St. Paddy's

Another year, another St. Patrick's Day...and I did get Patrick his annual St. Paddy's t-shirt from Old Navy and attempted to take his picture in it as well. However, we were in a playful mood and I got in the picture too and effectively covered up his logo with my arm, so instead you get shamrocks splattered all over the picture. I also realized that I don't have a single scrap of green clothing, so we know what I'll be adding to my wardrobe this spring. Nothing like a holiday to make you see gaping holes in your closet.

This weekend a monster storm came through the South and we kind of dodged a bullet inasmuch as an F3 tornado demolished a good chunk of our neighborhood. When I say neighborhood, I don't mean the group of houses on my street, I mean the area of town where I live. The main carnage occurred about 1.5 miles from our house, and I was totally clueless as to what was going on. Good for me, since I probably would have FREAKED...bad for Luke, who was at work and all he could gather is that a tornado hit our road. The power was out and I had INconveniently forgotten to switch on the ringer to the wall phone, the only one that worked. So as he called and called, I had stashed my cell phone, purse and flashlight in the closet under the stairs and was vigilantly watching for a reason to cram in there with the kiddies and dogs, wondering what the hail and the wind and the faint smell of smoke in the air really meant and completely unaware that the actual reason was just down the road. I became a little bit more aware of the situation a few minutes later when every emergency vehicle in the county plus some from surrounding counties started screaming past our house and continued for a steady hour. And it was at that point that Luke finally got hold of me and gave me the scoop. We were lucky, though...I found out just how lucky later that evening. With the power still out, the sun setting and nothing to do, we got in the car and drove down to see the wreckage and oh my gosh. It is amazing how one side of the street could be completely obliterated and the other side untouched. It was the kind of stuff you usually see in Texas and Oklahoma, and not a single trailer involved. Brick houses torn to the ground. Hundred-year-old oak trees either uprooted or snapped off of their huge trunks. And when I saw the power lines--the huge main lines that look like ski lifts--scattered across a pasture like tinker toys...well, I told Patrick it would be a while before we had power again. But the power company did an amazing job, and it was only a little over 24 hours that we had to go without. So as I said, we were lucky. A lot of people weren't.

Wilson was so freaked out he was practically molting, and had been since early that morning when the first major thunderstorm rolled through. I'm amazed he didn't have a heart attack sometime during the day. Even after everything had passed, it took him a little while to muster up enough courage to come out from underneath the end table.

So spring is here, and along with the blossoming trees and budding flowers comes occasional bad weather. It's truly a shame when people lose their homes and their lives to mother nature, but sometimes the humanity that comes out of it is the silver lining. The relief efforts from people in the community have been stellar, and the power company and the county trucks have been going by day and night working as fast as they can to get the area back to (relatively) normal.

Our spring break is next week and we don't have any concrete plans. We are going to take a lot of day trips, which are loosely planned depending on the weather. I had planned on taking the boys to the children's museum in Atlanta, but I'll have to check to see if it's open since the first tornado of the weekend ripped right through downtown--crazy. If not, there's an equally great discovery museum in Chattanooga we could go to. Whatever end up doing, I'll try to take some pictures and document the fun we plan on having. Hope everyone is enjoying this warm weather!