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Songbird76

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
epcotisbest said:
Hope everyone is doing well. I have not posted in this thread in more than a week because I have been way busy cleaning up tornado damage. We are very blessed that our house was not damaged in the tornado that came through more than a week ago, but we have lots of storm damage to trees and power lines. We were out of power for three days and lost all the food in the fridge and freezer, and there was no access to our neighborhood for a couple of days until the piles of trees were cut back and pushed out of the way for power trucks to get in.
I am going to post some photos from our property.
As I said, we are very blessed to not have house damage as a house behind us lost part of its roof and back deck and another had a tree come through the roof and lots of water damage to the inside.

OK, can't post photos right now. I get this message
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Oh I'm so glad to see you! I was wondering about you when I saw about the tornados, but it seemed like it was ongoing when I saw it, and I wasn't sure how close it came to you. I'm so glad you are ok and that your house wasn't damaged. Will insurance cover the damage for your neighbors? Was anyone hurt? Last count I saw said at least 18 dead, I thought, but that was across like 4 or 5 states. My dad's house was totalled in 2005 by a tornado. It ripped half his roof off, hail broke all the windows, and he somehow slept right through it and was fine...he didn't even know there had been a tornado. It scared me to death because he was supposed to be at a family reunion at the time, he had talked of nothing but his trip to Kansas for the family reunion. Then our cousin emailed me to ask me if I had talked to my dad because he never showed up. (He got up in the morning to drive there and realized the pickup was due for an oil change, and he didn't feel like taking it in to get it changed and didn't want to drive it halfway across the country without changing the oil. So he didn't go.) I tried calling, but the power lines and phone lines were all down, and he lived 20 miles out of town, so no one could go check on him. He was able to call me a few days later when they got the lines back up, and let me know he was fine, but his house was not. So so scary!
Did you have some advance warning so you could take cover?
 
epcotisbest

epcotisbest

Well-Known Member
Songbird76 said:
Oh I'm so glad to see you! I was wondering about you when I saw about the tornados, but it seemed like it was ongoing when I saw it, and I wasn't sure how close it came to you. I'm so glad you are ok and that your house wasn't damaged. Will insurance cover the damage for your neighbors? Was anyone hurt? Last count I saw said at least 18 dead, I thought, but that was across like 4 or 5 states. My dad's house was totalled in 2005 by a tornado. It ripped half his roof off, hail broke all the windows, and he somehow slept right through it and was fine...he didn't even know there had been a tornado. It scared me to death because he was supposed to be at a family reunion at the time, he had talked of nothing but his trip to Kansas for the family reunion. Then our cousin emailed me to ask me if I had talked to my dad because he never showed up. (He got up in the morning to drive there and realized the pickup was due for an oil change, and he didn't feel like taking it in to get it changed and didn't want to drive it halfway across the country without changing the oil. So he didn't go.) I tried calling, but the power lines and phone lines were all down, and he lived 20 miles out of town, so no one could go check on him. He was able to call me a few days later when they got the lines back up, and let me know he was fine, but his house was not. So so scary!
Did you have some advance warning so you could take cover?
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Thanks for the kind words.
No one in our neighborhood was hurt, but there are some damaged houses. We did have an alert on the phone that woke me, that and the wind howling, and gave us time to get to the basement closet before all heck broke loose. We are quite fortunate compared to folks who lost their homes and worse yet some who lost their lives (none close by).
Sorry to hear about your dad's house. I can say for certain it is scary. I can't even imagine how bad it would have been had we had house damage, as we were scared big time without house damage.
Things are slowly coming back to normal but it is going to take quite some time to get up all the downed trees and limbs, some of which may just wind up lying where they fell.
 
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epcotisbest

epcotisbest

Well-Known Member
So I got a little carried away with breakfast this morning in anticipation of needing some energy for the day's cleanup work.
Here is my concoction, a quadruple layer breakfast biscuit with two layers of hash browns, sausage, eggs and of course mayo on a biscuit too thick to eat. I sometimes do silly things.

81793E9D-2EF2-44B3-9911-2FB4AC08FEE4.jpeg
 
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Songbird76

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
HouCuseChickie said:
If I had more time, I would be using this as a life skills teaching opportunity. Unfortunately, even in this work from home world, I think they're still missing out on all of this stuff because of work demands. Mac & Cheese is kind of my specialty. Some of my friends insist I must somehow have some old southern grandma in me because of my mac. I don't have a recipe, but I can tell you some of the things I do for mine that may help. My kids like the boxed stuff too, but me making it is always a real treat. I can't really eat it anymore, but like cake, I know what it's supposed to look and feel like.

