Last week definitely
didn’t go the way that we expected, but we are so very grateful to be with
power, with food and water, and without damage from Hurricane Helene. It could have been really bad had she not
decided to turn east at the last minute.
Monday, September
23
Last week was
homecoming week at the kids’ school (before it got canceled by Hurricane
Helene), so they had various dress-up themes for the week. Monday was “Dress Like a Tourist” day, so
the kids put on their Hawaiian leis from our Disney trip and called it a
day. We didn’t prepare well this time,
so we really phoned that one in. Haha.
I had to work
at the school on some alumni relations stuff Monday morning, so after I dropped
the kids, I headed straight to the school office, pulled out my laptop, and got
to work. Since it was homecoming week,
we were supposed to have had our big alumni social on Friday night, so we were
prepping for that, and they wanted to make nametags for all alumni to wear, and
the nametags included photos of everyone’s senior pictures.
In order to
make this happen, they needed all of the senior photos digitized, so I spent
all morning scanning senior yearbook photos.
I ended up scanning 1983-2000 (18 years' worth!!) and then I headed
home.
I got home just
in time to eat a quick lunch with B and then get to work on Tuesday’s blog
post. We had a short power outage just
as I had pasted the copy into Blogger, and after that, our router took forever
to come back up, so I couldn’t do any more work. The power outage somehow also fried my mouse,
so I was peeved about that.
I had no choice
but to leave my work behind to pick up the kids, so I headed back to the school
and got in the car line. I spent the
whole car line time making to do lists, checking emails, and catching up on all
the things I’d missed all day, and then at 3, we were tearing out of the
parking lot to get Jacob home so he could get to the golf course for his match.
On the way
home, the kids were thrilled because we saw Jacob’s old piano teacher on the
exit to go home. He is always heading to
work around the same time we’re heading home and our paths cross occasionally,
and that’s always a treat for the kids since they miss him so much. He stuck his arm out of the window to wave
and throw peace signs and the kids cheered.
They couldn’t get their window rolled down fast enough to wave back, but
I waved through the windshield, so hopefully he saw us!
When we got
home, Jacob changed clothes and then he and Brian headed out immediately to the
golf course. Meanwhile, I helped Olivia
with some homework and studying. Once
she started her reading for the evening, I headed to my office to do my Bible
study and finish the blog post that I hadn’t been able to work on before I picked
up the kids.
After all of
that was done, Olivia got in the shower and I did a quick stair stepper workout and then got dinner ready – sausage,
peppers, and onions tacos and lime tortilla chips + pineapple for the kids –
and then we all sat down and ate together when the boys got home.
Jacob had
another good match, shooting a 40 (par is 30).
He had 1 birdie, 1 par, 3 bogeys, and 4 double bogeys. He is still currently #8 in the city out of
38 kids!
After dinner,
Jacob got showered and ready for bed, and I spent the rest of the time folding
laundry and getting things prepped for Tuesday.
We got the kids in the bed early Monday – 8:30-ish – and they were able
to read for a bit before going to sleep – and Brian and I finished The
Golden Bachelorette before heading to bed early. I was exhausted!
There was talk
of the disturbance near the gulf becoming a hurricane Monday and they had the track
coming right for us, so everyone’s eyes were on the forecast all day.
Tuesday, September
24
Tuesday was PJ
day for HOCO spirit week, and although I forgot to take pictures, just know
that it’s the kids’ favorite day of the whole year. Haha.
I had nowhere
to be while the kids were at school, so I had a major catchup day – I worked on
tons of blog work, paid some bills, cleaned out my email inboxes, caught up
completely on blog reading (I was nearly two weeks behind), and did all of the
laundry in the whole house. It was a
very productive day. All the while, I started getting alerts about the potential hurricane.
At 3, I grabbed
Olivia from school. Jacob had his first
Velocity meeting right after school, so we left him there, and headed home so
she could change for dance. We only had
about 20 minutes at home before it was time to turn around and pick him
up. He’d had a great time at his meeting,
and he keeps telling me over and over again how happy he is that he signed up
for it, and I’m just so excited for him.
