Surviving Ike

Well, we are two days out from Ike making landfall. Last week, amid constant radio announcements that Austin was doomed and was surely going to be without clean water and power for weeks, I (some say foolishly) bucked the norm and disregarded all the warnings.

While the rest of the greater Austin area was buying up all the emergency generators, bottled water and gasoline, I bought only some poptarts, tunafish and 2 loaves of bread.

Saturday night was a chaotic mess of flippin' thru the channels getting updates on the real hurricane danger zones. When Ike finally did make it all the way into Austin, he just kinda waved as he passed my house.

Not a single drop of rain fell on my house and the leaves on my trees barely rippled.

Now there are thousands of people in the Austin area that have emergency generators and gallons upon gallons of water that they aren't going to use. There were very few gas cans to be had in Georgetown on Sunday and I am trying desperately to believe that it was evacuees in the area that grabbed up all the gas cans. I am having trouble believing it just because of the hysteria in the area the entire week prior to Ike making landfall.

It all made me think of Y2K again...when everyone I knew was hoarding food and toilet paper.

So for those of you who were worried when you turned on the news and heard that Austin was going to have a terrible time with hurricane Ike, rest assured we weathered the storm just fine. Although my live oak could use a bit of rain.

Preteen girls, stalkers and mothers in denial

Okay, so everybody knows that preteen girls are pretty much out there in their own little world.

Bethany has been getting some really bizarre voicemails on her cell phone for a couple of weeks now. Well, last night she got three really creepy emails. We didn't recognize the email address, and since this has been somewhat ongoing, I called the police.

Well, as it turned out it was one of Bethany's friends (so called). Once we discovered who it was emailing her, I called the girl's mother. The mother was in total denial (even though her daughter admitted that she sent the emails) and accused Bethany of making the whole thing up.

I was just livid. I still am.

What I want to know today is what on earth made that child think it would be a good idea to send a message to her friend from a strange (to us) email address saying "I know who you are" "I know your email address" and "am I scaring you?"

Sometimes it makes me wonder if preteen girls have a functioning brain at all. Bethany and I talked about this weird child and we decided that it's probably best if she limits her time with this girl. Her mother admitted that this wasn't the first time this has happened "where the accuser was making the whole thing up" and that really sent up some red flags for me.

gggggrrrrrrr

But none of this connected with the emails explains the bizarre voicemail messages. That was definately a boy.

So she's got TWO stalkers???

Okay, so after all, my countdown was a bit anticlimactic...oops.

Well, I was counting down to the first day of school when once again mothers across the nation rejoice because their house again is QUIET!

The first week of school was extremely hectic this year, which is why the countdown fell flat. By the time I got the kids off on Monday morning, I was too pooped to get online and post anything!

The first week is over now and things are starting to get back to normal.

Of course, now that school is in full swing that just means that my soon to be teenage daughter is going to require her personal taxi cab...tonight it's auditions for the Shakespeare club, then a Performing Arts Alliance meeting, then a choir meeting.

Today is one of those days that I am glad Bryan is still in elementary school.