Chapter 39

Hey y’all! The internet is back on. This is going to be a journal type blog today covering the last few days with my birthday weekend and hurricane Helene. We lost power on Friday 9/27 at 5am and got it back Monday evening around 4pm. The internet came back on this morning 10/2 at about 11:30am. It’s been a long few days without the power and internet. The kids had an elearning day on Friday. Friday was also my birthday. 

Friday 9/27/24 It’s my birthday and I turn 39. We currently have hurricane Helene visiting us. I think at this point it’s just north of us. I woke up yesterday to rain. I don’t know what time it started or by 6am  how long it had been raining. It rained most of the day yesterday and then stopped for a few hours. Around 10pm it started to rain again and it got heavier as the night went on. By 3am we were in the midst of a cat 1 hurricane. Around 5am the power went out. At this point I don’t know when we are to get our power back. The heavy rain has stopped but it’s still windy. I have some windows open to keep the house cool. The boys have an elearning day today but we don’t have power or WIFI. I am writing in a Leuchtturn 1917 limited edition sliver journal that I use for blogging. Nothing like old school journaling. The apps on my phone come up but don’t really work. I can’t find my stencils to preplan October in my fitness bullet journal. Fortunately I have the first week of October done since the end of September falls on a Monday. The way I set up the monthly calendars is a Sunday thru Saturday setup like the traditional wall calendar. My weekly set up is Monday thru Sunday because that is how planners like Erin Condrin and the Happy Planner are set up and I like having the weekends together. When I was using stickers I would put the weekend stickers on Saturday and Sunday each week. I like having the weekends together. I’ll find my stencils eventually and work on my bullet journal.

Elijah’s friend’s mom added Elijah and I to their Max Fitness membership. In order for them to have their 5 friends  come is if they are added to the membership. You can’t bring random people each time. Or you can pay $15 a day per person for a day pass. This week I went to my first group spin class. I couldn’t figure out how to adjust the seat or the handle bar. The instructor did help me out. Most of the group classes are Les Mills classes. I look forward to going to more classes.

Wyatt and I took a couple of walks to check out the damage done by the hurricane. On one of the walks we went to the park. There really isn’t much to do but go outside or sit around the house and be bored.

Saturday 9/28/24 It’s day 2 of not having any power. I don’t know how much longer we are going to be without power. Last night we did get to sleep early. I needed the sleep since I was up at 3am and 5am without much sleep in between. Not having power is having us doing things the old school ways. We are spending more time together and having conversations and going outside. Wyatt does spend time playing outside and isn’t on his tablet every waking second. Other than not being able to cook or heat up leftovers it hasn’t been too bad. I’ve been cold brewing my tea. It’s just leaving a tea bag in a cup of cold tap water for at least an hour. We still have water and we can still flush the toilet. Our hot water tank is gas so we have hot water. Last night before bed we were sitting on the porch and we saw the sunset. It was really pretty.

Now that I’m 39 what do I want to accomplish and what have I learned? I have learned that life doesn’t always go the way we want it to. Growing up I wanted the college degree, the career, my own place, the marriage, and 2 kids (a boy and a girl). I have the college degree and the kids. My kids are boys tho but I still love them. I have learned how to cook and how to do the grocery shopping as well. Growing up I did bake a little and mainly cooked pasta. The only way I could cook chicken growing up was by putting a ton of Italian dressing on it and putting it in the oven. Now I have other ways to cook chicken. I have lost weight before but now I have more knowledge and books. I have accomplished things like getting my degree in college. It’s a bachelors degree in exercise science. I am really proud of myself. I have gone to the doctors more in 2024 than I have in previous years. I am waiting for the power to come back on to see if my bloodwork for my hormones have been tested. I’ve been feeling off lately. The things I want to accomplish are losing the weight for good and keeping it off for good, reading the stack of Prevention magazines that date from June 2021 to August 2022 rather than being on my phone every time, continue to raise my kids to be good people and to start my career in the fitness industry.

We attempted to go to the church to see if we could go fishing. We couldn’t go the normal way for a bunch of reasons. Reason 1 is there’s a tree across the top of our road blocking the road. Then we get to the next road and drive maybe half of a mile and there are more trees on the road. So we go another way and we go past the cemetery which is closed and there are trees down. The next road  we need looks closed because the bars for the railroad tracks are down. People are going around them. I decided to just go home. Yesterday Wyatt and I went on 2 walks. Today we’ve gone on one. He wants to go to the park. Walmart and that area does have power. I was going to stop to see if we could get some canned goods but there’s a line. I’m glad I got gas because there’s a line at both entrances of the gas station.The latest update is latest update for the power is 4-7 days. I’m leaving the deep freezer closed and we are limiting the amount of times we are going in the fridge. I am grateful we have water. Our hot water tank is gas so I’m grateful for that. We ended up Stopping at Sam’s Club. There were long lines at the gas stations.

