Storm!

All told, we escaped this most recent storm unscathed. We honestly didn't even know what had happened until we looked out the window on Saturday morning. We slept through the noise, then awoke wondering why the electricity was out. I am actually astonished that we slept through it given the damage we saw driving around this weekend. We had no power for 24 hours, and we lost a bunch of groceries that we had promptly purchased when we arrived home. We had to pull on our inner reasources to survive the heat, but we were really ok.

Hanging out a half finished load of laundry. Good thing I kept my flats challenge lines up!

Keeping cool with island kalimba music.

Reading by emergency light.

Knitting by candle light.

I usually enjoy it when the electricity goes out. It's a time to use our candles, and test our ability to entertain ourselves without the computer. But something about the magnitude of this storm, the entire trees uprooted, the telephone poles snapped in half, the funky water (because the water station is down), and the staggering heat of the following days, has made me pause and reflect on how vulnerable we are. Our little family was lucky. And we have each other, if any of us need help. But there is a lot we could do to be more ready for disasters. And there are those out there who don't have anyone else to help them. I'll be praying for them.

[Edit: I know! It looks like I haven't made any progress on my knitting! You probably think I just stick this in my photos to make it look like I knit. But in fact, this is number two of a pair, and I had to rip out many many rows to make the first one right. I am hoping to get this one done soon, so I can show you what I have been working on!]