Safe, Sound, and Incredibly Grateful

PICTURES BEFORE THE STORM --

So Ike has come and gone, and we are so glad. (My apologies to my brother and sister-in-law who received the aftermath in Kentucky!!! Oops....do you have power back yet?) Greg and I consider ourselves immeasurably fortunate. The storm hit at its fullest force at 4:30 in the morning Saturday, and let me tell you, that is by far the scariest storm I've ever been through. They estimate that our area was hit by 100 mph winds. The power left us around 12:30 or 1 in the morning, and the winds were quite blustery. We prayed that our trees would not damage anything around them. It was very dark and very hot with no A/C, and we couldn't see anything that was going on outside, so it was a little more frightening than normal, hearing the loudest, strongest winds we have ever heard in the middle of the night. Some people would rather not watch what's going on, but I'm the kind of person who has to watch the doctor actually give me the shot because I want to see when it's going to hurt. Go figure.

PICTURES AFTER THE STORM --

Anyway, the results for us are this: no damage to our house whatsoever. We boarded up our windows, so everything was safe. We kept all of our shingles (many of our neighbors could not say the same thing -- 3 minutes down the road, lots of people lost windows and parts of roofs). We lost our peach tree and half of our big, fluffy willow tree. It looks kind of barren out there. We also lost part of our fencing, as did almost everyone in Houston. Greg's dad, Tom, lost his entire fence, as well as his shed. Funny thing is that everything inside the shed never moved from its spot -- it all stayed in the same place. The wind picked up the shed and threw it up over the fence into the neighbor's yard. Even the shed doors stayed in Tom's yard. But all in all, we really are the most fortunate people here. The power came on Saturday evening, about 15 hours after it went out, so we only had to eat one meal on the camp stove on our back porch -- Spaghetti O's and Mini-Raviolis.....yummmmmmmm!!!!!

Truthfully, going through a storm of this magnitude, gives you a renewed sense of perspective. Both of us have been home from work since last week due to the storm's impact. Life slows down, you actually meet your neighbors and help each other out, you realize that you don't have to constantly be entertained by television, radio, or video games, food gets simple, you can live without a cell phone, and you spend time with friends. It's a slower pace. And you see that the hustle and bustle is truly unnecessary in life. We've sped things up -- reminds me of that Rascal Flatts song, "Mayberry." Okay, so that was in a TV show before it was in a song. I guess that shows my age :0) So for those of you out of the storm's path, I would encourage to take some time to slow down. Meet your neighbors. Unplug from normal, crazy life. And if you think about it, please pray for our friends and neighbors here in the Houston/Galveston area -- there are a lot of people here whose lives are forever changed.