I am vacillating between denial and exaggeration regarding this hurricane. I have done my best to soak in the beautiful color these past days, knowing that the wind and rain ahead will strip the trees of their gorgeous autumn cloaks. I realize that that should be the least of my worries.
We have done much to get ready:
I cleaned and organized my craft desk and my yarn stash. (first things first.)
Jonny cleaned the chimney. The kids dug the sweet potatoes from the garden.
I made a proper meal on Saturday, and we invited a friend to share it with us. (You must try Molly’s Vegetable Korma recipe!)
Everyone has clean sheets on their beds, and laundry is caught up. (Being caught up on the laundry only lasts about twelve hours of course.)
We have propane for the grill and lamp oil for the lanterns.
I charged my tiny mp3 player
We will take the precaution of boarding up our downstairs windows and moving our little ones downstairs to sleep at night because of the large, love to break maple trees that flank the front of our home. I really hate that though, it’s so depressing.
There are lots of other things, I am sure. Larkspur carefully swept her little outdoor home, not discouraged at all by the fact that the wind will soon sweep in and undo her work.
And in the midst of our preparations, probably the last snake find of the season: a red bellied snake. (that’s it’s real name. they only grown to about 12 inches long.)
If I am honest, I am a little nervous about this storm. The fact that weather.com has been featuring the headline, “Terrifying Monster Storm” doesn’t help. We are south of where the eye is being projected to hit but those weather people are warning us not to pay attention that sort of thing. My prayers are with all of you in Sandy’s path.
Stay safe, all of you!!
Love,
Ginny
Ginny, hope all is well with you and your family today. Have been thinking of you during this storm and keeping you in my prayers.
Hello Dear Ginny. It’s morning now and the storm has passed you (mostly). Sending our prayers of my own sort for you waking to damage you can manage this morning. May the sun shine on your family. Love, Rachel
May you and your family remain safe and dry.
Stay safe! I hope it passes you by or at least does minimal minimal damage
Thoughts are with you
Oh, praying for your safety and peace.
Boy do those seewt potatoes look beautiful! Do be safe, hurricanes are so scary!
I love that so many of you are preparing for Sandy by collecting knitting gear. Makes you feel proud and happy to have a hobby that you can do by candlelight, doesn’t it?
Prayers for safety! We are getting hit pretty hard at the moment! Spent today preparing as well and praying we don’t lose power! Oh and I also made sure to have patterns printed and yarn ready to go! 🙂 Priorities, right? 😉
Our kids are sleeping downstairs tonight for the very same reason. And like you, I’m hoping it’s an unnecessary precaution.
Hope you escape with minimal damage!
I hope that you are not affected by the storm. I’ve sent prayers of safety your way, Ginny.
I love Larkspur’s little house. She’s such a dedicated homemaker. 🙂 We’ll definitely give the korma a try! It sounds yummy!
Thinking of you all.
Good luck with the monster storm coming your way. Sounds like you have everything you need to hunker down and be safe with family.
Those sweet potatoes look wonderful!! How do you store them and how long will they keep? We don’t have a basement or anything like that.
Will be praying for your safety!
Keeping you in prayer with the storm on it’s way.
Blessings,
Betsy
http://betsy-thesimeplelifeofaqueen.blogspot.com
keeping you in our prayers…sounds like you are very very well prepared….
the sampler is so close to being done!!! (I just finished mine this past weekend….just in time for the winter woodland season)
stay safe!!!
Praying for your family’s safety!
Stay safe.
We pray for you too.
Stay safe, Ginny and family! Your top priority made me laugh (but I understand). Oh, those Stormy and Misty books are just magical. : )
You and your family stay safe! The eye is to pass over my brother’s place, he and his family are ready.
Would love to know how to plant potatoes and how to cure sweet potatoes, [ any info you have on potatoes would be helpful ] Thanks
My prayers are with you and your family too. It’s wonderful to see a whole family pitching in to get things done. I love seeing your pictures. What are you going to do with all those sweet potatoes? Later when the storm is over…would you tell us how to keep them?
Blessings to you all,
Balisha
Sending prayers from the West coast. May you stay safe, warm, and dry.
Sounds like you’ve prepared well. Praying from here in the Pacific Northwest!
P.S. I’m impressed with your sweet potato harvest! I haven’t attempted to grow them yet.
Praying for you, friend.
