We Weathered the Storm

So... if you haven't been living under a rock, I suppose you heard about our not-so-friendly friend, Sandy.  Yeah, that wench took our power from October 30 at 7:30 p.m. to November 3 at 1:59 p.m.  I'd never been without power for more than a few hours before, so this was a new one for me.  I'd like to never do it again.

Thankfully, unlike my friends along the shore who had tons of damage to their homes and belongings, ours was minimal.  We live on a mountain amongst lakes and forest, so I was worried about trees of course, but we got really lucky.  The one big tree that came down on our property was at the very edge of the woodsy part of the backyard and didn't even make it to the flat part.

I only noticed it because when we went to walk Meg, I saw the new breakage there at the top.  Like I said, we were lucky, and I'm not kidding.  That was a tall tree, and had it been at the close end of the woods rather than the far end, we might be roofless.

Another tree snapped partway up and is now resting on two other trees.

Mostly, though, we just were given a big raking job.

And as you see, we emptied the yard of everything.  The grill and whatever furniture would fit went into the garage.  The rest went down the basement.  And the garbage cans are on the steps right below those cellar doors you see on the left.  The only thing that we couldn't get inside was Eric's garden box, but we took care of that.

And then we got inside and stayed inside.  We lost power Monday night at 7:30, which didn't disturb much... until the 3rd day or so.  Neither one of us had ever been without power for more than a couple hours before.  It's a good thing we make candles!  It's also a good thing we have a fireplace.  Without heat, we'd have been cooked.  Or anti-cooked, as the case may be.  For a total of 5 days, we showered at a friend's house, closed off our extraneous rooms and dragged a mattress into the living room in front of the fireplace.  And did lots of this.

It could have been worse.  We could have had this in our yard.

Or this at the end of our street.

So yeah, lucky.  Also, I knitted.  Very glad knitting doesn't require power.  Started a sweater for myself and worked on a nephew's fish.

A nephew's fish? you ask.

One like this.

The one pictured above is actually available in the shop.  I'm also making one for each nephew for Chanukah/Christmas too.

And I cut out all the parts for 16 cows.  Sounds weird, I know.  But I'm in another show, Cinderella Confidential, and I've been double-cast.  I'm one of the stepsisters (fun!) and also Flossie the Cow.  How awesome is that?  Flossie is a silent part, but she's kind of a running joke throughout the show.  Because she's such a staple in the production, they've started calling me Flossie instead of Larissa.

And it's a theater tradition, at last in community theater, to give everyone a card and/or small gift on opening night.  So remember when I won that fat quarter of black and white fabric?  I'd never used it.  Yeah, I know.  But it was sitting there... and it hit me:  Cows!

(No, I was not actually hit by cows.  That would hurt.  Silly people.)

So... I started cutting.  And cutting.  And cutting.  Sixteen cows mean a lot of parts when each body takes two, each face takes two, then there are ears, hooves, horns, and snouts to cut from felt.  Floss for nostrils and buttons for eyes.  But how cute are they?!  As soon as we got power back, I got to sewing.  And sewing.  And sewing.

I've earmarked ten of them for my cast & crew, one for a friend, and three for the shop.

If you're on the east coast, how'd you make it through?  Everything OK?