Preparing for Isaac

 Monday: Move the canoe.

 Take down the mast, lights, and wires. Move plants, wheelbarrows, and barbecue.

 Clean out containers for potable water.

 Tie up random neighbor's bike. Turn bench on its side.

 

 Dinner with the compound, and other good friends who live within a half-mile.

 Cucumbers from the yard and homemade pumpkin pie.

 Hurricane jello shots, from Kenny. (Don't worry, he's a doctor.)

 Play games.

Tuesday:

 Watch/listen as hurricane is reclassified as just a tropical storm, then a Category 1 hurricane again, and back and forth and back and forth.
This is what it looked like outside this morning.
Yoga, guitar, walking outside.

It's starting to rain now.

We're so grateful to be here.

Isaac

We are here. Hunkering down. "Sheltering in," is one thing the newswebsites call it. Isaac is not as scary as my first class of eighth graders was. *Knocking on wood, of course.* (My little voodoo trick...)

A slice of our lives this afternoon:
Josh (after moving the canoe where it is less likely to careen through a window): Okay, so, Stefin didn't give me a straight answer for this, so I'm asking you guys: Should we not get a keg?

We haven't yet.

What we have includes: cans of beer, mineral water, filled up wedding jars and milk jugs and vegetable juice containers and giant Gatorade-style coolers with potable water, beef jerky, nuts, pesto, breads, pho, lasagna trappings, Josh's grandfather's generator, Rebirth Brass Band on the audio jack, acoustic instruments, the long-time-neighbors' confidence, our cars parked on the neutral ground (full tanks inside), NO MANDATORY EVACUATION STILL, writing utensils, art supplies, lots of nice people, and OPTIMISM.

Don't worry about us, but do send out good vibes. I'm not as worried about broken windows or flooding as I am about Aeli cooped up inside for so many hours... but a long drive would entail that too. This will be quite more economical. And we have the whole compound here on our team.

Life is certainly an adventure.

Also, our backyard looks SO CLEAN!

The Artist At Work

 

The stuff I love about Sundays: (late) morning yoga. Time to paint. Meals at whatever hour we're hungry.

Aeli's saying so many more words now. Like "an brush" for paint brush, and "dubba" for "yoga." When I get the sound fixed on my computer, I'll post a little vocab show-off session. Until then, happy Sunday!

Ba-ba-bbbuuuuuucck?

Look what showed up in our yard this afternoon:

This is a young chicken.  A cat was stalking it and it was clucking like crazy.

Also, Aeli is currently working really hard to get my attention by sticking his bottle alternately up his nose and in my face while I'm typing this.  Real deal.