What a Week

On Tuesday, August 23rd just before 2 pm EST, I was sitting at my desk in the basement as items around me started to shake. It took a few seconds before I realized it was an earthquake. Lucy, who was laying at my feet, bolted up the stairs and I quickly followed. The quake didn't last long and didn't cause any damage – at least not near us. Laugh as much as you want you Californians, but the 5.8 earthquake that hit central Virginia was the big one for those of us on the East coast where earthquakes are rare.

The earthquake was the talk of most conversations for a day or two until Hurricane Irene swirled into the spotlight. Just days after our quake, we started preparing for the impact of Irene. On Friday, Mike and I spent the afternoon putting all of our patio furniture into the shed along with any other potential projectiles. We lived in Maryland when Isabel passed through in 2003 and could remember the devastation that followed the storm. We live far enough inland that we weren't concerned about flooding or storm surges damaging our home but knew we needed to prepare for the wind.

Although it had been raining most of the day, the storm hit us until shortly before midnight on Saturday. The wind was blowing between 34-70 mph in our area. Mike and I put Miles in our room that night since his room is in the back of the house and faces several tall trees, all of which were swaying most of the night. The wind and rain pelted our house most of the night and woke me up several times. When morning came, Mike and I were surprised to see our electricity was still on. We were just as surprised when it went out around 7:30, about a half hour after we woke up.

The buzz of generators slowly started overtaking our neighborhood. One after another our neighbors began powering up their houses. On our block alone, Mike and I counted at least seven generators. As one neighbor passed out coffee the others relived how long they went without power during Isabel. I'm not going to lie, I somewhat enjoyed not having power. The house was so peaceful and we were forced to do different things. I also loved seeing all of the constellations at night.

Our power was out for just shy of two days and we too joined in the generator party – running a line from our neighbors to our fridge. We lost a few things from our basement freeze, but nothing major. I have to admit, the one thing I was concerned about was snapping my almost two year run of Wordless Wednesday entries. Don't worry though there will be one tomorrow!

Needless to say, the last seven days have been a bit unusual. In case you're wondering Miles slept through the earthquake and hurricane!