RAISE YOUR HAND IF...you should be booted out of the entire blogging universe because you haven't blogged since Spring...GUILTY!

I hope everyone is healthy, happy, safe and enjoying life these days.  We are here, although we've gone through some pretty major changes since my last post.  The short story is that my husband is now officially retired from UPS, due to medical issues, where he's been a driver for almost 30 years, and we've all been going through that life transition.  So far, so good, especially if he decides that cooking supper every night is FUN!  He should be ok, but we all know how quickly life changes, don't we?

Well, here in Western Massachusetts we're bracing for Hurricane Irene's arrival.  Just over two months ago, on June 1, we had a slew of tornadoes pass through our town and surrounding towns.  It was a freak thing and very terrifying, not only because we've never had one like that, but also because it was so sudden and unexpected.  The only "good" thing about a hurricane (and I use the word "good" loosely), is that we've been given a few days to prepare.  We're as prepared as we're going to get; now all we're waiting for is my mom to come here where she'll be staying until it's safe for her to go home.  She's 90 years old and survived the Hurricane of 1938 (among other things), so she's taking all this in stride.

I have supper in the crock pot today, we have plenty of propane for the grill if we need to cook on it for a few days, the laundry is done, the yard is cleaner than it's ever been, and we have plenty of cases of water.  I'm not real sure why we have cases of water, but every emergency expert says to get water, so we did.  The only thing we didn't get was a generator.  I did get 70 pounds of ice, though, so let's hope the coolers do their job!

I'm going to do my best to be here more regularly and get back to reading my favorite blogs, too! See you sooner rather than later. :)