Still No Power after Hurricane Irene!

Hi Everyone,

I'm happy to report that we finally do have power after Hurricane Irene!  A crew from New Jersey hooked us up on Friday, and another gentleman from AT&T got our U-verse running on Saturday.  I wrote a blog entry during the week on another computer but was unable to post.  It was difficult to be without power.  I didn't mind not watching TV for the week, but I didn't realize how 'addicted' or 'dependent' I'd become on using the internet!  It was tough not to be able to blog, answer work emails from home, or even get updates from friends and family.  I LOVE my computer, and even more, I LOVE my electricity and internet access.  I'll never take these for granted again.  Anyways, here is my mid-week rant about having no electricity and another tree falling in our yard (we had one fall on the house only a few months before)--the tree mess is still yet to be cleaned up!

As many of you know, Hurricane Irene "visited" the East coast last weekend and caused quite a bit of destruction.  For Connecticut, we had lots of  beach erosion, fallen trees, and knocked down power lines.  While we don't live anywhere near the beach, we did have another tree come down in your yard.  Fortunately, it missed the house, but as it fell on the side of our house, it took down our power lines and the pole on our house that attaches the power lines to our meter.  After hearing a large thud in the afternoon, we looked out our window only to see the mess--the scariest part is that even with the power lines being knocked down and entangled in the tree, we still had power.

To be safe, we called our town's emergency number.  After they came in record time to survey the damage, they decided we needed to shut our power off to avoid a fire.  Now, here it is...day five after the hurricane, and we are still without power.  We've been told it might not be restored for another ten days...  The frequent trips to my in-laws to take showers, the visits to the laundromat, or the daily trips to get ice haven't been my idea of fun, but it certainly has made life interesting this week...  At the same time, this week was Little Lewie's first day of pre-school.  Not only is he trying to get adjusted to a brand new classroom and brand new teachers, but he's also trying to make sense of our lifestyle change--no lights, no TV, no baths, and even no cooked meals, to name a few.  He's been telling everyone..."Fall down tree and no TT."  The translation is "our tree fell down in our yard, and now we can't watch TV."

Finally, Little Lewie has been a little traumatized by other changes.  I tried to give him a bath this week at my in-law's house and he screamed bloody murder.  With his strength and persistence, there was no way I could get him in the tub.  He still wouldn't go in after we put toys and bubble bath in the tub either.  Then, today, I took him to a laundromat for the first time.  Once we stuffed everything into the dryer and left to go back to the house, Little Lewie started to sob hysterically.  "Clothes Mommy.  Clothes!"  I guess he thought we were leaving our clothes behind for good.  Poor thing.  I do hope things improve next week...

Here are some pictures of our "fall down tree":

We're very lucky the tree didn't hit the house!

It's hard to tell in this photo, but we have at least three other trees that are ready to fall down too!

The glorious pole to our meter that came down with the wires.