Dreams, Glitter and Tears

2 exciting things happened today, aside from the MRE goodness:

1: James worked today, first time in over a week! They got a generator at the shop and he was even able to get his most recent paycheck! YAY!

2: Darling told me that he has an upcoming work conference in California and will have a flight layover in Houston! 4 hours to snuggle and enjoy eachother's company. I can't wait!! The tentative date is October 18th.

We found a Point Of Distribution today that had MRE's!



We are enjoying them immensely



One thing I found entertaining:



Epic.

Working at a grocery store has it's perks. One one hand, we get to feel important because the community needs us. On the other, they go absolutely crazy and clean out the shelves of food and water after a hurricane. At least we can stash a few things in the back for ourselves to buy before the customers get it all.




Still running out of some water and a lot of soda







We seem to be missing some toilet paper


and noone can bbq, although some dumb people are getting themselves sick by doing so with fireplace starter logs tonight...



still not much in the way of bread



and they got all of the canned meat too



After a hurricane, who doesn't need chips?



And don't even think about eggs...



or milk...



we still have some stuffin the front cooler



But not much in the meat department



Or produce...



There wasn't any ramen either but i didn't manage to get a picture of that empty shelf... I work tomorrow, I wonder how fun it will be. I'm glad to report that almost everyone stuck with the limits we had set with the few exceptions trying to take off with half of the store's stock. Greedy bastards.

Here are some pics of damage in the neighborhood we didn't get to go far because we are still under curfew:


My friends' house. The tree did go into her roof some.


Our daughters' best friends' house


Downed fences by the elementary school


More fences down


These people lost their carport


A view of the mess people were dealing with


broken trees and more mess


More mess and broken trees



a lot of fences looked like this


another lost fence


a view down my street


another fence


our neighbors tree


That's all I have for now.

Seeing everyone working together in harmony, sweating and bleeding and crying together is one of the most awe inspiring things I've ever seen. To describe it in words truly does it no justice. I am so proud of our community right now and know we will continue to help eachother as we all slowly recover from Ike.

We got power back last night but did not get internet until today. We are lucky, as many people in our are are still without power right now. In all we weathered the storm pretty well. We lost half of the maple tree:




And our neighbors tree fell onto our shared fence:






Their side of the fence:



It buried our baby Oak tree but after some cutting, we found it:


It made it but seems to have a little lean...


The house seems to have come through it pretty good but the yard is quite littered:





 
And work lost a couple of trees but is doing pretty well too:

Ike will be here late tonight and we are preparing. I've taken pictures of the yard and our home, epecting that at least a few things will not make it through the storm.

One thing I am certain will not make it is our maple tree:



I also worry about the slatted "roof" over our back porch:




The house seems like it should be fine, although we may get a little damage to our roof.

ok, so that's a crappy pic, but I swear, it's ok!


Life at work is exciting. A lot of things are missing from our shelves and I figure it will only get worse.

If you can find a parking spot, there are so many people shopping that there are no carts:



There is little water:




practically no bread... I took three of those loaves




I figure it will get worse from here.