Well, I bit the bullet. I was waiting for Frank to come down and we would go together, but that trip has been postponed and postponed and my toes SO needed some attention. With the excuse I have a townhall meeting to attend tonight, I opted to get both toes and nails done! And..eyebrow waxing, my girls would be so proud...
Now I can wear grown up clothes with the open toed shoes!

For the rest of the day? Not much..perhaps some laundry, watch HGTV, just about the only decent daytime programing..maybe go out exploring. Trouble with exploring, it ususally ends up costing some money and I think I have spent my budget for the day already. It will be Stouffers chicken microwave meal for lunch with my 'fizzy water', then a long bath and get ready for the meeting tonight.

On the plus side, I have a dinner date for Wednesday night and with any luck at all Frank will be done here on Thursday for at least 3-4 days! We love the business at home, but I want to see my husband!!

Amazing things...

I was out in Bastrop today, helping with a church group that operates a distribution center for those that have lost everything. My assignment today was to drive around a specific neighborhood and pass out water and snacks to those families or groups working to clean up the various home sites. This area is or was a very wealthy subdivision. As your can tell by what is left, the homes were large and the lots were large. Nothing is left..nothing. Well, ok, the chimney is..and..look closely...amid all the charred remains, a brick and stone house gone..in the back yard, remains the wooden playhouse/swingset! We ran across two of those! And one where the trampoline remained, but the house was gone. The trampoline was not even melted and the outside netting was still in place! Of course there were the 10 lots where the houses were completely gone, but then a single home stood untouched. No different than when a tornado touches down..could skip and hop and move around. I had no idea a fire would do the same thing.

After coming back from Bastrop, I just ended up going to my room and finished out watching games that were on. By that time we had smacked Texas and were in the middle of creaming KU!

I am not sure what Sunday and Monday hold for me, will just take it a 1/2 day at a time. Need to get caught up on some paperwork and need to write a Gilbert blog. Back to work on Tuesday and it will be a busy week. They keep declaring counties and that involves work on my part! It is a mess down here, I hope they get a ton of rain and very soon.

Gilbert meets Giggles in Texas..and..I love my work :)

 After Gilbert was done with his firefighting duties, he returned to the office to prepare for the big game this weekend. Giggles from another department happened to see him and immediately attacked him with unwarrented stickers! I managed to wrestle him away, but you can see Giggles was quite pleased with himself. I brought him back to the hotel with me tonight. No way was I going to leave him there with Giggles by himself!!
I was going to post this on Gilberts blog, but I did not want the class to be tramatized by such abuse.

 We are officed in a empty Dillards spot at a mall that looks something like Crossroads Mall..partially filled, but not really. At anyrate, it is a huge place and we have occupied both floors. Up until today, the escalators were not working or were not turned on, I don't know which, I just know I was walking up the equivilant of two flights of stairs multiple times each day, usually with something heavy. But that is ok..each step is a cookie I can eat later! :)
Then.."the suits" arrive..you know, those guys from Headquarters...nice guys, one and all, but you have to do the "company" clean-up thing, put the dishes away, make the bed, make the stairs move...

A Little Bit of Living Needs to be Going On

This has been two devastating weeks. As I sit here, I can count 3 friends, 1 history-maker who have left this earth as physical beings. ALL, without exception, way too young. One only 24. I have another friend who is remembering the loss of his sister 24 years ago today. In 26 days, it will be 14 years since the passing of my Daddy. December marks 7 years since we lost my mother.

It is time...it is time to celebrate those lives by living our lives to the fullest. To let our famlies and our friends know that we love them and how important they are in our daily life. Yes, it may just be a "like" on facebook some days, but try to make it more personal and interactive more often. That is hard for me. As I have told my family on more than one occasion, I HATE phone calls! I have had to have my ear to a phone for work for so long, that talking on the phone is just a thing I don't crave or enjoy much. It is not the people, I love talking to the people, I just need the in person face to face thing. I do love chats..that is a nice compromise for me!

That said, we need to make more time to actually see each other. Remember visits with family and/or friends that just ended up with so much laughing and giggling that your tummy and face hurt at the end of the day? What a wonderful hurt..and what food for the soul.

Get in a car and go visit for a weekend, turn off the tv or heaven forbid the internet (NOOOOOO!!) and go DO something fun, different, exciting, NEW! Hubby and I have decided that at some point we are going to go tandem skydiving. He has a fear of heights big time, I do too, to a point. But it is on our list of things we want to do. I need to try sushi..ewwwww..but I am going to, really. Go to someplace wonderful in this great country of ours. Vermont anyone? The Dakota's are different and unique and everyone should see them and get to know the history of that area..Wyoming..Utah..hit the places you don't think of as 'destination' places. You'll be surprised..just do it! This country is made up of such extraordinary people and places your would have to live at least two lifetimes to get to experience it all.

So..in honor of these beautiful souls that have left us, lets get a little bit of living going on and let them know they have given us a very precisous gift.

