Happy 30th birthday!
I love you sweetpea :)
Vroom vroooom!
-me
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Gosh Dawg, am I Tired!
So far we have fixed 16 posts in our backyard. Despite some advice against doing so, we backfilled the empty post-holes with concrete, especially the back ones with little to no support structure behind them. Next time, if the posts snap off altogether, then...we'll go get a new fence instead of fixing the super-crappy one we have now. What a PILE! There are more posts to put up and fence structure to mend, but my hands are callousing after 2 days of work and are pretty raw (I'm such a pansy).
I think it's on to homework for me now while Charlie goes to see if the Sholls need any help clearing their humongous tree that split in half. Hmmmm....homework or a nice bath with a bath bomb. I got these neat bath bombs (fizzy round bath balls) from Japan that have a little plastic toy inside of it and gave one to some of my girlfriends here. I think I'll keep the one with the quarter-sized octopus in it. How cute!
...anyway, no more yardwork today for this lady, I hope!
I think it's on to homework for me now while Charlie goes to see if the Sholls need any help clearing their humongous tree that split in half. Hmmmm....homework or a nice bath with a bath bomb. I got these neat bath bombs (fizzy round bath balls) from Japan that have a little plastic toy inside of it and gave one to some of my girlfriends here. I think I'll keep the one with the quarter-sized octopus in it. How cute!
...anyway, no more yardwork today for this lady, I hope!
Posting
Yesterday we spent the day putting in new footings for about 8 of our 5 million fence posts with some Quickcrete (love the quick-dry stuff!!) - really, Charlie did 90% of it and I only helped with 2 of them, but I guess that still counts as "we". After turning in yesterday's homework assignment (learning waits for no hurricane), I repositioned our garden shrubs so they stood upright again.
We made the rounds to our friend's homes earlier in the day and 2 out of 6 had power again, so they are returning home today. I just heard this morning that 1 more has power, so we only have 3 left to go! Yay! It's pretty messy with trees and shrubs and downed traffic lights everywhere, but overall in my area things don't look too terrible. We haven't ventured down the freeway toward Galveston and do not plan to do so. Not only is it still very limited access to that area, but I feel pretty terrible gawking at other people's misfortune. It makes me too sad.
For now, today brings a bright and shiny new day filled with class lecture watching (oooo!), homework (aaahhhhh!) and more fence posts (ohhhhh!). That's right folks, life goes on and is back to the usual exciting fare. Welcome home Jaimer!
We made the rounds to our friend's homes earlier in the day and 2 out of 6 had power again, so they are returning home today. I just heard this morning that 1 more has power, so we only have 3 left to go! Yay! It's pretty messy with trees and shrubs and downed traffic lights everywhere, but overall in my area things don't look too terrible. We haven't ventured down the freeway toward Galveston and do not plan to do so. Not only is it still very limited access to that area, but I feel pretty terrible gawking at other people's misfortune. It makes me too sad.
For now, today brings a bright and shiny new day filled with class lecture watching (oooo!), homework (aaahhhhh!) and more fence posts (ohhhhh!). That's right folks, life goes on and is back to the usual exciting fare. Welcome home Jaimer!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Home
We drove home from San Antonio today in 4.5 hrs with a couple stops for gas top offs before Houston and several 4-way-stop stoplights.
Upon arriving home, we saw the damage to our fence and our big tree in the middle of the yard. After spending a couple hours putting up makeshift props for the fence and playing strongman with the tree - we are done for the night. No interior damage to the house, nor exterior (shingles/roof, siding, windows). Whew!! We made trips to our friend's homes to see their damage (slim to none - some tree branches down, a few shingles off, nothing major) and check for power. Little damage, but no power yet for them. We are fortunate to have some!
Gas is slim and groceries (read: perishables) are hard to come by. But we made it and are set for a while until things settle out here a bit. Likely tomorrow we'll be making the rounds to our friend's houses to check again to see if they have power.
For now, we're nestled in our own bed (yay) and waiting for tomorrow. We will likely be pouring concrete footings into the fenceposts to make them more stable and fixing some more leaning trees in our yard, as well as in our neighborhood. It was a pleasant surprise to see our neighborhood had already propped up some leaning trees with boards - way to go "The Glade"!!
Glad to be home, busy week ahead.
p.s.: work to "tentatively" resume on Thursday...we'll see!
p.p.s. The horses behind our house are busy eating right behind our bum fence. One even "escaped" from the farm and ended up next to our broken fence chomping on some tasty grass morsels...I love this place!
Upon arriving home, we saw the damage to our fence and our big tree in the middle of the yard. After spending a couple hours putting up makeshift props for the fence and playing strongman with the tree - we are done for the night. No interior damage to the house, nor exterior (shingles/roof, siding, windows). Whew!! We made trips to our friend's homes to see their damage (slim to none - some tree branches down, a few shingles off, nothing major) and check for power. Little damage, but no power yet for them. We are fortunate to have some!
