Bilateral TKR Mickey & Minnie are looking on the bright side!

[Janet2012]

Without power I would worry about losing the furnace. I remember filling the tub to have water to scoop out to flush the toilet with. We rarely lose power here, thank goodness. I'm not the cook that you are, Jacky, but I've cooked pizza on the gas grill!

 

[Celle]

I never thought about having to do it with a power outage, but if there is a significant earthquake here, the first thing I will do (once I crawl out from under the sheltering doorway) is fill the bath, so we have water. I have torch, tins of food, blankets and transistor radio ready, but not large amounts of bottled water.

 

[bottomshollow]

After Hurricane Fran in the late 90s, I learned to fill both bathtubs, the washing machine, and all my large pots with water when we knew in advance we had a bad storm coming that would knock power out for a while. With Fran I spent 7 days without power and having to lug water from other sources to the house. I learned to make unbelievably good use of 1 gallon of water.

The county is putting in water lines, but I am not paying $800 for them to fix it so I can connect after I pay a plumber to run a line from my house to their connection. I have a perfectly good deep well (over 250 feet) and the cost of electricity to pump the water I need is so much cheaper than what the county will end up charging. I have had water in places where you are charged twice as much as you would be in town because according to the utility company they had to charge extra for the distance the water had to be pumped.

I'd rather live without water when the lights are out than pay the county for something I can have for practically nothing.

 

[tashia]

It sounds that you are all ready for the storm. As I was reading your story it reminded me of when I lived in Colorado in the Rocky Mountains. We had so many nights of no electricy. We didn't care with a big fireplace and a gas stove. We always had water so that wasn't a problem either. Right after the storms we would grab out sledes and went up and down all the streets. What a blast. It did get cold thru and that was the ruff part. It got down in the 30 and 45 below 0 with a wind facter. That is cold but loved getting under the cover with my dog and sleep for the night. The storms are ruff but the beauty aftearwords is breath taking. However I will not live in that type of climate again unless I really have to. I have gotten soft but I love it. The snow would get up to the roof. No more, I like cleared streets so I don't need the skies for transportation. Take care my friend.

 

[Jacky48]

Without power I would worry about losing the furnace. I remember filling the tub to have water to scoop out to flush the toilet with. We rarely lose power here, thank goodness. I'm not the cook that you are, Jacky, but I've cooked pizza on the gas grill!

Whoa Janet, pizza on the grill! Now that's one of the many this I have not cooked on the grill, however I have seen it done on the Today Show, but I envision me burning it somehow! I challenge I just might have to take on!

 

[Janet2012]

I have city water now, and we are at the farthest and highest point so pay more, but it's not that bad. We have some of the best water in the country here. My daughter is on a well and has so many things hooked up to it to make it palatable and to not ruin the laundry! They just put water lines in on her street, but it would be about $10,000 to get connected. I don't need to fill the bathtub now.

The first thing I do if we lose power is tape the refrigerator and freezer doors closed so they aren't opened out of habit, to try to save the food in them. This time of year, it could be moved to coolers and put outside I suppose. When we lived in Brazil it was never cold enough and we lost power often. I had to keep the tape handy.

If we had a summer storm and lost power, I'd worry about losing the sump pump and having water get in the basement, but that's never happened. Remember that massive grid outage during the summer several years ago? I wonder how many people here were in the blackout? We were on our way home from vacation on the West side of the state, where we had power. We stopped and bought ice, etc. just outside the Detroit metro area at the edge of the blackout. We were lucky to not have extreme heat, so we were fine, but by day 4 it was getting pretty old. We were in town for the summer and my daughter, pregnant, and the oldest of the kids were here staying with us. We got home from vacation to no power and noted baby spiders crawling all over the ceiling. My daughter, nearly in tears, proclaimed it as the Apocalypse! We all laughed at her.

 

[Janet2012]

By the way, my knees are really bothering me today and feel swollen. It started last night. I just checked, and sure enough, we have low barometric pressure passing over with this storm system thats moving through here. That's the system that's going to collide with the Noreaster and cause all that snow on the East coast. Sorry Jacky! Looking at the barometric pressure map, I should be feeling some relief later today. The wind has just started blowing within the last hour, but for us, the snow is done and we only got a couple of inches new snow. Just North of here they got 7 inches. Still, nothing to complain about given what's starting on the East coast!

 

[Jacky48]

Janet2012 Our son has well water and septic and when we stayed there last fall to be with our grandson and the 2 dogs, a big storm was coming in which cut there stay away short, I filled their big jacuzzi tub with water just incase. They came home a day early, so we then came home and we lost power, but they didnt that time!
I did cook on the grill that time and we ate by candlelight, listened to the radio and went to bed early, but by the 4th day it got eally old! Luckily our hot water tank healed enough hot water for us to shower for at least 2 of those days! The only thing we lost was ice cream, which we really didn't need!

That is so funny about your daughter thinking it was the Apocalypse, poor thing, and you all laughed! I'll bet she never let you forget it or is it the other way around? Nice family fun!

I'm with you there Janet, my knees are a little stiffer and my thumb, neck and back are achy, so I checked our barometric pressure and sure enough it's low and I suppose it will stay that way for a while! I never paid attention to that before, and never associated to my pain level! Geesh! I guess I'm not too old to learn something new after all! The kids will be surprised!

