Surviving Sandy..

After living by candle light, sleeping by the fireplace, eating peanuts and beef jerky, we are finally returning to normal. We lost power on Monday October 29th around 5:08pm, we had not anticipated losing power so when the lights went out we figured it would only be for a short while, we sat tight but packed our bags just in case. That night, Hurricane Sandy turned into a significant wind event with a bit of rain, the wind howled and it was as if the trees swayed from sky to ground and back. We all sat in one room by the fireplace and eventually fell asleep there. In the morning, we could see the results were bad but we didn't think it would have the effect that it did. The husband and my daughter stepped out to get coffee and something to eat which took them a while, meanwhile got on my phone to read the news and began to see the sheer devastation Sandy had left behind in places like part of New Jersey, Staten Island, Lower Manhattan and Connecticut. There were quite a lot of fallen trees and power lines around here, my neighbor had a tree through his roof and was out trying to cut it out, people were out looking for wood, generators, gas for their cars but many roads were closed.

We sat around for while that day, carved pumpkins and even cleaned the house up but then the temperature began to drop, the refrigerator began to melt and we got worried. My mum, sisters and nephew had already moved into my older sisters home because her power had returned so we called and asked to move some important perishables into her freezer and figured we could hang out, eat dinner there and come home later..to a home with power. That was not the case, our home remained dark until this morning...Saturday. Luckily, she had a spare room for us with a twin bed and air mattress to share. As each day passed and we still had no power we began to make daily trips home to get more clothing and something we might have forgotten. We went trick or treating on Halloween night, we cooked meals, talked and laughed, it turned out to be a really unplanned vacation of sorts. The kids had now school so they played all day and night,  it was like Christmas break  in October. So much so that I decided it might be a good time to try to ween Evalie and get her to take a bottle (from mum or my sister), unfortunately that only resulted in her crying and not eating. This morning as we packed up to return home, the sun was out, the skies were bright and there was a warmth to the crisp fall air. It felt like we had emerged from hiding..it felt surreal. But we're home and everything is calm..so far the only worry is our missing cat but he tends to return in time.