Hurricane Season

Here comes our first storm this season. Anyone who doesn't live in Florida won't care, but I'm sitting at home with the hurricane shutters drawn. All the patio stuff and outdoor stuff is crammed into the garage, and my new car is sitting out in the driveway because the garage is full. Now what sense does that make?
Anyway, TS Fay is coming to visit, I don't imagine it'll be much, but I got off work early today to come home and get stuff taken care of. If you've never been in an area where you're waiting for a storm, it's pretty interesting. Yesterday I was heading to the liquor store, and traffic was dead stopped all over the place. Everyone was making a run on the gas stations to fill up the cars, and the gas cans for the generators. (After Charley 4 yrs ago, we didn't have power for anywhere from a week to a month and a half, depending where you lived. Everyone learned then to have a generator and lots of gas.) Anyway, god help you if your car was on empty last night, Jord went out with his friend, and it took them an hour of driving around to find a gas station that wasn't sold out of gas. When I hit the liquor store, the shelves were empty, and the lady told me everyone was stocking up. Then I stopped at the grocery store. What a madhouse! All the water was gone, all the batteries were gone, and a crowd was waiting for them to unload another shipment of water. Today the banks were packed with people taking out cash, in case there's no power afterwards, ATM's don't work with no power...lol...we learned the hard way last time. Schools are closed tomorrow, so Paige's daycare is closed. I'm locked in a house with 2 kids, a cat, and it resembles a cave with all the shutters closed. In preparation, I stopped and got more beer today to survive the kids fighting all day tomorrow.
Whine, whine....wine. I wish I'd gotten a bottle of wine now too! It looks like this storm won't even be a hurricane when it comes in though, so just a ton of wind and rain, I think we're supposed to get 8-10 inches tonight and tomorrow.
Who else is down here? Fara, you ready?

As ready as someone who is terrified of storms can be. Mostly though, I am hoping we don't lose power again. After Charlie we lost it for 8 days, after Wilma six... I am too spoiled and selfish to enjoy that... I get very bitchy.

I'm praying for all of my friends in Florida. I hope that you all get through this storm safely.

Yeah, we didn't have power after Charley for a week, and no water either, since we were on a well. We didn't lose power at all with Wilma, thank God. I'm not too worried about this one, it doesn't seem to be holding together well. From the radar it looks like we won't get any rough weather for another couple hours. We actually lost power last night when the first band from the storm came through, and got over an inch of rain. I'm pooped though, I got up at 5 and started clearing off the patio. This afternoon we took the summer roof off the lanai, and finished up. I love to stay up and watch the storms roll in, but I don't know if I'll make it tonight. Pffft.

I've been sitting watching the storm, the back of my house is getting the brunt of the wind, but the rain stings when it hits you, winds are 50-60 mph. Not driving weather, so no work today. The storm came on shore about 55 miles south of us, so we are in the clear in the Cape, we have power, cable everything. I've heard though, that the eye is much closer to Fara than me though, and there's been trees down and power outages all over the place. **keeping my fingers crossed* Fara, check in if everything is ok and you have power!! Cool site to check out the storm if you're interested: www.wunderground.com .