And I’m so very grateful that his best friend encouraged him to sign up
with him.
After we picked
Jacob up from Velocity, the kids and I headed straight to Walmart to find
something neon that Jacob could wear for Neon Day on Wednesday. Unfortunately, they had nothing good
(surprising no one – haha), so we settled for a dark grey tee with some neon
words. Olivia already had a neon dress
to wear so she was all set, but she did see a fuzzy blanket covered in pumpkins
in the Halloween section that she just had to have, so she ended up getting
that. She’s been wanting a
“Sheepie-sized blanket” for her beloved stuffed sheep that she’s had since she
was born, and that one was the perfect size.
After we left
Walmart, we dropped Olivia at dance, and then Jacob and I headed home. I did my Bible study and then got started on
dinner – mini pizzas baked on canned biscuit dough (so easy!) – and we sat down
to eat as soon as Brian and Olivia walked in the door.
After dinner,
Brian got outside to mow, and I went for a walk/jog while the kids got showered
and ready for bed. When I got back, I
also did an arms workout, and it felt good to get it all done. I showered, and then once everyone was ready
for bed, we Facetimed my Momma for her birthday, and then we watched a few acts
of America’s Got Talent (we were, like, four episodes behind at that
point) and then we got the kids in the bed.
After the kids
went to bed, Brian and I watched another episode of The Chosen and I
cried through half of it, and then we went to bed. I just love the actor who portrays Jesus on
that show.
Tuesday, the
school ended up canceling all of the homecoming events for Thursday and Friday
night (our bon fire and alumni social) and they moved the social to Saturday
morning out of an abundance of caution as things were starting to look worse
for Thursday night into Friday. Again,
our eyes were on the weather all day.
Wednesday, September 25
Wednesday morning, we woke to the news that we had an official Tropical
Storm – Helene – and that it was expected to strengthen quickly into a
hurricane. By mid-morning, it was,
indeed, a hurricane, and the projected path was still showing us taking a hit,
although, we were slightly west in the cone (which is a better place to
be). However, by lunchtime, the entire
projection had changed, and they had the eye going right over us stating that
we were officially in the red area of the map with the highest winds, torrential
rain up to six inches, power outages, tornadoes, and downed trees likely. My phone was going off all day with alerts –
first a tropical storm watch, then a tropical storm warning, then a hurricane
watch, and then a hurricane warning.
Sigh.
I knew it was pretty much guaranteed that school would be canceled Friday
and that it was highly likely that it would be cancelled Thursday, too, so I
worked my ass off all day Wednesday to get as much done for the blog as I
could. I ended up completing two full
posts, and I worked on two others. I
also started making my list of things to do to prep for the hurricane.
Living in middle Georgia, we do experience hurricanes, but since we’re
far enough from the coast, they’re usually just tropical storms (or less) by
the time they reach us, so it’s pretty rare for us to have a doozy like Helene. I have tons of memories from Andrew and Opal
(they caused a lot of damage here), and also some from Michael and Irma
(minimal compared to Andrew and Opal) more recently, and Helene was looking
like it was going to be similar to Andrew or Opal. Sigh.
Sure enough, we got the call that school was going to be canceled
Thursday and Friday due to the fact that another front was moving in, and it
was supposed to rain all day Thursday before the hurricane ever reached us.
Right as I pulled in the car line to pick up the kids, the skies opened
up and it POURED for a good 30 minutes, but thankfully, it stopped just in time
for us to get where we needed to be.
Jacob had an appointment to get a vaccine that they’d forgotten to give
him at his well visit, so we went to the doctor’s office after school. Thankfully, it was quick, and we were out of
there in ten minutes. We made it home
just in time for it to start pouring again, and then Olivia and I had to get
back out in the pouring rain to get her to dance.
