10 Things Learned

I know we've probably all read and heard enough about Ike, but I've learned some things (that I wanted to document for myself!)...

1. Having a generator would be SUPER helpful. People prepare in advance and load up on ice, but if you don't have something to keep that ice cold, it will melt (and ruin) just like everything else after a few days. Obviously.

2. Not many people do prepare in advance in the first place. If they did, 2 days after a huge storm like that, the line wouldn't be FOR-EV-ER long to get gas and groceries.

3. Unless the news anchors specifically say we have a night time curfew, instead of scrolling it at the bottom of the screen like I saw when I got to my parents' house, none of us that are actually under the curfew know it because we don't have power to see it on the TV in the first place.

4. Candyland, a game of absolutely no strategy, is hard for me to win. Josh and I played 13 times in a row. I was NOT going to stop playing until I finally got a win. And yes. We played Candyland.

5. Pictionary is a weird game to play with just 2 people. We really wanted to play it, though, so we made it work :-)

6. Our neighbors are super friendly. We really got to know more of them while walking up and down the streets after the storm.

7. I didn't really "learn" this, but it got reinforced. I have a fabulous group of friends here. Everyone was checking on each other. When I was finally able to retrieve my e-mail, I was able to read through all the e-mails of everyone asking one another who had heard from whom, just to make sure we were all accounted for and safe. Love you guys!

8. It's really good not to have trees in your yard.

9. It's wise not to park both vehicles outside and right beside each other during a big storm.

10. Hurricanes bring out the redneck in everybody :-)