Twisted Tuesday

If you'd stopped by my house last night at around 8 o'clock or so, you would have found me standing in my front yard, barefoot, staring at the swirling dark sky. Yes, I am one of those people who does the opposite of what I'm told to do. The second the tornado warning sirens went off, I tucked my children safely away, and then booked it outside to see what all the fuss was about. Dumb? Maybe. But I'd like to point out that quite a few of my neighbors were out there too, so, I don't feel all that bad about it. 

All day long, everywhere I went I'd heard chatter about the upcoming inclement weather. I sighed to myself and tried my best to get away from the voices. I hate playing the fear game. But it quickly became apparent that it was inescapable, from the checkout girl at Lowe's, to all of the beauticians at the hair salon, my friends, my friends friends, my family-the list goes on and on, everyone was freaking out! I suspect this had something to do with the recent destruction of Joplin. The tragedy is still very fresh in our minds.  So everyone was panicking, everyone that is, except for the Weather channel. I love the Weather channel, they are a voice of reason when the rest of us are running around yelling, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" (Not to say they're never wrong, no one's infallible after all).

Yesterday the Weather Channel predicted thunderstorms after 9pm, and my county was listed, along with tons of other counties, to be under a tornado watch. We always seem to be under some kind of warning. So this was no biggie. Or so I thought.

I wasn't expecting what greeted me when I walked out my front door last night. Did you know that clouds move to the East? I didn't-not until my hubby told me. I guess I'd never taken the time to notice. 

To the North of my house I found black clouds, full of lightening, moving in a westerly direction...West? And then to the West, there were dark clouds moving as they should, to the East. Freaky. I didn't know what it meant, but it looked ominous. 

I just want to say here, that my county was one of the lucky ones that weren't hit last night. We received a large dose of hail, thunder, lightening and rain, but other than that we skimmed by unscathed. But other counties weren't so lucky, Dallas, only thirty minutes away had several touch downs. 

After a while when my husband and I agreed that it was fruitless just standing there watching the sky, we went back inside. It was quiet and peaceful. Still tucked away, I found my four children right where I'd left them, surrounded by pillows and blankets, eating cookies and watching Toy Story 3 on the good ole ipad in the closet under the stairs. And in that moment it occurred to me how very blessed we are.  

(Just came across this video taken not too far from us. I noticed the time stamp is right around when I was staring at the sky in my front yard. From my vantage the sky looked just like this, with sirens blaring and everything. The twister forms to the right of the screen. Glad I didn't see this in person.)