Goodbye Uncle John....

You will be missed. The Marker clan reunions will not be the same without you. Who will go in the water in their clothes because it is too hot? Who will be the friend to all?

Rest in peace and know that you are loved.

In the Dark....

Early this morning Paige started barking, not continuous but several times. I told her to stop but she wouldn't. That's when I realized that the table fan and the fan on the central air weren't making any noise. And, my clock was not lit up.

Uh-oh.

Power outage.

Must be because of the thunderstorm we were having.

I realized what was irritating Paige. The battery backup for the computer. Now I turn my computer off every night but leave the battery backup on. So I came to the office and turned it off. Grabbed the flashlight off the desk hutch and went to the living room to look at the one clock that runs off of batteries.

5:05 a.m.


OK, I had planned on going in early today so being up this early would have worked. After all I am wide awake. But I can't see to get ready. I'm not about to take a shower in the dark. And, putting on makeup..... No thanks.

So we go back to bed. Needless to say I do not go to sleep, just toss and turn and can't get comfortable. A little while later I decided to get my cell phone and see if it has an alarm I can set. It does so at 5:30 I set it for 6:15 just in case the power doesn't come back on. Then I look out my bedroom windows and the neighbor across the street has a light in his kitchen window.... so is it just me??? Still too dark so I get back in bed.

The alarm goes off at 6:15 so I get up and look out the window again. Another house across the street has a light on. So I take the flashlight and go to the basement to check the breakers. All OK there so I know it just isn't me. Now the houses behind me that are on the same transformer.... one house I can't see any lights because the main room in the back has no window facing my house, another area is a porch they don't use and the only window in the back I've never seen a light. The other house behind me.... the couple are on vacation so no lights at all! I went onto the screened in porch and looked at the house to the east of me. It doesn't appear that they have lights either.

So it is now close to 6:30. I use the cell phone to call work and tell Vicky that I just might be late.... She laughs and says they'll see me when I get there. I'm looking out the front window at this time and the guy across the street is getting ready to leave for work. So I run to the front door and yell at him. He was nice enough to come over and open the garage door for me, let me back my vehicle out and close it again. I just can't get it to stay down when I put it down with no electricity.

It is now light enough that I can sort of see to get ready for work. Makeup was a challenge in the dim light but they said it looked OK at work. When I was getting ready to leave, I couldn't find my cell phone. Well, I finally found a phone that would work without electricity and called the cell. Found it!

And, off I went to work. Got there on time :)

One of the service directors also lives in this area and he was also without power. About 7:45 he told me that he was headed home to hook up their generator when his wife called and said it was back on. Big relief.

When I got home at 4:30, the clock in the kitchen showed it had been back on for 9 hrs 10 min. That put the power coming back on around 7:20 a.m. About 5 minutes after I left.

And, the rest of my day.....

was just "out of sorts".

Meh.

Happy Anniversary Mae and Tom!

I had the privilege of attending a celebration for a 60th wedding anniversary today. Tom is my Mom's cousin and I've known them all my life. It was a good time.... seeing family I haven't seen for awhile. Also had a chance to catch up with several acquaintances of my parents from years past.

Their daughter did something rather unique. She had guests either bring photos or memories to write about. She had the supplies there for creating scrapbook pages. Some pages had been done prior to the celebration and were already in albums. Such a nice idea. I found a picture earlier this week with the 3 of them in it so I printed it and took it along then made a page right there!

I've been doing digital scrapping for 5 months now and took the liberty of doing my layouts for today already. I'd like to share those layouts. Here's the double page spread.



A close up of the left side:


And a close up of the right side:


Here's hoping there are many more years to come!