Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Another crazy crochet story

Boy, they say time flies when you are having fun, but three years since I last posted!!! Unbelievable! We have a lot of catching up to do! But tonight I wanted to tell you a bit about crocheting through a hurricane! You may have heard that back in October/November the Jersey Shore was hit with a megastorm called Sandy. Now, I have to admit, that I was one of those people who downplayed it, bragged that we lived through Irene and Gloria, and that the media was superhyping this storm. In fact, the day it was scheduled to hit, we were leisurely driving around winding our way down to my daughters in Historic Gibbsboro to babysit so that she and her husband could go to a concert for some English group whose name escapes that was playing in Philadelphia. About halfway there, we got the call to turn around since the concert had been cancelled due to Sandy. Well, the wind was whipping, the rain was pelting, and all through the night it seemed that a freight train was zipping through our neighborhood. Plus, before we had gone to bed, we lost power, and a tree or two. Being less than ten miles from the beautiful beaches of Ocean Grove and Belmar, we opened our door in the middle of the night and smelled salt in the air. It was a bad one. The next day, still no power, we drove recklessly dodging flying limbs (from trees, not humans) and detoured around police cars blocking lightless intersections, seeing if we could get batteries. I had an ulterior motive, in tagging along, in that I had heard that Lowes had free internet wifi! My husband ran into the store, and I dug my Kindle out of my purse. Of course, before checking Facebook, or my email, or the weather, which would have been smart, I went right to my etsy shop. I had been having a nice conversation over the past few days with a customer who had seen one of my teddy bear blankets. This is one that I make with my super favorite, Red Heart Yarn, using several different crochet stitches and three colors. The customer was from California and wanted a special gift for her daughter's baby shower which was scheduled for November 11. In our last post, I had told her the blanket was done, but I had to add the frog faces that she wanted to make it fit in with her daughter's theme. I quickly sent her an email from my etsy page, that said "No power, no internet, text me on my cell" and gave her the number. The Kindle soon powered down, out of juice. The next day, no power and no heat, I rushed to dress and report to work. Not than I am a dutiful employee, but I had heard that they had full power. I packed my kindle, cellphone, chargers and my crocheting things into a bag and off I went. I plugged in my electronics to supercharge them and took my lunch break to crochet some frogs. After a quick side trip to AC Moore, it was back home to crochet by flashlight and finish up my order. The following morning, wakened by the rising sun and my cellphone alarm, I rushed back to work, mostly to recharge my phone and Kindle and get a decent cup of coffee. Next on my agenda was to take a cellphone photo of the frog blanket for my California customer. Several more texts with paypal information and delivery instructions, I was half way there. Day three without power, I arrived at work, armed with my box of packing supplies and scale, and packed up my shipment, printed out the postage, and used my lunch hour to send the package off to California. I told my customer she certainly would have a story to tell at her daughter's baby shower! Nine days without power, and in the middle of it, a freak 12" snow storm. But the frogs were delivered! Stay tuned for some more crazy crochet stories!

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