I usually start out by making mine in a pot. I only do a few things differently if I want to bake it. In an ideal world, I like using bronze cut pasta since it really holds together better. Pasta is currently hard to come by, so I'll use whatever I can get. For cheese, I usually have a blend of cheddar, good American (either the Kraft deli style deluxe stuff (not the wrapped singles) in the foil pack or the Boars Head stuff out of the deli case), Monterrey Jack (or even a Colby/Jack mix), Havarti, and if I want some added tang...a little bit of Gouda. The cheese definitely adds some serious cost to the dish. American usually has the highest concentration since it blends the best and doesn't get oily, often equal parts of cheddar and jack, and less of the others noted. Heavy cream is a must to help it blend and it should be well salted. If I am going to bake it after I have gotten it all together in the pot, I make sure to make a cheese sauce from a roux to pour over it...which will help keep it from drying out in the bake process. Sometimes I also sprinkle shredded cheddar into it as I start loading it into the baking dish. I add a more generous layer of shredded cheese on the top before baking so it can form a nice crust. I am not a bread crumbs person with mine. Usually, we just stick with the stove top version, but it's good either way.

Good luck with the vaccine. I believe my older one had to have the first round of that before starting 7th grade. I don't remember her having any adverse effects, but everyone is different.

That's nice that they have some vacation weeks right now. We're done with all breaks until the end of the school year (which we now know will all be digital). I think mine have been working ahead as well. I think being home and not sitting through entire lessons gives them the chance to work at a much faster pace. I know my older one wishes they were giving even more (they are if asked, but she finishes that too), so she's been supplementing with other online resources. My older one is not a big fan of PE either. It didn't start until 7th grade, but our district started offering dance as a PE alternative. Unfortunately, she won't have that option in high school, so she's really hoping she makes one of the softball teams so she has that as her approved PE. I'm not sure how the kids in PE and Athletics are having lessons at the middle school level, but for dance, they're doing report/written assignments as well as Zoom dance lessons and video uploads of their physical dance homework. Either way, I'm sure your daughter is thrilled to be getting an A for that class!
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Well, it sounds like we basically did exactly what you do for your mac n cheese...I guess we're just not homemade mac n cheese people. We did a roux, added milk and cream (there is no distinction between creams here...it's all just cream.) Then we put in 2 cups of cheddar, 2 cups of gruyere, 1 cup of emmantaler, and 1 cup of gouda. (those were the kinds I could get here) Once it was all mixed and creamy, we added the pasta, then put half in the baking dish, sprinkled the last 2 cups of the cheese mixture over, then added the other half of the pasta/cheese sauce, and we did do a bread crumb with parmesan on top, and baked it. But it just doesn't have a good flavor and it was still really pasty rather than smooth and creamy. So I guess we just aren't homemade mac n cheese people. My husband and my son won't touch mac n cheese in any form anyway. But we were really disappointed because it took us SOOOOO long to grate all that cheese, and make the sauce all creamy before adding in the cheese....we spent almost an hour on prep time with two of us, before it even went into the oven. And then we didn't like it. Oh well....at least now we know, and we will just have to see if we can order some online. There's a company where you can order and they'll import it here. And my best friend is supposedly sending us some. But we tried. My daughter feels bad because she thinks she did something wrong. She made the roux, and added the cream and stuff, and she asked me "Is this what it's supposed to look like??" I said yes, and then we had to turn down the heat so it wouldn't scald before I got all the cheese mixed and she thinks maybe she scalded it before we got it onto the lower heat. I'm sure she didn't do anything wrong...it's just we can't get American cheese here, and what we get just isn't what we like.

Our school goes into July. Last year, our last school day was July 19th. This year, it's the 17th. That's why they still have vacation now. They are talking about opening schools back up, but some are pushing for high schools to stay closed longer because high school kids tend to cover more area. They come from farther away, they get together with friends and hang out, they sometimes have projects for which they have to leave the schoolgrounds. So they are more likely to spread the virus. There's a press conference with the PM every Tuesday and they are supposed to announce at tomorrow's what the plan is for opening things back up.

The vaccination went well. We had an hour window in which to show up. We were there about 10 minutes early, there was no one else there, so we were in, out, and on our way back home before her official window opened. We're only about 7 minutes by bike away from where they were doing the vaccinations. She said it didn't really hurt, and so far she's fine. But they only have to have 1....you mentioned a first round, but the only one my daughter had 2 rounds of was the HPV. This one was for meningitis, and that was her last vaccine, so now she's done!

