Aftermath of the Storm

The Texas freeze spared our home for the most part. The worst damage was to our mantel. It got a little singed from the fireplace heat. I'll sand it down and repaint it. I'm hopeful our plants survive. They seem to be okay.

We only lost power the one time, for about 20 hours. We boiled water for several more days until they said it was safe again. Our neighborhood seemed to fare well. A few broken pipes but nothing major.

The kids and I enjoyed more at home activities. It's really nice that we're used to being home so much. School closed for the Monday after the week of the storm. We had some chill days. Joseph went back to turnaround so was gone again. It was refreshing to not have a schedule to keep up with.

Now I need to remember to restock our supplies before hurricane season. But all the stores have limits on water and other non-perishables so I'll wait a little bit. It was a nice dry-run of hunkering down for a hurricane.

I never really loved the tile on the fireplace. So this provides an opportunity to paint it all and do a stencil design on the tile. I'm excited for the finished product. We are also upgrading the materials to be more heat-resistant. We also learned to open the flue when we use it. Whoops!