Irma Gerd!!

I'm tired of hearing about it, to be completely honest. It's zapping what few brain cells I actually have left. We thought about evacuating and certainly would have if we lived any closer to the ocean. We gave Massey the option of going back to Georgia if she felt uncomfortable about staying here but she declined.

I work with a lot of life long Orlando peeps and none of them are leaving, so why should I?

 I've never been one to run from a fight. Why start now? If the past ten years didn't kill us, I doubt a big ole bag of wind can.

I (we) may live (or not live) to regret it but feel like we have invested so much in preparation, asking for (and heeding) every one's advice and getting our affairs in order, that think we have a pretty good shot at survival.

Yes it is a major storm and the biggest one Orlando has ever seen, not to mention the eye is headed straight for us but feel we are safe in our cement rental. They did a complete renovation before we moved in and know for a fact that it wouldn't have passed inspection if not up to code standards.


I worked a day shift today and was a ghost town at work. Only two tables came in. A party of two and a party of seven. Lucky me got the party of seven...I took that as a good sign! They left me almost thirty bucks so took the money and ran. I finally found a kiddie pool for my dogs to poop in during the height of the storm. I couldn't find any sod squares to put in it but while looking, ran into a man who raises champion beagles. He said for some reason dogs are drawn to the smell of the ink on newspaper and that should work just as good. Bonus points the kiddie pool was sixty percent off and only cost me six bucks. We have plenty of water, food, batteries, baby wipes for bathing, solar powered floodlights charging in the front yard for use in the house at night, a first aid kit, and about ten gallon size baggies of water in the freezer. We have three cases of water bottles, and are filling up three huge plastic tubs of water to keep in the garage. Both bath tubs will be filled with water as well and have all our important papers locked up in the trunk of the car which will reside in the garage.

Will it be a bad storm?

Most certainly.

Will we survive?

Pretty sure we will.

There is sure to be damage, and a lot of it...just hoping we dodge most of it.

I have been glued to local news radio and somewhat relieved to learn that Orlando was the second best city to go to for evacuation from the storm.

So we are hunkering down here, in our tiny temp rental which is fortunately built of cinder blocks, with two bathrooms that don't have windows.

We will spend the crucial hours of the storm hunkered down with our pups in both.

I know it sounds crazy  (I am) but told someone at work today, "After all this hype, if Irma doesn't at least show a little sump'um sump'um when she gets here, she owes me a lot of money.

Yep, I'm worried..I think all of Orlando is. Welcome to Florida! It's part of the price to pay for living in the Sunshine State but I like living here so if hurricanes are are part of that price, I'd better get used to it.

We've gone through so many hurricanes of our own over this past decade, what's one more?

We have done every thing we could possibly do and then some. Now it is just time to wait and see what happens next. If this storm is my demise...just remember I love you...it'll be alright.

Till (hopefully) next time...COTTON