Past Few Weeks

Let's just say it's been a crazy couple of weeks.  Not a bad couple of weeks, but a crazy couple.

First of all, two weeks ago we were all in "prepare for Sandy" mode.  All week a weather blog had been analyzing the situation and by Saturday we were all 100% sure that hurricane Sandy was coming, but we didn't know how badly we would get hit.  I went out on the previous Thursday and stocked up on water bottles and non-perishable food like apple sauce and peanut butter and soup and lots of things that come in a box that you just need to add water to.  (now that the storm is past my mother will happily be donated all the sodium laden instant meals I purchased to some thankful food pantry . . . ).

Sunday came and they were saying the winds would be worse than expected and we would get more rain than forecast.  School was canceled and everyone's work was canceled for two days.  My work shut down our servers which meant that I couldn't work remotely after noon on Monday.  I spent the rest of the day baking everything I could imagine to use up the perishable items in the fridge and to have snacks on hand that didn't have to be refrigerated. 

I don't know about you but I would much rather get through a power outage eating pumpkin bread rather than crackers.

The worst part of the storm hit on Monday night.  We were on the back edge of the storm since the winds were rotating counter clockwise and we didn't sustain too much damage.  On Tuesday we went out and surveyed the damage.  There wasn't much.  I was a little bummed.  I mean obviously I was excited that we hadn't lost power and there weren't millions of trees down and there wasn't flooding, but we were preparing for something BIG!  And something big could have happened, it just didn't where we were. 

(I actually went into work and told my boss about how there was so much hype and we got barely anything.  He looked really surprised and said that where he lived trees and power lines were down and they couldn't even get out of their neighborhood!  I felt a little sheepish for complaining about our lack of damage after that . . . )

Here's the extent of the damage I saw around our house.

There was flooding in low lying areas.  Which makes sense since we did get close to 8" of rain!

Leaves were blocking the water from getting to the storm drains since it is fall and all the leaves were blown off the trees.

This was the biggest damage I saw.  It was an evergreen and the needles were thick enough that the wind caught it and blew it over.  Too bad it wasn't closer to Christmas . . .

And there was a lot of this.  A lot of trees fell over but they didn't fall down, they fell into other trees.  Have I mentioned there are a ton of trees where I live? 

But yes, so that was Sandy.  Everyone went back to work and tried to get back to normal on Wednesday.  I now was facing an incredibly busy week.  I got Monday and Tuesday off from work but that didn't mean that I still didn't have to make up the hours.  And that night was Halloween!  And we hadn't even thought about carving pumpkins for the past two days!  So when I got home I carved pumpkins.

Thursday I worked longer hours and tried to make up some time but I couldn't make up much because I had to pack since I was leaving the next day for Kansas!  Friday I loaded up my car, went to work like normal, left at my normal time, parked my car and took the metro to the airport where I flew to MCI and met up with Laura for a very fun weekend of eating yummy food, meeting her cute little doggies, watching some football, and singing!

 I flew back Sunday evening and almost missed my flight in Manhattan.  Who knew that check in closes half an hour before take off!?  I was there, taking my time, repacking my suitcase in the parking lot.  I made it by two minutes (according to the snarky check-in jerk) but I was stressing about what could have happened for a few good hours after that!   In the quick flight from Manhattan to Dallas I sat next to a guy who obviously had a LOT of money.  He was going up to Chicago for a cattle conference (and was pissed that the flight from Manhattan to Chicago was full because now he had to fly from Manhattan down to Dallas then back up to Chicago.  Essentially tripling his travel distance), said he volunteered for the K-State foundation, and was wearing a massive class ring and a gold watch with a crystal encrusted face.  Muhla.  But he was nice to chat with.  Then waiting in line for my bag I was talking to a lady who had heard me say I graduated from K-State.  Her son had tried out for the baseball team the day before and made it!  I almost told her that all the girls in college think that baseball players are extremely attractive but I figured letting his mom in on the fact wasn't the best idea ever.

I then stopped at DICKEY'S!!!  Omg the Texas memories :)  It was our favorite bbq restaurant to go to in Austin.  I was fast food but it was good fast food.  I brought the cup home with me too :)

I finally got into DCA at 11:30, got home and into bed by 1:30am.  Thank goodness I was working from home the next day.  And this week was just an effort in survival.  Not a ton of stuff to do but I still needed to get back in a rhythm, get back to normal, after the craziness of the last week.

So I'm back!  And I'll be posting lots soon.