It's been snowing since early dawn, and it's kind of fine snow that says, I'm going to be here for a long time!

 

[Shubbles]

I got about 5-6 today. Not too bad though. We have a sump pump too. I had a flood two Thanksgivings ago and it as a mess! But I got a totally new basement out of it so...

August 18, 2003 is when the big power outage happened. We went 2 days cooking on our gas camping stove before we remembered that our inside stove was gas and we could've used it. Lol! I also remember that gas prices went to $3.99 per gallon and everyone freaked out. Now thaw almost the normal price again. Ugh.

 

[hapiheylo]

I realize I have been away for quite sometime. I missed the "bad girls club" OMG I can't stand it. Sounds like everyone is doing well and moving forward. I have had my setbacks, I do think I am on the way for better times. Jacky I am so glad you are doing so well, Alaska sounds fun, been thinking about trip myself. I can't wait until I am strong again. Thanks for all the smiles.

 

[Janet2012]

Was it really that long ago, 2003? Wow! Then my memory falters, because Kim was not pregnant that year. Jonnie would have been about 18 months. She would have been pregnant the following year. Are you sure it wasn't 2004? I'll try to check...

Edit: 2003 it was!

Oh, I am confused! She WAS pregnant in 2003, but with the first one!

 

[Jacky48]

hapiheylo Wow Linda, you have been through the mill, so to speak, in this past year, you poor girl! I really hope 2013 treats you better my BoneSmartie friend!
I love your avatar, by the way, they are my favoritist couple!

Now, as far as the "Bad Girls Club", we are not as bad as the once on TV, but we do have a naughty side left to us occasionally, we just have to be careful not to cross the line and sometimes it get's really close! New knees and hips to strange things to us sometimes! That being said, we can't lose all our naughty as we age, what would our naughty counter partners do, they would feel so all alone, and we wouldn't want that! So, there is "free" open enrollment, and you're welcome to join in any time!

I wish you a speedy and uneventful recovery Linda, you sure deserve it after last year's trying times! Stay well kiddo! I am going to go and try and find your thread, I can't believe I lost track of you!

 

[Jacky48]

Janet2012 Welcome to my club Janet, the "My memory has gone to hell club"! Problem is I can't seem to forget the things I want to forget and I can't seem to remember the things I want to remember! It's vicious, I tell ya!

 

[Celle]

How true! My mother used to say, "Of all the things I miss, I miss my mind the most."

I lose the easiest words and end up having to describe the object. Crosswords help!

 

[Jacky48]

Oh boy I hear what you're saying for sure! I would start a conversation, knowing full well where I'm going with it and then I get hooked up on a word, start to discribe it, and always someone is waiting patiently until I can finally find that darn word! Thank goodness the whole process takes less than 30 sec to a minute, however I would hate to see if the time period gets longer, everyone will need a nap for goodness sakes!

 

[ElanorG]

Hi Jacky! Just wanted to check in and see how you are doing. Did the storm hit you hard? I have not posted much this week due to a broken keyboard, but my new one came last night so I am back in business. Let me know how you are.

 

[Jacky48]

Hi Lisa, Yup, we got hit by that doozy of a storm alright! Let's see if I can get these pictures up.

The 1st, 3rd & 4th pics are taken looking out my sunroom door, and the 2nd pic is looking out my froot door! I do have to shovel off the deck off the sunroom, but the rest is done by the association thank god! One thing we've never had to deal with before is cleaning the snow off the vent outside for our heating unit, since we heat with propane. Our last was heated with electric so no need to do that there! Since Norm hurt his back, poor guy can hardly move, I was going to attemp getting to the side of the house and clear that off. The thought of this scared the delights out of me, because the snow drifts are 4 to 5 feet in some places and it would have taken me forever to get to the vent. I saw my next door neighbor doing the empty house next door so I opened my window and asked him if the vent was in the area that he was at, since I need to get out there and find ours and Norm was not able to do it because of his back! He said, yes this is there spot and that he would check it for us! I said, oh my god I love you, thank you so much, you're a life saver! I can't believe I told my neighbor that I loved him! He did smile broadly though! When he walk toward our house I realized he had snow shoes on and a walking stick and his shovel! Norm did get a kick out of me telling Steve that I loved him!
I've got to admit that the snow is pretty, as it covers up the naked, dirty winter world!

 

[Debbie_joints]

Wow, that is one heck of alot of snow Jacky. What a girl has to do to get some help from a neighbor. I am sure you can come up with a treat to give him for his courage out in the snow. Now I am talking a cooking treat for the guy. I think you and Norm will be held up at home for a long time. Aren't you glad you don't have any therapies now.

 

[ElanorG]

You did get hit hard. Reminds me of the storm we got back in I think it was 2006. Seemed like all I did was shovel, make chili and bake bread, and sew! Hunker down and stay warm! Don't overdo things and I am so glad you have a good neighbor to help you out.

 

[Janet2012]

Jacky, those are some crazy snow drifts! I've never seen snow covering up a door like that! As you say, thank goodness for the condo association. It's a crazy year, maybe in a couple days it will all melt away! Did you keep your power?