I guess we are ready and I want to let my family know where we stand at the moment.  I have talked with Joe and Shanti and will call each evening as long as we have power.  The reports from the weather channel is that we will lose power Sunday and it will be out at least a week so don’t worry if I don’t call for a while.  Shirley is in the same boat with us as is Patty, and her family.  I have not heard from Tom and Roxanne but I am sure she is on duty as a police man so they will stay here also and they have a strong safe house.  We have been through the stages of preparing for the storm.  First we discussed evacuation.  We don’t drive more than 20 miles from home now and that is not far enough to get away from the storm.  We talked about just getting out there on I 95 and go with the flow but that would be a 24 hour drive before be got out of the way and that alone would kill us both so we gave up that idea and just got our house ready for the storm.  We have our house buckled down and food and water stocked up for a couple week stay.  We got food that does not need a cooking or cooling so are all set there and are just watching the news to see where we stand with the storm.  They say it is a very bad storm and need to evacuate.  They are telling people in the Keys go get out NOW and go into Florida away from the  coast.  They are telling people around here to get off the Island and off the coast.  They advise to go west of US 1  and of course that is where we are anyways so have felt pretty comfortable about staying right here.  This morning we woke up thinking about going to the shelters.  I let Norman tell me all the reasons why we should go.  I kept out of that talk as I know I would not be able to spend two or three days in a shelter.  We are not used to being a a crowd of people, I could not stay in bed all day and I can’t sit up unless I have a good firm back on the chair otherwise my hips just freeze up and I could not eat most foods because of the wheat.  But if the family felt better about it going to the shelter I would find a way to live through it.  I just don’t see that they are any safer than we are right here.  The shelters are no farther away from the storm than we are and if this storm is as strong as they say just a bigger building will not make a difference.  As Norman talked about it he came to the same conclusion as I had so then I told him about my concerns and we agreed not to go to the shelters.  SO today I am cooking up a large chicken soup that we can eat hot as long as we have power and then eat cold.  Patty has a camping stove run on gas and if she comes here she will bring that so we can heat the soup when we lose power.  I am also cooking up some pork chops to have with the ham and cheese so we should make out just great food wise.  Now we can pray the roof stays on and we will see you again after the storm.  Take care of yourselves and don’t worry about us. I’ll write again as the storm cakes or as long as we have power.  Love you all  Ouma