Riding out Sandy.

How are you riding out the storm?

Leave me a comment and tell me how you are preparing for Sandy and what you plan to do if you lose power.

Yesterday I was singing "Sandy" from Grease a lot. It was kind of like my ode to Sandy in hopes that she will just leave me alone.

We are farther inland in Virginia up in the Shenandoah Mountains area. So the actual storm isn't going to impact us as much as the wind and rain will. However, we have a cold front coming in from the west that is going to collide with Sandy's wind and rain and cause lots of power outages, fallen trees, and blizzard like conditions. I don't think my area will suffer from the blizzard, but we are expected to have a lot of snow fall and lose power.

Preparations:

1) My children prepared for the winds last night by putting all their toys in the trampoline.

My five year old son, who is too smart for his own good, explained to me that if his dump truck and tractors "are not sitting on their wheels then the wind will not be able to move them. So all I have to do is turn them on their side." Whatever you say, Isaac Newton.

2) The "L" train. That's my new car. We call it the "L" train. Our last name is Laymon. . .  Anyway, you can see that huge limb in the background of the picture that I am worried is going to fall on my car. It was a concern of mine back in July when we had that Durecho (Or whatever the heck that was). But if I move my car my other neighbor has a massive cherry tree that is half dead, and all those limbs are just crying for a big wind storm to tear them down and a nice shiny new car to fall on. If I move it around the front of the house the likelihood of a tree falling on it nearly doubles. So I am still trying to figure out what to do with my car. I am running out of time though as we are already up to 25 mph winds with wind gusts of up to 50-60 mph. 

3) Power outage. My biggest concern is that the power will go out again for days like it did with that nasty derecho in July. So to prepare for that I worked from 10pm to 7am this morning to use the sewing machine and iron while I still have power. And now I'm a blogging zombie. . .  

I don't need to prepare as far as food, water, batteries and flashlights go. We have always been prepared for that sort of thing. We have a wood burning stove in our house that can be used for heat in the event of a power outage. When I go grocery shopping I think my mind thinks I am feeding the entire world because for some reason I have to buy 50 million of everything I buy. Seriously,  a Sam's club size bag of tater tots is a little superfluous. And two is just down right not necessary. Hmm. . . now that I've said that "out loud" I'm beginning to think I am a food hoarder. Nah. . .  I just like to make sure I have whatever I want on hand. . .  hmm. . .  nope, that doesn't feel right. Maybe I need to add hoarder to my list of physical/mental ailments.

So I'd say we're pretty much set. All phones, ipads, computers, etc are charged. We have more play-doh and "slime" than the average person ought to have. We have firewood. And I have a whole night's sleep to catch up on. Perfect activity for a power outage, in my opinion. And my day's work is done.

When I finished working this morning at 7 am I said, "Take that, Sandy!" And I felt a little like Lt. Dan in Forest Gump cursing the storm when they are out catching shrimp.

I'm so sleep deprived right now I just might wind up on the nightly news doing just this. I'm pretty much running on hopes and dreams right now. And grape zip fizz. 

What are you doing to prepare for Sandy? If your power goes out what do you plan to do for heat, meals, entertainment for kids, etc?

I have a two and a five year old and would love to hear your ideas on entertaining kids when you are homebound. Last time we had a storm like this our power was out for four days. It was fun, but we could go outside. This storm is going to bring blizzard like conditions, so it is too cold to go outside. What do you all plan to do??? Leave me your ideas in a comment.