I had big plans this weekend. Well, big plans if big plans can be translated to mean cleaning, ironing, and baking. Ahem. Those are big plans in my book.
But my big plans were interrupted/canceled by my good friend, the lightning storm.
Yes, Friday night we had a major summer storm complete with heavy thunder, lots of lightning, a freaked out cat, super humidity, and very little rain. Welcome to summer in Alabama.
But let me start at the beginning. As I mentioned earlier, my dad had a tooth extracted and an implant put in its place on Friday. Now, bless him, but being a man, my dad isn’t the best patient. He likes to try and do more than he really should. He actually did pretty well, stayed relaxed and rested, until everything hit the fan.
Thursday, as per our usual agenda, Mom and I planned the menu and wrote the grocery list for the upcoming weekend and week. We planned carefully for Dad’s tooth and made sure there were plenty of soft foods he could eat. I went grocery shopping Friday afternoon and cooked dinner (risotto and shrimp). We settled down for a nice quiet evening.
I was reading (big shock I know), Mom was watching tv, and Dad had fallen asleep thanks to some pain medication when the storm hit. There was a huge crack of thunder and burst of lightning that had me jumping in my chair and the cat streaking downstairs to hide. The thunder seemed especially loud, as if it was right on top of us and was accompanied by a crack that didn’t quiet seem normal. But we didn’t think much of it and went back to our activities.
I went to the back of the house shortly after to check on Dad and heard a weird noise coming from what sounded like outside. I alerted my mom and we investigated quietly. Mom determined that the noise must be coming from the sprinkler and that the valve needed to be switched off. Well, we didn’t know where the valve switch was so I had to wake up my dad.
Which resulted in mass hysteria.
Dad shot up out the bed and goes running outside (in his pain medicine-induced state and in his pjs I might add) to discover that lightning had struck the ground somewhere and water was now spewing fast and mighty out of the main water pipe that goes into the house and creating a river out of our driveway.
Did I also mention that it was raining?
We ended up having to shut the water off from the street which meant we spent the better part of Friday night and most of Saturday without water. (Have you ever been without water but still had electricity? What a strange adventure that was.) The plan was to go to bed, get up Saturday morning, and Dad and I would repair the broken pipe. Great plan, except that it rained for 5 straight hours on Saturday.
FYI…it is very difficult to fix a broken pipe that is buried in a hole full of water while it is raining.
Saturday afternoon found us ankle deep in mud attempting to repair the broken pipe. A temporary fix has been made, but now we are waiting on something permanent. I am not one for getting dirty so I was not pleased when it became my job to scoop the mud out of the hole so the pipe could be replaced. No fun at all. Nothing felt as good as that shower did after we were able to turn the water back on Saturday evening.
Sunday brought us the news that not only had the storm damaged the pipe, it had also some how fried our router. The internet was down on Saturday, but Dad thought he had gotten it fixed. But instead of internet, we ended up with a fried router that had be replaced. Thank goodness for warranties.
I finally got around to baking and ironing (which was part of my big weekend plans) on Sunday afternoon, but we still need breakfast foods, dinner rolls, and I really need to run the vacuum. But thanks to Mr. Great Big Summer Storm, it will all have to get done another time.
So that was my weekend. How was yours?
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