Putting it together

We put the bird feeders back out yesterday (we pulled everything in from the yard so the storm wouldn't blow them around), and the birds have literally flocked to our backyard. We usually get quite a few, but today there seemed to always be a dozen or more cardinals, blue jays, and other birds coming and going. Perhaps other folks haven't gotten their feeders back out yet. Perhaps the storm somehow messed with their other food supplies. Regardless, we got to enjoy their presence today. We also saw many hummingbirds, and that one dollar hummingbird feeder that I hung up with an old wire hanger ("usually you have to go to a trailer park to see something that classy," commented the Big Guy) has proved well worth the buck. The hummingbirds would even rest on top of the tomato cage, cleaning beneath their wings with their pointy beaks, and I'm not sure I'd ever seen a hummingbird at rest before.

I spent most of the day at the kitchen table, entranced by the jigsaw puzzle started by the Big Guy and his friend while they were waiting out the storm. I get so pulled in to jigsaw puzzles, driven to put in just one more piece as I get to know the variations in color and texture. I love how the more time you spend with a puzzle the better you get to know it, the more easily you can look at a piece and know exactly where it goes. And yet there is always the elusive piece, the one you look for seemingly a million times and can't find, but should be so obvious. And then, there it is. Jigsaw puzzles seem like the perfect metaphor for so many things in life.

Finally, after dinner, I unloaded the minivan and began putting back the pieces of our life that I deemed worth trying to save: scrapbooks, old love letters, a heart shaped locket with black and white photos of my grandparents. Pieces of our lives, rich with color and texture, just like the jigsaw puzzle.

home - edited

The May Queen and I arrived home about 9:30 last night. As we drove in to our neighborhood all the homes had lights... then about 3 houses away from our home it became completely dark. As of about noon today power was still not on at our home. I'm sending this from church, which has power and internet (satellite, not cable like at home, so even if our power gets back on we may still not have internet).

We threw away all the contents of our fridge and freezer and cleaned those out this morning. We have several offers of places to go if our power doesn't come back on today, and will do that if we need to. It was hard to sleep last night. Fortunately it's a relatively cool and cloudy day here, so it's not too bad, but it is nice to be in A.C. for a little bit here. We picked up a pizza to eat here while The Big Guy is on a conference call, and we're charging up the portable DVD player! ;)

There was at least one house in our neighborhood sliced in half by a big pine tree (and it's not too far from us, we're wondering if that's why our area doesn't have power....) and a few more that were hit with branches and have tarps on the roof, but the damage is far, far less than with Katrina. The May Queen's school plans to reopen on Monday.

We have running water, and our water heater is gas, so we even have hot water. We are, however, under an order to boil water before drinking (we've got lots of bottles, though, so we're good)

thanks for all your thoughts, prayers and good wishes.

edited to add:
at 3:30 pm our power came back on, and with it our cable, phone and internet! The house is cooling off and things are looking up!

Heading home!

packing up and getting on the road after lunch. don't know when I'll have internet access again...

Quick update

I've been in contact with The Big Guy throughout the day, and he is doing just fine. Power, internet, and cable are all out, but no major damage, and no flooding (perhaps down by the lake... he didn't report on that in his drives). Branches down all around town, but not the big trees through houses like with Katrina. They were still experiencing some pretty fierce wind and rain this evening as one of the outer bands passes over, so there may still be a few more problems, but probably not too much. We most likely won't be heading home tomorrow, but I'm hopeful for Wednesday.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

and PLEASE check out the Monday Mission participants in my post below. I really appreciate you guys playing along.

And look... being evacuated and all I'm mostly skimming blogs on my reader, but just don't have the time and energy to read and comment like I usually do. But I'm around.

Dear Parents,

We've had a wonderful first few weeks of school. Your children are enjoying our special math projects (particularly m&m math!), learning about the 7 continents (ask them to sing you the song!) and our reading groups. The enrichment classes are all a big hit, particularly swimming in P.E.

