Havent heard from any of you red hat and tutu girls for a while. hope you are all ok.

Well I believe the ones in Florida are taking a breath and trying to figure out what normal is all about. I plan to try to get to Texas if some can come or whoever happens to be in Florida we can get together here. Hopefully we will be able to get together. I have been traveling on business and lots between now and Christmas. I believe I have 2 weekends free from now until the end of the year. Ugh!! I will keep it going about getting together.

Hi, Tarajane and Blndmom!
I'm still here-just trying to pull it all together after the storms. It has been a wild and crazy six weeks! It is pure bliss to know that, for now, there are no more hurricanes heading our way. I try not to think about the fact that the storm season doesn't end until November 30 :-)).

Tarajane, I loved the pictures and thought of the TT bunch having lunch in Melbourne. You all looked like you were having fun! I have decided to go out and have dessert in yout honor.

Blndmon-I do hope our TT bunch can get together, too. Jim and I are headed out of town on the 23rd for a couple of weeks-need a break from all of this. Happy travels!

Dear Florida Friends - I can now truly empathize just a little with what you have been going through the past several weeks. We had a tornado hit our street Monday afternoon and our block will never look the same. Fortunately it was a relatively small one and hopscotched through town but I understand our street got hit the worst, in looks, anyway. We were blessed in that the damage was mostly landscape and cosmetic - no roofs caved in or vehicles crushed and no injuries, but LOTS of really LARGE trees uprooted or split down the middle and strewn every which way. It took my neighbor Paul (his middle name is now Bunyan!) all day with his trusty chain saw just to clear driveways and front doors so the neighbors could get into their homes.

I feel very fortunate, indeed, in that the only damage I had was a tree limb across the corner of my roof. It was already low-hanging so I don't think the fall did any damage. We did have golf ball-size hail, so as soon as my name works its way to the top of Mr. Bunyan's list and he can cut the limb down, I'll have the insurance adjuster out to inspect.

The worst part was being without electricity for a couple of days. Unfortunately, being single, there was NOTHING romantic about living by candlelight and flashlights! And just about everything in the fridge had to go, too. I hate to clean out the refrigerator, so having to toss what was in there was probably a blessing in disguise!

Other streets in the neighborhood had more structural damage - tree through the garage roof, shed roof blown off and landed on a BMW, that sort of thing - but they were more isolated incidents and didn't look like the total war zone our street looks like. If I didn't know better, I'd think every house across the street has a privacy hedge 8 feet tall and 8 feet wide! And that's just the debris from the front yards. When that gets cleared away (in 2-3 weeks), then we'll have to haul out all the stuff from the back yards - and they got hit even harder. I hate to think about what our electricity bills will be next summer with so many of the lovely, large shade trees gone.

And the ambulance chasers! My word, the wind hadn't died down good before they were here en masse soliciting our business for repair work, tree trimming, etc. It got sort of comical after a while. I mean, there was absolutely no doubt about what had happened and they would drive up (on a cul de sac) like they were on their way to the grocery store and say, "Did a tornado just blow through or what?" - and, coincidentally, they just happened to have a whole stack of business cards to pass out in case we needed our roof repaired or whatever! I got so tired of dealing with them, instead of politely declining their card, I finally just told them, "No, we have a block party a couple of times a year and this is what happens when we run out of beer. Do you happen to have any in your car?"

But, relatively speaking, this is all just a minor inconvenience to what our Florida friends have been going through. I've decided sometimes the Lord has to just knock us up side the head to get our attention. I know that today I am much more consciously thankful for what I have than I was just a few short days ago.

MonaP,

So pleased to hear that you are OK.

Hang-in there girl!!!

wow - Mona P and florida folk, I had no idea things were so bad over there. Havent heard much here, thought it was all behind you. No wonder you havent been on this BB. Hope everything settles down for you very soon.

MonaP - Texas tornadoes can be bad but think about a lot of these people in Florida. In the panhandle they are saying some of the kids might not go to school at all this year as the school have to be totally rebuilt. You cann't just house hundreds of kids somewhere. I have a friend that was hit twice - the second one finished what the first one started. Most people do not understand what it means to be without our conveniences. For her there is no where to go and live (all the places are full that are liveable) and no where to store her belongings. Fortunately she has a piece of commerical property that she can move into when her tenants get out Nov. 1. In the mean time she has to pay two deductables on her insurance and there are not people available to rebuild. We were without power all last week at work - people called and wanted to know if we used our cell phones. Friends with no power, you have no A/C (it was in the 90's and no windows will open), no phone, no lights, no water, no computer. So what are you suppose to do. It has been a mess but hopefully we are on the road to recovery. I only have some leaky roof mess that I am not real concerned about.

You folks are right-the damage and destruction is unbelievable. My city got hit with three of the four hurricanes, all within six weeks. Estimated time to just remove debris from the streets is six months, with trucks working day and night-and the panhandle is worse. Pardon the pun but it sort of knocks the wind out of you!

Mona-I'm glad to see that you're ok and that your sense of humor is intact!

What can you do but say a prayer of thanks that it wasn't worse than it was and then pick up the pieces and move on. I know ours is nothing compared to the ordeal you folks in Florida are having to contend with. My prayers are still with you as you try to restore life to what it was - if that is even possible in many cases.

Thanks! Just watch-we'll come back better than ever!

Hang in there - I know you will. "The South shall rise again!" (Or, as we say here in Texas, "Remember the Alamo!)

Are you folk still planning to get together in january?
us aussies are planning our 2nd lunch get-together. would love to hear your plans and see your photos.

Hi, Tarajane-I'm not sure what plans are in the works-MonaP has offered us her condo in Texas-she is off on her cruise-I know that some plan to try to make it but nothing is firm yet.

I am delighted that you all are planning another time out! It sounds as though you has such a good time together. Have fun and keep us posted! We'll let you know what happens here.

She's baaaaack! The cruise was great but I think our expectations were a little too high. This was our first time to go Princess and we'd heard so much hype that we were expecting everything to be really splendiferous. Don't get me wrong - the ship (Grand Princess) was beautiful, everyone treated us well and there were no real problems, just not the attention to details that I expected. I think part of the "problem" was that the ship was just too large - 3 blocks long! (We measured while it was in port.) And, of course, our cabin was at one end and everything we wanted to do was at the other end. At least we didn't have to worry about gaining weight - we walked it off before we ever put it on!

But to the question at hand: getting together in Galveston. I've had only one fairly firm response. If anyone else thinks you might be interested, please let me know ASAP so we can set a date and I can reserve our unit. (It's in the rental pool and I have to reserve it ahead of time to make sure it's available.) Or if anyone would like to suggest another destination, I'd be amenable to a long weekend trip. I think that having the get-together is more important than where we do it.

What's your pleasure?

Welcome back, Mona. I just love cruises, they are just the most relaxing holidays.