Strange and Unforgettable Week

This has been one of the strangest weeks on record, I think.  One I will never forget.  First of all, last Monday my youngest daughter started high school. (insert Twilight Zone music here....doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo...) I cannot believe she is a freshman this year and my oldest is a senior!  Time has absolutely flown.  Then, if that wasn't traumatic enough, the next day we had an earthquake.  On the east coast.  Until that day I was under the mistaken impression that earthquakes did not happen on the east coast.  I have since learned that they are not entirely unheard of, and have happened before in the past.  But I think it is very strange to have lived my entire life until five years ago on the west coast, only to experience my first "big" earthquake on the east coast.  Very strange and a little scary to feel my 86-year-old house shaking and to see my chandelier swinging back and forth.

The next day I heard that there was a hurricane in the Atlantic that could make landfall.  I didn't give it another thought...

So, Thursday was open house at the high school.  Afterward we realized we were locked out of the car.  Since we live fairly close to the school, we walked home to get another set of keys.  The whole family.  In the dark.  Partially across a field.  I was wearing a skirt and little heels.  It was weird, and felt like some kind of dream or something.  (Twilight Zone music again here...)  And now the talk everywhere was about Hurricane Irene headed our way.

On Friday I got up at 3:30a.m. to take my husband to the airport.  He took a short trip to the west coast for his grandmother's memorial.  Then I went home...to prepare for a hurricane.

I did everything I could think of to prepare, and the girls helped after school.  The next day we waited.  And the hurricane came.  Irene wasn't as strong as she could have been, but still...having never experienced a hurricane before, it was a little terrifying.  Amazingly, our power never went out.  We had a few big branches/limbs come down in the yard, a leak coming through the ceiling, and about an inch of water throughout most of the basement.

Sunday was spent removing ten buckets of yucky hurricane water from the basement.  My muscles are still sore.  Then Monday I picked up my husband from the airport.  It was a bright sunny day, and you would never have guessed that we had just been through a hurricane. 

Like I said, very weird week.