And still no electricity

We spent the majority of the day at the house today. There was still no electricity. We were excited when we got home and found the phone line working again, especially since I had a conference call for work that I needed to participate in at mid-day. However, by the time the conference call rolled around, it was not working again. My cell phone, not working either. Argh! Leslie let me use her cell for a 90-minute conference call...what a sweetie!

The refrigerator and freezer were in serious need of attention. We cleaned out, err, threw out all the contents. Not sure if the insurance will cover any of this, but I am not looking forward to our first real trip to the grocery store to restock all those staples and condiments.

The ice maker was leaking, so there was a lake in the freezer. That meant we needed to pull the refrigerator out and turn off the water to the ice maker at the wall. Well, you can't pull the refrigerator out like that and not clean behind/underneath it. Yuck!

Next, it was time to take all of the yard stuff out of the garage and put it back in the yard. Oh wait, but first, the yard needed a bit more attention. Our wonderful neighbors had raked/blown most of the debris from the front yard into a nice little pile. It had to be bagged. Also, there were still larger sticks and branches in back that needed to be gathered. While doing this, we identified further damage to the fence.

And then all the stuff had to be lugged back into place. While doing this, it seemed appropriate to question each and every thing we keep in the yard...do we really need/want this? Many ended up in the growing trash pile by the road.

Finally, our "safe room" needed to be restored to it's intended purpose...laundry room and pantry. All of the things that had been emptied needed to be put back in place. That proved pretty challenging because there is very little natural light that we can get into that room (hence, our reason for using it as our safe room). At least it had been thoroughly cleaned in its conversion to the safe room.

And after all of this work, the house still looks like a disaster zone. Oh well, it will all get taken care of eventually.

Henry got to spend the day with Aunt Courtney and Jack. He seems to have had a wonderful time. They went to see the new 3-D movie. Henry doesn't really handle the 3-D aspect of the movie well, so Aunt Courtney reported that he "enjoyed" the movie while sitting in her lap and refusing to wear the special glasses. Aunt Courtney also reported that each and every thing they did was a huge contest...who was first, whose was biggest, and on and on. Sounds like Aunt Courtney had a lot of "fun" refereeing.

I spoke with my dad. He seemed most anxious to share with me news about the Cubs and Astros baseball game. We were supposed to go to the game that was scheduled for Sunday here in Houston. They rescheduled it to take place in Milwaukee instead. My BIL Lester and nephew Trevor got to go to the game. It was a no hitter and the Cubs won 5-0. My response: Great, they kicked us while we were down!

Tomorrow, we need to go to my parents' apartment and repeat the refrigerator/freezer drill. And we also realized there are a few more things left in our freezer in the garage. That should be good and ripe by tomorrow.

If the power doesn't return tomorrow, I am really going to have to figure out how I can return to work. Henry's school has now posted that it will be closed through Wednesday. Leslie's family has been so generous in offering us a place to stay and looking after our dog, and watching Henry while we take care of these necessary things. I just wish I could see an end in sight and know a timeline of when life will get back to normal.