We Solved the Puzzle!

We figured out which window was #1 and that my shutters go counterclockwise. Piece of cake. We're not finished. Three hours into it and we're not finished. He works tomorrow so I'll try to put some up by myself tomorrow and the big ones we'll put up together when he gets home. It's cumbersome work and a lot of lifting, but with two, the process goes fairly quickly. My biggest concern was getting them down from storage... this concern we would get crushed to death by something that's supposed to save our lives. It happened a couple years ago, some guy's shutters fell on him and killed him. Bleh!

I think my husband is pretty happy he married a forward thinking kinda gal. I went out and bought us both work gloves so our hands wouldn't get torn up on all that aluminum. Good solid leather gloves. We have everything we need here. I have a safe room. I've got a list going of what we have to take if we have to go that route, but I'm being optimistic that we're not going to take the direct full on hit.

Son#3 came out crying as we put up shutters. I couldn't understand him. Something about when the hurricane hits it will be like being outside. Wha? Finally I got eye level and told him to start from the beginning and in between sobs I heard something about 'no electricity' 'it will be hot' 'it will be like being outside'. So he's freaked out about how sweltering it will be and the prospects of our not having power for days. I wish that was my biggest concern... but it's not.

And I had forgotten how well my husband and I work together under stress. Both of us become total introverts when stressed, so there's no yelling or screaming or carrying on. It's more light banter as we go about our tasks. As weird as it sounds, putting up the shutters was a good thing for us. We get so caught up in the kids and he has his work and I have my Mom life that we rarely have time just for he and I to talk... definitely not in the middle of the week. So for three hours today, that's what we did as we tried to figure out the Shutter Puzzle.

I've drawn the blinds in the rooms that have the storm shutters up. It's not so creepy if you can't see them. I'll be doing the remainder of our laundry in the morning.

More tomorrow. Keep the folks in the Bahamas in your prayers. They're getting hammered tonight and I know people will die. They say Frances is 3X larger than Charley.