A Holiday Bargain With Mother Nature
Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 6:36PM
I am beginning to think that trees are not our friends. This weekend's freak snowstorm-come-treepocalypse kept Baby Mo from donning his brand new lion costume and trick-or-treating with his new friends in our new neighborhood. Oh well. At least we took pictures ahead of time.
This natural disaster thing is getting out of control. First a huge tree comes down across our deck, fence, and neighbor's house during Hurricane Irene. Now the freak October snow storm on the East Coast has brought many more trees down around our house, forcing us to be without power for FOUR days. Four!
The snow was beautiful and fun when it started on Saturday until HUGE branches started to fall around us about as rapidly as the snow was falling. This started about an hour into the storm and it was scary! Our new siding, which was just being fixed from Hurricane Irene, got smacked down by a tree. Our new fence - also an Irene casualty - was also hit. And our car was pinned in by a few trees.
Since my husband Clayton has to work in Manhattan very early on Sundays, we decided to hit the road and stay in a hotel in the city Saturday night. The next day, we all joined in the Fox & Friends Halloween parade and then had to come up with a Plan B since power in our home was still not on. The power company said that it might not come back on until Tuesday. It didn't! It came back on Wednesday!
We are thankful that we had a place to go during the four-day power outage. We have a home in the Pocono mountains that was unaffected by the storm. But we didn't know we'd be away for four days when we left in a rush on Saturday.
The most disappointing was that we couldn't dress Baby Mo up in his new lion costume and take him to our town's parade. I was really looking forward to doing that with our new neighbors. Luckily we had last year's costume with us and found a festival in our mountain town that fun too.
But we had no trick-or-treaters to enjoy and shower with high fructose corn syrup treats. And we left our carved pumpkin behind too. So very little party provisions but with baby Yoda, it was still a party.
And you know what? We took it in stride and it ended up being a fun family day:
We were lucky we had somewhere to go. We were lucky we had one another. And we were very lucky we have Traveler's Insurance! This company is the BEST! They have been so supportive during BOTH freak storms and I swear I will never complain about paying my insurance bill again as long as I live!
So Mother Nature, I read you loud and clear. The suburbs are harder than the city. You have to do more for yourself. I get that. But can I please ask in advance for a perfectly brined turkey without any pestilence or plague? If you do that, I'll make peace with the trees. Take a few weeks to think about that one...
Reader Comments (2)
Oh Nat, I'm so sorry that your Halloween plans got so muddled up. It does sound like you made the most of it though.
And I'm keeping my fingers crossed for your Thanksgiving turkey--I know how much that meal means to you!
I'm glad you and the family are safe! And it just makes me smile watching the video. Miles look so adorable in his Yoda costume. Take care, and stay safe!