Kristi, how very sad this news is! My sympathies to all her friends as well as her husband. I am glad your friend was asleep and that it was instantanious if it had to be. We work with our little tame pieces of nature and forget what a force she is! A storm like this reminds us, and makes the small pieces we can tame so even more precious and comfortable. I am sure that many things you do will keep your friend alive in your heart. I lost my best friend to cancer 3 years ago, but she often talks to me when I am outside, doing the things I know she loved doing. I still hear her voice calling me by the silly nickname she called me in college, her face alive with enthusiasm for new adventures. I hope your friend will stay with you in this way also. IT is very comforting.

Thanks all for the words and the phone calls. We are drying out now. Sunday brought more rain but only floding the garden so we could start on the basement. It is a good time to clean out old crap. It was either stay postive or start crying. We were very lucky, others just a few miles from me have had to evacuate and are still under water. Theh rains are the results of tropical storm Lowell, from Mexico then backed by Ike. MEN! Jessy, the overbred carp are in the pond and I spent the morning cleaning that out. I have skimmed out 6 pack plastic, water bottles, construction junk and two muck buckets of landscape mulch. Filters are going full force to clean the water now and I can see the fish again. Ocean? The only water I want to see right now is a hot shower. Dinner is out tonight, although I "cooked" the last two. We were just too tired to get cleaned up and dress to go out, even for take out. Frozen leftovers are wonderful. One glass of wine and I was out. Tricia, we live on a flood plain here so even if the insurance were to cover a claim, there is a good chance they would just drop us or move us to the high risk category. Since all appliances are running and nothing of great value needs to be tossed, we are good. And since I work for the "Good Hands" folks, I know the drill. They will play the game now, was it rain water or "seepage".... Going for a shower and a burger out now. Thaks everyone. ANd Dad said thanks for the compliments.

There are always idiots like that in these hurricanes. I haven't been watching TOO much local news because it can really get to be too much. But I was listening to a local TV station a couple of hours ago and apparently there has already been some major flooding in Galveston, Channelview, and some other low lying areas near the gulf and Galveston Bay. That was as of 6 this morning. A lot of people who THOUGHT they would ride it out were evacuating this morning. And some people were carrying stuff out of their house into their cars by wading through a couple of feet of water. You have to understand, the last major hurricane to hit Houston was in 1983. That was 25 years ago. And every time one of these storms hits the gulf, we are inundated with predictions of where it might hit for at least a week in advance. And so many times they are wrong - including this time. So, after so many "near misses" and especially after Rita 3 years ago when many evacuated and then it went east, and after Tropical Storm Eduard just about a month ago where many people evacuated, people just get immune. It's not easy to be told to evacuate over and over again and then you'd have been better off staying. It's nobody's fault, because there really is no way of REALLY knowing where it's going to hit that far in advance. But by the time it really does hit, well, it sort of becomes like the boy who cried wolf. Of course there are some who never listen as well. Anyway. It's still pretty quiet here at my house. I don't expect to see much before the wee hours of the morning. Hope Karen and Jim and Brenda check in soon!

I'm finally able to check in. First of all thanks to all for your concern! Your posts & phone calls mean so much to me. We lost power at 10:40 pm Friday, just as the winds were really starting to pick up. We went to bed and I woke up at 2:20 am to incredibly loud winds and lots of loud noises. I walked around the house several times sure there would be damage but thankfully there was none. Just as I finally fell back to sleep, around 3:20 am, the power came back on and woke me up. It was on for maybe 20 seconds then off again. We got a lot of rain at the house but actually nothing really major. I think most of the rain was to the east of us. Our front yard has a large oak (very large) and an large pine, both of which got a nice pruning by Ike. There were branches and limbs and leaves everywhere. We did about 75% of the clean up but have more to do. We now have three large piles of tree debris at the curb. Our power is still out and there's no telling when we'll get it back. I came to the office just to get out of the house. Our temps are dipping to high 60s thanks to a cold front from Canada (thanks Canada!!), so I'm hoping tonight will be more bearable sans A/C if we still don't have power, which I will be shocked if we do. Right now it's 62 hours without electricity and counting. Gas stations which are open are few and far between with long lines. I have enough gas to get me to work & back for the rest of the week and then some so I will be able to ride it out. I'm going to try to get ice on the way home but not sure if I'll be able to or not. I am extremely thankful that we made it through Ike with no damage. Some people have lost everything, many have had flooding and tree damage and more. We are very very lucky. This was a very damaging storm and very scary.