Ice damage pictures by popular demand

On my way to the airport for a girls weekend in Nashville!! I will post ice storm videos when I get back. It's hard to upload them.. Have a great weekend.

What a day! I made it to work for a couple of hours and Clay made it all of the way to work to determine his office was still without power. It is unreal the damage that has been done. We ventured out this morning because the roads are much better. We took Clay's mom (Terri) to get her car. They warned us that the damage was bad, but we had NO IDEA how bad it was until we saw it. Below are the pictures from their house and a few random other shots of damage we found along the way. We lost power again today... never fun.... so we ended up in target to shop. guess what. They lost power too. haha. This has been a mess. Hopefully this will be my last ice day/week post! Thanks for the feedback. It's good to know somebody is reading this stuff. haha. You can also click on the picture to make them bigger to get the full effect.

Well, the last 30ish hours have been quite the adventure. We have finally got our power back and I couldn't wait to share the awesome pictures we took this morning. The roads were terrible so we took off on foot to take the pictures. It was all Clay's idea as you could imagine. haha.

We have really been blessed though because we didn't have big trees in our yard to do any damage and oddly enough our neighborhood has all of the powerlines underground. So we were able to have time with and without electricity. It could have definately been so much worse because many have been without since Monday night. Clay's parents, sister, and their dog Ginger have been spending the night because we have the gas fireplace and better chances to get electricity from time to time. All in all, it's been kinda fun. Lots of Monopoly and Catch Phrase... oh... and horrible JUNK FOOD EATING!!!!

My Ode to snowy/icy weather.

A forced day off is necessary from time to time. I will embrace you icy weather. Thank you for a much needed break. So guess what. I get to fill hours with meaningless activities. So far I have eaten dinner, filed some papers, caught up on hours of television, and managed to get up to refill my Diet Rite Cherry Cola (which my friends is fantastic)

Since my last post we’ve had some quite exciting events. I have not managed to make it alone by myself in the house yet. I attempted last week while Clay was out playing basketball. The night started out fine. I managed to get in my Wheel of Fortune and anxiously await The Office. I kid you not, at about 7:50 (10 minutes before my show might I add) there is a dang knock on my door. So here I am… home alone… In a bath robe, clipping my toenails. The awful memories rushed back. Although we now have a peep hole I frantically flipped the outside light on and was too scared to look out to see what was looking back at me. I ran to our closet to call someone to come over. Ridiculous. I am a 25 year old woman and can’t stay at my house alone. But it was really too late for anyone to be selling anything at 8:00 at night. I know what you are thinking… what kind of neighborhood do you live in? I promise it is a good neighborhood. That is why we picked it. So, attempt #2 to stay home alone. Saturday night. Clay has plans for a poker night. I have plans to clean our house. He leaves and I am positive that I will make it fine. Once again, I kid you not. 2 minutes after he left our stupid doorbell rings. I don’t even answer the door. I call Clay to come get me. But you know what. It turned out for the best. I beat out 13 people and made it down to the final two. I got dealt a bad hand and was handed the second place pot. So I guess it all worked out at least.
Maddie did have her surgery last week. That was an ordeal. She was pathetic. But she is now fixed and no more worries. It stressed her Mama out. Pitiful pics posted below.

Clay has always told me that I am so impressionable. I am so hard headed that I have always given him a good argument to defend myself. I’m not impressionable. Well it wasn’t until the other night that I realized; I am, in fact, impressionable. Let me set the scene. I watch 1 episode of America’s Next top model- I think I am America’s Next top model. I watch dancing with the stars- I think I am a dancing star. I believe I need a red carpet to get into my car. I watch American Idol- I am singing while putting dishes away claiming to clay that I can sing any Dixie Chick song just like them. We watch the Pro Golf Tour- I get my golf bag and head to the greens. I look the part but sure don’t cut it. I claim if we had golf in high school I could have gone pro. The 2008 Olympics are on at our house 24/7: I run around my house jumping, spinning, attempting gymnastic leaps, claiming that if we had volleyball in high school I would in fact be a volleyball Olympian. The non-stop political campaign- I claim that I can be President and achieve world peace. But it wasn’t until last weekend we somehow stopped the TV. on the ESPN Dog show that I realized I in fact am impressionable. I was literally running Maddie around the house trying to get her to do tricks on command. I was claiming that Maddie would win best in show. It was at that moment Clay looked at me and says “Whitney please look at yourself. You are so impressionable.” And Clay adds after reading this post that I should add…. Oh, and I’m blogging now. Haha.