Gas is slim and groceries (read: perishables) are hard to come by. But we made it and are set for a while until things settle out here a bit. Likely tomorrow we'll be making the rounds to our friend's houses to check again to see if they have power.
For now, we're nestled in our own bed (yay) and waiting for tomorrow. We will likely be pouring concrete footings into the fenceposts to make them more stable and fixing some more leaning trees in our yard, as well as in our neighborhood. It was a pleasant surprise to see our neighborhood had already propped up some leaning trees with boards - way to go "The Glade"!!
Glad to be home, busy week ahead.
p.s.: work to "tentatively" resume on Thursday...we'll see!
p.p.s. The horses behind our house are busy eating right behind our bum fence. One even "escaped" from the farm and ended up next to our broken fence chomping on some tasty grass morsels...I love this place!
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Damage
A friend stopped by our house tonight and said that she couldn't see any water or window damage to our house, which is great news. She did say our fence was pretty bad off and the big tree we planted in the middle of our yard was uprooted, but that's all we know.
What does "bad off" mean? Was there roof damage? Did our Direct TV dish fly off into the wilderness?? All mysteries we hope to solve coming soon.
Still no power at our house, in our city, likely. The city has asked that we not return until Monday due to the power situation. I guess we'll know more tomorrow...
That's all for now!
What does "bad off" mean? Was there roof damage? Did our Direct TV dish fly off into the wilderness?? All mysteries we hope to solve coming soon.
Still no power at our house, in our city, likely. The city has asked that we not return until Monday due to the power situation. I guess we'll know more tomorrow...
That's all for now!
Staying Tuned
We woke up a bunch of times through the night last night to turn on the TV and watch coverage of Ike on the Weather Channel. If you're not familiar with the area, we live on the west side of I-45, in League City. The Weather Channel was broadcasting all night from Nassau Bay/Clear Lake on the East side of I-45. Our house is on the western side of that and so the front/western eye and eyewall went right over our house.
I have heard reports from some people that stayed that there hasn't been power in certain areas since 6pm last night, and others didn't lose power until 5am today. Either way, I'm sure there's no power at our house at the moment.
Hopefully later on today it will be safe enough to venture out and someone will be able to give us a report on our home. We'll see. Good times all around...not really.
If you're interested in the local Houston news, a friend sent a great link to us that is better than the Weather Channel for the local updates:
www.maroonspoon.com has Ike coverage.
Still safe and sound in San Antonio.
I have heard reports from some people that stayed that there hasn't been power in certain areas since 6pm last night, and others didn't lose power until 5am today. Either way, I'm sure there's no power at our house at the moment.
Hopefully later on today it will be safe enough to venture out and someone will be able to give us a report on our home. We'll see. Good times all around...not really.
If you're interested in the local Houston news, a friend sent a great link to us that is better than the Weather Channel for the local updates:
www.maroonspoon.com has Ike coverage.
Still safe and sound in San Antonio.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
San Anton...
We made it safely to San Antonio and are hanging out with the Sholls, Wilkes and Woods (Brent and Alicia!) families, plus their respective animal members.
We checked into the animal-friendly La Quinta, had lunch at a local park with Jason's Deli for sustinance, had a quick 1-hr nap, ate dinner at Macaroni Grill with server Ryan who hooked us "hurricane evacuees" up with 2 free MAGNUM bottles of house Chianti (pronounced "Chee-ann-ee", thank you Erin) and chocolate cake, played "Kings" card game in the breakfast area of LQ (Ace = "Cele-brace"), and now we're going to bed.
Hopefully all works out for the hurricane at home. Looks like it'll be a Category 3-ish when it hits near-er Galveston Bay on Saturday morning - forecast gets closer but reduced intensity at the moment...
Sometimes, even in the face of adversity, a forced vacation is the way to go!
All's well :)
We checked into the animal-friendly La Quinta, had lunch at a local park with Jason's Deli for sustinance, had a quick 1-hr nap, ate dinner at Macaroni Grill with server Ryan who hooked us "hurricane evacuees" up with 2 free MAGNUM bottles of house Chianti (pronounced "Chee-ann-ee", thank you Erin) and chocolate cake, played "Kings" card game in the breakfast area of LQ (Ace = "Cele-brace"), and now we're going to bed.
Hopefully all works out for the hurricane at home. Looks like it'll be a Category 3-ish when it hits near-er Galveston Bay on Saturday morning - forecast gets closer but reduced intensity at the moment...
Sometimes, even in the face of adversity, a forced vacation is the way to go!
All's well :)
En Route
Sir Charles, Stinkypup, Samuel L. Dogg, and I are leaving town to try to avoid the hurricane.
