The storm

It's been a very long 72 hours. On Wednesday, I never expected that I'd still be dealing with the storm that I watched on the news from 4:00 to 9:30. My tizzy began at about 3:30 on Wednesday as I drove home from school listening to the radio tell me to "Take cover immediately!!" as I sat in traffic. From that moment forward, I was distressed. 

I got home and was glued to the tv as I watched the green, purple, and white blobs move across the weather map towards me. I was a bit nervous you could say, as I told the girls that we needed to prepare the basement in case we needed it later (even though none of the storms all day had hit us yet). We decided that the corner under the kitchen would be best because it was surrounded by dirt walls and furthest away from big trees.

The big storm that got us.

I freaked a little lot. 

I hate our basement. It is dirty and leaks and there are bugs everywhere. There is a bunch of junk down there and we pretty much avoid it at all costs. But that night, it was my best friend. I kept telling the girls, "It's not that bad! Let's go down there! It's exciting!" (I used every tactic I could to get them down there with me.) The scare tactic worked on Lindsey, and the exciting tactic worked on Mary. Laura was up for whatever. 

At 8:15, we turned the tv as loud as it could go and went to the basement for the storm. The hail was HUGE and incredibly loud. The wind was loud, and we huddled together on the comfy soaking wet blankets. I closed my eyes and had a pillow over my head. (Dramatic?) Anyways, we were okay, and we went back upstairs after it subsided to watch the news more. 

Next storm was at about 8:45 and it looked terrible. I forced everyone into the basement onto our soaking wet, muddy blankets. We lit our candle and waited. It got really scary and we heard a loud boom that seemed to shake the floors, then our power went out. Mary said it was a tree but I said it couldn't be because it wasn't loud enough. We came out of the dungeon about 20 minutes later and I got mad at Mary for opening the front door (what if she got blown down by the wind?) until we saw THE tree. On HER car... and maybe my car. We stayed on the porch because I yelled at anyone who tried to step off in case of power lines that had popped. 

The morning after as Delaney headed to class.

The tree was massive. And it took down two other large trees with it, along with the power lines. 

After that, I had kind of a what-do-we-do-now feeling. No power, no car, no tv for news. We called and told mom and dad. Dad jumped in the car and came up and I was not very happy about him driving through the storms that were still coming. I made us go into the basement a couple more times and we brought pretzels with us to make it more homey, and I took 3 advil for my sudden throbbing headache. 

The back window of Mary's car. The brake light fell off.

My poor car.

Dad assessed the damage and we discovered that the tree was more on my car than on Mary's, but both were damaged. The limbs were in hers, the trunk on mine. We went to sleep at 1:30 AM only to awaken at 5 AM to men's voices outside. The city workers came to clear the tree! (Yay!) Dad helped us move our cars away from the tree, and he drove Mary's home with no back window or sunroof... Or door knob. He got home, got a trailer and headed back up to get mine on a trailer :(. It made some freaky noises as we drove it onto the trailer. Dad drove away in Aunt Janie's truck, with my car on back, and I drove away in his massive, "Big bad truck," as we call it. 

Goodbye to my sweet, sorry car.

Mary and I have shared the truck ever since. We are very thankful for the truck, but we both talk about how nervous we get to drive it on these narrow, curvy roads. Plus, it has really good, very sensitive and slightly dangerous pick-up that can make you (Mary) end up in the middle of intersections when you were just trying to inch up to the line. (We almost 3 wrecked cars in one day.)

Anyways, I have felt discombobulated for the past days since the event. I didn't realize how dependent I was on my car and electricity. I can't do anything without power. Being home alone without power is especially boring. 

Today I have read the entire Wall Street Journal. I also stared at the wall for a while. Then the power workers showed up and (this might be weird) I watched them work on the lines. It's better than watching the wall.

My car won't be fixed for a long time, or maybe never. We don't know if it's totaled or fixable. I liked that car a lot and I'd like to have it back, but either way will be okay. I'm glad because a car is replaceable. I just think it's nice to have a car at this point! And comparatively, it's nice to have a house and my health. So I'll be positive! It's much better that way. I have a lot to be thankful for....

Especially scenes like this in my front yard: