Just Call Me Dorothy or Ms. Pac Man

Tonight the weather is freaky again. There have been tornado cells all around, and as I told my friend Tina I am sitting inside a window under a big tree wearing a hat of foil. How's that for taking chances? I am not cut out for this kind of weather. Give me ice, snow, blizzards - I can take it - but tornadoes - no no no!
I have been pretty busy the last couple of days. I took Kullen to the movies yesterday and we got there about an hour early so we hung out in the arcade. I got totally hooked on Ms. Pac Man - and played it over and over again. I did give the kid a turn or two. We also played air hockey and a Star Trek game where we shot at Cyborgs. You can't have much more fun than that with a 10 year old boy. We liked the Ms. Pac Man thing so much that we stopped at Walmart on the way home and bought one of those little joystick games you can hook up to your TV and played practically all night last night.
I am missing my girls who traveled out of state with a friend. It's always weird when they aren't home - I feel so unsettled.
G'nite from Texas. *click* *click* there's no place like home..... there's no place like home.......

LOST in a Whirlwind

My husband called and woke me up this morning on his way to work and informed me that there was a severe thunderstorm anticipated - where two storms were converging one from the north (the cooler air) and one from the south (the warmer air). He also added - before my first cup of coffee - that this was tornado weather. He's real thoughtful that way.
All I know about tornadoes is that supposedly the atmosphere gets a greenish tinge right before a tornado strikes. Everytime I look out the window, all I can see is......you guessed it - GREEN! You'd think I was in Ireland! So I'm trying not to worry about it - ha!
In other news - not the whirlwind that is the tornado, but the whirlwind that is my life, I saw an ad in the newspaper yesterday for a graphic designer for the local paper - and I emailed them that I wasn't interested in full-time work - which is what they were advertising - but if they needed someone who was proficient in Adobe Photoshop CS3 and the Microsoft Office programs, I would be interested in talking to them about some freelance work. They want to interview me right away. Aaaahhhck! It is a good thing - I called my mother-in-law to be sure and she said yes, this was good. We'll see. I expected immediate rejection since I stated clearly that I was unavailable for full-time work. Who knows what will come of this. I would be totally excited to work for a newspaper - although still not writing - which is my true love. But a foot in the door is a foot in the door.
Also, I may be missing the season premiere of LOST - as my gorgeous daughter has invited me to be her guest at the "mock opening" of the restaurant where she will be working. The day shift is serving the night shift at 6:30 and the night shift is serving the day shift at 7:30. They can each bring one guest and she has asked her mommy! How could LOST be more important than being an honored guest of my most fabulous girl. (Y'all fill me in later!)

Five Words No Wife Wants to Hear

That would be: "Oh my God! Get down!"
Early this morning, Travis and I had been up for about 10 minutes and were tooling around the kitchen. I was getting the coffee pot started up, and he was looking outside the kitchen door asking me why all the animals were sitting there looking up at him like they wanted to come in. There was a thunderstorm outside, and we had seen flashing from lightening and heard the thunder roll, but suddenly the sound and the lighting outside changed. Travis yelled for me to get Kullen in the hallway rightnow!
The girls were sleeping over at a friend's house in another town after the co-op's high school Christmas party.
We got in the hallway, where I wrapped both arms and legs around Kullen and held on for dear life. The whole house rattled, and you could hear things snapping outside. I kept begging Travis to let the animals in but he said it was too dangerous to open the door.
After about five minutes, it quieted down. It was unbelievable. Our trampoline was bent up, our neighbor's light pole was snapped in half like a twig, there were branches and limbs down everywhere, and our power had gone out. A quick survey of the neighborhood showed a roof ripped off of a garage apartment, a fence down, but generally speaking, everything was okay. Nobody appeared to be hurt, and the damage was minor. All day long we heard more reports about horse trailers flipping over on cars, and all kinds of property damage. My super hubby spend the day re-installing a light pole for our handicapped neighbor. It took all day long to get our power back on.
I know tornadoes happen all the time, but it is a little scary when it touches your little corner of the world. Our house is fine. The only damage we suffered were a lot of downed limbs (some too big for me to carry), a hole through our trampoline netting, and a piece of tree bark which got plunged into the grill of Travis' truck!
In a strange way - I feel like I earned some sort of a "Texas badge" that reads, I survived a tornado!

I have some especially good stuff to share too - I've been reunited - due in large part to this blog with some family members that are really precious to me. I can't wait to share the whole story with you.

East Texas Weather

I had complained so much about the large amount of rain we had here in Texas - but then we were blessed with a couple of weeks of sunshiny weather, great temperatures, and the first signs of spring - blooming flowers, tweeting birds, gentle breezes. I have enjoyed it so much.
Yesterday afternoon I spent a couple of hours on my porch swing with a good book. Kullen came out for a while and we read some Shel Silverstein poetry. He cannot get enough of it! The weather was absolutely perfect. It was an idyllic lazy Sunday afternoon. Not even the cars driving by seemed in any hurry.
This morning when I woke, it was not daylight. I would have thought it was just the time change if it hadn't been for my husband calling on his way to work to let me know a serious storm system was headed our way. Now it is almost 9 am and it is PITCH BLACK. There are thunder claps and lightning zaps everywhere. I don't mind the storm as much as the idea of tornadoes. I got online specifically to look up tornado warning signs and found this great website from NOAA weather service. It had a lot of pictures, warning signs, and ideas of how to be prepared and what to do. So here I sit, looking for green clouds! (Did you know that was one of the warning signs of a tornado?)

I'll post our most recent favorite Shel Silverstein poems in another post later!