One thing about schools over here is that it's all the standards, and that's it. Nothing alternative. Like, I remember when I was in high school, my school was tiny, so we also only had the classic subjects, but the high school in the next town over had things like Psychology, philosophy, or they had poetry for an English credit, and I think sports may have been considered a PE. Ours weren't. We had the classic Math, Science, English, social Studies, but it was a set class for each year and there was no variation. The only exception was that if you were in advanced math, you skipped 8th grade math and went directly to Algebra in 8th grade, then geometry in 9th, Algebra II in 10th, Trigonometry/Pre calc in 11th, and Calculus as a senior. So you just moved everything up a year and then did Calc as a senior, and some seniors had "bonehead math" which was the basics like percentages and word problems. There were only 5 of us in my Calc class, I was the only girl, and 2 of the boys were not even from our school. One was an exchange student and the other was bused in from the next town over to reduce their overcrowding problem. So we really didn't have anything special. And here, it's all the classic subjects. My daughter, as an 8th grader, has Physics, Math, English, German, French, Dutch, Religion and culture, Geography, History, Art, Music, PE, Research and Design Technology.....I think there's maybe one more. Next year she has all that plus biology and economics, I think? and chemistry. But PE is the standard PE stuff...no dance, and since there are no school sports, none of that counts. DD is a clutz like me, so PE is not her friend. But research and writing, that she's really good at, so the theoretical side of PE is much easier. She was SO happy with her A!
 
Songbird76

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
epcotisbest said:
Our back driveway:

View attachment 464988
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My husband says "When they say 'quarantine', you don't have to go to those extremes. You can just stay home." (ie, no need to barricade yourselves in!)

I personally love the fire hydrant sticking up right next to all the downed trees, like some misshapen tree trunk. But in all seriousness, it looks like you were really lucky to escape with only debris to clean up. I'm so glad you're ok!!
 
Songbird76

Songbird76

Well-Known Member
epcotisbest said:
Thanks for the kind words.
No one in our neighborhood was hurt, but there are some damaged houses. We did have an alert on the phone that woke me, that and the wind howling, and gave us time to get to the basement closet before all heck broke loose. We are quite fortunate compared to folks who lost their homes and worse yet some who lost their lives (none close by).
Sorry to hear about your dad's house. I can say for certain it is scary. I can't even imagine how bad it would have been had we had house damage, as we were scared big time without house damage.
Things are slowly coming back to normal but it is going to take quite some time to get up all the downed trees and limbs, some of which may just wind up lying where they fell.
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Well my dad lived in a trailer house, and those don't stand up well to storms. He's lucky to have lived through it! I don't know how in the world he slept through that!! He must be a deep sleeper. If the roof was being ripped off, and I heard all the windows breaking, I'm sure I'd have woken up.

How did the dogs handle it?
 
Figgy1

Figgy1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
epcotisbest said:
Hope everyone is doing well. I have not posted in this thread in more than a week because I have been way busy cleaning up tornado damage. We are very blessed that our house was not damaged in the tornado that came through more than a week ago, but we have lots of storm damage to trees and power lines. We were out of power for three days and lost all the food in the fridge and freezer, and there was no access to our neighborhood for a couple of days until the piles of trees were cut back and pushed out of the way for power trucks to get in.
I am going to post some photos from our property.
As I said, we are very blessed to not have house damage as a house behind us lost part of its roof and back deck and another had a tree come through the roof and lots of water damage to the inside.

OK, can't post photos right now. I get this message
  • A server error occurred. Please try again later.
Click to expand...
I'm just glad you guys are ok, everything else can be fixed or replaced xoxo
 
Figgy1

Figgy1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
epcotisbest said:
So I got a little carried away with breakfast this morning in anticipation of needing some energy for the day's cleanup work.
Here is my concoction, a quadruple layer breakfast biscuit with two layers of hash browns, sausage, eggs and of course mayo on a biscuit too thick to eat. I sometimes do silly things.

View attachment 465012
Click to expand...
You did my boys proud;)
 
Figgy1

Figgy1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I think I'm finally almost used to my dh being on nights, not that I'm ever totally used to it when it happens:hilarious: I'm doing my yearly spring raw clean out my system 3 days of raw liquids then a gradual reintroduction of solids. Seeing I'm doing this later than usual due to dh's shift change I was able to add in way more raw foods over the past few days so I didn't shock my system as much as in some years. I started a Psyche truth 30 day series this morning because as much as I love Adrienne it's time for a change and for this week I'm not supposed to do anything but yoga and puttering/slow walking. I hope everybody is coping with the new hopefully not for too long normal. xoxo Figgy
 
StarWarsGirl

StarWarsGirl

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
epcotisbest said:
Ok, the internet went out and is back again, as they are running new lines down through here. See if pics work this time.
Here is where I used to park the camper before we sold it. Lots of limbs and leaves:

View attachment 464984
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Was this from last week's storms? I have relatives in South Carolina in between Savannah and Charleston. They said the storms were bad.
 
epcotisbest

epcotisbest

Well-Known Member
Songbird76 said:
Well my dad lived in a trailer house, and those don't stand up well to storms. He's lucky to have lived through it! I don't know how in the world he slept through that!! He must be a deep sleeper. If the roof was being ripped off, and I heard all the windows breaking, I'm sure I'd have woken up.

How did the dogs handle it?
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The dogs were amazingly calm. Oh, they were a bit agitated to be awakened from their slumber and carried downstairs, but once in the closet they just went back to sleep.
 

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