Sunday 9/29/24 So it’s day 3 of not having power. I miss my egg and cheese wraps for breakfast. I am bored. I was able to connect my tablet to my phone’s hotspot last night and this morning. Last night I was able to do more with the apps. I’m not sure how the meat in the deep freezer is doing. I heard that it may not be until Wednesday before we get power. Other states, like Louisian, are sending help up to the states who have been affected by the hurricane. A friend of mine asked about warnings. The answer is we got a tropical storm warning, tornado watch and warning, flash flood warning. Those are the ones I can remember. We never got a hurricane warning. It was supposed to go to Atlanta but went to Augusta GA and we are close to Augusta. When it hit us it was a cat 1 hurricane and by the time it does get to us it’s down to a tropical storm. There are a lot of trees down as soon as we get power I’ll upload pictures and the video. It’ll be a long blog and vlog. I usually post daily on my YouTube vlogging channel. I have decided to get my Kermit the Frog chia pet and grow chia seeds. The sprouts are edible. I like sprouts but I’ve never had chia sprouts. I read that they are good for you and have lots of vitamins. 

We went to Aunt Gina and Uncle John's house to help out. He fired up the grill and generator. I was able to eat a hot meal for the first time in a few days and it was nice. It’s the simple things in life that we take for granted. I hand washed Wyatt’s clothes and they are hanging up in the bathroom to dry.

Monday 9/30/24 We are on day 4 of no power. I took out the trash and I put the rest of the ice cream in the trash and the bags of spinach and bell peppers in the trash. I’m afraid to open the deep freezer. I applied for FEMA assistance for the power being out and the loss of food. I can hear the chain saws going. There is electricity on the road our road is off of so there is hope that our power will be on soon. I am grateful that the heat index is not triple digits and that it’s also not freezing cold. I am grateful for the utility workers and the ones cutting down the trees. 

We have power! It came back on around 4:15 today. I had grabbed a shower and then Elijah was like I need to charge my phone and shortly after he said that the power came back on. It is so nice to have the AC and fans going. We waited to close the windows so we didn’t jinx it. WE still don’t have WIFI but we’ll get it back soon. Baby steps. I’ll make sure Wyatt’s tablet gets charged tonight. I got the freezers cleaned out and got rid of the rest of the food that went bad. Some food was still frozen. I checked the deep freezer but 99% of it is still frozen and the few things on top that thawed out were still very cold.. That’s a huge blessing. I’ll need to finish cleaning out the fridge in the kitchen but that’s a job for tomorrow. I am going to wash my clothes and Wyatt’s bedding tomorrow when him and I get up. I am trying to edit my weekend vlog but it’s a long one. It’s not not as long as it could be since it’s 4 days but it’s longer than my usual videos.

Part of me feels like I have a fresh start with the two freezers being cleaned out. A huge part of me is bummed about having to throw out so much food. I’m going to sit down and make a list of things we can do to be better prepared for the next time. For starters having charcoal for the grill would have helped with having something hot to eat. I have a couple of cast iron skillets that I can research to see if it can go on the grill or not. Having some more shelf stable food that has protein would help for when we need something to eat.

Tuesday 10/1/24 It’s been nice having the power back on but the internet still isn’t working yet. I can’t upload videos to YouTube yet. Checking on social media and emails is still hit and miss. Wyatt and I walked to the park again. I am glad for the hot meals again. I’m grateful to have the fans and AC working again. It’s so much cooler. I miss listening to music. It’s been a nightly thing for me for decades now. I’ll sleep much better once I can play music again.

Wednesday 10/2/24 We have our internet back up and running again! YAY!! I am working on uploading a video on my vlogging channel. I’ll edit my video that I started on Tuesday and I will upload that one for Friday and then will be back on track with the daily vlogs. I may go live today in my facebook group. Today we went to the big park on the south side of town. There’s still some traffic lights out on the south side. There are still thousands of people without power, internet and water. The workers are working around the clock to get the roads cleaned up and the power lines fixed. I am grateful that they are working so hard to get us back to normal life again. After the park we went to Kroger to get some milk. We did have to wait in line but it went relatively quickly. I saw a post in the county mom’s group I am in about FEMA. A friend of mine asked about it and if anybody has heard anything about it. A lot of people are being denied because they don’t meet the requirements. I am one of those people who were denied. I was denied in less than 24 hours because I didn’t meet the requirements. There wasn’t a place online that asked about what specifically I lost. What was asked was if there was a small amount of damage, mild amount and a lot of damage. I was asked if we lost power and food and I said yes. I can get in and out of the driveway. There was no structure damage to the house. We lost power because of a hurricane and therefore we lost food. I don’t have money right now to replace all of the food. It’s going to be a while before I can completely replace. I don’t know if the governor is going to give the ones with food stamps some extra food stamps or not or if there’s going to be some extra assistance for the ones who did get denied for FEMA or if we have to reapply or what. The last time we were without power for this long was back in 2010 when I lived in PA and we got 30 inches of snow dumped on our property in 24 hours. First it was the power that went out and then it was the water that went out. Mom and her ex husband handled the finances then. I worked and took care of Elijah as he had just turned a year old at that point. We’ll get it figured out eventually. I keep telling myself everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.

This is definitely not how I imagined my birthday going. I wanted a piece of steak and a glass of wine for my birthday. I’m not even upset that I didn’t get any birthday cake. The weather was like hold my beer. I don’t even like beer. I’ll get my steak eventually. I wasn’t able to go out and get any steak anyways and even if I had a steak I didn’t have a way to cook it at the house.