When we got home, I turned on the local news and they were stating that
the eye was projected to go right over us, and they stated that it was time to
start preparing for the worst. Our local
meteorologist is not an alarmist (he actually prides himself on NOT being an
alarmist), so to hear him say that made me feel very uneasy.
Shortly after that, the kids’ music school called to cancel lessons on
Thursday, so what was going to have been a very busy day ended up being
NOTHING. Haha.
After I did my Bible study, I cooked dinner – vodka sausage pasta with
steamed broccoli, and garlic cheesy bread – and I worked on some hurricane prep. And since we had nowhere to be
Friday, I poured myself a glass of wine since it was our Friday!
Brian and Jacob and I sat down to eat after everything was ready, and
then we got the kitchen cleaned up.
After that, I got the laundry put away, and then I did a strength
workout while B headed out to pick up Olivia. All the while, I kept getting scary alerts about the hurricane. It was looking really bad for our area.
When they got home, Olivia got showered, and then we got them in the bed
because it was already so late since Olivia gets home late from dance on
Wednesdays. We wanted everyone to get a
good night of sleep on Wednesday night because it was looking like Thursday night
nobody would be sleeping.
Brian and I watched the newest episode of The Golden Bachelorette
after that, and then we called it a night.
Thursday, September 26
Thursday morning, we slept in, and then I made cinnamon rolls for
breakfast to get them out of the fridge.
They’d been telling us we’d have widespread power outages for who knows
how long, so we wanted to eat some of the stuff in the fridge so it didn’t go
bad.
After breakfast, I worked on blog stuff for a bit, and then it was time
to get down to business. It rained
LITERALLY ALL DAY, and when I say literally, I mean it never stopped a single
time. Keep in mind, this was from a
completely different storm system than the hurricane, so it was wild to have
that bad weather all day knowing that we also had a hurricane approaching.
Mid-morning, I got in a quick mixed cardio workout, and then it was time
for lunch. After lunch, I got showered
and ready for the day, and then I got all of the charging banks on the chargers
and checked out the battery situation.
The kids watched movies all morning since there wasn’t much else to do,
and Jacob finished up all of his virtual school assignments. Thankfully, the only assignments Olivia had
was to study for her three tests that had to be moved to Monday.
I left around 2:30 to grab donuts from our favorite local place and it
was just a mess outside from all of the rain.
There was tons of standing water, and it poured the whole way there and
back. I regretted getting out the second
I got on the highway.
When I got back, I arrived to a house without power (WHAT?!) and our
power company sent a text saying that there had been an “incident” and that the
power would be back on in an hour and a half.
Sigh. Since we were already
expecting the power to go out Thursday night, we reeeeally needed power during
the day to make sure everything was charged and that the fridge stayed
cold.
Thankfully, it was resolved in about 25 minutes, but you should have seen
our neighborhood Facebook page blowing up.
Everyone was livid. Hahahaha.
While the power was out, Brian and I used that time to move everything
off the porches. We got all of the pillows and cushions and loose items stored
in our outdoor closet, I got all of the fall décor down and inside the house,
and we pushed all of the heavy furniture and other stuff up against the house
so it wouldn’t blow around. We also laid
down furniture items that could have been picked up by the wind.
After that, Brian left to go to Target to buy a new, fancy cooler – one
of the large capacity ones that keeps stuff cold for days – because we’ve never
owned one. Since we don’t have a
generator, we always end up having to throw out the entire contents of the
refrigerator after a power outage, and I didn’t want to have to do that yet
again.
While he was gone, I worked on the blog a bit more and did my Bible
study, and then it was time for dinner.
We did breakfast to get rid of some of the eggs and the bacon, and Brian
and I mixed up some screwdrivers and got fancy with the champagne glasses. Haha.
All the while, we watched the local news for updates. All afternoon and evening the track kept
shifting from being right on top of us to shifting east of us and then back
again, so there was just no telling what it was going to do.
