Matt and I have survived a whirlwind few months, but we have (hopefully) come out on the other end (mostly) unscathed.
We survived our trip to Europe. Matt and I went to Prague, Vienna, and Budapest to celebrate our 10-year anniversary. We booked our trip with Collette – which we saw advertised on Wheel of Fortune. We were (as we expected seeing as we saw the tour advertised on Wheel of Fortune) the youngest couple on the trip. That was more than fine with Matt and I though – we have more in common with empty-nesters than we do with most of our peers.
There were no terrorist attacks. (Although there was some questionable police presence on a Budapest bridge…) I was fearful enough of some sort of attack that I left my family a list of where we kept our important documents and we had a conversation about who gets pug-Pearl if something happens to us.
We also survived our 10+ hour flights which was the part I was most worried about. A big plane (one with two stories) and a nice in-flight movie and music selection helped.
We survived Hurricane Irma. We got home from Europe just in time to carry all our patio furniture into the garage and put up our one hurricane shutter. We lost power about eight hours before the eye of the storm came through, then we lost cell service.
When we were eventually able to get a call to go through to my mom, she was convinced we were lying about being okay. She demanded a picture of us to prove that we really were all right. Then she analyzed the photo – “Your house looks crooked.” (It’s not.) “What’s wrong with your window?” (It’s open – because it’s hot.) “I can’t see your arms or legs!” (Our arms and legs are fine!)
We survived evacuating to Illinois. Our round trip amounted to 40ish hours in the car with Pearl. And, finding gas and a hotel room wasn’t easy…
We (mostly) cleaned out our refrigerator and freezer before we left, but I was prepared to have to drag the thing out to the curb and buy a new one – just in case something was overlooked in our dark, quick clean-out. I didn’t want our dirty laundry, wet towels, etc. to stink up our house, so we carried it all out to the lanai. (The lanai that was wide open to outside because a corner of our cage was floating in the pool.) Our dirty laundry survived. Our refrigerator survived.
Then, I survived some tough-love from my beta-readers. Silly me… I thought my book was done. Ha! Wrong!
So, I’m tackling another revision which I’m currently about 1/5 of the way through.
Side note: You know how on Survivor (the TV show) some women look cuter and cuter the further they make it into the season – like dirt and grime and filthy hair kind of ‘become’ them. Well, I learned that is NOT me. By day three with no power and limited water after the hurricane – I squelched that idea for myself.