Catching up

Things have been crazy around here! If you haven't noticed I've been missing for a while...

First my anti virus software went on the fritz ( don't ask how that happens since it just stopped working ) It took me two or three days to get them to fix it, all sorts of strangers remotely accessing my computer.

Then the sad parts... The anniversary of the accident was July 3rd. It's hard to believe Gretchen and Eric, our children have been gone six years.....But it helps when the family is together, when our friends show their love and support. And they did in many ways...

Matthew was here for a week. Billy was here with our granddaughters for 10 days and Heather and her husband and our grandsons were in and out. Not to mention, the phone, e-mails, flowers, cards, visits from friends and invitations to spend time with friends who care about us and the children when they were alive.

Blogging really wasn't in me. Sorry. I really missed you all. That is the truth.

Then there was the heat and the storms.... Some days it was 108 most days 104-102. And then the electricity went out due to a storm in the surrounding area. Going without  A.C with such high temperatures was difficult for my Mom whose elderly.

Needless to say that was a long three days, running our generator which runs our whole house but isn't strong enough to run our central  AC. Lots of fans and lots of water. I might add thank goodness my friends Becky and Buzzy's down the block have a lovely pool and pool house because we spent many many hours there. Mom wouldn't budge and go to Heather's or to my friends although invited she stuck it out here with us. We watched her like a hawk, made sure she drank plenty of water. Plopped her down in front of and under a fan for cooling.

All the kids are now returned to their own homes for now, as is Mom. Funny how when the kids were growing up I could sleep thru anything, now the slightest noise wakes me up. Finally last night I got my first full nights sleep in about two weeks now I have an empty house again and its just Bill and I.

In my next post I'll be sharing something Fabulous that was given to me by my friend Mare over at adventures in the ballpark before I took my little break from blogging. I know you just want to come back and see what it is don't ya??

lights out

We still have no power here. We have heard from the county estimates anywhere between 5-7 days, my daughter works with someone who heard 14 days, crap I say! In the interest of conserving gasoline we usually turn the generator off about 9:30 p.m and then turn in. Kinda on the early side but we do what we have to do to get by.

Then I lay there stressing about things like the mounting pile of laundry and if we're going to have enough gas to last until they repair our lines. My husband and I are not old or anything but my Mom is in her mid 80's and I want her to be as comfortable as possible while she's here. She can't stay in her house because you guessed it; she's without power!

In the mean time we're trying to do what we can to keep comfortable. We keep rotating opening the windows depending on the location of the sun and the ceiling fans are very effective at keeping the house cool. We also have those really good windows with the blinds in between the window panes in every room. I don't know what I did my whole life before moving to the south, we NEVER had an air conditioner.

We're spoiled rotten I ashamed to say and times like this it makes me wonder what I'm really made of. What I really like about these times is the extra contact we have with our neighbors; calling and walking back and forth between our houses checking on each other; that makes me feel good more connected.

Anyway in order to do something I went out today and swept tons and tons of leaves off of our deck and the other porches now that everything is nice and dry. We've been lucky that the weather has been rather agreeable the past two days not much more that 82 or so degrees during the day so it's not at all difficult to manage.

Last night an awful hound dog barked and barked most of  the night and into the early morning hours, then one of my neighbors shot off a gun and it must have ran off. That, my friends is the down side of sleeping with the windows open.

Till next time....

the bane of my summer is back..uhhh!

Due to our whole hurricane situation I cancelled my leg wound appointment today.The past few weeks my wound has been at a stand still, not much healing going on so my doctor took a culture. Then this week it started to get smaller again so I was comfortable skipping.

Frankly I didn't want to waste the gas when we might need it for the generator  and drive 35 miles each way for a wound smaller than a pencil eraser with no depth at all. My wound didn't start out that way, it was more like the size of a plum or a small peach and down to the muscle back in April.

I have endured therapies that were pretty uncomfortable and pretty yucky since I couldn't shower when undergoing them. But I healed really well; then they found the MRSA and they did some more-therapies that is.

I did my hospital stay like a trooper, learned how to do my own antibiotic infusions and it was my understanding that several weeks on those powerful antibiotics would make me good as new. After all my MRSA was only in my wound and not in my blood. It should have kicked this infections ass, or so I'd been led to believe; NOT!

They called me today, my MRSA is back, but they found it in my surface skin cells that he tested me last week.

MRSA is the bane of my summer; bitch!

images of hurricane Irene

Large amounts of wind and rain enveloped our bit of the world yesterday. It didn't take long for our electric to go out and it will probably be many many days before my power is restored.

We are fine however since we have a generator, but the comforts of home just got and are going to get a bit less comfortable. It's going to be 90 degree's today and we can't run our AC since out generator isn't quite powerful enough!

That is not to say that I am complaining really! I know there are people who lost their lives yesterday; three in fact right here in our very own Commonwealth of Virginia. And many who lost their homes to fallen trees and rain or floods and I certainly don't mean to make light of their tragedies.

For today however our neck of the woods is just a bit greener even where it shouldn't be green since along with the rain and the wind the leaves blew like crazy all day yesterday!

Did you get hit by any of it or were you out of the storm zone? And if you did get the storm, how's things by you?

update  The county government just called (1:30 pm) to advise us that 85% of the county residents are without power and it wasn't likely the power would be restored for 5-7 days. Oh happy day!