Going to San Antonio, leaving in 20 mins.
So far traffic bodes well...I think I just cursed us.
We'll keep you posted from here!
Love, The Marshmallow Family
Going to San Antonio, leaving in 20 mins.
So far traffic bodes well...I think I just cursed us.
We'll keep you posted from here!
Love, The Marshmallow Family
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Harrycanes
It's been a week and we've got another hurricane headed our direction. This time it's Ikey.
Charlie and I spent this evening preparing the house for the hurricane and ourselves for potential evacuation operations tomorrow. The house is is good shape. She's buttoned up tight - no, we don't board up our windows - we have hurricane-"proof" windows that can withstand some kind of crazy small arms (read: mortar) impact or something, so none of that for us! We're still getting our personal stuff in order in case we make the final decision to get outta dodge. We'll be headed to northern San Antonio with the puppies if we leave - we've got a hotel starting tomorrow night, through the weekend.
For those who are interested, likely we'll be texting or calling you to say we've left and arrived in S.A. We'll have email where we stay, so once we arrive we'll get set up to communicate.
That's all for now, back to work.
ps: To let you know our level of preparedness, we helped a friend get her stuff in order, I'm making a pizza and blogging right now...so I think we're in good shape ;)
Charlie and I spent this evening preparing the house for the hurricane and ourselves for potential evacuation operations tomorrow. The house is is good shape. She's buttoned up tight - no, we don't board up our windows - we have hurricane-"proof" windows that can withstand some kind of crazy small arms (read: mortar) impact or something, so none of that for us! We're still getting our personal stuff in order in case we make the final decision to get outta dodge. We'll be headed to northern San Antonio with the puppies if we leave - we've got a hotel starting tomorrow night, through the weekend.
For those who are interested, likely we'll be texting or calling you to say we've left and arrived in S.A. We'll have email where we stay, so once we arrive we'll get set up to communicate.
That's all for now, back to work.
ps: To let you know our level of preparedness, we helped a friend get her stuff in order, I'm making a pizza and blogging right now...so I think we're in good shape ;)
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Home Sweet Home
I made it home yesterday at about 4pm. 18 hours of travel later and I finally got to see my two pups and the hubbie. It was so great to see them! The girls are as cute as ever and my husband is my favorite of all time! He got me an anniversary present (I didn't get him anything, I feel like such a schmuck) and it was a cute little clutch Coach purse. Erin helped Charlie pick it out, but I think he made the final decision. Mostly, he researched and found out that the 3rd anniversary is represented by leather, so he thought a purse would be appropriate. It was very, very sweet of him :)
I guess I could say more about my climb to Mount Fuji, but it's slowly becoming just a memory. I can say that the climb started out with the group of us 10 as one pack and as expected we sort-of all split into separate groups from there. Todd, Steve and I were in a team named the "Strawberry Seahorses", after Steve's fantasy football team. I was Seahorse Two. We had "Seahorse Status Checks", "Seahorse Down" and "Breaker Breaker" times (for when we needed a break). It rained on and off throughout a good portion of the night, but never really lasted all that long or rained all that hard. When we reached the 7th station, we had our photo op and then I vomited. Love it!! We kept in contact with the other climbers in our group via walkie-talkies and I can honestly say it was maybe the best decision we made all climb.
After the 7th station the climb got much more technical than anyone ever let on that it would. We used our gloves extensively to literally pull ourselves up this mountain. It wasn't "Oh, I'll use my hand to balance myself or just push a little here," it was "Holy crap, I need to grab onto this rock and use all my might to heave my heavy body and backpack over this next hump."...and still use my walking stick to balance myself. Jinkies people! I threw up 3 more times before I had to stop for the night at the Original 8th. The trail was very full with people, but for some reason I expected it to be like getting into a crowded metro car, which it wasn't, so the crowd didn't bother me all that much. It did slow my progress, but considering my bouts of altitude sickness, I didn't mind taking it easy.
Steve and I stayed in one of many little huts with rows of giant bunks (double-decker) where people could rent a a slot (think sardines crammed next to each other) to sleep for a few hours or a night. It cost 3000 yen or ~$30 for one person. Since we were both sick, we stopped until sunrise and slept almost 3 hours. Todd continued on to the summit of the mountain to meet the5 other people who were already there or on their way. At sunrise a voice came on over a loudspeaker system and said (in japanese) what we assumed to be "It's sunrise, get up!" Steve and I rolled out of bed, I was feeling much better - he was not, and watched the sun peek out through the clouds. It was absolutely breathtaking to be above a velvety sheet of clouds watching the sun slowly climb through each next layer of white.
