Surviving the first winter snow storm

It’s always something…last night we camped out in the living room. Our worry was that high winds from an oncoming  oncoming snow storm would knock a neighbor’s tree onto our roof and crush us in our upstairs bedrooms.

I spent yesterday afternoon exhausting myself over this issue. After all, tens of thousands of people in the region still have no power post-Sandy. While there’s no reason to think nearby trees are a problem, the lesson of the hurricane was that beautiful trees don’t look so pretty when the equivalent of a forest has downed power lines.

As the wet snow and icy temperatures kept falling last night, I couldn’t make up my mind. Our village mayor had issued an email suggesting the living room camp-out for residents with potential tree issues. Should we stay put in our bedrooms? Was I being too cautious in wanting to move us downstairs? After checking around, I found that plenty of our neighbors were fleeing to their living roms too. That made me feel less like a drama queen.

Better to be safe.

After moving our bedding, flashlights, laptops downtstairs, it was still early in the evening. But I was so freaked about the whole thing that even though I could’ve had a few hours to blog and work on my personal writing, I just couldn’t concentrate.

Oh, well.

Even though we finally have power again, we stoked our wood-burning stove and it kept us and the animals toasty warm. After taking this photo, Gabi moved to a spot away from the windows to sleep on the floor….if something awful happened and she stayed on the couch, she would’ve been showed by breaking glass:

The good news is that we woke up fine. That’s all that matters this morning. And sleeping on an inflatable camping mattress actually was reasonably comfortable!

One thing I know going forward, though….after things settle down, I am going to rethink my space management. Right now, all of our personal documents like passports, etc. are upstairs in my bedroom closet. But if I have to worry about trees on that side of the house, maybe my papers should be stowed in the main floor guest room closet on the opposite side of the house, for easy grab-and-go in case of an emergency…

Speaking of go, gotta run. There’s pets to feed, makeup to put on, ice to scrape off the car, newspaper recycling to set out at the curb, a job to drive to  — all the normal routine-y things that are increasingly precious moments in anchoring a safe life.

Where ever you are today, please be safe. And take a minute to be thankful for all that you have. xo.