Can’t Make it Up!

Hello fans and friends…

Well, I’m convinced we must have been puppy killers in our past life—the hits just keep on coming!!!  But before I get ahead of myself, let me say this:  We survived Hurricane Irene, no problem.  I really wasn’t too worried about it, I figured we would lose power and we did.  It went out at 4:30pm on Saturday afternoon and came back on around 11:30pm.  The worst challenge of it all was that I put my back out on Friday and have been trying to keep my back in check with a heating pad, which I couldn’t use with no electricity. 

It was a bit of a challenge to keep both Kristin and Leah entertained for the 2 1/2 hours prior to Leah’s bedtime.  It was pouring rain and no electronics meant we were somewhat forced to spend quality time together (gasp)!  But it went off fine.  When it went out, we grabbed what we thought we’d need from the freezer and fridge and fixed ourselves cold suppers—Leah and I had Chef Boyardee ravioli from the can with salad (Chef B is just as gross as I remembered!), Kristin made a salad with leftover cold chicken from when I roasted a chicken a couple days before, and Mike had a bologna and cheese sandwich.  I had optimistically predicted that I’d be able to grill, going so far as to buy a separate set of pans to cook with on the grill, but alas, it was raining sideways and the wind was blowing like crazy.

We had tons of candles lit, and as it got dark and Leah went to bed, we turned on the emergency flashlights i had bought and we had been charging for a couple of days.  We played a quick round of Yahtzee, and Kristin was delighted to discover in my shopping expeditions I had bought the board game Clue.  We broke it out, but were having a good bit of trouble seeing, so Kristin decided she would rig up a chandelier from flashlights.  Our first issue was digging up supplies.  We finally settled on dental floss to tie the lights together.

Lest you think this was easy and look at all the light we had, here’s the same picture taken without the flash:

We were in virtual darkness.

Once we got the lights tied together, we decided to string them to the overhead light in our dining room.  Unfortunately, they hung sideways and  cast a perfect spotlight on our refrigerator.  So Kristin decided to try using her ponytail holder to see if that would work, but it really didn’t do much.  So I hit on the solution of bungee cords.  Which was an awesome idea, but they were in the car.  So being the amazing hostmom that I am, I headed for the driveway and sprinted through the wind and rain to come up with bungee cords, which we managed to use successfully to string up the lights, prompting an enthusiastic thumbs up from Kristin!

We got through quite 3 games of Clue, all of which she won, and by the 4th, which was a couple hours later, the lights were dimming.  Since the only flashlights available in all of stupid Fredericksburg were rechargeables (read: no batteries), there wasn’t much I could do, other than that I did find one other flashlight with an LED bulb that we stuck up there and moved the candles closer.

I decided thus that Kristin needed to be inducted into the great American game of Monopoly.  I told her we’d see how bloodthirsty she was, and explained the game.  She caught on quickly, but unfortunately is not terribly ruthless.  Every time she built a house, she’d say how badly she felt about it.  Thus, for probably the first time ever, I won a game of Monopoly!  And I couldn’t even really feel good about it.  But the important thing was that mid-game, we broke out the marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers and made s’mores over the candles.

We even got gourmet—we used peanut butter cups, caramel Hershey kisses, and Snickers bars in the creation of our s’mores.  Kristin was concerned that they were going to be disgusting, but the minute she took a bite, she said, “Oh my, that’s so good!” 

Around 11:30, the lights came back on, and we were able to finish our game in the light.  The game lasted till almost 1:00AM, and then we both decided to go to sleep!  This morning, I woke up around 6:00 and the power was back out.  We have an alarm on our internet provider’s battery back up system and it was beeping like crazy because the battery back up was dying.  I came to the conclusion that it was basically likely that the power had gone out 2 or so hours before.  I think it woke Leah up too, because by 7AM, she was ready to go.  I got her up and let Mike and Kristin sleep and we took a walk around the block and then hopped in the car to see what we could see in town.  It was quite disappointing—not much damage or anything, and the power was on in most of the city, just not on our block.  We stopped off at Dunkin Donuts and got a dozen to take home and then headed back.

This afternoon, our A/C started making a weird noise and so we called our A/C company to come out and have a look and it appears that we have to have a new furnace, since the motor in the furnace burned out, and that’s what blows the cold air around.  On top of everything else going on, I had something of a nervous breakdown and just took some time to go for a walk and try to collect my thoughts. 

