My hurricane Sandy post

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That’s about as creative of a title as I can come up with.  I’m not so sure this post will be that creative either, more of a brain dump at this point.

Most of you already know that I live in New Jersey.  And you probably already know that my state was hit the hardest by this storm.  First off, I am completely ok, thank you to all of my wonderful friends & family from out of the area who were checking in with me & wanting to make sure that we were ok.  I’m so blessed to say that we made it through without even losing power.  Which is a miracle!

This weekend was a flurry of activity for getting ready for the storm.  There were a lot of mixed emotions, because we had all been hyped up for Hurricane Irene last year and there were plenty of internet memes sprouting up about how not severe Irene turned out to be (remember the fallen lawn chair joke?)  So I think most people were a little wary that this wouldn’t be that bad.  But who wants to be the person that doesn’t prepare when you have TONS of warning?  They were pretty much assuring us that we would lose power and it might not be back for days.

We stocked up on supplies and then “hunkered down”.  Unlike my frantic new-mom nerves of last year’s Irene, I actually felt pretty calm about this storm.  There weren’t all those freaky tornado warnings that made us sleep in the basement.  We just watched as much tv as we could before losing power (which we only lost cable, never power) and went to bed.  In the morning there were a lot of trees down in our neighborhood (including one in our backyard that went sideways and didn’t affect us at all!) and a lot of friends without power, but everyone I knew was safe.

Since I didn’t have internet or cable I could only follow the news via Facebook.  Friends were sharing pictures of the devastation in the shore towns and NYC.  I was honestly skeptical of some of the pictures of Seaside and LBI until I realized they were from reputable sources.  It’s hard to believe that places you grew up going to every single summer would suddenly be washed away, just like that.

I don’t know anything about our beach house.  It’s a tiny shack on stilts, with nothing but the ocean in front and the bay behind.  “Our place” is also the first floor, so I hope that there’s not flooding or devastation there, but what can you do.  Things can be replaced.

Last night our tv came back on suddenly, and let me just tell you, Rayna was thrilled.  It was so cute, she was literally dancing about having “her shows” restored & she asked “was this God?”  Because none of us were doing anything when the tv was “fixed.”  I said yes, God must have heard our prayers   It’s not every day your child can think that God just did something tangible in their lives so I went with it.

Now is all this cleanup, and of course today is Halloween so there’s some hullabaloo about that.  Many towns in my area still have areas without power and power lines are down on the sidewalk.  We actually went to the furniture store this morning and they didn’t have power yet and it was another lesson for Rayna.  This has been really interesting to view from her perspective.  She knows that Halloween has been postponed because of the storm, which was a hard pill to get a 4 year old to swallow, but obviously, she’ll live.

She really wants to trick-or-treat because she wants to collect change for her UNICEF box.  About a week ago, Rayna’s school gave the kids little UNICEF collection boxes and it made SUCH an impression on Rayna that there are children out there with no food or clothes and that her little “monies” will make a difference.  She marched right up to room and was emptying her piggy bank all on her own to give her “thousands of monies” to kids who need it.  It really made me cry!

My love and prayers go out to the many who are displaced right now by this.  We know many who are without power and some who might not have a home to go back to.  Last night when the tv came back we started watching the news and I was just brought to tears about the hospital that was evacuated and all the little newborn babies who were transferred safely.  What a miracle!  It really put into perspective, even the stories of ruined houses, landmarks and possessions are nothing compared to those precious little lives.  What a wonderful story!  If you haven’t heard about it yet, please check it out here.

Hurricane Sandy photo used under creative commons