After a brief moment of trying to convince myself to climb to the next summit 2 hours away, Steve and I ended up staying put and waited for the troupe to climb down from the summit. We met the rest and started our climb down the mountain. It was about 6 miles to the bottom. 6 miles of a very steep grade of lava rock switchbacks. My walking stick was invaluable for the way down - holy moly! It was sprinkling and the ponchos went on. It was sunny and the layers came off. Clouds rolled over and cooled us and then the sunshine warmed us right back up. It was a long trek down, but we finally made it to the 5th station where we started.
I was exhausted and split between being disappointed about not making it to the top and proud about how far I did make it while feeling so crappy. In the end, I sided with proud. I am also so proud of the other people I climbed with - those who made it to the top and those who did not. I think we did a spectacular thing!!
Likely I will never try to climb Mount Fuji again, but if I do I will certainly take the time to stay on the mountain overnight and then finish the climb the next day. That should help me take care of the ol' altitude sickness.
Two days later, I must say that I am not really sore at all. I worked my buns off to climb where I did and I am pleased that I am not feeling it very much today. Yippee!
That is all from here for now. I plan on posting some pictures soon when I get them uploaded (I'm still waiting on pix from friends) - so stay tuned!
ps: Word on the street is that Todd said I was a "quiet puker" - apparently he didn't even know I threw up 3 times out of 4. Hellz bellz baby - that's pretty pimp. I can 100% guarantee I tossed my cookies 4 times. What a talent...
I guess I could say more about my climb to Mount Fuji, but it's slowly becoming just a memory. I can say that the climb started out with the group of us 10 as one pack and as expected we sort-of all split into separate groups from there. Todd, Steve and I were in a team named the "Strawberry Seahorses", after Steve's fantasy football team. I was Seahorse Two. We had "Seahorse Status Checks", "Seahorse Down" and "Breaker Breaker" times (for when we needed a break). It rained on and off throughout a good portion of the night, but never really lasted all that long or rained all that hard. When we reached the 7th station, we had our photo op and then I vomited. Love it!! We kept in contact with the other climbers in our group via walkie-talkies and I can honestly say it was maybe the best decision we made all climb.
After the 7th station the climb got much more technical than anyone ever let on that it would. We used our gloves extensively to literally pull ourselves up this mountain. It wasn't "Oh, I'll use my hand to balance myself or just push a little here," it was "Holy crap, I need to grab onto this rock and use all my might to heave my heavy body and backpack over this next hump."...and still use my walking stick to balance myself. Jinkies people! I threw up 3 more times before I had to stop for the night at the Original 8th. The trail was very full with people, but for some reason I expected it to be like getting into a crowded metro car, which it wasn't, so the crowd didn't bother me all that much. It did slow my progress, but considering my bouts of altitude sickness, I didn't mind taking it easy.
Steve and I stayed in one of many little huts with rows of giant bunks (double-decker) where people could rent a a slot (think sardines crammed next to each other) to sleep for a few hours or a night. It cost 3000 yen or ~$30 for one person. Since we were both sick, we stopped until sunrise and slept almost 3 hours. Todd continued on to the summit of the mountain to meet the5 other people who were already there or on their way. At sunrise a voice came on over a loudspeaker system and said (in japanese) what we assumed to be "It's sunrise, get up!" Steve and I rolled out of bed, I was feeling much better - he was not, and watched the sun peek out through the clouds. It was absolutely breathtaking to be above a velvety sheet of clouds watching the sun slowly climb through each next layer of white.
After a brief moment of trying to convince myself to climb to the next summit 2 hours away, Steve and I ended up staying put and waited for the troupe to climb down from the summit. We met the rest and started our climb down the mountain. It was about 6 miles to the bottom. 6 miles of a very steep grade of lava rock switchbacks. My walking stick was invaluable for the way down - holy moly! It was sprinkling and the ponchos went on. It was sunny and the layers came off. Clouds rolled over and cooled us and then the sunshine warmed us right back up. It was a long trek down, but we finally made it to the 5th station where we started.
I was exhausted and split between being disappointed about not making it to the top and proud about how far I did make it while feeling so crappy. In the end, I sided with proud. I am also so proud of the other people I climbed with - those who made it to the top and those who did not. I think we did a spectacular thing!!
Likely I will never try to climb Mount Fuji again, but if I do I will certainly take the time to stay on the mountain overnight and then finish the climb the next day. That should help me take care of the ol' altitude sickness.
Two days later, I must say that I am not really sore at all. I worked my buns off to climb where I did and I am pleased that I am not feeling it very much today. Yippee!
That is all from here for now. I plan on posting some pictures soon when I get them uploaded (I'm still waiting on pix from friends) - so stay tuned!
ps: Word on the street is that Todd said I was a "quiet puker" - apparently he didn't even know I threw up 3 times out of 4. Hellz bellz baby - that's pretty pimp. I can 100% guarantee I tossed my cookies 4 times. What a talent...
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