Hunkering Down

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!  We had a good week with family and friends the entire week, and I am grateful today for all of these wonderful, loving and supportive people in my life.  It was also our first Christmas at home with both pups, as we were gone in the RV with them last year for Red’s first Christmas.  Just like two little kids, they got into a tussle over one of their new toys that our daughter sent them, and we finally just had to put it up!

2015 has been a tough, tough year and has thrown me for a loop more than once, especially losing three family members this year about four months apart throughout the year.  I never posted here, but Hubby’s brother also passed away in May after being ill for several months.  I lost my dear Mother last January and my sweet cousin in October, and both of these deaths were very hard on me, to be honest.

This year will soon be in the books, though, with fresh opportunities and experiences awaiting us all in 2016.  Life is too short to dwell on the past that is done and cannot be changed, but the future is there, just waiting to be savored each and every day, and I plan to do just that.  I also hope to get back into writing again more regularly as things begin to return to normal, whatever that is these days.  2015 was anything but normal, for sure.

As this year winds down and after a Saturday of hurried preparations today, we are in the very beginning of what will likely be a”historic winter storm” in our area that may drop anywhere from eight to fourteen inches of snow, with drifts of up to ten feet.  While we are quite familiar with the white stuff this time of year, these amounts are not the norm at all, and neither is the potential of widespread power outages.  So, as instructed by all of the weather authorities and public officials, we are preparing to weather the storm as best we can, including helping our little elderly next door neighbor to make sure she is prepared, too.

We had originally planned to travel in the RV this next week, so we were already mostly stocked up on food for the trip, and we also have holiday leftovers.  On Christmas Eve, Hubby made a quick run to the firewood store and bought some oak firewood, which is now sitting at the end of our covered back porch for easy access.  We also decided to keep our RV in front of the house for the duration of the storm, since it has a generator.  We could at least stay warm and offer shelter to our little elderly next door neighbor, if needed.  Since we had already filled the gas tank and the propane tank, we could manage quite well in the RV for several days, using both space heaters and the central propane heating system.  We also have a propane stove and battery lanterns that we can bring in the house if needed, too.

We are under a blizzard warning until Monday morning, and the storm has just begun to hit our area late tonight (Saturday) around 10 p.m. with rain and ice falling, then likely transitioning to snow overnight.  It will probably snow until sometime on Monday, if all goes according to what the forecasters are all telling us.  I think we are as prepared as we possibly can be, and I am grateful today for our RV as a backup to keep us safe and warm, if needed.  Camping tools do come in handy at times, and this situation is just one more reason to own an RV!

Hopefully our electricity will hold until the blizzard (or #snowpocalypse2015) is over sometime on Monday.  We have not had a storm like this in our area since 1983, if it all comes to pass as forecasted.  Please pray for those affected by the tornadoes in the Dallas area earlier this evening, too.  As I feared, some people have died there.  Texas is just wild right now, for sure.

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