The Twilight Zone

I feel like I have been trapped in the twilight zone the past couple of days. Do you know those days when everything goes from bad to worse? It all started with my aunt's funeral yesterday morning. It was a lovely service and we were able to say our good-byes, but as we all lined up in our cars to head to the graveside service---the bottom fell out, limbs started flying, and all of our cars were literally moving on their own from the wind. We discovered we were under a tornado warning, so they cancelled the graveside service due to down power lines and trees and everyone headed to my grandparent's house for lunch. Addison was with Mrs. La-La, so Colin and I rushed to get her since it was storming. We had to turn around twice and go alternate routes because of trees in the road.

Once we picked her up, traveling became even more difficult. We tried to go down Halls Ferry and it was blocked, tried to cut through Waterways and the back gate was blocked, and then tried Porters Chapel Road and it was blocked also. We headed down Gibson Road and got almost to the end and there was another tree down. With all the turning around and driving around the world, our gas light came on. Seems easy enough to solve, huh? Well, all the gas stations were without power. We finally made it to my grandparent's house for lunch with the gas light still on. My grandparents had a packed house, but no electricity and no way to heat all of the casseroles and other food that people had dropped off. Luckily, we had a sandwich tray, bread, chips and cookies to feed everyone. Addison started getting cranky and we wanted to head home, but we got word that we couldn't get down our street because of another tree down past the golf course and would have to go all the way to Flowers to get home. We weren't sure if we had enough gas to go all the way around, but decided to try it anyway. Luckily, we made it home and came inside to crash--- in the DARK! Our power was out along with the rest of Warren County and Entergy estimated that we wouldn't have power restored until 10 p.m. Saturday. Great!

The icing on the cake came at 2:30 this morning! Addison woke up crying (thank goodness Colin heard her from across the house since we had no electricity to use the baby monitor) and she was running almost 104 degree fever and had started vomiting. Even though this is an inconvenience, it's ten times worse with no power. Colin and I took turns holding the flash light while one of us held Addison over the sink to throw up. I couldn't put her back in her bed, so she had to sleep with us for the rest of the night. She was miserable and couldn't sleep, so we were miserable and didn't sleep. This morning, Colin tried to go get my dad's generator so that he could keep our food from spoiling. He and his dad had problems with it after moving it and it wouldn't crank. They worked for 2-3 hours on it. Meanwhile, Addison's fever started going back up to almost 104 degrees again and I decided we needed to go to MEA in Clinton to get her checked out. Again, easier said than done when you have no power to dry your hair, a husband outside trying to still crank the generator who can't help with the crying child, and wait--I forgot all about a little something called bed rest! :)

Colin finally got the generator cranked, so I was able to dry my hair and we rushed out the door to take Addison to the doctor. We had to wet her down with cold rags on the way over because she became so lethargic. After a two-hour wait at MEA, the doctor said she has an "ugly red throat" with pus pockets. It's most likely viral, but he gave us some Amoxicillin anyway. We were able to finally eat lunch at 2:30 and headed back home. And praise the Lord, once we got back---the power was on! So, we are now finishing up the weekend with a sick child, but at least we have power and gas in our car! What a way to kick off the weekend!