kbois

It is. I have power where I'm staying but not at home yet. I'm just feeling a bit lazy and sluggish though. Thanks!

I moved locations as my patience was stretched about as far as it could be with staying at my brother's. I'm very grateful he gave us a place to stay, but he and his wife are difficult people to spend more than a few hours with on a good day. Lol. I am now at the RV park that I work at and staying in what we call a "park model". It's basically a shorter version of a single wide mobile home. There was no power, but it was still preferable to my brother's, even though the power came back on at his house. I'd rather sweat in peace and quiet than deal with negative vibes all the time. Namaste. I was able to use the propane stove at my coworker's RV and made a huge batch of spaghetti. I added the last of the chicken I made right before the storm hit (generator kept the fridge going). I think we ended up feeding 6 or 8 people tonight. Lo and behold... the power came back on in the park! Then went out.... Then came back on!! Then went out... Now waiting for it to kick in again which it should soon. At least we know they're working on the lines. I saw the best summary of this past week: To my fellow Manatee County residents who may have lost track, today is Blursday, the fortileventh of Septober. Keep your fingers crossed that the third time is a charm and the power comes back and stays on!

Hi y'all! Still no power, but I didn't expect it to be. Was at my work today doing assessments and getting in touch with my contractors for clean up stuff. Biggest problem is we had 4 RVs that either tipped over or shifted on top of their water hook up and destroyed it. Luckily our plumbing company was able to come out today and cap the lines. It's a stop-gap for now but until we get bids and all that fun stuff, there's not much else I can do. My SIL is starting to get on my nerves, but I'm tolerating my brother fairly well. He just rambles on and on and on and on..... 🤦‍♀️. It could be a lot worse. Lack of gas available is an issue too. I'm down to a 1/4 tank and there aren't any open stations near here. I'm thankful it's only 5 minutes to my work. We lucked out and the weather has been beautiful. No high humidity with low 80s during the day and upper 60s at night so sleeping is an attainable goal. Usually after hurricanes it's humid AF and hotter than hell. The power outages in my area where I live has gone from just under 600K to 515K. Some progress is better than none! Hope everyone has a good weekend!

It's always a gut punch when a relationship dies. It doesn't matter how or under what circumstances. This short story packed a lot of emotions, and reflections of a bygone era in the narrator's life. Very well done!

You never ever cease to amaze me with how you craft words into images in such a unique and touching way. I'm so proud of you.

As always, tim has shown a fantastic take on the beast called depression and made it so relatable. His imagery is nothing short of phenomenal. Poetry has never been one of my go-to's, but I will read every word of whatever tim posts because he's a master of words. Thanks for sharing xoxo

Such a wonderful story and well worth the read. CassieQ tackled an often misunderstood and ridiculed topic and created an informative and empathetic story about one person's path to discovering himself and in the process finding acceptance and love. Go read....shoo... what are you waiting for?

Wow! Great story @CassieQ! You managed to show Jason's transformation into Jay with class and empathy. So many people don't understand gender issues and are either uneducated or ignorant to those who are struggling with how they identify. I think you did a much better job than I did. Kudos to an amazing story!

Weathered the storm ok. No damage to where I'm staying. My work is another story. One home totally destroyed and two RVs flipped onto their sides. Lots of branches down as well as a few huge trees. Everyone is safe though. I'm on vacation next Wednesday so I'll probably be working straight through until then. I'll try to make it up to my place later this afternoon. I hope everyone else down here is doing ok.

Good luck and stay safe! These winds are starting to pick up pretty good. I'm about 15 miles south of you.

Just a quick update. It's raining and very breezy right now. The storm is now slightly south, which is better, but still not great. Hopefully I won't get the flooding from storm surge at my home. I'm more concerned about broken windows. There was still a ton of debris that hadn't been collected all over my neighborhood. I'm as safe as I can be. Fingers crossed the storm slided a little bit further south.

I've evacuated from our condo which is on a canal adjacent to Tampa Bay. I'm staying with family and they are far enough inland that storm surge won't be an issue. The storm is supposed to lose steam as it approaches the coast, down to a category 3... which is still pretty significant from a wind standpoint. I doubt I'll be sleeping tonight. We have plenty of water and food. My brother has a generator and we have gas. I'm as safe as I can be under the circumstances.

I made it through Helene. Lost power for 3 days and had to evacuate. Other than losing some food in the fridge/freezer, we didn't have any other damage. Now we're gearing up for Milton which could be a direct hit. It's still too early to say exactly where. I'm already planning on heading somewhere safer once the track becomes clearer.

I made two mistakes tonight. First, I checked the score of the FSU game. Sigh. Second, I checked the status of the "tropical disturbance" they've been watching. Double sigh. On the positive side, there's only 8 weeks left of hurricane season!

That is awesome!

