The end of Sunday

Well Sunday is almost gone. It was a long long day. We are not sitting in the tail end of the storm. They eye was so big that it was a good 4-5 hours of calm. It's not out in the gulf but we are starting to get the tail end from the south. Watching the eye on TV now, it's HUGE. They are saying it is possible that it will regroup back up to a CAT one before hitting the panhandle of our state, so please keep those folks northof us in your prayers.

Im waiting not to see how the winds effect us coming from the south. I know I am very very thankful that we have kept our power. There were a few scares, but they were internal. We were watching a movie this afternoon and my father-in-law reached over and dimmed the lamp and in my mind I thought the power went out. It took a minute to register that the TV was still on, then we realized we still had power. It was kind of amusing. When you are cooped up for days on end, it does not take much to be amused. It is very nerve wracking as you don't know what to expect and how much longer it will last.

Also hurricanes are HORRIBLE for your diet. We ended up sitting around, watching movies and eating and eating and eating. I ate more today than I normally eat in an entire week. Just for lack of something better to do, plus the fact we bought lots of junk food and snacks in case we could not cook.... so we ate and ate. We also cooked earlier than normal, thinking we would cook up food in case power went off, so we did.

So today we saw a few more movies, ate, watched the rain and wind, and later we played some cards. When we were playing cards, we heard a LOUD crack and the lights went off for about 30-60 seconds. It didn't even quite register that it was off yet, when the lights flickered and went back on. It ended up that the street lights out front blew out and that was what cased the pop.

Again, I was thankful to have electric, cable and even phones. We are among the fortunate right now at least. Watching the devastation and continual around the clock coverage really points out how fortunate we were. I am really very very thankful for the fact we are all safe and have power.

As we wait on the back side of the storm, we are praying the power stays on and everyone stays safe. I've heard from my friends in Apopka, and also from Bradenton, and everyone did good with keeping power and no major damage.

Tomorrow when it's light and the thing passes totally we will all get out and look around to access the damages.

Now all we can do is PRAY that Ivan stays far away from our state. I'm feeling bad for those people that evacuated and left, as it's going to be hard getting back in, with the traffic and the destruction, downed lines, trees, etc. AND not to mention the fact that Ivan is headed this way and on the same kind of track. This is NOT good.

This storm now appears to be headed up thru Georgia and Tennessee, but by the time it hits up thee it should ba a lot less fierce.