Where have I been? Well, to better answer that question is probably to tell you where I have not been lately. This dial-up internet is seriously for the birds (as my Grandmother used to say)! I don’t have time to come home and wait for page after page to load, after all haven’t you heard that 90210 is back on?

Aside from work being busy and life in general being busy, I’ve been trying my best to keep up with Props & Pans (review site). I took over as publisher last fall and with our DSL connection it wasn’t much of a chore. With dial-up that is a whole other story. I’m struggling.

A week ago we had the remnants of Hurricane Ike. Who would think it would have much effect way up in Indiana? Not me. Not the cornfields whose stalks are all in my landscaping either.

The wind was absolutely some of the fastest I’ve ever witnessed. It’s an odd feeling to sit inside your home and watch as patio furniture, flower pots and other debris fly past your window. In some respect it reminded me a lot of The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy’s house was spinning in the twister and the items were flying past the window.

There were widespread power outages and we were lucky. Neither the electric, the satellite TV or our dial-up internet went out. But the wind took out the soffit ceiling under our back porch and ripped some trim and a few shingles off the house and garage. A few days after the windstorm, a neighbor at the end of our street pulled several pieces of our house out of their pond. I think we’ve collected everything that came off, so we can add that to the chore list to repair.

I’m fairly certain that the slide is not normally flying through the air.