I'm not going to lie... it wasn't fun. We evacuated when the canal we live next to started rising fast. I had a safe place to stay... and more importantly a place that had power. Losing AC in Florida is just as scary as a category 5. Now we're just soggy and it looks like more rain is in the forecast this week. I'm on vacation in 11 days and will be on a plane even if I have to drive to Atlanta or Miami to catch it. Lol. I can't wait.

Well THAT timeline has been thrown out the window. It's been a rough year. I'm 7 chapters in, so at least there's progress.

I didn't know I had a target date.

I'm hanging in there. It's nice today, the humidity has backed off a bit, but tomorrow and most of the week looks like it's going to get pretty soggy. Anyone know where I can rent an ark? Hope everyone has a good weekend!

As most of you in the US and Canada are aware, and probably many of you in other parts of the world, the southeastern United States was hit hard by Hurricane Helene over the course of several days. The storm developed quickly and made landfall as a category 4 storm in Florida's Big Bend. On its way up the west coast of the state, it created devastating storm surges. I live on a peninsula that juts out into Tampa Bay. During my 17 years in Florida, most of it was spent in the Sarasota/Bradenton area. We were extreme fortunate in that we only lost power for three days. The canal we live on rose almost to our steps. Yes, we did evacuate, and I'm glad we did. Many people around us lost a lot of their belongings. We only lost the contents of our fridge and freezer, which amounted to about $200-$300. It could have been much worse and I'm thankful it wasn't. My heart goes our to those who live and have businesses on Anna Maria Island. We spent many hours out there with our boys when they were young. Many an evening was spent sitting on the sand and watching the sun kiss the horizon in spectacular colors. The island suffered catastrophic damages that will take months, if not longer to recover from. The same holds true for parts of North Carolina. There are many organizations that are accepting donations. Should anyone choose to donate to any relief organization, please do your due diligence and make sure the money actually goes to those who need it. Unfortunately, there are plenty of scammers out there. If you live in any of the areas affected by the storm, be wary of contractors approaching you. Any reputable business won't hesitate to provide their license and insurance information. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Stay safe no matter where you live.

Hi Starry! We finally got power back last night, so we high-tailed it home. It was absolutely a beautiful thing to sleep in my own bed. My dogs finally settled down too. We were fortunate. I'm on a peninsula that sticks out into Tampa Bay. I saw today that our little slice of paradise had 5-7 feet of flooding. The water line on our condo building came up to almost our steps. I'm glad we are the furthest unit from the canal. Not even a half mile up the road were condos that got flooded. There was so much stuff that people were hauling out of their homes and garages. Once salt water saturates something like furniture, it's not salvageable. I did lose everything in my fridge and freezer, probably $200-$300 worth of food, but my chest freezer still had gallon water jugs that were mostly frozen so everything in there should be ok. It was mostly veggies. It sucks but I'm grateful it wasn't a lot worse. Where I used to live got hit hard with flooding. The barrier island with the beaches we go to was absolutely devastated. It's heartbreaking to see the damage. One of my maintenance guys volunteered over the weekend and said all the sand that got pushed in from the surge looked like snow drifts. He helped clean out 7 houses where people lost everything. So, I'm happy that we are all safe and sound. I'm also going to keep a close eye on this next storm to see how it develops. We'll leave a lot sooner and I'll pack my car with anything important if we need to evacuate. In the spring when our lease is up, I'll be looking to move inland. Thanks for checking in. I hope everyone has a good day!🩷

Thanks for the good wishes. Still no power but hopefully today... fingers crossed!

For once I'm thankful that my sense of smell has greatly diminished over the past 10 years. I know I have ground pork and bacon that is most likely gross by now. I wouldn't subject any dog to what's lurking in there.

Update: Still no power. Tampa Electric's website says they're down to just under 18K people in our area and most power should be restored by tonight. At least I have a place to stay that is air conditioned. I'm not looking forward to cleaning our the fridge. At least this happened before I went grocery shopping. I'm still most likely going to lose about $100 worth of food. That sucks. I hope everyone is having a good day

Well, we weathered that one by the skin of our teeth. Decided to evacuate at 10pm last night after the water in the canal we are on started rapidly rising. Our parking lot was half flooded and the one road out of our area to the main stretch was dicey. The highway was fine. Luckily the worst of the winds were past us. We got to my work at 1045ish. Power and wifi were working. I texted my admin to let him know I was there. He offered up the park model next to him as his neighbors said they could use it if they needed. It was hot AF for a few hours until the AC kicked in. It also had a bed, which for me was useless because I didn't sleep more than an hour. I checked online and three million people in Florida without power and we're one of them. I'm hoping the water recedes by this afternoon and we get power back. My husband was supposed to fly up to Mass yesterday and so far his flight had been pushed back twice. All his stuff is at the house. Anyway... I'm tired as all hell and hate being displaced. Fingers crossed we can get home this afternoon. I need coffee.