What a day....

Today started as any normal days does, or as normal as my days start. Got myself downstairs for breakfast and grabbed an extra cup of coffee for the road. Made it to work in plenty of time, I hate hate to be late...Started catching up on the 100 plus emails that had magically appeared in my inbox since Friday.
Somewhere in the morning, I got word a classmate from our time in training for 4 weeks had passed away last week..just a week after she got home...I don't know the details, but I know she was a beautiful young lady of 24 years. Far too early to leave this earth. She was a very talented writer and just a delight to be around.
Then this evening, I was watching Dancing With the Stars. I am not entirely sure of the whole story of the young man who was a soldier and has visible burn scars on his face, but clearly he went through a life-threatening event because of his love for his country. He danced to a song that was written for those that don't make it home...I was in tears...too much for one day.
It certainly put my day in perspective and my health issues seem so trivial in the whole scheme of things. I do have asthma, I did have a bout of bronchitis, but due to the wonderful work of our doctors and pharmcuticals..I will be symptom free in about 2 days, no worse for the wear. My leg, still smarting a bit from my fall over the weekend..will be whole and pain free within a few days. ALL things so insignificant in light of what others go through..in light of over 1600 families that lost EVERYTHING they had (except their lives), in light of 10's of 1,000's of soldiers who have given everything AND their lives, in light of so many who suffer painful and lifelong illnesses and do so without complaint.
I look at families who are so split they cannot accept each other as friends/accquaintances, let alone loving and supportive family members. I see children, abused and and left to starve, be beaten, worse yet, murdered. I see marriages falling apart, or struggling to try to save a bond they once thought was unbreakable.
Why have I been chosen to be so Blessed...to have that family that loves each other "that" (arms spread wide) much, forever and always, no matter what. To have a husband that chose me, ME, oh so many years ago to love and cherish, to have and to hold, through sickness and health and richer and poorer. We have been all of those things and here we are...so much more in love today than we every knew we could be that day in August of 1975. And to have children that not only survived our poor parenting skills, but thrived...who are raising and teaching and loving the next generation to be incredible citizens of our struggling society.
Yes, indeed, I am Blessed and only by Grace..that is the one fact I am sure of.

A weekend in Austin

Since I am not working on the weekends in this deployment, I took Saturday and hooked up with a church group and assisted in cleaning up two properties in Bastrop. It was quite an adventure as well as an emotional experience. The area we were in consisted of, I would say 3 to 5 acres lots, in a rural area with lots of trees. Lots of dead and burned trees. As well this particular area had mostly manufactured homes on the lots, as you can see by the runners still there, melted and bent. That is all I saw..runners after runners..but NOTHING else..everything was burned to ashes..except of course the appliances which were just boxes of burned metal. Our job was to pile the metal in one spot, appliances in another and misc. kind of things in another, along the "curb" not that there was one. Then we raked as much as we could from inside the runners to the outside, suppose to when they pulled the runners it would be easier to see where the tie-downs were.

One could make the arguement that the manufactered homes were not as safe and they burned easier etc..just like they say for tornado's etc. But frankly, I saw lot after lot of what were BRICK homes....with nothing standing, nothing left except the chimney. Now, some of the bricks were scattered on the ground, but certainly not usable again. In my opinon, these fires were much more destructive than an F5 tornado. At least in a tornado..there is a chance, albiet small, you may be able to find something that was special, something that was yours prior..or someone will call and say they found something of yours in their yard 200 miles away...not so with a fire..it is all gone. And just like tornado's..and who knew?...there would be acres and lots of houses completely gone, then in the middle of destruction would sit a home completely untouched. And nothing to indicate it should be. trees, grass, cars with gas tanks, shingle roofs, but for whatever reason, the fire went around, there really is not explanation. God Bless the fireman and forest service folks who continue to fight these massive events daily, especially when it was 105+ outside. The weather has cooled, but the winds are up, so they are concerned that more fires will ensue, as there still has been no rain. The fires are starting earlier in the day and for whatever reason that has them very concerned. Texas is not out of the woods yet (no pun intended, as they may be out OF woods..), we can only hope rain and/or snow comes quickly.

Today I am not doing anything but laundry, as I did fall yesterday and twisted my leg..just a muscle pull, no bones involved :) But staying off of it so it can heal and I don't have to hobble into the office tomorrow as they will freak out. FEMA take the health and safety of their employee's VERY seriously. No doubt I would be in trouble. They do have a clinic on site as well as a counselor for those who need mental health assistance.

That said, I do have to do laundry today..if for no other reason than to get the ash colored clothes I was wearing yesterday out of the laundry basket. the ash went all the way through two layers of clothes and a shower was in order immediately upon arriving back at my room. Respirators were required or you could not work. Anyway, back to laundry, I found the laundry sheets that have both the soap and the softner in them and it is great for travelers.

Ok..now I can post I think...internet went down for about an hour. One more reason to figure out how to pay for an air card....trying to get one of the android guys here this weekend to give me one, but so far no luck...

