Food For Thought Friday

Breakfast

What is your favorite part of the summertime?

Grilling out. Longer days...so you don't feel like it's time to go to bed when you get home from work because it's so dark outside. The feeling of the cool air conditioning when you first step inside from the sweltering heat. Being able to go outside without having to bundle up. Watermelon. Fresh cucumbers and tomatoes. The smell of freshly cut grass. Painting my toenails so I can wear sandals. Less traffic in the mornings since school is out.

Lunch

How was this week different than others?

Well...there was no leaking water or exploding trains, so I guess that's different than the last few weeks have been.

Dinner

What did you think of Michael Jackson?

He was an icon and I'm shocked and saddened by his passing. It's tragic. I often felt sorry for him. He didn't have a childhood and no privacy in later years and look what it turned him into. He'll never again have to hear the things people say about him.

Midnight Snack

What do you have planned for this weekend?

I'm working Saturday, but besides that we hope to get done we didn't get to do last weekend...work out in the yard...power-wash the siding, work on painting the porch railing, etc. Oh, and give Ms. Abigail a bath and a haircut so she looks purty and smells sweet for her visits with her favorite peeps.

Recipe for the Week (instead of your recipe for life, what is it just for this week?)

If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with. ~ Michael Jackson

God Was Teaching Me A Lesson

I don't know how many times in the last couple of weeks that I said, "I hate this house." All the different home-related issues we have been having were really getting me down. As Paul said...it's all about perspective. After being evacuated, all I wanted to do was get back home to our house even with all it's problems. This has to be God's way of telling me to be happy with what I have because it can easily be taken away.

They finally started letting people back to their homes at about 2:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon. We drove all the way over here only to find a police car blocking our road. Our road and the road behind us were still considered to be too close to the tracks and weren't cleared yet. The cop told Paul she would let us through to pick up some necessities. She said at that point it wasn't a mandatory evacuation but it was suggested that we not stay. Once we got home we debated about staying. There were a couple of families on the street who were home, but we thought it was better to be safe than sorry, so we drove all the back over to mom's. They finally cleared the entire area for all residents to return to their homes at about 5:30 p.m. Below is a map of the area to give you an idea of how close we are to the tracks. The X is our house approximately...the circle is the site of the derailment and explosions.


It was so good to be back home. I was totally exhausted. I only got about 2-3 hours of sleep Friday night with all the stress of leaving and reading the news and all that.

The investigation into the derailment is underway and could take months according to the news. They are still thinking it was from the tracks being washed out from the heavy rains. Apparently the crew of the train was calling to report high water on the tracks at the moment the train derailed. Today they discovered that one of the train wheels hit a gas line upon derailment. There was a protective covering on the gas line which did what it was meant to do...otherwise things could have been much, much worse.

I feel sorry for the clean up crew and investigators out there because boy was it hot today. The heat index was reported to get up to 95 but the humidity was unbearable!

What's Next????

First it was Paul's tooth extraction that didn't go well. Then it was the leak in the kitchen from the overflowing toilet in the bathroom upstairs. Last Sunday our sump pump decided to burn out. We're talking sparks flying out of the breaker box. Today it rained so hard that water is seeping through the walls of our basement (thank God Paul replaced the sump pump). To top it all off...and this is the biggest one of all...we were watching a DVD tonight when at about 11:30 there was a loud knock on our front door. That alone is enough to freak you out, but when you see that it's a cop...well, that just makes it all worse. While I was trying to keep Abby away from the door and trying to turn off the security alarm, the cop informed Paul that there had been a derailment of a train carrying hazardous material and there was a mandatory evacuation of the neighborhood. WHAT THE HELL!!!!!

Photo courtesy of Rockford Register Star

I'm sure by now if you've watched the news you already know about this...114 cars...all carrying ethanol...as of right now 12 cars on fire and they can't control it. Click on the picture to read the story. Everyone within 1/2 mile is being evacuated. The train tracks are approximately 2-3 blocks from our house. There is one road behind us and after that is the trees and the tracks. As of right now, they still don't know the cause of the derailment. The initial speculation is the rain washed out the tracks. That I can believe. We were out to dinner tonight and while we were eating there was a torrential downpour. As we were walking out to the car, the water was up to our knees in the parking lot. We could barely get through the intersection of Sandy Hollow and Alpine to get home, and we crossed those tracks...about 1-1/2 hours before the derailment...and the amount of water was outrageous. We were both saying how we've never seen anything like it.

There were some civilian injuries with some people in critical condition. We don't know for sure, but we're thinking it was the people in the cars waiting at the railroad crossing when the train derailed. The two people on the train are okay. I have heard that there was one death, but that isn't verified.

We're at mom's for the night. We have no idea how long the evacuation is going to last. I guess it depends on how long the fire burns. This is just so weird. It's something you read about on the news but you're not involved in. Below is an eyewitness video.

