After of day of Hurricane Ike, I can’t begin to describe how happy I was to see that the lights were on at my house as we drove up the street. I was singing and dancing…I was that happy. I really wasn’t looking forward to no electricity. We are some of the few lucky ones. I live a block from downtown, which is probably the reason. Apparently this location has some perks.

After the winds died down, around 5:00, we went driving around to see what havoc Ike had wrought. One of the neighborhoods in the hills got hit pretty hard. Trees were uprooted and snapped off everywhere.

All day, Sage and I sat in front of the windows and watched the trees in the park across the street lose limbs. Sometimes the sound of the limb popping off sounded like a sharp crack of thunder. I was worried about a tree on the left side of the house, so we stayed on the other side of the house all day. I am so thankful that it didn’t fall!

At around three o’clock, we went outside. Sage had a blast playing in the rain. He and a neighbor girl ran around the park and checked out the creek, which fortunately, never got to overflowing.

I didn’t have a shred of anxiety this time–as opposed to Hurricane Rita, which was one big, long, horrible panic attack. Greg helped out with that by suggesting that we go and volunteer at a shelter last night. I took some magazines, yarn and crochet needles with me. Once we were there, I got a lot of the women hooked up (hehe) with yarn and crochet needles, and taught a couple of people how to do it. It made me feel really good to have those interactions. Lots of the people spoke Spanish, so I got to practice.

When we got back home, I had totally forgotten how worried I was about the hurricane. It definitely got me “out of myself”.

We had FUN during this hurricane. I feel a little guilty about it, but it beat the hell out of being a nervous wreck.

Oh, and speaking of not being nervous–about a hour after a major limb went down, our neighbor was out there with a chainsaw cutting up the pecan wood for his barbecue pit! 70 mph winds and all! Watching him was inspiring, somehow.

Now, here’s to hoping that the school doesn’t get their electricity hooked back up for a few days…