Just discovered I can share this to the family blog!!

Killing many birds with one stone!! (and who really kills birds with stones...such a dumb statement...)
Today, Saturday, Sept. 26, I am sitting by myself (sad face) in a hotel in Austin, Texas. Arkansas football is playing, unfortunately losing to Alabama...would have liked to the the Crimson Tide go DOWN!.
Hubby was going to come down this week, but alas, as he was getting ready, too many things popped up that had to be done. So I am not sure he is going to make it.

I have been deployed in support of the wildfires in Texas. The biggest of which was the Bastrop fires, burning over 1500 homes and who knows how many businesses. My job title is Congressional Affairs Specialist, part of the EA team, External Affairs, or even better known in the federal world of emergancy management as the ESF-15...there are 15 ESF areas, and 14 is external affairs, in charge of just about all communications. Obviously, mine is to communicate with the Congressional and Senatorial offices that have districts effected by any disaster that my occur.

My last nine weeks have been somewhat eventful. I started with a 5 week deployement to Denton Texas to work the wildfires, but under the FMAGs, not the Disaster Declaration, as there was none at that time. FMAGs are "Fire Management Assistant Grants". They provide assistance to the fire departments and emergancy responders in suppression of said fires. Disaster Dec's can provide everything from Individual assistance to public assistance

Anyway, after spending 5 weeks in Denton, I went home for 8 days and helped Frank get caught up on bottling paint and cleaning and generally just enjoying his company. Then I left for 4 weeks of training to actually learn what I am to be doing. We started out as a group of 40 back at the Department of Homeland Security Training center in Emmittsburg Maryland. It is located about 10 miles from Gettysburg and about 8 miles from my sisters house! It was a gorgous location, though we could not leave the campus much as we did not have cars. As well, we were instructed if we saw a large black helicopter landing on the big white X on the helipad, we were NOT to run towards it and we were NOT to take pictures...I think there was a death threat involved, but most definitely expulsion from the school was in order. Camp David is just a hop skip and a jump around the corner and though the President very rarely lands there, other high level individuals as well as foriegn dignitaries do..

The end of that week was to be an orderly transition into 5 different groups to fly to 5 different locations around the country for two weeks on in the field internships with Joint Field Offices that are still up and running shutting down old disasters. Well....all hell broke loose about noon, as all 40 of us suddenly became part of the surge force for (at that time) Hurricane Irene. we were divided and redivided and it took about 4 hours to get us all deployed to where we were needed the most...only one of the places was in the original plan. Fortunately for me, I was part of a group of 8 who was sent to Burlington Vermont. Vermont was hit so very hard by (then Tropical Storm) Irene and many small historic towns in the southern part of Irene were demolished and or severely damaged by raging flood waters. So, some people drove to BWI and rented cars, or hitched rides with those who did. We then went to a semi closed military base in Ft. Deven, MA...to wait for final instructions. 3 nights there was all I needed! :) Barracks, no tv, no internet, no food on base and we had to report to the quartermaster for our sheets, blanket and towels. Thank goodness it was not hot, as there was no air conditioning either! It was a good experience though and I would not trade it.

From there, we drove to Burlington on a Tuesday am and got to the JFO (Joint Field Office) and checked in. We never got out of there until 7 that night and went and checked into a real hotel! We were pretty excited! But this one no ordinary internship and we were all utilized as Community Relations, also a component of ESF 15. but actually get into the field and deal directly with survivors. It involved ALOT of driving and even more getting in and out of the car. Well worth it and it was a real learning experience. LOVED, loved, loved Vermont! It is such a beautiful state. And the people were, with out exception, so friendly and helpful. A very 1968 sort of hippy kind of place. Would go back there in a heart beat.

After the end of two weeks there, we traveled back to Boston Logan on Sunday, 9/11 and boarded flights to Atlanta, to drive over to Anniston, Alabama to attend the last week of training at the Center for Disaster Preparadness, run by the Department of Homeland Security. This week, we trained in our specific component..mine of course, Congressional.

Finally home!!! Frank and I had a wonder 3 days together...the fair, shopping for items needed for the house...groceries, etc. Just had fun being with each other! Then Monday, I got a call to get to Austin, ASAP for DR 4029, Texas wildfires, the Disaster Declaration from Sept. 9. Designed to help those poor folks in the areas that lost so many homes.

So, here I am..hoping Frank can make it down here...but enjoying my work and hopefully will keep busy for a few months and then I can take a couple months off. The nice part of this job is that YOU decide when you want to work. You either make yourself available or not.

I hope to be home when or if Michelle and family can make it back to see us. It seems like years since we have seen them. And pretty soon Thanksgiving and Christmas are going to be upon us and who knows...as of now Dad and I are staying home...enough traveling for me for awhile. Anybody and everyone who wants to come are more than welcome and we hope you do. Christmas will be New Years, Thanksgiving will be Thanksgiving! LOL!