...................Christmas 2009....................I hope that this finds you and yours happy and healthy as we end 2009. It seems the world is turning cyber and I decided I too would start publishing my annual brag letter online. I hope to reach as many of you as possible through e-mail and provide a link to this site. I plan to keep this blog up and running with annual happenings each year. Postage of annual cards has gone through the roof, so it is time to do this all online.
2009. WHAT. A. YEAR.
This year all started out rather benign, and this year I had a few trips and things planned. A visit to see one of my longest standing friends in Wisconsin in June, my high school 30th ((gulp!!)) class reunion in Wyoming and a visit with family for our first holiday together in over 20 years out in Idaho for T-Giving.
I will never forget what happened in September 2009 that was over and beyond my wildest dreams or nightmares.
The following are highlights that was my 2009..........There's LOTS of pictures below..........
I crossed over to 50 pounds lost this summer, and to "celebrate" I decided to throw on my largest jeans, and do the obligatory self pics, I suppose they would have turned out better had someone been taking the pics.......these jeans I am wearing are size 24, and when I came home from the hospital last October I couldn't even button them from the swelling and water retention from the IV's. I was down to a size 16-18 at the time this pic was taken. 
There were parties with co-workers. These girls work with me in the control room. Taken in June......it was a typical hot and steamy summer night in Georgia---thus the standard sweaty look. 
In June, I was super excited to fly to Wisconsin to meet up with my longest friend from Junior High School. Robin and I met in Wisconsin in 7th grade when we were 13 and have remained friends ever since, the year was 1973. I hadn't seen her since her wedding reception some 3 or 4 years earlier. It was good to see her husband Jim and Shelby the little white rescue bulldog too!!! We had a great time and I even got to rent a Mustang for the same price as the compact car I had reserved. I called this weekend away my "midlife crisis" weekend (and it was!!)!!! Robin, Jim and I laughed and had a GREAT time, and I will always look back on that weekend with such fond memories.
Friends for over 36 years!!!!!!! That girl is the BESTEST!!!!!!!!!!
Jim was good enough to take pics of us down on the shores of Lake Michigan there in Racine, Wisconsin. The weather was great......it was June afterall.......we laughed and had the best time!!! I still laugh at some of the things said over those few days!! ---Can't wait to do it all again!!
I LOVE LOVE this pic.........Jim really captured us having the best time down on the lakefront........
Then in July it was off to Sheridan Wyoming for 12 days to participate in Sheridan WYO Rodeo festivities and my 30th High School Class Reunion. Here I am at the Pre-reunion gathering Thursday night on fellow classmate Dave Moss' lap. In MY class we have parties BEFORE the official party even begins!!! Dave was a smokin' HAWTIE in high school and he still had his smokin' debonair looks 30 years later!! I knew his wife Leanne before he did, and during the reunion she and I remembered we worked together back in 1980 or so!! We had a good laugh about that. 
We had about 100 classmates attend the reunion. Not bad for a class of about 240 or so. Most who came were out-of-towners, like me!! We had a good time and had a Friday night icebreaker. We had a meal and dance on Saturday night, and then a brunch Sunday morning. Alot of old memories were rehashed, and everyone who attended had a great time. I will remember that weekend for many many years to come!! We are hoping maybe we can all get together in 2014 for the 35th perhaps.
One of the activities that weekend for the class reunion was a shooting gathering at the local outdoor range there in Sheridan. One of the guys brought his SKS Rifle (above) that I got to shoot. There was also several pistols there. I brought my two small caliber pistols from Georgia and a few of the guys shot them. I revoked a few man-cards that weekend!!! heh!!
Another guy brought his .22 Rifle and I fell in love with it. It was like shooting a BB Gun!! The ammo's cheap and here I am proclaiming to all that were shooting that the little rifle was like "BUTTA"!!! It was so smooth and so sweet. I gotta get one!!!!
Here I am with Ron "Spike" Shelley at the class reunion along with Carrie Dingis Klare. Spike is my neighbor here in Georgia and it was really great finding out during the reunion research of classmates that he lived THREE miles from me. SMALL WORLD!!! He's become a great friend and we have hung out alot down here in Georgia since we found out we lived five minutes apart. Carrie was the light of the reunion. Not only is she an excellent writer she has the most unreal sense of humor and she had so many of us in stitches at the reunion. Can't wait to see her again at the next reunion!! We joked that she looked a lot like Sarah Palin!! I am pretty sunburned in this pic from my day at the gun range.
While in Wyoming I got to see my LONG time friend Carol from Buffalo. I was able to go down there and we went to dinner and chat for a while.
