Our Week - The One with Homecoming Week and Hurricane Helene

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!