Holding Out for Hurricane Helene

This has been the weirdest, longest day… I had to work from home today, to be on call for any possible emergencies that might pop up. None did (which is both fortunate and unfortunate, because I was just bored and it felt pointless), but I was prepared either way, with coffee & a pumpkin donut.

Jeff put on his rain boots and rain jacket, and finished up the last of the hurricane prep, by clearing out all this junk on the back porch. Of course, Pennie was doing a good job supervising him front the back door.

Addie spent some time coloring…

And Emmie spent some time practicing with “how to draw” videos from YouTube.

Jeff left to go help his parents with some last minute hurricane prep in the middle of the day, so I heated up some leftovers for the girls, and tried something new for myself that I saw on TikTok.

I made a cottage cheese chicken Parmesan bowl, which admittedly sounds so weird, but was honestly amazing and delicious and low-carb and filling! (One big scoop of cottage cheese with salt/pepper/basil, topped with mozzarella cheese, as much pizza/marinara sauce as you want, air-fried chicken nuggets cut up, and topped with Parmesan. Then microwave for one minute & top with ricotta. Then you mix it all together and it looks like a messy bowl of goop, but it was delicious goop! And if we are lucky enough to have electricity tomorrow (although that’s highly optimistic and also highly unlikely), I’m gonna make it again for my lunch tomorrow.

I got Addie down for a nap after lunch time, and then I went back to work in the dining room. I came in to check on Emmie at one point, and found Pennie with the blanket on her head like this on the couch.

After work was done at 5pm, I got some chicken in the instant pot, then washed up some dishes. I boiled noodles and heated up some alfredo sauce, and we had some simple chicken alfredo for dinner. Jeff had come home some time this afternoon, but was exhausted after everything he had been working on, so he laid down for a late-afternoon nap, so that he could get some rest before the craziness that will hit later tonight…

Instead of buying a bunch of bottled waters, I have just been slowly filling up a bunch of containers we already have, straight from the filtered water tap in the fridge door. All of the “closed” ones are for us, and the open cups on the side are sink water for Pennie. I think I might go try to find a few more of each, juuuuust to be on the safe side.

And we’ve got the girls already set up for a hallway sleepover tonight. We obviously don’t know exactly when Hurricane Helene will hit, but we do know it’s after their usual bedtime. So instead of worrying about getting them out of their beds and into the hallway if we feel that’s necessary, we dragged their mattresses out into the hallway, and we’re gonna let them sleep here. We’ll probably drag in the couch cushions and a few more pillows and blankets for Jeff and myself too, and we’ve already got a sound machine in the hallway too.

We’re letting them stay up a little later than usual, so that they hopefully get a little more tired, and then hopefully fall asleep easily and stay asleep through the worst of things, if at all possible… I’ve been feeling really anxious the last few hours as we get closer to landfall. I’m gonna make sure my phone is charged, and just try my best to calm down as much as possible as we continue holding out for Hurricane Helene.