Kristin decided to distract me tonight with Free Willy 2 (which made me a little weepy, damnit!) and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.  She likes fantasy and fairy tale movies, and judging by the fact that I view my part of the exchange experience to be that I try new things that my students are interested in, I’m going to be well versed in this stuff by the time our time with Kristin is over.  Penny liked screwball comedy and teeny bopper stuff, so I became a great watcher of iCarly, Diary of  Wimpy Kid, and the Hangover.  I am hopefully becoming a more well-rounded mom and person as a result of my interactions with these kids! :)

I swear I have good things to post besides the gloom and doom of our house seemingly collapsing around our ears, so keep checking back and when I’m not exhausted from chasing a toddler and a teen, taking care of Mike, running a household, studying for my master’s, and crying my eyes out, I’ll be back! :) 

And just a reminder—AFS USA has another week to find homes for 275 great kids who still need host families.  Even if you can’t commit for a full year, and yet are willing to give a kid a month to get in and get settled, please, please, please contact AFS USA today and sign up!  Seriously, if they haven’t pulled the plug on us yet, they will find out a great host family, I know it!

A Meteorological Week from Hell!

Well, this has been the craziest week ever…  Tuesday was my birthday and I got Kristin over to the school to meet her counselor.  It took a while to have our appointment, and we wound up just leaving the counselor’s office when I heard what sounded like a freight train rumbling towards us.  Then all of a sudden picture frames and stuff started clanking and it hit me that it was an earthquake!  I grabbed Leah and ducked under the reception desk, but the counselors started screaming that we should all go outside.  So we raced outside, and I turned back to see Kristin sauntering towards the back of the crowd, cool as a cucumber!  We got outside and stood around waiting, and she said that in Iceland it is quite common to have earthquakes and she regarded it as no big deal.  Well, it’s not the first one I’ve ever been in, but it is the first one I’ve ever experienced (slept through my first and didn’t notice my second!), so I was really, really excited about it.  We decided to get in the car and drive home, and when we got here, all the cabinet doors in the kitchen were open, a picture had fallen off the mantle and smashed on the fireplace, and some of our good china had been shifted around.

Some hours later, we felt a good sized aftershock, and then that was it until the next night when we all got shaken awake at 1AM by another aftershock.  It was great excitement all around.  Many friends and family were terrified, but I suppose in a way having an old pro in the house helped me to feel not so scared.  The one that woke me up in the wee small hours of the morning scared me much more than the original quake.

Yesterday, we had a massive thunderstorm.  My husband’s radio antenna blew over, our outdoor furniture got blown around, trash strewn everywhere, etc.  The power went out at 4:30, just as Kristin was getting involved in a game of Titanic on the Wii, and stayed out for 7 hours.  Kristin asked if it was Hurricane Irene, but I had to tell her that sadly, no, it’s just a storm, the hurricane is still to come!

We went out to dinner and had a family meeting when we got back, just to see how she was feeling about things and talk about some things we were concerned about.  She then took some candles up to her room to work on her journal and whatnot.  A drive this morning shows LOTS of broken trees and tree limbs, so I hope that the damage is done if Irene arrives.  Although I am secretly praying that our POS shed collapses in the storm and we can claim it on our insurance and get a new one!

Current predictions are that Irene will hit F’burg as a tropical storm this weekend.  I went out this morning and picked up bread, water, shelf stable milk, non-perishable food items, ice for the cooler, and cookware I can use on the grill without damaging my good stuff.  I picked up 3 rechargeable flashlight/emergency light things that should last and a bunch more candles.  To keep us busy and happy, I got Clue and Monopoly as well.  Laptop is charged, cell phone is charged, iPod is charged—we should manage to keep entertained with those things for a while, even if we can’t get online.  I hope it won’t come to the point we need to use any of it!

We won’t be going up to New England as I’d hoped because the storm is due to go up that way and everyone is nervous.  I need to start looking into what we can do for Kristin’s final week before school starts!!!  I have a few ideas.  I will write about the positives of this week soon, and yes there are some!!!!  This poor kid—she has had the worst welcome ever…  But it’s one she’ll never forget, I can guarantee it!