So this should sound eerily familiar. Approximately 14 months ago ‘hurricane’ Irene came barreling through Baltimore. By ‘barreling’ I mean it rain/drizzled for a sustained period of time. We affectionately refer to this as ‘Wil’s first hurricane’.
For hurricane Sandy it started raining at about 0200 Oct 29 and has not really stopped since. Looking at the radar is seems like the it might get a little worse but honestly I am not really to sure how bad it is actually going to get in the city of Baltimore. Please see the picture below to see how worried we are.
Meh
Additionally, please compare this picture to the picture from 2011. Neighbor Joe’s car is parked in basically the same place. The most crucial part of all of this is that Verizon 4G is still holding strong. Anyway, everyone stop worrying about us we are doing fine.
This might have been my best birthday ever. I just have a whole new appreciation for birthdays since having Wil. Birth is just an amazing amazing event, with so many things having to go perfect for the end result. It kind of baffles me that it happens so often – yet Im surrounded with beautiful, happy, healthy people in my life. Thank you all for the birthday wishes. Im so very very lucky.
Yesterday was filled with a whole lot of cuddling, chatting with friends and family, and watching ‘The Help’ (which did not help my emotional state!) I think Phil was glad he was at work for my ‘love of life’ swell yesterday, haha – there was, perhaps, too much love happening around these parts for him. But a day of appreciation was exactly what I needed. Especially as I start applying for jobs in the area. Ive had a few interviews and am close to making a decision. Im excited to get back to work but of course will miss time with my little buddy. Here are some pics taken in the last few weeks:
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Thanks again to everyone for a great birthday! Miss you all!
I got a lot of calls/texts/emails regarding the car wrecks, so Id like to clear up that everyone is A-OK. The Rav-4 (AKA ‘the silver bullet’ or ‘the jerk-4’) was parked on the side of the street and was struck in the middle of the night. It was called into the police multiple times – so we had officers coming to our door all through-out the night. That was fun. We took a few pics in case we needed them for insurance:
Notice the right wheel – where a wheel should be. Notice the left wheel – where a wheel should NOT be. So this happened on August 19th. And we still dont have the car back. Hoping for today.
Then last Tuesday, Phil was in an accident on the way to pick up his sister at the train station. Everyone involved was fine. No pictures, sorry. But the Jetta had to be towed away. They are estimating 3-4 weeks for that. Luckily we have a rental from when my car was smashed up – so we are getting by with that. No worries. We are all happy and healthy, minus 2 cars.
Ok – So Phil already did a mini post on how boring hurricane Irene was. And even though I dont actually have pictures to accompany a post on the earthquake, I wanted to post so I have a record of probably the only earthquake I will ever be a part of.
The weekend prior to the earthquake, our roof was leaking, so I had called our landlord who in turn called the roofers and they came that morning to patch some things up. Due to all the skylights in the row house – its easy to see and hear anything happening on the roof and the workers made quite a bit of noise all morning but left by noon. Then all of a sudden, right before 2pm, there was a lot of rumbling noise. I was a little nervous, but chalked it up to roofers. But soon the noise turned into movement. We have a hanging a light in the kitchen and I had a dying vase of flowers right under it. I looked over and the light was swinging and pedals were falling off the flowers. I seriously thought our roof was coming down!!
I channeled my inner Vivica Fox:
Fast forward to about 3 minutes.
I seriously never scooped up this baby so fast. I ran to the door and was screaming for Barney, convinced I only had moments to get out of this house before the whole place fell down. I somehow managed to get a leash on the dog and out of the house in like 10 seconds. And then I saw all my neighbors on the street as well and finally realized it was an earthquake and not a roofing issue.
Yes, all you west coasters can laugh your ass off at my total freak out to a 5.8 earthquake. But my house was not built with earthquakes in mind. This home is less than a mile from us:
The hurricane on the other hand – not so scary. The news had us convinced we might be washed out to the bay, or at least without power for a prolonged period of time, but no dice on either. I had us stocked with water, canned goods, flashlights and beer for the long haul. and the lights didnt even flicker. the basement flooded a little – but we were anticipating that after we found some standing water down there a few weeks ago. We had already put all important items upstairs – so no damage done. I was a little bummed! Beej said we should have flipped the breaker just to live on the edge for a few hours.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I havent blogged in a while. But in the last month we wrecked both of our cars, had some deaths in the family and survived 2 natural disasters. On the flip side, we went to a few Os games and had some colorado visitors! And in any down time, we’ve been doing a lot of this: And this:
And a little of this:
We are finally settling into a bit of a routine around here, so I hope to get back on a normal blogging schedule again. Thanks for your patience.
Celia has the worst luck with travel ever!!!! She was supposed to be in the air on her way to the dirty jerz right now, but instead is at home before her possible 1:30 flight. With any luck she will be here before night fall. Fingers crossed!!!!
So we drove back from Indiana on Sunday Dec 26th – which also happened to be the night of a giant blizzard hitting the east coast. The last 60 or so miles between Philly and Asbury Park took us about 3 hours. I seriously have no idea how we made it home, other than Phil being crazy careful and going extra slow and cautiously. Gold star for Phil.
Obviously – when we got home – we first shoveled the snow out of our bedroom. And then slept for a very long time.
We have since had a little snow vacation. The whole coast is snowed in and both of our jobs instructed us not to come in Monday and Tuesday. But I think we will be digging out and heading in tomorrow morning. We will see how it goes. Here are some images of the past few days. Can you find the cars in the last 2 photos?!
Barney had a heck of a time running around with us today. His favorite was jumping up on the giant snow piles. Every once in awhile he would jump on one that wasnt very solid and he’d start to freak out and Phil would have to rescue him. I have a feeling he’ll be enjoying this for a long time.
Woznation 