Me No Likey Ikey

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ike....

Monday morning Tim and I (along with other members) went up to the church to help them do some preliminary clean up. The damage there is quite extensive. Our education building (top pic) has one entire wall that came crashing down. The playground was completely up-lifted and moved to the back parking lot (third and fourth pic). We also had a hole in the roof of the sanctuary building, and some siding torn off (second pic). The last pic is of our Youth Pastor, Josh, trying to pull the fence back together. This is where the playground use to be. I'm going out on a limb, but am guessing the church got hit by a tornado.

Things are slowly returning to normal around this part of town. We went to HEB today. They are still not fully stocked. They won't have eggs and milk for a few more days. We had to make a separate trip to Randall's to get eggs and milk. School for Clear Creek should return on Tuesday next week. Well, staff returns on Monday, and the students come on Tuesday. Although, the final decision will be made tomorrow at 4 p.m. The good news is that TEA is not requiring us to make the days up. :) Thanks TEA!!

When we got home from running errands, we saw my downstairs neighbor and found out her husband died Monday night from not being able to get his dialysis. How sad is that? Apparently the hospitals would not do it, and they told her to take him to Austin to get it done.

Have a great week!

We survived Ike!!!!!

Ike has officially come and gone. He has left his mark, too. The past two days my parents, Tim and I have spent cleaning up the yard. They had two trees uprooted in the backyard. Fortunately, they fell into the yard and not on the house! Of course there are tons and tons of twigs and leaves down, all of which require raking. We amazingly only lost power. Their landline phone still works and there is running water! You are probably wondering how in the world I'm able to blog tonight, but miraculously the power came back up about an hour ago. There won't be power at my apartment for weeks (saw downed power lines, chopped in half this afternoon!), so I might just be camping out here for awhile.

I got to travel around town a little yesterday and again today to go to my dad's office to see the cats and take care of them. What a mess there is to clean up yet. It's amazing what Mother Nature can do to a town.

Tim and I also traveled to the apartment this afternoon to check things out. It is fine as well. I talked to the people who live below me, and they said the water came close to coming in but backed off just in time. Although I wouldn't have suffered water damage since I live on the second floor.

Clear Creek ISD is closed indefinately. I have to say I'm not surprised since most of Kemah and Seabrook were completely underwater and these two communities are in our school district. I called our school receptionist, who works and lives across the street from school, and it appears that our building (from the outside) seems to be fine.

Tomorrow entales more cleaning at the house, and if I can, travel to the church to help the skeleton crew start cleaning it up. Aparently it suffered some sever damage. I say if I can travel since the city of Webster is under lock and key with getting residents back in their community. They are urging them not to come home yet since the debris on the road is supposedly terrible.

I'll try and get some pics to post, for those of you who have NEVER seen the aftermath nor experienced a hurricane first hand.

Have a great week!
Thanks be to God for protecting us during Ike.

A New Addition?

Friday morning upon leaving to have breakfast with Jamie and Lori, there stood outside my front door a kitten, not but maybe 8 weeks old. It followed me down the stairs and to my car. I didn't think much about it. That evening, I picked Tim up, and we ran a few errands, ate, then came here to hang out for a little while. While we were out and about, I told him about this kitten, and that he wasn't hanging around the door when I got home from school. Well, low and behold, there it was when I returned from dinner with him. He immediately looked at it, determined it had no fleas, and he started to feed it cat food. (I tried to deter him, since two cats are enough!) In case you don't know, he has a very soft heart for animals. This kitten has since been named, and I fear it's here to stay. He named him Sylvester. He is cute, and quite a playful thing. George and Lola are tolerating him, George more so. If you know of somebody who wants a kitten, let me know.

All eyes are on the Gulf. Hurricane Ike, I have two words for you....
Go away!

Hope everybody has an awesome week!

Labor Day Festivities and Wedding Plans

Labor Day weekend....

Oh how sweet it was to have a three day weekend! Tim and I went to Holly's and Joe's for a little grub and hanging out time Monday night. Heather and Tommy later showed up at the house, too. What a great time we all had! Getting Joe, Tommy and Tim together will always be interesting. You'll never know what those three will be up to!!! The three muskateers in the making!!

Wedding plans update...

Mom and I visited with Ginger Ramsey from Events 'n' Petals last week. The flowers are all ordered. Yippee!!! One more item checked off the list. Heather finished the invitation sample last week. Now it's time to order the paper so Heather, Holly, Jamie and I can get to crackin' on those invitations. Yes, handmade, but I wouldn't have anything less, of course!

Hope everybody has a great week!

Catching a Smile!

Look at that sweet face! One just can't ignore it. Her smile is contagious, isn't it? Julia will be a perfect flower girl, don't you think? It's hard to believe she started kindergarten today.

Speaking of the first day of school....talk about exhausting. Yes, the children started today. I didn't have students in the library and won't until Wednesday next week. But, BUT.... I did come home and take almost an hour and half nap!!! I have yet to understand what causes me to be so wiped out after the first day, but it happens every year like clockwork. Come home and sleep. One would think by now (now that I've done if for the 9th time!) I would remember that I'm wiped out at the end of the day. Although I have to say I remember my first day of my first year of teaching specifically. I came home and laid down at 4:30. The next thing I knew my alarm clock was going off to get up for day 2 and I was still in my clothes from the day before! Needless to say I haven't been that bad off since, thank goodness!

Tomorrow after school I'll be off to meet with another florist for the wedding. I haven't found one I like yet. Hopefully this one will be perfect. I'll let you know. This weekend I went to Williams-Sonoma and registered. I think I can officially mark registrations off the list. That makes two places now--Bed, Bath and Beyond and Williams-Sonoma.

That's all for now my friends.
Have a GREAT week!

Ode to Book Suggestions....

Name the book that these Build-A-Bear bears represent. Yes, it's a classic that everybody must read! I bet you have all read it too at some point in time. If you haven't read it, I know you've at least seen the movie with Judy Garland. Of course, it's The Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum.

So... my point....
Day in and day out I get asked by friends (and my students, of course!) for book suggestions and what I'm currently reading. Nine times out of ten it's a children's book. (I can't imagine why!) You will notice to the right a section I've titled "The Librarian Suggests Reading....". If you are in need of a good read (and don't mind it being a children's book!), check one of these out at your local library. Let me know if you've read it and what you think.

Happy reading!

It's Tim!!!!

Here's the only pic I have of Tim for now. (Please ignore the giant hole in his sock!) I know....it's not the best pic, and I will try and do better soon. It's kind of hard to get pictures of the two of us together when he's gone during the week. This picture was taken about two weeks ago when the two of us and my parents went to Lake Conroe for a nice two day, one night get away. We vegged mostly. We went out for dinner at a little hole in the wall restrauant in Willis on Saturday night. If you have never experienced Willis, you should. It will give you a better appreciation for things!! Talk about being out with the country folks.

Hope everybody has a great weekend. Tim will be back in town sometime tonight! I'm looking forward to seeing him, since I haven't seen him since Sunday afternoon.