HOW long has it been?

Oh crap. It has been a while. But y'all will forgive me right? That's what friends do. Right? :-)

It's been a busy summer. I built a raised bed for my garden - which has been a success despite the cool summer.

We are about to embark on major home improvements this weekend and this month (fixing rotted trim, repainting it and installing new outdoor lights - and waterproofing, cleaning, and repairing basement walls via some contractors).

Not to mention, I am teaching Steve to cook on his own. Pray that we don't burn the house down or break the new stove.

Not to mention my sister is pushing me to turn this blog into something that I could make a living at. Now - I love my job. But how cool would it be to have more than a few people reading this thing? The question is - what do I do?

I've considered adding a section on basic home improvement projects and/or dealing with contractors, from a woman's perspective; making your own traditions; and a few other ideas that are not well-formed enough to mention here. But seriously, it's hard to think about what idea would get me a larger audience. Who knows?

All I know for sure today is that I want to finish watching the Zips (even if they are going to get pounded) and get out and take advantage of this three day weekend.

roughin' it

For those of you who haven't heard, The remnants of Tropical Depression Ike started moving through southern and central Ohio yesterday around noon. Much of central Ohio is without power. We are included in this, Steve and I. Although both our jobs have power... and Internets... so therefore, I can post.

The wind started really picking up around 2 or 3 PM. We stowed patio furniture and all my plants in the corner of our patio that is more sheltered. Other things we either brought inside, or made sure they were stowed. Luckily, we had no damage to the house (at least none I can see at this point) - which is a miracle as far as I am concerned because of all the trees in our neighborhood. We do have a yard littered with smallish and medium branches, but nothing on our house! One of our neighbors has a broken fence.

Our power went out at 4:02 PM last night. I know the exact time because our stove has a clock on it that is "analog" and so stopped right at that time. We cooked dinner on the grill last night (not what I expected), and tried to keep the fridge closed most of the evening.

We had every candle in the house burning. Luckily for us, we have a battery operated weather radio (that also picks up TV stations) from our camping gear. We also have a few stickup LED lights handy - I keep one on our hall closet frame, so it's easy access to lights up our "emergency gear" - candles, radio, flashlights, meds, first-aid items - so we can get these things in the dark or power outage.

We got most of our maneuvering (cooking, cleaning, stowing of stuff that could blow away or over) done in daylight, so we didn't break out the headlamps, but we may do that today. If power is still out tonight, we may head over to my sister's to have hot water for showers. At the very least, we will be taking our food over there to store and/or cook.

We have T -5 hours to get our perishable food stuffs from the freezer into my sister's freezer. Everything in the fridge is going to either have to get chucked or will be eaten tonight depending on temperatures in the fridge and the nature of the item.