If you have been keeping up with the news about Texas this week and the terrible winter weather we are having here, we have been in pretty good shape at our house. Other houses in our neighborhood have not been as lucky. Our power stayed on until last night just as we finished dinner but came back on in four hours!! Thank goodness! The temperature was also just above freezing so not as miserable as it has been for many people.

When I was wishing I could have some hot water for tea or hot chocolate, I wondered if I still had a fondue pot that was a wedding gift many years ago and I found it! We even had sterno so I was able to heat up a small amount of water in the fondue pot very quickly (to my husband’s surprise!). Just as I got half a cup of hot chocolate made, the power came back on.

Yesterday morning we had “precipitation” but lucky for us, our temperatures were above freezing so we just got rain. Areas north of us weren’t as lucky I’m sure. We did have sleet for a moment that we noticed. While thinking about the rain coming down and wondering if we could put out containers to capture the water, my husband said there was a lot of water running down the valleys on the roof. So I emptied some plastic storage containers and found others plus buckets and we placed those around the front side and back of the house. Then my husband would go out and check them, dump the water in the containers into a bucket and bring it to the door for me. I would then dump the water into our bathtub which was just partially filled with water and we filled that up for water for flushing the toilet! When you don’t have water or water pressure, you need to pour water into the toilet and it takes a lot! A couple of gallons! So you would use up bottled water pretty fast. So that was a great idea and we got a lot of water we wouldn’t have otherwise. And who knows how much we will need.

While we are used to prepping for hurricane season, I think this winter weather has made a lot of us think about preparing for a different kind of season. It may not happen like this again in years and years. Just like before a hurricane, I made sure all the dishes were washed in the dishwasher, that all the clothes were laundered, I knew we had a lot of bottled water, we had just gotten groceries. For hurricanes, we always make sure the gas tanks are full in the car because if the power is out, you can’t pump gas at the gas station and they aren’t opened. This storm, people were sitting out in their running cars to warm themselves up if they didn’t have power. People were standing in long lines yesterday to get their propane tanks replaced or refilled because that’s the only way you could cook. In hurricane season you can evacuate or you can likely leave or get a hotel room if your power goes out, but here, at least the first couple of days/nights the streets were too icy to be driving. People stood in line at the grocery stores when they opened to get food and especially bottled water. So overall we just didn’t imagine we would need the preparation we all know about for hurricanes.

The temperature is a couple of degrees above freezing today and next week it should be 70! How can that be?! Eventually, this will be in the past, although lots of people all over Texas are going to be needing plumbers and all kinds of help. And while we are concentrating on Texas, I know there is bad weather all over the country. I think 2020 just doesn’t want to let go! Another really cold hard freeze is predicted tonight and then things should improve. Stay warm, wherever you are!