This should be fun...

*said with a tone of sarcasm of course*

So by now every one's heard of the earthquake we had the other day. What was it Tuesday? I can't even remember. We felt it here, all the way in Southern CT. And guess what? Apparently now we have a hurricane barreling our way! Well, our way and everyone elses. This is fun. Really it is. My parents live in Florida so they're giving me tons of advice and I can't help but think frantically "this isn't supposed to be happening!"

It wasn't bothering us for a little while, but then Irene got closer and closer. And yes, I started to panic. What person with half a brain (who lives three blocks from the coast) wouldn't? Well, I did. Errr and am continuing to panic. While friends and family are taking turns trying to assuage my fears and at the same time make sure we are all prepared.

So yes, we're ready. Flashlights, bottled water, a full tank of gas. Thankfully we have a gas stove so we will be able to cook a little, should we lose power. Surprisingly, though we've had many snow storms, we've never lost power at this house. So I don't know what to expect.

As far as evacuations, we do live close to the water so it's entirely possible that we might have a mandatory evacuation around tomorrow afternoon. We'll just have to wait and see. Of course I don't want to have to evacuate, I'm not entirely sure where we would even go!

The funny thing is, Matthew and I were talking about the possibility of evacuating the other night and talking about which things we wouldn't want to leave behind. It was a surprisingly short list. All our pictures, the external hard drive, his laptop, some of my writing, some of his books that would be hard to replace, my great grandma's quilts, my jewelry box my grandpa made me. And that's about it. I kind of wondered to myself if this was a bad thing, that we had so few valuable possessions. But then I reconsidered. It's actually a good feeling to know you aren't tied down to stuff.

I couldn't help but be reminded of some Bible verses I memorized when I was a kid.

"Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be."

(Matthew 6: 19 and 21)

So please keep everyone (including us!) in the path of this hurricane in your thoughts and prayers!