One large serving of thunder and lightning, minus the tornados, please.

"

I don't want to lose you, this good thing

that I got 'cause if I do

I will surely,

surely lose a lot.

'Cause your love is better

than any love I know.

It's like thunder and lightning,

the way you love me is frightening.

You better knock, knock on wood, baby.

Okay, I just absolutely love that song, and it was fitting to this post, so there it is! Tornados aside, one of my favorite things about living out here are the storms. I am like a little kid on Christmas when it comes to thunder and lightning! For instance, I'm sure lots of people will go out on their porch to watch lightning, BUT will they do it at 1:30 in the morning in their pajamas and barefooted? (The barefoot part only lasted a little while, cuz then the rational part of my brain convinced me that if I didn't put some shoes on, all the bugs in South Dakota would be migrating over to my porch just to climb up my pajama pants, then they'd hitch a ride inside, then they're in my bed and it would just all be bad.) I'm sure that if my neighbors were awake and saw me they'd be wondering, "Didn't they have any dadgum lightning in California? Why does she have to subject us to the sight of her in pj's everytime there's a storm? Maybe she's sleepwalking..." When I'm out there, I really have to force myself to come inside and go to bed, cuz I'm honestly worried that the be-all, end-all, most awesome God-inspired displays of lightning are going to happen while I'm asleep! Just like Santa won't come while you're still awake, I'm convinced that the same is true for lightning. My hubby isn't too much help. He tells me this morning that the lightning was so bad at 3am that he had to close the curtain, because it was like a flashbulb constantly going off. My reply, "WHY DIDN'T YOU WAKE ME UP?!?!?!? Geez, man, have you no love for me at all!!" Then there's the thunder. Fortunately, I can hear the thunder from inside the house. Actually, I can FEEL the thunder from inside the house. We have thunder here that's so loud, it will shake the basement walls sometimes. It's really pretty awesome. If you've never watched a midwest thunderstorm, you should definitely take some time out of your busy life to do so. And I'm sure if we ask really nicely, we can go the rest of tornado season with only thunderstorms and no tornados, knock on wood.

Tornado Warning!!!

I have come to realize that the worst feeling in the world is to be 4 blocks from home (where your 11-year-old and 5-year-old are) when the Tornado warning siren goes off.

Luckily, we weren't hit by a tornado. But the few minutes it took me and hubby to get home, driving down our main street with pouring rain and high winds, were just the beginning of one of the scariest hours of my life.

We did have 60mph winds and our town siren went off 3 times. I'm usually not really scared of weather, and I've always wanted to be a storm chaser. But, NOT NO MORE! I really thought, as I sat in the basement clutching my bible, praying like a madwoman, that in just a few minutes, we would be left with nothing but 3 bottles of water, 4 blankets, TOO many boxes of toys that haven't been unpacked since we moved, and the 2 50# boxes of photos that I hauled down the stairs into the basement.

Praise God, the worst of it was a dent in the car. And of course it was our 2002 car and not our 1995 car, but better a dent in a car than in a kid!

We did have some downed power lines and there was a tornado spotted about a mile outside of town, but we didn't have any major damage in town beside the fallen tree branches. Of course today was a beautiful, sunny day, just like nothing had happened. I believe there's a bible verse that says something about the Lord's blessings being new every morning!

And even though, I'm sure I'll remain calmer the next time this happens (my son's 5th grade classmate told me this morning that I'll get used to it!), I think I may be suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder. When the sky started to look sort of menacing this evening, I had to make a conscious effort to not come un-glued and rush everyone and everything back into the basement. And, much to my surprise, I really became un-nerved and kinda scared when my husband jokingly imitated the warning siren noise. So, I seem to be a little skittish right now when it comes to all things storm-related.

If I had to come up with something positive about the whole experience, I guess it would be that I now know what I need to keep stored in the basement. And knowing how to operate the storm radio would probably be helpful too.

Ready for Spring Already!!!

I have come to the sad realization that the "First Day of Spring" does not pertain to South Dakota. We've seen glimpses of the mysterious season, but Winter is still hanging on with at least one hand. It has officially been Spring for about 5 weeks now, and just this past Friday, school got out at noon because of a snowstorm! Although, I have to say that I really didn't mind missing out on the 8th grade study hall that I was going to sub for! (If you've ever had an 8th grader, you'll know what I mean, but, THAT subject could take up it's very own blog!) And now, we're supposed to get more snow at the end of this week, which could mean cancelled field trips! I won't be too heartbroken about missing the zoo itself, but it will be my preschooler's first field trip, so if we don't go, I'll be really bummed. So even though I have ABSOLUTELY enjoyed having actual seasons, I'm ready for it to be Spring and ONLY Spring for now!