Most of your children are just a delight to have in class! Unfortunately, we have been having problems with one of them. We just can't get Gustav to behave! Therefore, we have unfortunately had to suspend school for a few days to assess how to deal with him. School will be cancelled at least Tuesday and Wednesday this week (and, of course, we were already off on Monday for the holiday) and we'll keep you posted as to whether we will be able to return on Thursday or not. Hopefully by then we will have found a way to handle Gustav. There is a possibility of him being sent to another district. While we pray for their safety (and sanity!) we know that we just cannot continue to deal with him in our school.

Once Gustav has moved on we look forward to picking up where we left off and continuing on with a great school year. Next up, our unit on the arctic!

Please try your best to enjoy these few unexpected days off of school, and we hope to see everyone back in our hallowed halls soon.

Sincerely,

Mrs. X and your school staff

*****
This post has been a Monday Mission! This Monday's Mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a post in the form of a letter home from a teacher. If you play along please LEAVE A LINK IN THE COMMENTS (Sorry I didn't get a chance to fix the Mr. Linky problem as I was busy packing all my treasured possessions into the back of my minivan). I MAY be able to get the links into the post, but I am evacuated and staying with family and I can't get the wifi to work and I just don't know how often I'll be able to get in and update participants. so PLEASE, dear readers, check out the comments and read the other posts (as a favor to a displaced blogger who drove for 8 hours yesterday, whose husband has stubbornly stayed behind in the mandatory evacuation zone, and whose child now has a cold) so that we can get Monday Missions off to a good start! Thanks.

(here are some links... check the comments to see if more have been added...)
Sober Briquette
Louise at Potted Frog is a FIRST TIME Monday Mission participant! Go say hi!
I'm being held hostage
Melissa, whose letter regarding Gustav was actually much more clever than mine
MaryBeth



******
The latest news on Gustav is that he is looking to make landfall further west than predictions yesterday, and every inch further west he goes the better things look for us. Right now, The Big Guy is feeling pretty good about our chances of being back in school on Thursday. We'll see. of course, the lovely folks in Texas are surely starting to get nervous now. I hate when good news for us means bad news for other people.

Life on the edge

Check the nola.com website.

Check the weather channel.

Check the parish website.

Check the state website.

Call friends "in the know" about contraflow.

Wait. Watch. Worry.

Try to think about other things.

Think about what I might pack up to evacuate, but don't actually pack anything.

Except a bag to entertain The May Queen in the car.

Scrapbook all evening with friends!

Come home.

Check the websites. Wonder. Worry. Waffle.

Should I stay or should I go?

Sleep on it.

(hopefully...)

***
(oh... and here's your Monday Mission reminder - write a post in the style of a letter home from the teacher!)

Eye on the Sky

3 years ago this morning I was pulling in our yard toys and trying to buy a generator at Home Depot (they were all out). Our dear friends, the Dragonfly and The Sergeant, had arrived the night before (right around midnight) for a planned weekend with us, and a day trip into the French Quarter, on their last leave before the Sergeant would have to ship out to Iraq.

By noon we were in our cars driving back to their place.

Today we are nervously watching the weather channel and getting used to the name of a new threat: Gustav. We are straddling the line of trying to do the things we have to do in our life: attending Open House at The May Queen's school last night, work for the Big Guy, a teacher luncheon today for the preschool where I work. At the same time we are lining up potential places to stay should we have to evacuate. We are trying to make sure that our papers are in order, and ready to take with us. We are discussing whether we expect wind damage or flooding, and again eyeing the trees around our home and confirming our feeling of relative safety from a large pine tree taking out our home, as they did so many homes in our area three short years ago. Today The Big Guy is down in the city for work, and I told him to look fondly around the place, as it may not ever be the same.

Not that it's the "same" now.

We're nervous here, and rightfully so. If Gustav follows predictions it will be here on Monday as a category 3 hurricane.

So any good thoughts and prayers you can send this way would be appreciated. And maybe every hour on the hour you could look southward and blow. Maybe we can stop him in his tracks? Hey, it's worth a try.