On the Outside Looking In

Once again, for the third time this year, my husband and I find ourselves 1500 miles from home with a hurricane threatening Florida. It always seems to happen on the weekend, although this time our Friday night flight was not cancelled. We could have gotten to Celebration, but we realized that we would not be able to return to work because our Sunday night flight would most likely be cancelled. No matter how much I would enjoy being "stranded" at home, work is a necessity to pay for mortgages and airline tickets.

I think I've figured out what brought on this third hurricane. I thought that if at least one person left their house boarded up after the last one, that would ward off future storms this season. But then I remembered a little incident that happened just before we left home last time. We had rehung our porch swing, and my husband said, "Should we take it down?"

I laughed and said, "No! Surely there can't be any more hurricanes this season! Just leave it hanging."

Kiss of death.

Now that the hurricane is actually starting to pummel Florida, we're getting some local coverage on the news, and of course The Weather Channel has rushed its reporters to the middle of the storm. I love seeing t.v. personalities standing in the middle of the wind and the rain, admonishing everyone else to stay inside. When we're not home in Celebration, my husband tends to follow the progress of the hurricane obsessively (I'll confess that I spend an inordinate amount of time on the internet keeping an eye on it, too).

It looks like this one might be a doozy. Beside the airport closure, Disney World is closing down once again on Sunday. That's three times in one year; unbelievable! Unreal! Those are the words that just keeping dancing through my head. The only thing that gives me a small amount of comfort is seeing how well our house rode out Hurricane Charley. I always knew that it was built to the new "hurricane code," but sometimes that doesn't mean a thing when the 100+ mile per hour winds come calling. We got by with only some minor soffit damage; after seeing what happened to the homes in Kissimmee and Poinciana, I realize that our house is very well built and that we are extraordinarily blessed.

Oh well, time to wait and watch. I'll be emailing friends in town, watching the Celebration webcam, and haunting the National Weather Service site for yet another anxious weekend. (If you want to check out the webcam yourself, I have a link on www.celebrationinfo.com. I'll be saying lots more prayers and trying to assure myself, once again, that this has to be the last one.

It has to be, doesn't it?

Please, God? Please?!

If you'd like to email me, my address is celebration@mailblocks.com

My Celebration website is at www.celebrationinfo.com.