Friday, February 4, 2011

Ice Ice Everywhere, But Nary a Drop to Drink . . .

I haven't blogged this week . . .
The worst ice storm to hit TX in many years showed up in full force on Monday evening.
My husband didn't go to work Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
My children have been out of school all week.
Until yesterday, we haven't been out of the house.
Did I mention our water has been frozen since Wednesday too?

It's amazing the things you take for granted until you don't have them anymore.
Running water being at the top of my list right now.
Of course, my husband takes all the blame - I said Tuesday night "honey, shouldn't we leave the cabinets open and drip the faucets" "No, it should be fine," he said. Hmmmph Although, I do have to say I hold no blame. Listening to the world on Facebook - everyone else's water is frozen as well, so even if we HAD let the pipes drip, there's no guarantee that they would still be running right now.

So . . . no baths/showers. No dishwashing. No real handwashing to speak of. And no toilet flushing. That's right, we are conserving the toilet flushing. Not that we COULD flush . . . You see, we have this well out back (non-potable water) that we've been carting water from in order to flush the toilet. It's cold outside. REALLY cold, so we're only going out there twice a day. Thus . . . well, you ever hear the phrase "if it's yellow let it mellow" . . ? Yeah, you get the idea. We DO have some wipes to wipe our hands with, and hand sanitizer.

I think the real thing that's getting to me is not running my wonderful brand new dishwasher. Or washing clothes. Who'd have ever thought I'd miss washing clothes?!?! But I do. And doing dishes. And showering. And brushing my teeth with running water instead of bottled water. And showering. And  . . . did I mention SHOWERING??

We DID manage to get out yesterday to take my bonus son to his mom's house (we were mutually sick of each other) and to go to Wal-Mart. There is NO LESS than three inches of ICE on the roads. I haven't been on the highway yet, so I don't know how those look, but I know that, at least in the middle of our teeny-tiny-nowhere town, it looks like Greenland (why is it called Greenland, anyway? it's never green!!). And let's not even discuss the Wal-Mart parking lot . . . Those ice inches expand to around 10-12 in little hills and ravines in the Wal-Mart parking lot!! It was more treacherous than the roads!! But, braving the elements we went - and got NOTHING on our list. Distracted, much?

So today, it's snowing, and my wonderful husband has to return to work - he's out of vacation/sick time and heaven forbid the company think about the safety of their employees and shut the plant down. They gave their employees TWO hours of E-WOP (excused without pay) Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. TWO hours of UNPAID time.  Does something seem wrong with that to anyone else? So, now it's 5:10, I've been up since 4:30, and I'm not going back to sleep until I get a "I made it safe" phone call.

Praying for my husband's safety, and for the water to come back.


5 comments:

Melissa aka Equidae said...

i feel for you...hope hubby got there ok! our water never freezes....no snow or ice in Malta!

citymouse said...

Hope hubby made it to work safely. We've had some crazy weather here in Maryland but no real bad storms this year... last year was another story.

Hang in there. It's got to melt at some point.

Stopping by from SITS.

SuperMom Blues said...

Quick update - Ronnie DID make it to work - and is NOT happy with his company right now!! So thankful for his safety!

Michelle said...

I hope it warms up there soon. Not too fasth though because we don't want flooding.

Shrinking Jeans said...

So sorry girl!! We had a pipe burst this morning, so we have been without water all day today. In the same boat. No washing, no flushing, etc. Luckily I got my shower in before the pipe burst. Gregory thinks he can get the pipe fixed tomorrow. (fingers crossed). I'm just thankful that we still have power. We had to do without that for a little bit on Tuesday.