Some day we will have posts of our children. I can’t wait until that day. I mean I can wait and will wait. But I am just looking forward to that day. I get my children-fill at work. I wish I could post tons of pictures but the whole patient confidentiality thing stops me. But just imagine me with some of the most amazing kids in the world. Some of the moments at work are priceless. But until that day comes for the pictures of our little tots, pictures of us will have to suffice.

Check the peep hole!

Tuesday Morning (12-30-08)
Wow. How do I even begin with this posting? Let me just say that Clay and I had the most random night last night. It all started around 6:00 p.m. We had just finished with our supper and were seriously considering a fat-FULL milkshake with extra Peanut butter cup. As we were about to get up to go for the ride we heard what sounded like somebody running up to our door and ringing our doorbell time after time, for what felt like 50 times. Clay and I looked at each other like.. “Hum, who is trying to play a prank on us.”

So he gets up to answer the door. Maddie runs outside and a frantic mid 30 year old woman runs into our house. She was screaming “He’s trying to kill me, help me, he is trying to kill me” “he was suffocating me and he cut my wrist, call the cops.” For what felt like 30 minutes I am sure passed by so very quickly in 2. Believe it or not, Clay opened the door and Maddie ran in. We slammed the door shut and locked it and forced this woman into our guest bedroom because we have exposed French door windows and who knows if he is outside our house trying to kill her. I was like a deer in headlights trying to find my phone to call 911 and it was so difficult to do because …for all I knew this woman was bleeding to death in our guest bedroom and she was screaming bloody murder. Really makes it hard to think. I mean, the last time this happened the woman was screaming and we were able to find our phone quickly and didn’t have any problems. J/K Ha.

Clay luckily found his phone and called 911 to report what was going on and then gave the phone to this woman to report details. While all of this is going on, I am thinking… are you kidding me? Is this seriously happening? Is he outside our house? How did she end up at our house? Within 20 minutes the cops arrived and question this woman whom we have safely hidden in our house. At this point, I am in the floor away from windows with a death grip on Maddie. I have been having some issues with my stomach and this problem sure didn’t help. I felt like I was going to vomit. Once the cops leave to find the guy I realize that I can’t handle it and crawl into our bathroom closet behind the coats. Luckily I could hear the woman who was now locked in our guest bathroom. She was using Clay’s cell phone (which I didn’t know at the time) and talking to somebody referring to them as “hunny” and “I love you” “ I will be there soon.” And of course I am in the closet thinking the worst… “oh my gosh, she is talking to Jesus.” “We are all going to die.” Haha.

I hear the cops enter our house again so I know we have some kind of security because we don’t have guns, knives, or pepperspray. Luckily Clay was able to grab a golf club! Since I hear the cops I crawl out and say to Clay “Psst, Clay, go get my pills.” Haha. Thank goodness I still had some anxiety pills from when I was taking my board exam because I was in some serious need to chill out.

Once I know the man has been arrested, I feel safe enough to go into the living room to see this woman that has caused such a commotion. Middle aged, blonde hair, and talking to us about many things we didn’t care to hear. Within 20 minutes of hearing her life story and way to much of her personal life I realized that in fact I would like to hit her. She was a bit of a drama queen and he obviously has some control issues. Needless to say, this woman was in our house for like 2 ½ hours and the cops finally cleared around 9:30 ish. We didn’t get a milkshake and instead had a hard time sleeping. I must say that I never in my life would have ever believed that this would have ever happended. I am just very thankful that nobody was seriously hurt and that we will be getting blinds for our kitchen, a peep hole, fence, and security system soon. We picked this neighborhood because we felt so safe and wanted to live in a place where we wouldn’t have to worry.

Come to find out, this was the first report of complaints in our neighborhood and these nut-cases moved in 3 days ago. I guess for the next 3 weeks I will sleep with one eye open.

So once it all cleared and Clay and I were left in the house, we just looked at each other in awe. He was able to laugh about it. I am really still not there yet. But I regret not asking to get a picture with her because she was crazy enough to do it I think. Wouldn’t that be the best ending to the blog. Regardless we are safe now. Hopefully we will not have any more crazy!

Update Friday morning (1-2-09)
Happy New Year! We are getting a peep hole installed today, we now own several cans of pepper spray conveniently placed around our house, and our french doors in the kitchen now have window treatments. So I guess it was good that it happened and nobody got hurt because we finally took care of some things that we should have done a LONG time ago.

Be safe!