Yesterday morning I woke up to 4 big handsome men stomping through my east garden. Which I could now see since the oak that had come down right there during Hurricane Matthew had been chainsawed away the day before, leaving a big bright open space right outside the master suite sliding glass doors. I heard big truck engines and got excited, then I heard crunching of work boots right outside. They were there to restore my power **happy dance** They had to rehang the power cable that a pine branch brought down during the storm, which pulled my box off the wall as well. Grand Electric came out and upgraded my meter box and riser, which I’d been meaning to do anyway. When I saw the damaged box, my spidey sense said $800 and I was only off by $3.50. An hour later, power was on, wifi was on and the water heater was heating up. I took a lap through the house checking all light switches. I flipped all breaker switches and reset all GFI and everything worked. I had to replace the small bulbs in my salt lamps, they were the only ones blown.
Since I now had power and water, the focus turned from outside yard clean up to getting everything inside back to order since I had a week to get the November Horizons to the printer. I moved office equipment from the inside closet back into the office and hooked everything back up. I had wi-fi, I was in business!
I only took about 20 minutes to clean the freezer, because before the storm I’d packaged everything in grocery bags to easily lift out and discard if need be. it was only a few Lean Cuisine meals and packages of frozen vegetables. The fridge was the same. I’d put perishables together in a grocery bag for easy clean up. There wasn’t much. I like my food supply to get way down and it was way down. I lost maybe $20 worth of food, total.
I notice that most of what I use my fridge for is as a pantry for my Asian spices and condiments, mustards, vinegars, pickled stuff as well as the bulk seeds (fennel, cumin, basil, tarragon) that I buy. Also things like bread crumbs, protein powders, molasses, go in the fridge. The freezer I use to store most of my leaves, grasses, roots, seeds and sticks: rosemary, lemongrass, ginger. cinnamon, mustard seed as well as my coffees and herbal teas.
I ran the dishwasher and although the outside air was nice and cool, I ran the a/c to dry out the house. I ran over to my rental — a virtually unscathed-after-the-storm mobile (and blessed!) home — and repaired a screen in the porch, the only real damage. I also stuck another few screws in the panel over the water heater. Then I came home to a hot shower and washed my hair. Ahhh! There was nothing that couldn’t wait and no more utility guys to wait for, so I got to crash. I awoke to find the 3-days-after-a-workout muscle soreness was setting in but I didn’t care. It felt good to have spent time rushing around, being unexpectedly active, using muscles I’d not used in awhile. Times like this show me that even when I think I’m getting lazy, I can just up and get done what needs to be done.