Returning to my roots

Aha...and you thought I was quitting this blog? Lol. Sorry for the long hiatus. I needed some time to rethink and reorganize some my various efforts. Taking up a blog the same week I started a new job and moved to a town 2 hours away...kind of hectic. Probably bit off more than I could chew, but wow am I learning about blogging and I can't wait to return to it. So with having been snowed in for days I have once again returned to playing with paper and dreaming of blog ideas. 

Then craziness happened...

My quaint little mountain town was declared under a state of emergency a few days ago due to this massive crazy winter storm (or three...it was a series of three storms) that blew through. Quite a few roofs in town have collapsed and I have been eyeing my own apartment roof cautiously... This ain't my first rodeo. I have been in this town in previous winters and I know they say to shovel the roof when we get this kind of storm. We had roofs in town collapse last year. I have even called the apartment complex a few times to ask that they shovel it. No dice.

So tonight, this was nagging in the back of my mind. I was trying to go about my business and not seem all paranoid and such (although I took a shower and hopped out and got dressed pronto out of fear of the roof collapsing while I was indecent. lol). Upon making myself decent it seemed there were all kinds of banging noises. Finally out of frustration (and paranoia) I open my front door...what on earth? There was a fire truck! I look over...oh dear... yep, neighbor's roof collapsed. We live in apartments of sorts, but they are more like duplex style. The neighbors have an identical building to us and it is just a few feet away (two cars park in between the building). We have the same amount of snow too. The Fire dept. evacuated their whole building. 

For now I am safe and cozy and paranoid and anxiously watching my own roof. A friend offered that I can stay at her place if we end up evacuating. My car is loaded with some basic stuff... and I will likely sleep (sleep being a relative term) on the couch tonight fully clothed and ready to leave at a moment's notice.

As my offer to help the neighbors was declined, I watched as a family with kids loaded the kids and basic essentials in to their vehicle. It is a strange site to watch a adult male walk out on the snow covered path carrying a fish tank with some form of reptile to try to fit in the trunk while mom loads kids and dogs in the back seat. They were out of here quickly without expressing concern for their belongings. Then I watched the college age girls that lived in the apartment next to this family as they had every friend in the town show up and basically move ALL of their belongings out. 

Then I went inside and packed a few bags to put in the car just in case... Ok, I ran around the apartment like a chicken with my head chopped off going "Oh MY GOD....what do you take when you evacuate and there is potential all things left behind will be destroyed? What is essential? What small sentimental things do I grab?" AHHHHH!!!!  (not a pretty site)

PHOTOS...ack the photos... 

So in addition to returning to blogging... I realized I have a deep desire to returning to preserving my photos in some way. My love of paper crafting actually started with intentions to preserve photos. Granted my ideas of what that means have changed over the years, but the reasoning is still the same. Some of this will be via scrapbooking so I am sure you will see more layouts on the blog soon. More than anything though this means for me that I will be scanning all my photos, and my parent's photos, and maybe even my sister's if she will let me and uploading them to a computer and then saving them on CDs to send to various family members. It would make evacuating any place easier if I knew I just needed to grab that stack of CDs and maybe not even worry about it as copies would be safe at one of the other family member's homes. 

So what about you? What are your essentials if you ever had to evacuate fast?

I know that I would be ok with just the pup. He is my first priority, but there are plenty of things I would rather have cared for before running out. 

Suddenly I am finding I have a long overdo to do list to take care of now that I have my own place. Things such as:

- Scan and save photos and layouts (or upload them somewhere digitally)

-Get a fireproof/waterproof safe for important documents (and actually put them in there). Possibly make copies of some documents as well.

-Pack a bag with essentials that could stay in the car or near the door to be easy to grab. The stuff that is needed for at least one night (stuff like clothes, toiletries, dog food)

-Take photos and make a list of my ever growing stash of stuff for insurance reasons. 

So hopefully all will settle soon (if they clear the roof tomorrow it would really help with the anxiety) and I will add some photos of the projects I have been working on. :) 

Comments

[Barb]

I know what you mean about wondering trying to sleep but not sure if you should. After been told I had had a silent heart attack sometime in the past, sleep is hard for me. What would be my first thing to take, my meds and my med history list with doc names and numbers, cell phone and keys and of course my husband. And I think my painting that Joyce Ortner painted for me...but I would most likely forget it....all my paintings would be hard to lose. Barb