Fall Beginnings

Greetings, All:  Well, it's beginning to get cool here in the Mid-Atlantic region.  I do love this cool, fall weather.  Of course, we have some warm weather interspersed with the cool weather, but that's okay.  I can deal with warm, not hot, and cool, even cold.  I really don't mind the cold weather as I feel alive and I have more energy than in the summertime, which can be so very hot here in North Carolina.

It was a pretty hot summer, and quite dry, except for Hurricane Irene who barrelled through our small town in August. (I mentioned this in my last blog, but I think I need to elaborate.) It was pretty scary for a while.  The winds did not stop blowing for over 24 hrs.  We were without power for over five days.   We have a generator but it won't run the whole house, just the refrigerator, freezers, washing machine, dryer, etc.; the important things, like AC, were non existent.  I had to use my son's large floor fan, trained directly on my body, in my bed, to get any kind of relief from the heat, which was pretty intense.   Our stove didn't work so I found a small Toastmaster cooktop in the attic, with two burners, and we used that.  We had drop cords running all over the house, which made it pretty hard to navigate.  I, being pretty clutsy sometimes, was constantly tripping over them.

We were very fortunate.  We didn't have any damage except a lot of hugh tree limbs in our swimming pool and lots and lots of pine cones and downed tree limbs all over the yard.  Our lot across the street was a total mess.  It's full of pecan trees and it looked like most of them had lost most of their branches.  I do know we lost thousands of pecans from this storm, but that's okay.  There's still debris sitting on the side of the roads in our town from Irene, and over a lot of the state as well.  I'm so tired of looking at a 12-ft. pile of debris sitting on the lot across the street.  One day........

It got up to 82 degrees in my home, which was pretty unbearable, as I'm used to keeping my home temperature at 72 degrees.  My granddaughteer suggested we all, she, her three children (her husband's in Iraq) my grandson, who lives with me, and I, get into her jeep and go to a hotel for a couple of days.   This is exactly what we did.  We went home, hurridly packed inside our boiling homes and got the heck out of Dodge.  We went to another, bigger town, about an hour and 15 minutes away.  I think we got the last room.  Thank God, AC!!!

It felt so good to lay down on a nice, plump mattress and just enjoy the cool air and being away from the constant drone of the generators (ours and our neighbors) and the chirping of the cicadas.  I love nature, but enough is enough.

That first night, we went to eat at the Cracker Barrel, three adults and three (adorable) children.  The food was pretty good, although I didn't have much to choose from, being a vegetarian.  That's okay; I ate lots of good vegetables and had a glass of water. We all went back to the room, had baths, etc., watch a little TV and went to bed.  We were supposed to have two queen-sized beds, but had two regular beds.  My grandson and I slept on one, and my granddaughter and her THREE children slept on another.  I don't know how they slept, but I do think they could sleep on a bed of nails.

The next morning, we all slept in, until at least 8:00, piled in the car and went to get breakfast, I don't remember what we ate.  After getting back to the room, my granddaughter and her children all got their bathing suits on the went down to the indoor pool.  My grandson and I stayed in the room; he watched TV and I read.  Not long after, the swimming- pool group traipsed back into the room saying it was just too cold to swim.  It had gotten very cool during the night, which felt great, but definitely not swimming weather, evern in an indoor pool.

Although I had paid for two nights, hoping to stay three, the kids started getting restless so we packed up and left.  I surely dreaded having to come home to a hot house, but as the weather had turned cooler, it was actually cool in my house with all of the windows up when I got home.

On the way home from the hotel, my youngest great granddaughter, 7 mos. old, decided she had to fill her diaper, to overflowing.  She went so much it was all over her, her car seat, her clothes, and her hands.  We stopped the jeep.  My granddaughter took her out, seat and all, and set her down on the side of the road.  I got some distilled water, doused some tee shirts and cleaned her car seat out while the baby was washed and had her clothes changed using some baby wipes and distilled water.  I don't know what we would have done without the water.  We bundled all of the offensive clothes and diaper up and laid it in the ditch and drove away.  What an adventure!  It will be quite a while before I'm ready for another.

All in all, it was a good summer and a super-good fall, so far.   Until next time, be blessed, Nana