Happenings 1/26/09 - 2/1/09

Dear family,

We had an interesting week, to say the least. J.J. has not had the baby, and the due date is today. We figure that the baby waited until all was well with Murray before even considering coming out.

Monday was a normal day, but there was palpable anxiety in the air as evening approached because of an ice storm that was coming that night. We took it quite lightly, because this has happened before, and everyone rushes to the grocery store creating some mayhem. (Everyone kept asking me if I was going to the store to stock up on bread and milk. I don't know what it is with those two things, but, it's what clears out of the stores first.) Tuesday morning we woke up to an ice-covered world, with several limbs fallen down, including part of our bradford pear in our front yard. But the roads were clear and I had a breakfast appointment with a potential hire in our department, so I went early to campus and stayed all day. Some areas of the region had no power and worse roads, so my upper-level class had about half the normal students, but my freshman class was full because the students were all on campus. (Claire, Rachel, mom and I were planning on going to the library, but since schools were cancelled, storytime was cancelled. So we went to run a few errands. We went grocery shopping and because bread was on sale, we bought a bunch of it. We also got our gallons of milk - not because we were "stocking up" but because it was what we needed. Anyway, we loaded up on groceries and later became very glad we did. We then were about 1 block away from home when the gas light came on in the car and I almost said "I'll just get it tomorrow", but then decided that we may as well go get the gas while we were out, so we turned around and went to fill up the gas tank. Another thing that I was later glad I went ahead and did.) I came home later and we relaxed at the house that evening. In bed that night, I thought of filling our two 7-gallon water jugs, but didn't. Before going to sleep, we could hear cracks followed by limbs falling outside.

At 3:00 Wednesday morning, the power went out.(I woke up about 3:30 am because I was sleeping on the couch with a light blanket and started to get cold. I went around the house checking things out, getting some flashlights out. I gave one to mom and let her know the power was out. I then went to our bed and told Paul, but he apparently did not hear anything I told him.) I woke up around 6:30 and it was kind of cold, but not uncomfortable. Outside was snow and more ice covering everything. The remaining limbs of the Bradford pear tree in our front yard were down, limb by limb, and we had about 10 other limbs fallen around the yard. Everything was silver with ice, and it was weighing down everything. Our pine trees were very interesting. From the top, all the limbs were folded down so that the bottom limbs touched the ground. They looked completely different and beautiful. Since we didn't have power and the outdoor temperature was around 20 degrees, we turned on our gas log fireplace, which worked fine. (Paul has been trying to talk me into getting rid of the fireplace for sometime now, well, after this experience, he is a big fan of the gas fireplace.) We didn't have water or power or phone service -- cell or land line, but we were warm. We listened to our emergency radio and found that the power was estimated to be out for 3-5 days. We pulled out our 72-hour kits for water, but had just a little that I had filled up when there was a trickle in the morning for flushing the toilets. We have plenty of food, but the water was a concern. Later, the bishop came over and I went with him to visit people to see if people were okay. His house still had water, so I took a jug to fill up after we finished. We made it through the first day fine, going to bed early when it got dark. Everyone we had checked on was okay as well, but we made our former bishop's house the gathering place should any other heat sources fail because he has a gas fireplace as well. We offered to be a spot for others, but with J.J. being so pregnant, we were the last resort.

We woke up Thursday to a warm house because of the fireplace, and we read and played in the house. Around noon our water started working -- with a boil order -- but that was a huge relief because that morning I had gone outside and collected water from a puddle in our back yard -- it had rained for 2 days straight before it froze -- for flushing. But the flushing toilet was music to our ears and we didn't need to use the extra water. (I was handling the power outage okay, but the water thing was going to get to me pretty quick. I was even okay with out bathing for a couple days, but the not being able to flush the toilets was going to get to me very quickly. When the water came back on, Claire went around the house checking all the toilets, yelling, "Yes! the toilet flushes" - with such excitement you would have thought we just hit the lottery. - it almost felt like we did) The area is still under a boil-water advisory, though we have drank some water with no consequence so far. So with water, heat, and our barbeque grill, we hunkered down to live for several days. I went out visiting again that day, and then we made spaghetti for dinner on the grill. We went to bed early again and it was down in the teens that night. We listened to the radio a lot, and found out that our area was declared a federal disaster area, so FEMA was on its way. We never had to worry about anything because of our food and fireplace and for the water, our bishop's house. But we won't make the water mistake again. It is quite amazing how calm you can be if you are prepared.

Friday was warmer, and the ice began to melt and fall off the trees. I collected the ice and used a plastic bin to create a fridge to keep all of the stuff from our freezer. We had pulled out our cooler earlier and filled it with ice and snow for our fridge stuff. The good thing about the problem in winter is that outside can be the fridge. So we were set with food as well, but as things thawed, we started to eat well. (We had to eat lots of meat and food that was going to spoil soon, so, we had some good meals) Friday we had sloppy joes and melted ice cream, and Saturday morning we had egg burritos. I went out again on Friday, checking on a few people, and we again had an early night. Earlier, I checked with a colleague to let him know we were fine, and he was glad to know because he was the central link of everyone in the department. He also told me how everyone else was doing. (A couple from work - Matt and Abigail- had been staying at her parents house in Paris, TN where they had power and water and everything, but showed up at our house on Friday night with a case of drinking water, bread, milk, pop tarts, crackers, lunch meat and some other food. Even though we were doing okay with food and water, we were grateful for all that they brought us and that we are surrounded by such great people.)

