Hi Friends,

I feel like I’m finally coming up for air from the hellish week we’ve had. First, let me start of by saying thank you so much for the messages checking in on me.

I had Monday off and spent a nice day hanging out but I could tell the weather was getting worse and the news was reporting the potential for rolling blackouts. At 5:37 pm we lost power and there was no rolling blackout in my area. It was just gone. We have a gas stove so at least we could ignite our stove for a bit of warm food and drink but we went to bed that night worried and hoping for the best.

Unfortunately Tuesday was more of the same. We were layered up and could barely move but could not get warm. I was super worried about my mom of course and while we could have gone to a warming center, the roads weren’t clear and we were also concerned about COVID.

Wednesday we woke up and still no power and by the afternoon I noticed our water flow was diminishing. Luckily we started collecting water in our bathtub and other containers. We had to get in our cars to charge up our phones (and that was actually a way to get warm!) but going to any store to look for any extra supplies was a wasted trip as store shelves were empty.

I stayed up late talking to my mom and trying to calm her fears and just as I was getting settled into bed, we heard our house alarm beep and my husband and I jumped out of bed. Our power was back! We finally saw the thermostat and it was 46 degrees in our house.

I tell you, I was almost in tears. We were ecstatic to have power and we could finally warm up our house. Thursday morning though we woke up to no flowing water and we haven’t had any since then and we are fortunate because I know there are other families who’ve been without power or water even longer, have experienced broken pipes, have no food and worst of all we are hearing stories about people losing family members to hypothermia.

I won’t even go into our “leaders” and their lack of accountability and action on this crisis. I say thank you to so many volunteers and good samaritans in our state who’ve really done more than them. While this weather event may have been unusual, I know I’ve had a good lesson on preparedness but I certainly hope our leaders come up with better solutions rather than just a blame game. And, while no we don’t have winters like these in central Texas, our summers can be brutal and what if the grid goes down then? Or what about the next hurricane?

It’s been crazy here but I hope soon this will be behind us. I promise to be back with regular book blog posts and blog visiting soon!

Happy Valentine’s day friends! Sending you warm greetings from a very cold and wintry day in Austin.

My big plan for this cold day is to just stay bundled up and catch up on my current reads. Settled in with a big cup of coffee, maybe some chocolate, here’s what I’ll be reading:

The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert. “A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes.”

I recently mentioned this one in a Tuesday Intro post. It’s a dense book after all it’s tracking 500 million years of history so I’m not flying through it but it’s so interesting. It may take me a while longer to finish this one but I don’t mind at all.

The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda, translated by Alison Watts. The novel starts in the 1960s when 17 people die of cyanide poisoning at a party given by the owners of a prominent clinic in a town on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The only surviving links to what might have happened are a cryptic verse that could be the killer’s, and the physician’s bewitching blind daughter, Hisako, the only person spared injury.

The book is set up as if there were excerpts from a novel that was written about the murders, interviews with suspects and other alternate voices to shape what happened. It really does read like a true crime novel so this is turning out to be a great crime fiction novel.

We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida. I just mentioned this one in my previous post and it’s the book that really called to me so I had to start it. I particularly love the time frame of this because it’s set in the 80s and the girls who are the main characters are all in their teenage years so it’s bringing back memories to me of when I was that age (also in the 80s) and would run around with my friends. I love reading about the dynamics between these best friends.

So those are my books. Other than reading and keeping warm, I plan to have a zoom call with two of my best friends and then my husband and I are going to watch a movie or maybe start a new series. We just finished The Tunnel and really enjoyed it and are anxiously awaiting the last season of Bosch. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!