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Mine starts at 4AM, oh yes… I said 4am. Why is you up so early girl?? you say…

Well I live in Central Iowa and apparently we were overdue for a nasty ice storm. At 4am it’s just starting to drizzle rain. I can see a patchy shine on the pavement in front of the garage lights. I have to catch the bus to go to work at 5:50am to get there on time at 7am. On a normal day it takes me 1/2 hour to drive it, so you can see what a PITA taking the bus is anyway. But there was no way I was driving my little car in this.

At 5am the local news comes on, and I switch between the two stations to see what the conditions are like. You know it’s bad when the Des Moines School District cancels classes right when the news comes on. They usually don’t decide until 6 or 6:30am. How do I know all this. Well, my work has a “policy” if the Des Moines Schools are closed then it’s jeans day. So, I was watching… by 5:30am it was pouring rain, and the local station people where broadcasting from in front of the news station scaring the heck out of everyone watching. They kept saying that it was deteriorating rapidly, and there were power outages yada, yada, yada. So, now I think jeez if I make it to work then I might not make it home. Don’t get me wrong I love my work/job but NOT staying the night in the building.

Logged into work email and sent an email off to my bosses, and teammates, mostly because their addicted to their blackberries and I know they will get that first. Gave them the options it was either work from home or take a vacation day. I only have 3 specific times in the morning that I can catch the bus at my house to make the connecting bus to work or I’ll have to walk a mile to the building if I miss the connectors. Now it’s about 6:30 and I’ve missed the 3 buses, and it’s pouring rain. I’m watching the neighbor who parks in the street right behind my drive so I narrowly miss plowing into him every single day in the winter try to scrape off his car to go to work. His parking in the street is a whole other story in itself. I’m up in my office and I can hear a car spinning it’s wheels stuck. I thought it was someone trying to come up the hill again, and thought it must be someone not from around this neighborhood. Everyone that lives around here knows to come down our hill in the winter and not up it. I hurry downstairs, because I’m just nosy that way, and it was the guy across the street. He drives a larger car but he couldn’t even get two feet from where he was parked. Finally he just shuts it off and stomps back in the house. HA!! next time tell your wife your parking in the garage, and you don’t care what she says.

It’s 6:50am got a call from the lead and I’ll try to telecommute, I say try because NOW my home office is leaking 2ft from my computer. So quick grabbed the blue tape and added some more in strategic places and this seemed to reroute the water a little, at least it quit splattering. Told work the office situation. I’m pretty sure they didn’t believe me or thought I was just pushing the whole thing a little too far. You can’t make the crap up that happens in my life, seriously. So, I logged in, got connected and answered a few email questions, worked on an overdue documentation project. All the while still worrying about a power outtage or the trees next to my house taking out something. The lead said he was going to try to drive into the office so about 8:30am I tried calling to see if anyone made it. I was in luck, but then they have trucks and jeeps, and not the little go-kart that I drive. So, I asked if it would be alright if I just called the whole thing a vacation day. So I could turn off the computer and cover it up so water wouldn’t get on it. So, I signed off and was in bed by 9am. Hey it’s a vacation day now, so I’m sleeping til noon. Besides, at this point not feeling too good, got at cramp in my side toward the back and my stomach’s acting up. So wanted to go to bed to see if it will get better. I think it was too much stress worrying about the weather, getting to work, the weather, not getting to work, telecommuting, vacation day wasted on the weather. Well you get the picture, the weather. I wonder if I could claim it as a sick day instead, yeah right… NOT going there.. they will never believe it.

I get up at noon, just in time for the noon news of course. So being a glutton for punishment I turned it on. Of course it’s all bad. After lunch I decide to try to make it to the garage to lay down some rock salt on the sidewalks and driveway. Eventually I’m going to have to try to drive out of here. Yeah, that was fun trying not to fall on my butt getting there. I took my camera though, had to get picture evidence, a lot of branches down in the yard and ice chunks falling from the trees. Made it to the garage and started spreading the salt. Did you know that Morton Rock salt flies a long way, especially if you softball throw it. That was cool I didn’t have to go very far to get the entire 100 foot sidewalk. Took some more pictures, then I decided that I had tempted fate long enough and came in before I got over-confident and took a header on the ice. It had stopped raining by lunchtime, so I thought I’ll go up and check my office. The leaking had quit. I was uncovering my computer and straightening a few things up when I hear this loud crack, thud, sliding noise, then thud, with a bunch of small tinkling noises thrown it. Grabbed the camera and ran downstairs, I had seen the shadow of the branch flash by the office window. It was a 10 foot long by about 4 inch thick limb that narrowly missed my office and first floor windows. Of course, stepped outside and took pictures of it.

At 5:15pm while watching the 5 o’clock news, the power does this whole light dimming thing. The clock starts flashing and the tv channel goes dark, tv is still on. I told my husband to flip it to the digital side and sure enough we lost the analog channels. My son who actually did go to work today via the bus, but then he’s downtown, came in about 5:45pm and said the whole power grid was out over here except for our little area. He was bummed because he couldn’t stop at Linn’s Supermarket after work and pick up chips, and pop. He threw down more rock salt and cleared off the downed branches off the driveway and sidewalks. Came in and took a bath. Now here’s where the whiney side of me comes out. I decided I would come up and play Bejeweled Blitz while waiting for him to finish with his bath because I really wanted to take one too. The damn internet is out. My computer never shut off during the little light flicker episode but the modem is blinking green. My next thought is check the phone because I am late on paying the bill… shhh… don’t tell my husband. Not paying $4 fee to pay it over the phone. I was going to pay it online tonight. NO Really I was. The phone was working so phew… not shut off, they never sent a notice anyway. Called Qwest up, and asked what happened and they said because of the power outage in the area that service was disrupted. I guess I never noticed before because usually our power goes out with the rest of the area.

Oh, well I have other things I can do on my computer right??? You know not having internet really SUCKS, the other things that I can do on my computer are just not as good without the internet to distract me. I hope someone is feeding my crops and chickens on farmville tonight. Ok, well I am writing this blog post to put out later if the Internet EVER comes back….. sigh….

Well, kids out of the bathtub so I thought might as well do that while I’m waiting for the internet to come back. Get downstairs to the bathroom…. carpets wet… sloshy soaking my socks wet. Sigh…. get another pair of socks, and run the bath water. Checked water about half way done, and it’s ice cold. Not only did my child soak the bathroom carpet he also sucked up ALL the hot water in the house. How does one do that filling the bathtub, it’s not THAT big. He must run it like a shower instead of filling it up. I know the water runs for a LONG time when either he or my husband takes a bath. Sigh…. I think I’ll call it a night, did I mention the internet was out, and I still feel crummy…

1/22 – This was from 2 days ago, internet came on as I was going to bed that night. Thursday night felt really awful and went to bed at 6:30pm, missed a really good episode of Vampire Diaries. I have been getting all the spoilers from dear hubby though, now may not have to watch it at all. Oh and there is supposed to be a thunderstorm overnight. Thanks California… for that crappy weather as if Iowa doesn’t need an excuse to have a tornado in winter. Been there, done that…