Organizing the yarn stash – love it. I have to tell you that ‘let’s dye some yarn’ has become a household idiom here from your other post, like when we’re expecting company or packing for a trip or something my daughters will say ‘let’s go dye some yarn’. 🙂
Prayers for safety during Sandy! (and man, those are some fabulous sweet potatoes! the only trouble with homegrown ones is after you try them you can’t eat those tasteless things from the grocery store)
Stay safe! We are preparing for a direct hit. sigh
be safe and stay cozy. those were some amazing sweet potatoes!
Keep safe, Ginny and family! Take good care and all very best.
As someone who has prepared for way too many hurricanes to mention, here in S. FLA, just remember to look at the whole cone when looking at the forecast. Sometimes the eye, while being really, really bad has that calm element that the rest of the storm does not. We will be praying for your family. Looks like you are very well prepared!
Stay safe, Ginny. It sounds like you are quite prepared. If we are able to return to your neck of the woods, we should meet. I have three who would enjoy your kiddos immensely.
Best of luck to you. My prairie girl mind cannot even comprehend something like this.
I am so impressed with your sweet potatoes! I hope you stay safe during and after this storm. And in the meantime, enjoy the coziness of being inside together under the spell of flames and not electrical light!
They’re calling it stormenstein here! A bit too serious for a cutesy Halloween name, methinks.
So funny! I hadn’t thought of it being Halloween-related. I assumed the name was because it’s a combination of several weird coinciding weather thingies (winter blast from the west, Arctic whatchamacallit, full moon, yada yada). So, sort of a play on Frankenstein’s monster, made up of different parts.
I think it was Frankenstorm actually! Not Stormenstein lol.
Even better!
I just love your backyard, and am very impressed by those huge sweet potatoes! You should have enough to prepare a couple of delicious sweet potato and butternut squash gratin, he? Enough as well to make it through the storm… everything will be fine!
Yarn stash, indeed! Your organizing priorities and mine 🙂
Safety to you and yours, Ginny, as this bluster blows through. I can’t help but think of the Maggie B in these moments. Glad you enjoyed the Korma. Your sweet potato harvest is majestic!
Peace and blessings,
xo,
Molly
If you listen to the mainsteam media coverage, it willl make you so fearful. Listening to the local updates is much more my speed. Looks like everyone stayed busy–all those sweet potatoes-what a harvest! Keeping you guys in my thoughts!
Im quite jealous of that wheel barrow full of sweet potatoes. Next year I want to/need to grow a field a of them at the rate we have been consuming them. We are quite close tot he eye. So Im a bit worried too. I too put laundry on the top of the list…I cannot have five loads needing washed with no electricity! Good luck. We both live so close to big rivers…thats the part that worries me!
:)Lisa
I am a little worried because the media keeps pounding it into my head. So I’ve turned off the TV. We have some water collected. found a battery for the ONLY radio, found the flash lights and like you planned my knitting .
Good luck and I hope they are wrong.
Batten down and stay safe!
All you can do is prepare and ride it out! We’re doing the same thing here in NY. Be safe!!
You too, Ginny! It’s just starting to get windier here in northern CT.
Be well, Ginny.
My parents (and other family) are all buttoned up, on the coast far to the north of you, and also hoping to ride it out with no (or at least few) ill effects. It is supposed to be cold and windy and rainy (and probably flood-y) here by Wednesday, but after so many hundreds of miles inland the storm itself isn’t supposed to be dangerous anymore. So they say. I hope all is well for everyone in its path. xo
Sounds like you’re all ready to ride this out. Stay safe, and I hope it goes better than predicted!
I am about two (or so) hours northeast of you…and I feel the same way about this storm. Part of me is in denial and I kind of feel like the media is hyping this thing to be bigger than it really is and then the other part of me is scared out of my mind. Keep safe. I’ll be praying for your family. 🙂
Been thinking of your family and my friends on the east coast. Hoping the forcasters are wrong….again!
thinking of you riding it out…. it’s hard to wrap my mind around this storm. we left the obx early saturday morning (from a long weekend trip), thankfully as the road is impassible now. we still haven’t seen much effects here, although i keep waiting for it. we are expecting snow today and tomorrow….
when i saw the outdoor living area, i thought “oh, a perfect place for a snake”! what a lovely one!
I’ve been thinking of you and your family so much. Sending blessings to you this day. And big huge hugs. xo
I hope you’ll he safe and spared. Keep the news, please!
My thoughts are with you (and my frind in Boston!) for upcoming Sandy.
These are SOME sweet potatoes that you are having there – wow!
Maybe a tenthouse in your living room might be a nice hidingplace from the weather too?!
All the best for the next hours/days!
maren
Your paragraph about Larkspur made me think right away about “Mandy” by Julie Andrews Edwards. My daughter read that book over and over when she was young.
Be safe.