Snap, crackle, pop

We are enduring the worst ice storm I remember in my lifetime. It started about 10:00 this morning with a heavy rain. That started freezing on the trees and power lines at about 10:30. It rained all day and we are supposed to have more rain, sleet, and snow over night. The snap, crackle, pop noises of limbs falling is very eerie. It almost sounds like gun shots at times. The roads are now getting slick and schools and businesses all over the state are closing tomorrow. We live in a neighborhood with many old trees and they aren't fairing well. Our yard is covered and part of our back fence just got wiped out. There are 51,000 homes in my city without electricity. The homes across the street are out but amazingly we still have power. They are calling in crews from Oklahoma to help get the outages repaired but are still telling some people it will be 3 or 4 days before they get it restored.

Earlier this evening my husband and I were outside and saw a limb fall on our neighbor's car. Erin went to see if he could help her move it and I stayed on our porch. I heard the same tree start to pop and yelled at them to move. The next thing I new I saw them both go down. I started screaming for my husband and he didn't respond so I started running. I just remember screaming his name the whole time. When I got over to them our neighbor was down on the ground and Erin was trying to help her get up. He was okay but she got hit in the head with the limb. Our neighbors across the street came running when they heard me screaming. The lady had her daughter come get her and take her to the hospital. She just came back and let us know that she's okay, but had to get about 10 staples in her scalp.

I was so scared that Erin had been seriously injured or killed that I broke down when we got back in the house. He just held me and let me cry. Now we are looking out the front or back door every 5 or 10 minutes to make sure that the branches haven't caused any crisis situations. The wind is going to pick up soon and that will be even bigger trouble.

So, on to another subject. It has been a VERY long time since I posted. Some of that is because the last couple of times I tried to post something went wrong and my post got lost. The main reason is that I just didn't know what to say. So much is going on and I have been so out of it. The girls are still with us. They have been here for just over 6 months now. I can't believe how much we love them. Angela is now 20 months old and Ali is 9 months. They are getting so big and changing so quickly. Angela keeps surprising me with new words. The most disturbing one is "boobie." Okay, I said it ONE TIME and now it's her favorite word. When she sits on my lap she'll pat my chest and say "boobie, boobie" with such glee. I try not to laugh or make a big deal out of it, but it really does crack me up. She walked up to me tonight, touched her cheek, and said "face." Shocked me!

My sister was featured on the "Most Wanted" for our county a couple of weeks ago. Looks like the charges from the night the girls came to live with us are catching up with her. She keeps cycling through a month or two of being sane (in terms of what's sane for her) and then a month or two of being way out of it. About once a month she tells us she wants us to adopt the girls because she can't do what she should to be able to parent them and then the next day she acts like she never said it. I really think she has borderline personality disorder but she's such a good manipulator that she's got all of the "professionals" in her life snowed into thinking she's changed into this productive, sober person. It scares me to death to think that a judge would let the girls ever go back to her.

We had a hectic but fun Christmas. I'm so excited because my mom gave me a teach yourself to knit book and some supplies. I wanted to start last summer but with two babies moving in I just haven't had time. Go figure! Anyways, I'm going to make time now. I'm sick of worrying about my sister and what she has up her sleeve. I'm ready to do something therapeutic for myself.

2005 has to be a better year. I don't think I've posted about this before but I have an uncle that has been missing for a little over 2 months now. He had a very bad drug addiction and we are guessing that he's not alive. The last time anyone saw him he had taken my grandmother's car to the grocery store to cash a check for her. The police found the car and chased it. The driver crashed it and ran but it wasn't my uncle.

My brother is doing a little better. He was in a really crappy nursing home here and got such bad bed sores from the poor care he got that they went all the way down to the bone. He moved to a hospital about two and a half hours away. It breaks my heart that he's so far away but at least he's being well cared for.

Our electricity has flickered a couple of times so I'm going to sign off for now. One of my "resolutions" is to keep this site a little more updated. I'll really try. As I have said before, reading the blogs of my on-line friends, even though I haven't kept mine up, has been very good for me. I hope you are all doing well!