I've been doing since Mr Pipi left on his trip to visit a daughter in Texas, which is trying to keep my two dogs from eating their own, or each others, poo.

It's important on any given day (makes their stools loose) but especially crucial now after one of them got diarrhea for a week for no reason the vet could see (no parasites or worms).

They are so sneaky. We can't leave a poo out there. They need to be picked up immediately. They are 4 1/2 years old...don't know why they're still doing that.



With two people here it's a tiring job.

By myself, it's exhausting.

Plus I am stressing about Hurricane Sandy possibly knocking out power plus causing massive airport delays. Mr P is due back on Wednesday.

Now resting my aching left knee to get ready for cooking mushroom paprikash for my daughter's birthday dinner.

and the Three Stormchasers that will be my guests during the storm! Bought a ton of water and grub for the menfolk to consume between forays.

I hope everyone in the path of this storm stays safe.

And then my husband and I went out to lunch.

Then I took a nap (!) and now I'm sitting here posting.......still sleepy!

I need to get up and do something!

Tell me to go away, will ya?

It's like the Hotel California, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

We got the outside pretty well taken care of yesterday, but I need to check all the flashlights, make sure all the phones and computers are charged, see if there are any emergency things we need (we already picked up nacho chips so we're in pretty good shape), and if needed (hopefully not) secure what's missing. I'll probably do that tomorrow morning if there's a need. I don't think there will be. With water and natural gas, we could go without electricity or outside supplies for about six months on the food we keep in the house. I've lit gas stoves with a match many times.

Oh, and it just started raining. That's earlier than was predicted. Shit.

I'm shocked by the number of people who buy ice cream, milk, eggs and other perishables to prepare for a hurricane. Pop-tarts too...they're shelf-stable at room temperature at-least but have the nutritional value of sawdust.

I love having gas for the same reason.

I got everything I needed with no difficulty or run on supply:

Apples.
Bottled water.
Peanut butter.
Bread.
Pasta.
Rice.
Canned beans.
I also stocked up on MREs at a camping store.