Gray Saturday

Today was a little rainy and overcast, but we still had a great day!  Perfect mix of relaxing + productive.  Brent couldn’t ride because of the weather, so we ended up sleeping later than usual, getting some housework done, then going for lunch at Mellow Mushroom before getting groceries.

When we got home, I went straight for this:

And took a loooooong nap.  Tonight we ended up braving the nasty weather and going to the Plantation House with our friends.  They have this amazing wonderful spectacular shrimp & corn chowder on the salad bar.  I ate so much of it that I had to bring my actual meal home in a to-go box. This restaurant has the BEST chicken fingers ever, so we have that to look forward to tomorrow!

Rainy photos:

And look what we found in our kitchen cabinets!!!

I’m a little embarrassed that Thelma might see this, but oh well.   It is remarkable. We were growing a garden & didn’t even know it.

Our Account of the April 27th Tornado

Today, home and recovering from back surgery, I put in a full workday on the blog, documenting our experience during the April 27th tornado.  The result is three long and terribly inadequate posts and numerous pictures. It was important for me to do this because it has become such a major part of our lives and has changed us in ways we obviously didn’t anticipate and never would have imagined. 

I back-dated the series to April 30th, so that I will be able to find them easily in the future.  I hate that this violates the integrity of the blog, but I like for things to be in order.

You can read them by clicking the links below:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 3 also includes links to other websites with coverage of the storm.

May 2011

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Update 9/8/11: Our back-dated tornado posts can be found on the date of April 30th, or you can click on the following links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

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Just thinking about the blog makes me overwhelmed.

I think this blog should be an accurate representation of our life & therefore, obviously, I must somehow blog about the tornado. I just don’t know what to write and I know that the pictures I have taken (not many) are truly inadequate to describe the things we have seen, the stories we have heard, & thing things we continue to see everyday. It is the strangest feeling in the world to be homesick for a town that you are living in.

We are so grateful that we were not “directly” impacted – our house is unharmed and neither of us lost anyone we love as a result of the storms. Most days we look around and feel such an overwhelming relief, realizing that our lives could have changed drastically. But still – working at the hospital and being in that hospital that night, and driving through the destruction every day, living without power for a week, and knowing people who were personally affected and lost everything, and just living in a town that is almost unrecognizable in the worst way possible is something that I really can’t explain with words. Or at least, it is a task that will take a LONG time.

So, I am going to try to keep updating the blog with pictures and recipes and pugs and silly stories and when I get my thoughts and pictures and stories together I will post about the thing that has really changed our lives this year.

April Tornado 2011

We survived our first tornado in Alabama!  I think this might be a rite of passage and now we are, officially, true Alabamians.

The tornado happened on Friday, April 15th, around 3:30-4:00 pm.  It does not appear that what hit our house & street was the tornado itself, but maybe just some strong winds. Actually, I was trying to makes sure I could get home from work, so I drove right into the storm, which was obviously not a smart idea.  I didn’t know it was so close, though!  No more than 2 minutes after I got in the house, the wind started blowing like crazy and I was scared that the dining room windows were going to blow out.  The power went out and me & the pugs sat in the hallway, listening to all kinds of thumps and bumps as branches were blown against the house.

It was over so fast and when it died down I looked out the front door and all I could see were limbs and leaves everywhere.  At the end of the driveway there two large trees uprooted.

Brent was still at work and of course my cell phone was going dead, but I talked to him briefly to tell him I was all right & sent some pics from my cell phone.  The next thing I know, a policeman comes to the door to see if I’m all right.  I walked outside with the camera and neighbors were walking up and down the road, checking on people to make sure everyone was okay.

This picture shows the minute Brent came walking up.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to see him!  Since the roads were closed, he had to park at the end of the road and hike in.

The picture above was taken at the end of our driveway, looking to the right.  The picture below was taken in the driveway, facing left.  I’ve never seen power lines completely down like that!

Zach is our neighbor’s mutt.  He’s a little slow, physically & mentally.  He likes to walk down the middle of the road & doesn’t even move for cars – they have to go around him.  If we didn’t have so many speed tables, Zach wouldn’t still be around.  But anyway, when I first opened the door after the storm, he was in our front yard, just making his way among the branches, no worries.  In the picture above, you can see him walking all over the power lines….in the rain.

This is our next door neighbor’s house.  As you can see, he’s stranded.  Those uprooted trees beside our driveway fell in his yard.

So, after we got out & surveyed the damage a little bit, we headed out to get supplies….flashlights & batteries & water & ice for the cooler.  We stopped at Cracker Barrel for take-out supper for me & Brent + our neighbor. We had a bit of a fiasco getting back to the house due to the roadblock that resulted in Brent calling the Tuscaloosa Police Dept. and asking to speak to a supervisor.  But anyway, we finally made it home & had a candlelight dinner.

We went to bed pretty much as soon as it got dark, because what is there to do with no TV or internet?  The city trucks rolled in right when we got into bed to clear all of the trees out of the road…so basically I got no sleep due to the combination of chainsaws + loud talking & laughing + Milly snoring like a freight train.  Plus it was stifling hot in the bedroom.  But you know, I didn’t even care!  I was just glad to be safe & at home.  Our power finally came back on the next night, around 8:30.  Clean up will take awhile, but we are grateful that no one was actually hurt.