post-irma recap donuts, pizza, and keurigs

i'm blaming irma for some of this weight gain...i bought some foods i never would've purchased otherwise! also, since we blamed irma for so many other things, it just seems appropriate.

irma came and went. the night of, while we were at img, the wind was loud, and there were a couple times i was acutely aware of where the boys were in case the roof were torn away with the wind. that said, i can only imagine how loud it would have been at the house!

the next morning, we all piled out of the dorms, and it felt a little like the last day of kamp during summer, cleaning up, loading up and putting mattresses back in their places.

we went back to check on our homes, and realized that i had locked the front screen door, to which i do not have a key (it's glass, so not really a screen...), and the electricity was still out, so i couldn't open the garage door. oops. the only damage outside seemed to be one screen on the lanai. and so we went to shea's and checked it over. the main damage there was the bushes around the house, because the winds formed a wind-tunnel of sorts around the sides. the electricity was out there as well, but it wasn't too hot yet, so i took a nap, and then we saw that the farmhouse was open for business, with wifi, so donuts were on the menu! we went and got donuts to make a couple stops over on the island to give a little sugar-encouragement to a couple families whom shea thought would appreciate it. it was fun hanging out with them- very congenial!

checking out the neighborhood damage-so many trees with shallow roots blown over-fortunately this one missed both houses.

i posted this little guy on my facebook page (please note the banana down here  that looks nonplussed!)

mini donuts!! #sugarsupport

the branches have mostly been blown off of my tree in the backyard, but at least none of the trees were blown over

on the return, we stopped at one of the beaches on longboat key, and got a little video and pics.

this is on the other side of the dunes before walking out to the beach-you can get an idea of water/sand

dear irma, buh-bye. roll closing credits:

then we noticed that there was a pizza place open on the island coming home, so we stopped in and placed our to-go order. we overheard them saying they weren't planning on opening, they had just come to see if the stoves were working and things were in order, and before they knew what was happening, someone came in and ordered a pizza, they said yes (around 4 p.m. and people hadn't stopped walking through the door since, it was now 8 p.m.). this was exciting, as most restaurants were still not open for business, so i'm guessing they made more cash that day than they've made in a long time! we got our order and took it home-it was smelling pretty amazing (especially after all the pretzels, crackers and beef jerky stuffs)! when we got back to the house, the electricity was still off, so we opened the cross doors to get a little wind-flow and set up citronella candles, and just hoping no one would walk in. we live in a pretty safe neighborhood, and to get to shea's you almost have to get lost, so we felt pretty secure. plus there's bruno and chaco, who, while small, make it sound like there are 15 of them when they feel the need.

now i'm trying to remember...i think i had electricity on tuesday...but not until later in the evening. in the morning, we were hoping for coffee, and thought we'd try to power shea's keurig with the adapter in the car (brilliant, right?) yes, well, unfortunately the keurig requires a little extra juice, so we tried to find a plan b. starbucks was still not open.  plan c. i found my 'survival bag' and got the sterno burners out and started heating up some water. it took way longer than is acceptable for any coffee drinker-how did the pioneers do it?! ugh. finally it was hot enough for me to make some oatmeal that 'passed for edible'...and then we let it go just a bit longer to try steeping the k-cups--i would give it a D+. i mean...it was something, and it was caffeinated. and then we may have gone driving around for a bit just to recharge devices and enjoy the a/c...maybe.

we were SO ready to have this coffee experiment work!!

eventually, one of our neighbors was texting with shea and mentioned that there was electricity at her house, which is on my street, so we checked and mine was on too, meaning we were able to get in and get the a/c going...unfortunately internet was still not up. i'm pretty sure it took days to get recuperated on a good sleep. and in the midst, i was trying to plan for a pd in miami. the issue was that we weren't sure about what was happening at our miami site, because our contact had evacuated. so we were planning as if everything was good-to-go, ready to cancel if needed. we canceled our hotel rooms because of the 72 hour policy, and would book later if it were a 'go'.

while we waited to find out about miami, one of the schools nearby confirmed that despite the damage, and chaos, they were still following through with the pd. and this area pretty much took a direct hit, fortunately all buildings were still intact. so i made sure my colleagues knew about it and tried to keep the others informed as soon as i had information for miami!

next up local training- good times!

thankful that with as big as irma was, the damage could have been worse.

julie