Storm's a-Comin', and a Craftsy Class

Well here we go with the hurricanes again. It's been a nice couple of years with no major ones, but I guess Isaac is headed this way. Dean and Lucas have headed to the beach to button things down, but I'm stuck here on call all week feeling useless. This time around will be very different since we have a generator for the house. Forget about all sleeping in one room with a giant box fan plugged into a power inverter hooked to a car battery, which also ran the electric wok that we used to make grilled cheese sandwiches. And walking around with candles and flashlights is kind of fun for an hour or two, but that's it. That also reminds me about the tip to fill your tub with water - I never understood that, because I really don't want to drink tub water. I think it's really to flush toilets when you lose your utilities, but in New Orleans when we did that, the tub had a slow leak and the water was gone after a couple of hours.

Okay, let's just have a little rehash of hurricanes I've known. Georges in the late 90's hit Mobile while we were in New Orleans, but it was just a puff of wind there and the power went out immediately. I overheard a FEMA person at Tulane later saying they had 20,000 body bags ready to go and had put explosives on the levies when they thought it was coming there. Our next door neighbor had also offered us their roof if necessary, since we lived in a 1-story house and they had 2 stories.

Next was Ivan after we'd moved back to Mobile, and Dean had to stay at the hospital for that one, so I took the kids to my brother's house in Birmingham. I think the power went out in Birmingham before it went out in Mobile - not good when you have a bobcat (now known as the bobsicle) in your deep freeze like my brother did. That one knocked down most of the trees in our backyard (and the kids' fort), but the house was fine.

This is what you call a near-miss. No power for maybe a week, I think.

Then came Katrina, which hit Waveland, MS, and New Orleans, of course. I stayed for that one, but it ended up being more dramatic than Ivan. At one point, Dean went into the garage right before a tree fell on it, so I went running that way just as he shot back into the house. Lucas remembers running in various directions as we heard limbs coming down. And the kicker was that one of our trees fell on the neighbor's house as we watched from our bedroom window, then we started smelling gas - it took our gas line with it. That would be when one of the boys started playing with their race car that runs on friction and sparks, so I'm yelling to put the car down before we blow up. We went over to another neighbor's house for the rest of that one, and I believe it was 2 weeks we were without power. Luckily, the Mexican restaurant nearby got power back very quickly - yay for cold beer! We'll see what Isaac brings now.

So amidst reports from Jim Cantore and Mike Seidel, I saw an email from McCall's about a knit class at Craftsy. I've heard a couple of you guys mention that site, so I checked it out. You actually make 5 knit garments and get the low-down on sewing with knits, and it was only $19.95 if you sign up from Meg McElwee's site, Sew Liberated, so you save $10 over the Craftsy site! I signed up, though I don't anticipate much sewing in the next couple of weeks obviously. Anybody else do any Craftsy classes? Anybody have any hurricane stories to share? (Robbie, I assume you've got your things in order - don't forget your stickers! Are you headed to Birmingham?)