I also got to go up to KROE Radio and visit with Bob Grammens who is now Station General Manger, Margo Heck, and Kim Love, station owner. Bob let me go on the air with him during the highly rated Swap Shop show there in Sheridan and I saved that program on my laptop. It was fun to see and hear small-town radio again. I miss it!! SO good to see you guys!! It's funny because I can do audio for many, many millions of people and I don't get nervous, but it's funny how I was kind of quaking in my boots over being on the radio again!!!
Then on September 21st, 2009 THIS happened..........
My neighbors and I watched the water rise all day long........we had 22 inches of rain in a little over 24 hours, along with the 10 plus inches the few days before. The rain was relentless. It was not sprinkles it was hard driving constant rain. I have never seen anything like it before. All we could do is stand outside and watch the water rise and envelope our homes. Here it is filling the cul-de-sac below me. At this point I still had hopes that it would spare my house---afterall, floods happened to OTHER people---and besides, I wasn't in a flood plain!! Right?????? Notice the cars in the picture on the left being covered completely in water.
Standing in the street even with my driveway.....I was still hopeful the water would spare me. As you can see, the water was already covering cars and into homes in the cul-de-sac. See the water cover the mailboxes?? The cars are nearly submerged as well.
The water kept rising. This is the cul-de-sac below me, the 2 cars you see being covered in water belonged to a soldier who is stationed in Afghanistan. He was home on leave and was in New Orleans at the time with his wife for 4 days. They had no way of getting home to rescue their things or their cars. I can only imagine what was going through their minds when they were told of what was happening at home. Notice, the rain are still coming hard and fast in this pic. The water was rising about 6 to 8 inches every 15 to 20 minutes.
Then the waters began to fall. Those two same cars were covered in filthy, dirty river water. A total loss. The poor soldier and his wife still had not arrived home, but we were told they knew of this event and were trying desperately to get home.
More cars in the cul-de-sac who fell victim to the flood. These two were totally submerged as well. A total and complete loss.
I am grateful to my neighbor Rita who lives 4 doors up the hill from me and whose home was not flooded who let me and the kitties stay with her for a week after the flood. The water came into my house around 9pm Monday night September 21, 2009. In all according to FEMA's official count I had 33 inches of water in my house. My lower floor was pretty much a loss. Wading through nasty flood waters in your living room and kitchen not knowing what is swimming in them because they are so murky is the most unsettling feeling. More unsettling is the fact you were NOT aware of what you would lose, and how many inches of water would flood your place and having to walk away from it, totally helpless. In those days I cried many tears. FEMA and my neighborhood friends were a God-send for sure. My neighbor Rita helped me carry as much as possible upstairs and we were able to save as much as possible, thankfully. Here is my house surrounded by water. The water had fallen a foot in this picture but I was not able to get into it yet to see what damage there was.
We got inside and the first thing we did was take butcher knives to shred the wet carpet and pad and get it to the curb. The weather was hot, humid and still in the 90's and it was miserable. There was no time for tears, you just had to work till you felt like you were going to drop. I had heard over and over, that the first thing you do is get the wet rug out to prevent it from wicking further up the walls. This proved to be our best move!! The fans were going full bore trying to dry the place out. ------And that Shop Vac I had gotten a few years prior for my FIVE YEAR anniversary gift at CNN???? Yes......the same one I never used and questioned WHY I had gotten, well......it became my BEST FRIEND and the BEST FRIEND of my neighbors!!!
Ripping out the carpet and pad and hauling it to the curb.
My kitchen. I piled as much as I could up onto the lower cabinets prior to the flood in hopes things like the cat's expensive foods would stay dry. Here we are ripping up linoleum tile, and hoping to save the lower cabinets, but I could see they were so wet and starting to warp. I knew they had to go to the curb too.
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Look what one of my neighbors found by her front door. I had to laugh, when in reality she lost soooooo much. This burger popped out of the overturned fridge and floated to the front door. Things like this sure added to the delightful smells in the neighborhood!!!
The gutting of my lower floor begins. This is from the living room looking at the walls of the half bath. See the water line??
The walls to the half bath are taken out and hauled to the curb. WHAT. A. MESS.
My debris pile was growing by the minute.......in the end it was about as wide and as long as my 2 car driveway.
Looking down the street at all the debris piles from all the neighbors' townhouses. This is looking down into the cul-de-sac. The water reached about 5 foot deep on the SECOND floor in the houses in the cul-de-sac. These people lost everything and 90% of them are NOT coming back. There is no rebuilding going on there. It's so sad to see. There is now talks of FEMA buyouts of homes that were totally destroyed. It was in these days that I seriously knew what the people of Hurricane Katrina went through.
