So we had the big storm that knocked power out for 4 days. We recovered. We moved on.

Last Wednesday a man comes to my door and I open it - I never do that. He's selling meat. I know, sounds odd, it's a suburban thing, believe me, my friends that live in the city had never heard of such a thing.

Anyway, so he has a refrigerated truck and I examine the goods and end up buying close to $400 worth of meat and seafood. Everything looked phenomenal and the timing couldn't be more perfect after the last storm.

The next morning the baby wakes up around 7am and I notice how unbelievably dark it seems for being so late. Okay, must be a little rainy out...go to the living room and see that it's thundering, lightening and raining pretty hard. Well, that was just the beginning. I swear I thought I was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz...It was such a violent storm that at one point the rain and wind were so conflicted that you couldn't see ANYTHING. It was like looking outside into a gray mass. The dog was scared to death. The baby was growling back at the thunder (my how the behaviors have switched). And all I could think was "PLEASE, DEAR LORD, DON'T LET THE POWER GO OUT!!!"

The power flickered a few times. No big deal. Then...BOOM! Gone, out, darkness...The power went out again. This time it went out for only 2 days but somehow I think it's all my fault. I jinxed it by restocking our freezer. So, once we were able to venture out and assess the damage we could see that the damage was extensive! There were numerous trees down on my street alone. With those trees came the power lines. When we were finally able to venture out of our hood in the car it was frightening. It looked like a war zone out there. I am assuming it was another tornado because there were actual areas where a whole cluster of large trees was just cut off as if they were chopped in half. Leveled. It was strange. We went to my in-law's for one night and one day. No matter how "lovely" it is to visit people. It's never like being at home. I just wanted to be HOME!

Lights were out for days and days. Traffic was a mess. It is amazing and scary how dependent we are on electricity, but more so, the power company! Yeah, power's great but you kind of need the power company to come out and restore and maintain it...

I contacted the meat guy to ask him to come back and pick up our lot but he gave me a lesson in dry ice! Did you know that they sell dry ice at Safeway grocery stores? I didn't but I sure do now! He also taught me how to use it in a fridge and freezer. I was thankful for that because it saved us lots and lots of money and headache! Anyway, power is back and we're back to normal, until the next time. Really considering investing in a generator...

This is what our lives have become:

Yes, our bath faucet is now covered by a bathing Elmo. Why? Because our child now rules our lives. And we're okay with that. Although I have to admit, it's been a little frightening pulling back the curtain to take a shower and seeing him just sitting there. Oh, it's only the beginning. I can't wait to see what's to come!

Holy Hiatus! Okay, I know, I've been gone a long time. What have I been doing? Well, let's see. About a week and a half ago I decided to offer my laptop a little bit of white wine without asking it first. Whoops! My bad. Had I asked I might have found out the easy way that my computer does not in fact like white wine. Who knew? I mean, I thought for sure that everyone liked a nice, cool, crisp glass of white wine on a steamy summer evening...

Well, after much worry and crying and praying that my hard drive was still in tact, borrowing tools from a neighbor, taking my laptop apart to try and salvage it, I finally took it to the computer doctor where I was told that it would cost a cool $1200 to send my machine back to Apple for repair. Now if I were drinking coffee at the time I was told that I would have spit it all over the very helpful young man that relayed the message. Thankfully for him, I wasn't.

* Okay, side note - WTF is up with the Apple store? I tried to go there first to take care of my laptop but I couldn't even get in. What is wrong with people? Why do they "hang out" at the apple store? I mean, I understand if you want to go try out a new product or have something to buy, or, as I was, there to assess some damage and get some advice, but I literally had to walk out because I couldn't make my way to the back of the store to talk to the appropriate person for my needs. Go home people! Or go to Starbuck's and play with your laptop there with the other douchies that hang out there all day. At least that's more "acceptable" these days...that's also a whole other post for another day*

Okay, sorry for that...long story short, I had to buy a new computer. It was the only economical solution. The old machine was basically fried. Thankfully my hard drive was still in tact and I was able to migrate the old info to the new machine. I am still beating myself up for my stupidity and am trying to put my new machine in a bubble so that nothing can get into it. I've also decided that no food or drink will get near this thing...Let's see how long that lasts.

So, in the midst of this debacle, we get a really big, but really fast moving thunderstorm. We were actually in the car during the storm and I was admittedly scared. If I was driving we would have pulled over for sure. The wind kicked up. The sky was an eerie shade of dark. It was raining in such huge, forceful sheets that you could not see anything in any direction. It looked like a white out when it snows but, umm, it wasn't snowing. Anyway, in the 15 minutes we were in the car, the storm had already passed, BUT we were dodging huge downed trees, branches, etc the whole way home. It was strange really that such a quick storm could cause such damage.

Then we got home. And the power was out. And we hung in there. Then it started getting dark and we started thinking of the baby. SO, we went to stay at my parent's house. This was Sunday. On Monday there was still no power. On Tuesday there was still no power. On Wednesday evening the power came back on. I know, doesn't sound too bad but staying at someone else's house, no matter who they are, with a baby and a dog is never easy or comfortable. But we were grateful we had somewhere to go because it was stifling in our house. No air moving is not a good feeling. It's like your suffocating. Anyway, we finally got back into our house just in time to throw away two refrigerator and freezers worth of food away. It wasn't fun, nor can we afford it, but there was no other alternative. We did salvage some things earlier in the week with coolers, but really, how much food can you lug around with you?

Anyway, we're finally back home and back into the swing of things. The summer is going swell. We've been beaching and having play dates. Mommy (that's me) is going away with the ladies this weekend and would you believe, more than anything else, I'm looking forward to sleeping uninterrupted? HA! What a lame-o I've become.

Anyway, coming to check up on all of you. Hope Everyone is well!