Post-Hurrication Life

Well I can safely say I will not name our first child Florence…not that I was going to anyway. She did our town dirty, and it smells like fish and poop.

After a long two weeks of hurrication we are finally home- bless up. I enjoyed the time off, but man being in my own bed was SO NICE. My dogs were also so happy to be home. It was time.

Poor Tuna did get greeted by a nice fire ant hill attack when he went in the backyard, but we gave him a bath and some Benadryl and he passed out happily haha.

Driving home I didn’t really know what to expect. The news really made everything look so so bad, and it was, but now in certain areas it looks normal. I kind of hate saying this, but I was expecting to see what we were seeing on the news, and we didn’t. As we drove through town, it looked like it was already back to normal. Maybe it’s because people went to town fixing everything or maybe we are seeing areas that fared well. I don’t know! Here’s the thing though: What we’re seeing is so skewed.

While the town looks like it’s no longer flooded, power is back, stores are stocked, gas stations are refueled, and trees are cleaned up, but there is so much damage that we aren’t seeing. Areas of this town are severely damaged and there are tons of people who need help rebuilding their homes. That’s not stuff you’re going to see unless you really go to the areas that were hit badly, and I think in my little area of the world we got lucky. Yes, some of my direct neighbors have some wind damage, but even still that’s nothing compared to some other areas.

And here’s the other thing, it doesn’t actually matter if my house is better than your house, or if her house is worse than his house. Everyone was affected differently by this storm. While it’s different, we were all still affected. Maybe the damage isn’t on the outside of the home, so it doesn’t “look” bad. Maybe the damage isn’t to the home at all, maybe it’s the stress of paying for the evacuation costs. All in all, it doesn’t matter because we all felt the stress Florence brought and we all need to band together to help out.

I’m really going to try to get with the Red Cross and various volunteer efforts between moving and finding a job, but in the meantime I’m really going to push people donating and giving back to the community. I know I only have a small following, but if one person reads this and see’s how important donating is, maybe they will help influence others like one of those acts of kindness trains!

Please, please, please consider donating to the Hurricane Florence Relief Efforts that I’ll be linking below.

Religious Community Services of New Bern have said that “100% of donations will support disaster relief and recovery in Eastern North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence”.
American Red Cross is accepting monetary donations, but it’s also important to understand that blood donation is also needed. The ARC is saying that around 170 blood drives have been cancelled due to the storm. Blood donation levels were already at a critical level, so it’s important that if you cannot help financially, and cannot volunteer, consider donating blood ESPECIALLY if you know you’re Type O blood. Type O blood is at a critical low level right now.
If you love animals, the Humane Society is accepting donations
Save the Children ensures that children’s needs are being met after disaster strikes
The Salvation Army
Team Rubicon is very active in hurricane relief efforts and continues to be in Puerto Rico and Houston along with other disaster stricken areas
The Diaper Bank of North Carolina remember babies have needs too! No one wants to run out of diapers either!
The Food Bank is accepting monetary donations and they also have a virtual food drive,
Global Giving has a disaster recovery network that helps recover and rebuild homes
Habitat for Humanity helps rebuild homes
Loaves and Fishes is a nonprofit helping victims with food needs

If none of these donation sites meet your needs, then please consider looking around for others or calling churches in New Bern, Morehead City, Wilmington etc. to find what suits your needs. I totally understand that people want to know where their money is going and want to make sure it’s being used to help others.

And again, if you cannot donate time, supplies, or money please consider donating blood. The Red Cross has a page where you can type in your zip code and see where the nearest blood drives are. There is also has a link if you would like to set up your own drive at your school or company!

Our Homes

We are so so incredibly lucky to have minimal damages to both our rental and the home we are buying. Knowing that, it’s time for us to help our neighbors as best we can once we move.

This week the main goals are to get back to normal life (ha is my life really normal?) and to move into our home. That requires switching everything over and re-scheduling moving and cleaning requirements. On that note, if your spouse or SO doesn’t have you listed on accounts as an authorized user, consider getting that changed. This morning I’ve been trying to make changes to our tv and internet, but they wouldn’t let me because my husband has to authorize me. Well he was up in a simulated sky in a room with no service, and I’m impatient, so waiting wasn’t an option for me.

What did I do? Went on the company’s chat as him and authorized myself…aka probably not allowed, but I was the one who set up the account under his name and didn’t realize I needed to be on the account as well. Whatever I beat the system and now know that it’s best to have both names on the account.

Overall, we are lucky on all ends and I’m glad that the sellers are allowing us to rent the home we are buying until we can close, because we technically needed to get out of our current rental yesterday. HA it’s such a mess, but it could be so much worse and I’m thankful it’s not, and I’m glad that it’s all working out. Closing will eventually happen, but the home has to be reappraised and needs some minor fixes before we can officially close. At least we get to move in and get settled while we wait. POSITIVITY!

Time for me to go be a semi-responsible adult and set up utilities and then clean the nasty refrigerator that smells like fish, ground beef, and our poor wedding cake had a baby. Quick fun story on our wedding cake. We ate NONE of it. That one little sliver missing was punched into my eye… So is it bad luck that we didn’t eat any of it and are throwing it away? Hope not. It was probably questionable to eat anyway after traveling from VA, to FL, to TX, to NC in one year. WOW what a world traveling cake!