I'm going to go watch the news a little more then try to get some sleep. I'm supposed to work tomorrow morning, but considering how I didn't bring any change of clothes, I don't think that's going to happen. I'm sitting here in sweat pants and a T-shirt. God, I hope it's not too long before we can go home. I just tonight read an article in one of my magazines about preparing for a disaster and having an emergency kit. We even talked about that we need to do that because you never when when you're going to need to evacuate. How weird is that!!

Can't Wait To See Her Buddy

She doesn't care where Papa is at. She just wants to show off her eyebrows. Just don't mention singing along with the guitar.

TGIF

Man, has this been a long week. Paul is still having tooth issues. I'm eating crow for teasing him about the amount of "pain" he is in because it turns out he has dry socket, which I guess is extremely painful. It's not where one of his wisdom teeth was, but in the area of the extra tooth. The dentist hard a really hard time pulling that one, having to break it up into pieces and even remove some of the bone to get it out. He told Paul it wasn't anything he did that caused the dry socket (apparently there are things that can cause dry socket that you are supposed to avoid doing, like drinking from a straw...which he hasn't been). I guess the tougher the extraction, the more of a chance of dry socket. Anyway, I feel bad. It's a good thing Vicodin isn't expensive.

On top of all that, in the middle of the week we had some plumbing problems. Paul was in the shower Tuesday morning and I was making my lunch. I thought the water from the shower sounded strange but I figured it was from the new shower head Paul installed not that long ago. It is the kind you can take down, and it has a tendency to turn because of the tubing. I thought maybe it had turned and the water was hitting the wall. Then I started to wonder why it sounded like it was raining on the ceiling. That quickly progressed to me watching it rain on the kitchen floor. I hightailed it upstairs to yell to Paul to shut off the shower, and just as I got to the top of the stairs he finished and shut it off...then realized that the whole time he was in the shower the toilet had been overflowing. It had leaked down between the tile and the tub and seeped into the laundry room/kitchen below. Oh my GOD!



The above pictures are of the laundry room ceiling. Thank God he's not like me and his shower lasted less than 5 minutes. We put a call into the insurance company to see if something like this is covered. Our next step, as directed by them, is to call a local restoration specialist and have them do a moisture level test and see about drying the space between the floor and the ceiling. What a pain in the a**!

Did I ever tell you about my recurring nightmare going back as long as I can remember about an overflowing toilet? I am totally serious! I have a recurring dream that a toilet overflows.

All this happened during the week that Krista had talked me into starting the Biggest Loser 30-day Jump Start diet with her. We spent hours on Sunday going over the menu and shopping for all the ingredients we would need for the week so we could split the cost. That lasted me a total of two days. Sorry, but I just don't have time to make myself egg fu yung for breakfast. Ugh! Bad timing!

I'm so glad this week is over!

What's New?

Not much. Nothing blog-worthy going on here. Since spring has arrived and the weather has been halfway descent, we've spent a lot of time trying to get things done around here. Paul's been working hard on the yard trying to get it looking a little better. I've done a lot of weeding and hosing down of the front of the house. Our next step there is repainting the peeling porch rails. I've already started the prep work for that. Besides working and watching all the season finales on TV, that's about all that is going on. I have had no desire whatsoever to do any kind of crafting, card-making, or whatever since I finished that last Mother's Day card project. I only wound up selling one card during mom's jewelry show. See...that's exactly why I don't like to do that for money. It totally turns me off. I knew better than to even try.

We went to a drive-in movie last Saturday night. There is a theater about an hour south of here that Paul has been really wanting to check out. He just loves the nostalgia of it all. Since they were playing Night At The Museum 2 and Wolverine, two movies I wanted to see, I let him twist my arm into finally going. There are people who keep trying to open one up in town, but even if they could finally get it approved, I don't know if I would go. It just wouldn't the same in a big city with the type of people that live here. It's a whole different feel in a small town.

Like my cartoon version of happy Paul reaching for his soda?

Speaking of happy Paul...he's not going to be so happy tomorrow morning. He's having three teeth pulled. It has taken him a long time to get to the point where he'll actually do this. The last time our dentist said the word "surgery" he pretty much ran the other way and never looked back. I finally got him to agree to go back. He had a long talk with the dentist regarding his concerns. See, the last time he had any teeth pulled was in the Navy. Apparently the US military in the early 90's didn't care too much about pain control. They just pretty much yank your mouth open, yank out the teeth, and send you back to work. Not a pleasant experience I can only imagine. Our dentist assured him that things will not be like that this time. After their talk, he felt comfortable enough to go through with it. Poor guy. He has been promised as much KFC mashed potatoes and gravy as he wants (his favorite)! I hope it goes well for him. I keep teasing him about this "surgery," but I shouldn't do that. I wouldn't want to be in his shoes tomorrow morning!