to the left of us has power!! How can that be?? One house over and they have power and we don't?? Come to find out, it's because their house is on a main street where our house is actually on a side street. The utility company was going down all the main streets first :(

All of a sudden, our driveway is full of our neighbors!! 2 of the neighbors were one's with power and the other neighbor was the one with the generator. They had no idea that we were staying at home with no generator, portable heaters, nothing.....(Al and I are very independent and never want to impose on anyone so we just thought we would tough it out) Our neighbors had a fit!! They all offered us a spare bedroom at their home but we politely turned them all down. So, the one neighbor insisted on running a heavy duty extension cord from his garage to our house and another neighbor loaned us an oil filled radiator. Al and I plugged in the radiator just knowing we were going to be warm as a biscuit all night now. WRONG....we appreciate the thought but those things aren't worth a crap unless you're heating a closet. Again, we froze our butts off all night.

The temperature dropped to 21 degrees that night.

Day 4

Still no electric. Now I'm starting to get annoyed! I swear I would never have made it as a pioneer woman. LOL

Al went to work this morning, but school is still out so no work for me. I did manage to do the few dishes that were in the sink and tidy up the house a little.

My school bus with ice hanging on it.

Our neighbor brought over another heater this morning. One that has a blower on it. I decided to put the heater upstairs in Wesley's old bedroom, take the mattress from the couch and put up there and shut the door hoping it would heat the room enough where we could sleep comfortably. We were also able to plug in a small TV without blowing a fuse to our neighbors garage from the extension cord he was running for us. Man, we were living high on the hog now!! We had heat in one room AND TV!!

This is the heater that kept us alive!!

Al was thrilled when he came home from work that night and found he could actually sleep in a warm room AND watch Andy Griffith on TV! LOL

The temperature dropped to 14 that night but we were snug as a bug with our little heater!!

I'm still in shock that our power isn't back on yet!

We ate out more this week than we have in a year! Funny how all the restaurants get electricity immediately!! I know a lot of them have generators but still, it seemed like every single business got turned back on before any of the homes did. I guess they know people gotta eat!!

Day 5

It's Saturday morning and STILL no electricity!! I eventually got out of bed and went to my car. That 1 inch thick mattress from the couch did a number on my back! I sat out there for about an hour until I saw Al pop his head out the door. Since there was nothing else we could do, we went and ate breakfast at Grandy's. Came back by the house to see if the porch light was on yet.....I swear, I watched that light like a hawk just willing it to come on!!

It was weird, you'd drive down the street and one block would be lit up then the next one not, then 2 blocks down, they'd have power and across the street there would be none!!

We decide to just keep driving around to waste time because we just knew today was the day we'd be getting our power back on. We drove out to Lowes to try and buy some salt for the walks but of course, they were sold out. We decided to drive back by our house and as we're coming down the street I see three Electric Company trucks sitting right in front of our house!! YES, we'd have power within minutes!! WRONG!! By the time we went around the block, the trucks were gone and we still didn't have power!!

What a welcome sight!!! Electrical Trucks!!

We drove around a little longer and I said to Al, let's just to home, go to the only room that's warm and take a nap. So, before I fell asleep, I told him that I had plugged a lamp in and put it on the on position just in case the electric came back on, the lamp would light up and we'd know our power was back on.

I had just fallen asleep when Al yells out "DEB, THE LAMP JUST CAME ON" Woooo Hoooo, we finally had our power back on!!! You would have thought someone just handed us a million dollars!!

And that's how we survived the Ice Storm!!