The boys were SOOOOO glad to get back home and we moved back in about a week after the flood. I am SOOOOO grateful to my neighbor Rita for taking me in those days and I soooo owe her for so much.
The local news stations were in my neighborhood doing liveshots ALOT in those days. I was on the local ABC and Fox stations a few times.
The next street over from me was so hard hit. I saw this sign, and I got wet eyes over it.
The above sign was in THIS home's yard. The home floated off it's foundation. See the carport/garage and the step?? You can see the foundation too. This family lost EVERYTHING, and just walked away. Peering into the open windows you could see they had a young son and a baby girl.
This home is about a block from my house. They *do* have a sense of humor. I loved this sign. I think they had done their quota of "sailing" for the year!!
Another house about a block away floated off it's foundation. This house floated up and over some tall trees and when the water receeded it was set down where it is today. The woman who owned this house lost everything and in talking to her grown son, he said she lived there for decades.
The sheetrocking and mudding of my place begins. The old sliding glass doors had to go as well as there was mud caked in the tracks and water trapped between the two panes.
The work on my kitchen begins as well. I got new lower cabinets, new ceramic tile too. There's a new dishwasher, stove and fridge.
New kitchen cabinets being installed. I decided to re-do the kitchen on how I wanted it and added this counter. When it's all said and done this added space will be wonderful!!!
A new start!!! Milo totally approves and I found him often times laying down on the ceramic tile as if to say "this is SOOOOOOO cool--let me just lay here and take it all in"!! Check out the brand new French Doors. I think that choice will really pay off if and when I ever sell my place. I sometimes just stand downstairs and think to myself that everything looks sooooo "Better Homes and Gardens"!!! LOL!!!
My kitchen showing the new stove and new ceramic tile. I love it and got such a GREAT deal on the tile at a Home Depot outlet nearby. The upper cabinet door is still off as it is what I used at the store to get a match for my lower cabinets.
Then in November it was off to Utah and Idaho for Thanksgiving with my family!!
Once I landed in Salt Lake City, Utah I knew I needed to go to my old stomping ground at KSL-TV to see former co-workers and my former boss. I look a total "hot mess" as I had been up near 24 hours at this point, but it sure was good to see former co-worker Steve on the right and Terry, my former boss on the left.
I then drove to mom's in Idaho. This was going to be a first holiday the Heath kids, mom, Grandma and Nolan have had in over 20 years!! I was grateful for this time with my family. We laughed and talked and ate and laughed and talked and ate!!! Did I mention that we ate too???!!! This pic is of my brother and sister's kids. The only kid missing is my brother's oldest girl, she was spending T-Giving with her husband in Laramie, Wyoming where she lives. These kids all had a BLAST bonding with their cousins that weekend. We need to get together more often as I think everyone had the best time and my Mom LOVED having all her kids together again.
My family!!! FOUR generations here. Grandma was there along with the grandkids. Did I mention that Idaho was BLOODY cold for this thin blooded southern girl????????
Two or three days after I got back from Idaho I met up with my aunt and uncle from Illinois. It is always good to see Aunt Joyce, she comes through Atlanta often for seminars and work, however I had not seen my Uncle Bill in several years. He is my dad's brother and I sure had a good time meeting up with them in the Atlanta airport. These two are the hardest working people I know!! They were on their way to Orlando to just relax!!!
Then in December CNN had their Christmas party at Ten Pin Alley and Dolce in downtown. The place is owned my Ashton Kutcher (Demi Moore's husband). I am on the far LEFT pictured with co-workers. We had a great time laughing!!
Yet another house party with Co-Workers.
I am on the right with Michelle, and this is another shot from the CNN Christmas party at Ten Pin Alley. She is a Technical Director.
No CNN Holiday party is complete without CNN Headline News' (HLN) morning anchor Robin Meade. You may see her in the mornings on CNN Headline News. I know people in high places!!!
I took my long time friend Tony with me to the CNN Christmas party.
Another picture with some co-workers. Robin on the right worked with me at the NBC station here in Atlanta, and it was good to see a few years back she jumped like I did to CNN.
It's time to get this wrapped up and hit the "publish" button........It's this time of year when we look back and reflect on all that we have. We give thanks for what happened to us that made us stronger. I know I will be.
You can e-mail me at: Keelyzee (at) AOL (dot) com --- How's THAT for getting past the bots that harvest e-mail addresses????? I'd love to hear from you!!!
Fondly,
-----Keely
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