Hurricane Harvey starts to lift our tractor shed.
Howdy, everybody!
I write this as Hurricane Harvey rolls back down on top of us as a Tropical Storm. That wasn’t the case Friday night and Saturday morning. Nope, HH was a full blown Hurricane, which hit land as a Cat 4.
By the time Harvey rolled on top of us, he was down to a Cat 1. Don’t get me wrong, a Cat 1 storm still has a ton of punch. We’re lucky compared to the damage in the little town of Cuero, Texas, just 13 miles from our house. The local Dairy Queen and other businesses took a major hit. (Cuero Damage Video)
We were lucky, our only major damage was our tractor shed being rolled over on its back. Surprisingly it did it slowly, without balling up, so I hope to set it upright and move it back.
The tractor shed on its back with the tractor holding it steady in the winds.
Why did it do so? The guy that had installed didn’t have it anchored in concrete. Well, when I get it upright, it’s going to be anchored for sure.
I’ve been seeing posts about the flooding in Houston, the hit that Rockport Texas took, as well as other effects of Harvey. It’s so sad, but it’s happened in Texas before, as well as around the world. Events like this are part of being human.
So, how did Harvey reaffirm my thoughts about money and stuff?
Stuff Can Be Replaced, Lives Can’t
Selena and I have accumulated a lot of stuff over the years. Yeah, we have stuff that we don’t need, that we haven’t used in years, and stuff that we’ve forgotten that we have.
While prepping for Harvey to ride down on us, I kept telling myself, “Even if everything is lost, if we live, we can move forward. Our stuff can be replaced.
Well, most of it. Anything that is one of a kind can’t be replaced, such as historical documents, one-of-a-kind works of art, one-of-a-kind gifts, etc. You know what I mean. Family photos can be replaced if the negatives or digital files are in a safe place during the catastrophe, but if not, they can’t be replaced, either.
Our house is one-of-a-kind, but it could be rebuilt the same as it was if our drawings had survived. 🙂
Point is stuff can be replaced, lives can’t. We’re very blessed that our lives were spared. Hurricane Harvey is just an inconvenience for us.
Lives Are Worth More Than Money
Selena and I are blessed to have a nice chunk of money. I’m not bragging just stating a fact. It’s not as much as many, but it’s more than others and much more than we had in our 30’s. Of course, it wouldn’t mean anything to us if we hadn’t made it through Harvey.
The kids would get what we have, but I don’t think they’d be all that happy. See, we have great relationships with our kids, so I’m pretty sure that they’d prefer to have us around instead of the cash.
Having Money Makes Life’s Emergencies Easier to Bear
Living through this in our 20’s, 30’s, even 40’s would have been rough. We’d have been worrying about how we’d pay to replace everything. Well, the smart thing would be to replace what we need. Easy, now, but in our 20’s, we wouldn’t have anything on top of the insurance payment.
Since we don’t carry Loss Insurance on our vehicles, we wouldn’t have had any money to repair or replace them. Nope, we would have had to borrow to replace them.
Having an emergency fund can really make life easier.
Having Money Can Provide Peace of Mind
Many times over the years I’ve worried about our finances. I dealt with many sleepless nights and days of unrest, worrying about how we were going to pay for things.
Not these days. We’ve been able to put back enough to cover most any emergency, so I don’t worry too much about money.
Plus, knowing that stuff is not as important as it used to be, I don’t worry about replacing everything. Nope, if Harvey had wiped out everything I would have only replaced what we needed and those few things that we really enjoy, such as the “Toadster” the Model A, the Trike, the garden, and anything else my wife says would be replaced.
Oh, I’d HAVE to replace my laptop. Can’t ever give up doing stuff like this. 🙂
Winding Down
As I write, Harvey has been classified as a Tropical Storm and is still sitting on top of our area. We’re getting rain and wind. So far, the winds aren’t supposed to get rough, but the rain is supposed to last for days. Flooding is expected all around.
We’re pretty upland, so we’re not worrying about flooding, but we might get cut off from supplies. Not too bad, as we have water and lots of food. Don’t really need anything.
Swallows resting outside the bedroom window during Harvey.
So, like the swallows above, who rested at our place during Harvey, we’re going to rest and then take care of what has to be taken care of.
Things are going to be good. We’re going to get back to normal.
I wish I could say the same for others.
Prayers for everybody else.
As for me, I’m going to remember those three things above.