Claire was quite aware of no electricity, but a couple of times during the week she tried to turn on the TV (She also kept saying she was "nervous" at night when we had no lights. They both made me nervous by running around when we had candles and a lit fireplace.) Rachel knew something was wrong on Wednesday and acted fussy. She wouldn't take a nap during the day, and I ended up sleeping in the bed in her room both Wednesday and Thursday nights. Claire was sleeping in the other room with Judy. But after the first day Rachel started napping. They had a fine time playing during the day, and when it got dark they went to bed, except for one night after Rachel went to bed we played CandyLand, Old Maid and Memory with Claire by candle light.

By Saturday, we felt pretty stinky. I had washed my hair one morning, but were hoping for a shower soon. Some people in Murray had gotten their power back Friday night, and Saturday morning three different people came by to check on us at the same time -- Abigail and Ginger from JJ's work, and Janice Bakes and her kids. The kids played with our kids while everyone talked, and they all invited us to take showers at their house. (We were all pretty ripe by that time and the showers were so nice.) We ended up going to the Bakes' house for showers around noon, and when we came home around 1:30 our power was back on. (When we drove up, we saw the front porch lights on and I said, "The power's on!" Claire started yelling and clapping and we felt we won the lottery - AGAIN! She then ran around the house checking all the lights and once again the toilets yelling each time something worked.) A bunch of men from our ward and the Paris, TN branch had gone out to cut fallen trees from driveways, but the bishop didn't want me to be gone all day away from JJ, so I cleaned up our yard. A guy with a trailer drove up and offered to clean up the fallen pear tree for $30 so I let him do that. He ended up cutting up the limbs I had dragged to our garden area for me to cut up later also, so I gave him $40. I finished up some other limbs, cutting some down that hadn't fallen all the way down, and then piled everything up for a bonfire sometime. I used by bow saw, and it worked fine. One bonus also was the ground was so soft after the rain that I was able to push and push the small dead tree in our front yard out so that all of its roots came out as well. So now our front yard looks quite bare, so we'll have to plant a couple of trees. (I have been so ready to have this baby for the past 3 weeks or so and have been disappointed when the contractions don't do more and peter out, but during these four days, I was so glad that I didn't go into labor or that I didn't have a newborn. Heavenly Father sure knows what we need, even when we are hoping otherwise.)

We enjoyed the electricity Saturday night and Sunday morning, and because that so many people outside of the city still didn't have power, we only had sacrament meeting on Sunday, but it was quite good, with 40 people there. Our testimony meeting went over time because so many people bore their testimonies. After the meeting, I met with bishop and our former bishop, who is now in the stake presidency, and we talked about the needs that we knew about and divided up the list so we could make calls that afternoon. We were able to call everyone and while some people won't have power for some time, everyone seems to be doing fine.

One thing I noticed on Thursday was how interesting it was that everyone was going around checking on people, and no one cared about how they looked, or how messed up their hair was. It's funny how "normal" life makes us vain, but when trouble comes, that's the first thing that gets thrown out the window. The other thing, obviously, is how little we actually need, yet we fill our lives with so many things and commitments that the things that really matter are forgotten until we are forced to live as simply as possible. It reminds me of this magazine we used to get, Real Simple, that was all about simplifying your life. We finally got annoyed with it and stopped getting it because according to that magazine, simplifying one's life required buying more things or spending a lot of money on expensive storage or household solutions. During all of this, we found that the things that really matter are working indoor plumbing, a radio with batteries or a crank, and each other. The fireplace made it possible for us to stay and enjoy the time together, and the radio was a great source of comfort that we found out that some people didn't have. On Friday, J.J. and I washed dishes together listening to the radio. In between the updates on the situation, the station -- the MSU npr affiliate that was operating on backup power -- did some impromptu programming, and that morning they were doing extra "Eisenhower Hours," a weekly show that they do here that highlights music and information from the 1950s. Since it was kind of like the 1950s as we did dishes, we had a great time washing and drying to the 50s tunes, and I still have "Que Sera Sera" in my head.

Sunday night, it was somewhat back to normal. The young single adults still wanted to come over to watch the Super Bowl -- I thought it worked out well for all those sports fans for the power to be back for the game. But at work on Monday, not one word was said about the game -- all we talked about was the week before. The YSAs brought some food over as well as a girl who has taken a discussion or two, and we talked and watched the game. We were all rooting for Arizona, so we were bummed they couldn't pull it out.

Anyway, it was interesting, and our list of things we need for next time is actually quite short. But we will be sure to fill up our water jugs before it happens again. We love you all.


Vanity, simplicity, etc.