After dinner, the kids got showered and we watched some more of AGT, and
then Brian and I packed all of the important perishable food into our new
cooler that he bought with loads of ice just in case the power went out.
After that, we got the kids in the bed, and we got Jacob to sleep in
Olivia’s room. He has a big oak tree
right outside his bedroom window and we didn’t want to risk having any trees
fall on him in the middle of the night since his bed is right by the
window. The ground was SO saturated from
all the rain that our meteorologist had told everyone to prepare for downed
trees once the wind started blowing.
After that, Brian and I spent some time downstairs watching the coverage
on The Weather Channel, and the storm surge was just insane with this
hurricane.
We finally called it a night around 11:30, and we went to bed with the
comfort of knowing that the storm had just shifted a little further east. That’s what we’d been praying for all night
as it is better to be on the west side of the cone than in the cone or on the east
side of the cone. I did say extra prayers as I fell asleep, though.
Friday, September 27
The wind woke me up around 4:45 AM because it was howling pretty loudly,
but other than that, we all slept great, and we woke up to having no damage and
our power was on… it never even went out!
Come to find out, the hurricane took a pretty hefty shift to the east as
it made landfall and started working its way through Georgia, so we ended up even
further on the west side than last predicted before bed, and for that, we were
so very grateful.
I immediately got on Facebook to see what everyone was saying locally,
and there were plenty of pictures of trees down (some VERY large ones) and
debris, and there were also some pictures of flooding in various places… our
River Walk was completely under water.
There were also a lot of people we knew who were without power, so we
really and truly were lucky.
The devastation in Florida, middle Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina
is just awful, though… we truly dodged a massive bullet and I do not take that
for granted. While I say that we were so
blessed that it shifted east, it makes me sad to know that there were so many
people who lost their lives because of that shift east. Helene was a beast.
The morning was spent eating our hurricane donuts, texting with friends
and family to make sure everyone was okay, looking at the damage from the
hurricane, and getting no blog work done as originally intended.
I had an appointment with my therapist at 12:15 (fitting, considering
inclement weather is one of my anxiety triggers), so I was happy to still have
her on the books. I thought for sure it
would be canceled as I never received an appointment reminder, but I texted her
and she confirmed we were still on, so that was good! I did, however, poll our neighborhood
Facebook page first to make sure that people had ventured out and that we
weren’t blocked in anywhere since our neighborhood rests in a heavily wooded
area. I got the all clear and headed
out.
After my appointment, I finally got home and got some work done. I got our sheets washed, did some blog work,
and downloaded the new Abe Parker song that I’d been dyingggg for. He’s been teasing it for weeks now (maybe
months?!) and it didn’t disappoint. I
think I’m one of his biggest fans already and I only just discovered him a few
months ago. I cannot wait to see him
live in October! EEK!
While I was cleaning in our bathroom, I spotted a little ladybug, so I scooped
her up, and she crawled all over my hand for a few minutes while I took a few
pictures of her. The second I headed outside,
and she felt the sun, she knew it was safe to fly away. So wild!
Friday evening was supposed to have been our Homecoming Alumni social and
homecoming football game, but they had moved everything to Saturday morning due
to the hurricane, so we had an unexpected empty Friday evening. I briefly considered heading downtown to
watch some live music since our outdoor concert was still a go, but instead, we
just decided to have a lazy Friday at home as we don’t have any Friday evenings
open for the foreseeable future.
Brian picked up Five Guys, and then we all got out for a family walk
around the neighborhood. It felt amazing
out – cool and breezy – which was about the only good thing to come from the
hurricane, and we all enjoyed our walk immensely. Well, all of us except for Maui. Hahahaha.
She’s elderly now, so she pretty much makes it about 0.25 miles and then
turns around to go home. She kept trying
to turn around, so we just decided to take turns carrying her. She will usually only let me carry her around,
so Olivia was thrilled that she got some Maui time. <3
She was so exhausted after the walk, that she passed out between Brian
and me – half on my leg and half on his – LOL.
