Guess He Wasn't Done Yet. (Tara Taylor Quinn)

Apparently Ike wasn't satisfied with the tragic trail of destruction he left in the Houston area. Hard to believe, looking at the pictures of Galveston, that he had any evil left in his sails, but sail he did - right on up to Ohio. And we weren't prepared. Ohio doesn't get hurricanes. Tornados, yes. And we have these huge sirens that go off in every town, alerting residents to the possible onset of the funnel like damaging winds. On Sunday afternoon, while we all went about our partly sunny day, all in town was quiet. No sirens. No unrest. People were napping. Playing in their yards. Having dinner with family. Kids were on the computer instant messaging with friends. My brother was moving. The wind started to blow. But, we had a chance of afternoon thundershower, so a little wind was not noteworthy. Then it blew more. It was weird. The trees started to bend. But the sun was shining. There were no funnels. No sirens.

Tim and I got in the truck, went to the store just to get milk. Because we were out. Not because of the possible impending thunder storm. On the way back up our street, a power cord hit the side of the truck. Tim thinks it might have been a cable power cord. No official word what it was. But by the time we were back in our house, we had no electricity.

Thinking it would be on mometarily (it was a small cord and, hey, denial's an amazing thing) we put the milk in the fridge and went out back to work a bit. It would be another hour or so before we knew that we were some of the last customers at the store before it closed. The entire world - or our part of it - closed within the hour. We were being slammed with 80 mile per hour winds. They weren't kind.

Tim and I live in the woods. On a hill. Determining that we were safest outside, where we could hear the trees crack and know what to avoid, we stood out in our little oasis and listened as one tree after another cracked. And then we'd watch to see what fell. We were amazed. Kind of disoriented. We had NO idea we were having a visit from a not subdued Ike. We kept waiting for the thunder storm we'd been half expecting. It never came.

Ike did. We heard another loud crack. On the back side of our property. As with all of the other loud snaps we went over to see what had cracked. This time it was a tree about three feet in diameter. And it was going to come down. On our neighbors block construction garage that was on the edge of our property. The most we could do was cover our ears (and run a few feet) before the tree started to fall. I stood with Tim and his brother and watched as almost seventy year old block construction obliterated right before our eyes. Big cement blocks became sand. Others broke and flew. Completely impossible to believe what we were seeing.

We lost many trees and part trees in that five hours. And we lost electricity. We're going on day four now. This morning, because I had to get on line to work, I drove out of town to a place with wifi. I'm hooked up to my laptop by a special converter box in my car that turns a lighter plug into a house hold plug. (Helps to be married to an electrical engineer!) I'm charging my little mini DVD player and phone, too. And eating dry cereal and drinking diet coke from McDonald's.

Food in refrigerators over many small towns has spoiled. Last night we had the not so fine job of clearing out both the freezer and the refrigerator. I don't know which was harder, watching all that money go into garbage bags, or dealing with the stench. The goods news - it was too dark to see the pools of spoiled somethings that had formed in the bottom. I sprayed it good with disinfectant, wiped with paper towel, threw it away - and still don't know what it was. I'm okay with that.

Kids are out of school. Some businesses are still closed. The county courthouse had no electricity until last night and has been closed. But all in all we've been very lucky. There's destruction unlike anything I've ever seen, and yet, very little talk of death or injury. Of course, we aren't a very connected bunch of folks at the moment, but I hope that good news prevails.

There will be more fall out. The next storm we get, there will be more damage as weakened trees fall. In our yard we can have a huge tree that's cracked at the very top. We're hoping to help it fall. Once we get electric and can use the pole saw.


And I've learned that if I ever have to be stranded on a desert island with my husband, I'd think I was on vacation. Every night we have a fire in our backyard oasis, burning debris that became free firewood - free if you don't count the twelve hours we spent on Monday cleaning up our yard. And on the grill, we boil water. I boil water to wash dishes. And in the evenings we spend about an hour and a half to boil enough water to bathe.

We cooked a pot of ham and bean soup on the grill and had family over to eat it with us. And another night we cooked chili on the grill. And...I made brownies!!! Just like I normally do only when it came time to put them in the oven, I carried them out to Tim. He managed to regulate the heat on the grill by turning burners on and off and they cooked perfectly. Not even burned on the edges. He says they were the best brownies he'd ever had. His brother concurred. I did, too. And not just because I made them. We ate every single crumb. And my niece brought over home baked peanut butter cookies, too. She'd just baked them before the electricity went out!

Most people in our town have electric back now. There are a few of us still out. We aren't sure why. We've been told it might be Sunday before we have it back. Stories are flying around - a transformer out and waiting for parts? Or just not enough manpower? There are more lines down out by us? Tim's theory - and I'm going with this one - they're just telling us Sunday so that when it comes back on today we'll think they're heroes. I have news for them, I already think they're heroes. The task they've faced this week is daunting - overwhelming - and yet all around our little world every few hours there are reports of more electricity coming back on. They must be working around the clock.

And there are still towns around us that are completely dark. Or, at least, without lights. I think it's times that these that we become the most enlightened. When you can sit three days shy of a shower, washing out necessary clothes in the sink, stubbing your toes every time you get up to move, with no television or computers to distract your brain, and still look at the person next to you and find a perfect moment, you know you're in the right place. Last night the entertainment consisted of making up songs about boiling water. Tim showed a new level of talent. I laughed until I had tears in my eyes.

Still, a plug that worked in the house would be nice. I haven't been to a laundramat since college. And I have a husband with an aversion to them, too. If you hear some rumblings this evening - something that in any way resembles an out of tune bellowing about quarters and watching loads go round and round that will be us - finding fun in the challenges life hands us.

Of course, I'm planning on finding the electric on by the time I get home from this parking lot!

And if it isn't, that will be okay, too. Because one thing I've learned very well this past year - In every bad moment, in every hard time, there is something good. Our job is to find it. And to focus on it.

Tim and I have a new 'motto'. "We weather the storms together." The practice isn't new. Our realization of what that really means is much clearer today than it was last week. Or the week before. So take that one, Ike. You hurt us. And we were blessed.

If anyone else can share instances where good things came out of bad, the storybroads would sure love to hear them...