Waiting for a Hurricane

My current experiences with a little humor to help me cope

Preparing… Waiting… Checking the forecast… Trying to distract… Preparing… Trying to work… Trying to help others… Urging friends and family to get to safer structures inland… Waiting… Checking the forecast again… And on and on.

Also…lots of comedy and distraction too… Rescheduling things… And staring at memes. Finding little snippets of dark humor and yet feeling nervous.

It. Is. Awful… Waiting for a hurricane.

Here is the track from this morning, from my phone.

Don’t get me wrong. I am super grateful that we have amazing weather people like Denis Phillips and I am glad for the warnings and the information.

It does yield a lot of waiting sprinkled with a bit of terror.

Here is the current track from Denis Phillips.

From Denis Phillips Facebook page

We have our shutters on. We offered to house family and they are evacuating and leaving their cats with us.

That brings some happiness! I can never have too many cats.

Here’s one fur-baby. She sleeps all day here next to me while I work. Kitty coworker.

Back to dealing with an impending hurricane.

It feels like the eye of Sauron has it’s eye on Florida and I feel like Frodo being hunted when he puts on the ring and hears the spooky voice whisper to him and sees the eye in his mind.

Florida can be a wonderful and difficult place to live. I constantly debate moving up North and Blake and I talk about it a lot. Today is one of those days that I dream about having land up North with a big back porch and mountains in the distance.

There are neat things about FL and our house too like the day I heard a tapping on our window from a couple of weeks ago.

It was a tiny angry bird that kept hitting the window. Can anyone identify this bird? I am not an expert but I do love birds.

Here is my cat looking in wonder at the tiny angry bird.

Are angry birds tapping on your windows?

I also turn to my faith as a coping strategy. I feel like the Lord gives me bits of hope in the midst of the storms of life. For instance, this morning. I cannot look out the windows but I can walk outside and I saw three beautiful white ibis munching on grubs in our grass. I ran to get my camera and was able to capture one with the lens. I must have spooked the others accidently with opening the door. 🙃😌

I turn to the written word too to help me and searched for hope with storms and I found this.

Isaiah 43:2 New International Version

When you pass through the waters,

I will be with you;

and when you pass through the rivers,

they will not sweep over you.

When you walk through the fire,

you will not be burned;

the flames will not set you ablaze.

For those that are wondering, we have a strong house that was built after 2007 or so. It was built to withstand hurricane force winds. We are inland and are almost 40 feet above sea level. We are not in an evacuation zone. Our area is not even coded as a flood area at all. We have our metal shutters on our windows, we locked our garage and we have supplies.

I am nervous but Blake and I decided that it is safer for us to stay here because there is unpredictability with these hurricanes and we don’t want to clog up roads when others must evacuate.

That being said, if we were in an evacuation zone, we would be evacuating.

I want to leave you with an encouraging word.

There is an amazing thing I notice when facing traumas together. I have seen on Facebook, the neighbor apps, in talking to others, searching for supplies, that people are really supporting each other and loving each other. People who rarely talk to each other are reaching out and listening and lending support or help with getting boards or shutters on windows. Others are housing others from the storm. I am seeing a lot of beauty in my community and it brings tears to my eyes.

Thank you for listening and let us keep supporting each other through life’s traumas.