We watched a lot of America’s Got Talent Friday evening, and then
Brian and I watched an episode of The Chosen before calling it a night.
We also started seeing pictures of our beloved river walk on social media
and it was completely under water. Those
things sticking up in the middle are benches, and by the time the river crested
Saturday morning, they were completely under water.
Saturday, September 28
Saturday morning, we ate the rest of the donuts we’d picked up for the
hurricane, and then we watched ESPN College GameDay. We had decided to skip the homecoming
festivities since they were at 9 AM Saturday morning. Brian had a tennis match at 11, so he headed
out a little after 10, and I spent a few more minutes being lazy with Maui on
the couch before finally getting up and being productive.
I got in a barre workout – the first one I’ve ever tried – and it made
everything burn. Haha. I had jello legs the next day. Then after my workout, I decorated the whole
house for Halloween. We’ve had our fall
stuff up for a month, but it was time to pull out the skellies and bats and
spiders. I also used that as an
opportunity to make a cute little Instagram Reel.
Brian brought Chick-Fil-A home for lunch after his match, and we all had
lunch together. Then, the rest of the
afternoon was spent working on blog stuff, tidying the house, and doing
laundry. We also got a notification Saturday afternoon about another possible disturbance forming in the Gulf. Forehead smack!
We went to Mass at 5:30, grabbed a pizza from the local place across the
street from church, and then headed home to watch the Georgia vs. Alabama game
at 7:30. I had very low expectations for
us as we lose to Alabama every time we play them (except for the 2021 National
Championship!!!!), so I just assumed we’d lose.
Hahahaha.
I had no idea, though, just how badly the first half of the game would go
for us… it was UGLY and I pretty much felt dead inside by halftime. Haha.
But then, a miracle happened, and we rallied and came all the way back
from 28-0 to pass Bama and be up by one point.
I snapped a picture of the score during the thirteen seconds we were on
top, and then Bama came right back down the field, scoring a touchdown right away. Sigh. At least we had them scared for a while there, though... that girl's face! Haha.
We had a couple of minutes left on the clock to go tie it up, and we
ended up marching right down the field, only to throw an interception right
before the time went out. Double sigh.
While I’d normally be devastated over a loss (especially this early in
the season), I had already prepared mentally for it, and I ended up being really
proud of our boys because it was an EPIC comeback in the second half. I also couldn’t get the hurricane victims off
of my mind, and I knew that I was lucky to even have power to be watching the
game.
Sunday, September 29
Sunday morning, I made homemade waffles for breakfast, and then I did
yoga, watched my Sunday morning sermon, prepped my planner for October, planned
the week ahead, and I did my Bible study.
We went to my MIL and step-FIL’s for lunch and they told us about their
beach trip. They had been at the beach,
in the gulf, right as the hurricane was approaching, so they ended up having to
leave early and didn’t get to finish their trip. They did enjoy the little time that they had
there, though, so that’s good at least.
After lunch, we spent some time in my MIL’s garden. She has had several caterpillars and a couple
of them had made a chrysalis, so she wanted us to see them. We have a place not too far from us that has
a butterfly center, so we’ve seen them before, but it’s rare to see them out in
nature. It was so neat… you can see the
wings inside if you look closely!
After lunch, we swung by Party City to pick up a costume for Olivia, and
then we headed home. I did some blog
work, Brian quizzed Olivia for three of her tests… she had a pile of them to
take Monday since they were off unexpectedly Thursday and Friday, and Jacob
played video games.
We went to my parents’ house for Sunday dinner, and we celebrated my baby
brother’s 32nd birthday while we were there.
My Momma made a big spread of food, and we were all stuffed when we
left.
Last week was definitely nothing like we expected, but we are so grateful
to be dry, with power, and to have no damage.
I have been praying fervently for those affected by the hurricane and
all of the flooding, and my prayers will continue to be with them for a long while
as it’s going to take weeks, months, and even years for some to recover. There was just so much devastation.
Happy Tuesday, y’all!
