Tidbits

 Today is Sophie's 6th birthday! I miss hanging out with her so much, but thankfully we've chatted a few times and did these funny Messenger "effects" to make ourselves look . . . bizarre!

Sophie and Susie

When life gives you lemons, make . . . faces?

New looks

Here's one with Andrew:

Looking awesome

Also, recently I saw this Easter bunny challenge on Facebook so I decided to collect weeds in my own yard. Here is the example from Facebook:

And here's mine. I had to take the plants inside because it was a very breezy day. I was coughing afterward so I think I was allergic to a couple of those weeds.  I think the rosebud adds a nice touch, don't you?  I've become a little sad for some of my northern friends who claim they don't have grass or any flowers so far this year. I know they have beautiful snowy landscapes in winter whereas we ... usually don't, but I would rather have late falls and early springs than to live in leafless and flowerless areas for much of the year. IT'S APRIL! BRING ON THE FLOWERS AND GRASS!

The week before Easter Sunday, we'd been warned for days that there was a good possibility of very strong/severe storms that had a history of producing tornadoes. The weather folks were saying the conditions were good for a strong storm based on the "ingredients" they saw that were coming together.

My brother and I grew up watching educational videos including those on the weather, especially fascinating things like tornadoes. I recall a regular thunderstorm might pop up, and we'd hide in my mom's walk in closet with our Bibles, singing hymns as if we would be delivered from a tornado just like God got Paul and Silas out of jail with an earthquake. Only, we didn't want the walls to come down for us. We were fine with things staying as is - with our house intact and our lives spared.

Anyway...so ever since then I've been wary of tornadoes as are, I'm sure, much of the population.



I'd heard tips about wearing bicycle helmets and shoes and putting pillows, blankets, and clothes over you in case of a tornado. The timing of the storm was such that it was coming to our area anywhere between, like, 3 and 11 in the morning. Friends in Athens, Georgia, were planning to sleep in the basement.  We don't have a basement nor an interior room with no windows in this house, so I prepared a safe space for us in a place that I hoped would be ok if a tree fell on the house. I put Andrew's bike helmets there, my shoes, our go bags, along with the pillows and afghans I keep on the couch. We set our phones to received Emergency Alerts, and went to bed rather late. I was nervous so I didn't fall asleep until after midnight.


I woke around 3:00 and saw the storms were still a good ways off. Our local weather teams were keeping track and offering Facebook Lives for those too nervous to sleep. I checked in and saw where the line was, and went back to bed. Woke again around 5:30, checked the phone again and the storms were in the next county so I stayed up, keeping tabs on everything from our safe space while Andrew snoozed awhile longer. I had just walked into the bedroom to wake him up when our phones both alerted us to Tornado Warnings nearby, and Andrew was awake anyway. He said the lightning woke him.

We went into the living room, kept watching the news, and put on our protective gear. You can see I snapped this picture around 6:18. Andrew was putting on his shoes.

Andrew occasionally looked out at the storm whereas I told him to get away from the windows since we have some tall trees in the back and I didn't want one crashing down on him.  Finally we saw that our area was clear of the line of storms, but, wait....there was suddenly a Tornado Warning for southern Alamance County near Sutphin (near Saxapahaw and Snow Camp). Later it was confirmed as an EF1 and not just a radar-indicated tornado which sometimes doesn't actually get to the ground.  Thankfully no one was killed or injured that I heard, but I did see pictures of property damage. And some friends in South Carolina had a stronger tornado hit their area in Seneca. And still worse were storms in, I believe, Mississippi and Alabama. It was a great time if you like severe weather.


Between that (which actually brought down fewer limbs and sticks and we kept our electricity) and the roaring wind a few nights before (see previous post), I've picked up a lot of sticks in our yard lately. As I toss those in a trash can for the city to pick up, or in a pile somewhere, I often think about books I've read where people gather sticks for fires, so they can cook and eat, or heat water and clean. I thought of some areas where they've used all the wood they can find because they cut down their trees so there is no longer sticks that fall to the ground. I think of those people in past years (I want to say especially in parts of North Korea), and wonder about the blessings of trees. Even if you don't like picking up all those sticks strewn across the yard, trees are nice for the most part.


In one other, totally unrelated, tidbit for this post, I posted this picture for my mom last week. She didn't ask me to, but she went along with it. There was that Facebook thing which I actually loved because it was so funny seeing some of my friends' graduation pictures, and she couldn't find her yearbook, but had this 8x10 of her with most of her classmates, and I zoomed up to get mostly her in the shot. So, here's my mom in 1969 when she graduated from high school (which she loved.) I loved high school, too, but not so much my graduation picture. I don't think I ordered the ones the school did, but had some taken at Olan Mills.