Everyday Nothings

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Randoms

I could really use some more work clothes. With my weight / size fluctuating so much for the past FOUR YEARS (since my pregnancy), I've hesitated to buy entire wardrobes at each size. But I am so tired of having limited clothing choices.

Right now I have 3 pairs of pants I can wear to work, plus 1 skirt. That's not even a work week. I can't tell you how many times I've done laundry simply because I was out of work clothes.

And my work clothes pretty much double as my church clothes, so... 4 bottoms for 6 days. Ugh.

Also - all but 2 of my work shirts are short sleeved. Mostly because it was summer when I bought them, but also if it's cold I can put a jacket on in the office. It's cold in my office every day. Ugh.

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related to above - I'm still losing weight, albeit slowly, but I really think I might be at my end size. I am currently 4 lbs above my wedding weight, and 10 lbs below my pre-pregancy weight, but hardly any of my pre-pregnancy clothes fit. Very, very few.

I think my body shape has just changed so much. I'd probably have to lose another 20 lbs to fit into them, and even then it would be iffy, LOL.

Which means I might not meet my goal of fitting into my wedding dress again this year, which totally sucks. Booo!

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Work has been a roller coaster of emotions lately. Example? Sure.

Last week I have two managers, including my direct supervisor, tell me that one of my largest single projects "doesn't matter".

Morale = plummeting

Today I had a Vice President ask me to teach him something. Later he asked my opinion about a division project, and said he will act on my suggestions because I am the expert in that area.

Morale = skyrocketing

Just two small examples. But it's been like that for a month or so. Roller coaster. Seems like every day. Stress.

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We have way too many vehicles at our house. Five to be exact. For two drivers. Ridiculous.

To be fair, a breakdown:

- the ILs truck, which has been broken down for months, and Jason has thus far been unable to fix. I want to declare it dead & tell them to get it off our property, but... they're his parents & they want him to fix it, so... it stays. For now.

- Jason's work van for his business

- the SUV, our newest (by model year) & most reliable, which is driven by whomever-has-Jena (primarily me)

- my old car, which we planned to sell for a decent amount of $$ (13 yrs old, and blue book was still over $3,000)... until it broke down. FireMan would like to fix it, because we'll get so much more $$ out of the sale, but... I don't like have broken down vehicles around the house.

- the new (to us) car Jason bought off of CraigsList, with the intention of it replacing my old car

I know we live in the country, but I really don't wanna be those redneck hillbillies with 63 broken down vehicles scattered around the property.

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I'm getting my hair cut next week. I can't decide how to do it. I don't really care for it shorter.

Well, not that I don't like it, I just liked it better longer.

But everyone else seems to like it shorter. Everyone.
I hear "you look younger" a lot.

So I can't decide if I should keep it short, or just start growing it out.

Either way, I have decided the shape needs a change. It was great right when I first got it cut, but after just a week or so what little it had grown out I really didn't like.

Who knows, maybe just getting a different shaping to it will help me to like it better.

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We're doing crazy-good with our Financial Peace plan.

Every. Single. Month when we sit down to do our finances, we're like
"we can't believe we've paid off this much!"
"we can't believe how much money we have to pay down bills!"

Every month. Same conversation.

Needless to say, I highly recommend the program.

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We're taking the membership class at our church, er... the church we've been going to regularly for over three years.

I know, right? Three years. Definitely not rushing into anything, but we finally decided we should become members.

We actually decided this a while back, but they only offer the class every six months, and the last one we weren't able to attend due to FireMan's shift schedule.

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For anyone not familiar with a membership class (I wasn't until my mid-20s), they review what the church's core beliefs are, core values, what they teach, etc. and give you a chance to ask questions.

At our old church it was one night.

Here it's three nights, spread over several weeks.

At the end you decide whether or not to join.

Not anticipating any issues, but it would kinda stink to find out thru this class that they believed in something that I didn't, after going there for over three years.

We had reasons for waiting. Or rather, reasons for not making it a priority.

But oh boy do I hope that doesn't happen, because that would most likely create some tension between FireMan & myself, because he loves this church, while I could easily walk away.

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I recently schedule a consult for Lasik eye surgery.

The idea of it makes me very nervous (hence the years-long procrastination), but the consult is scheduled.

Just that makes me nervous. They said just the consult will take 2-3 hours, and they'll be dilating my eyes more than is done at regular appointments, so I won't be able to see well for "several hours" afterward, and will need someone to drive me home.

Wowsa.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Storms

On Friday, March 2, 2012 multiple tornadoes tore thru the area.

Earlier that morning, my sister called me from Iowa wanting to know where I was going to be that day.

Not only is she paranoid of severe storms (especially the "T" word), but she's a trained weather spotter (it helps calm her anxiety... except when it's real).

They've changed the weather alert system recently, so when she told me we were under a Tornado Watch, I didn't pay much attention. After all, we had six Tornado Warnings last year, and only one storm was even worth being worried about.

Just after lunch, I checked the weather and realized we weren't just under a regular ole Tornado Watch, we were under a PDS (Particularly Dangerous Situation) Tornado Watch.

This was serious

red dots indicate reported tornadoes

The dangerous part of the storm was predicted to hit my area around 5pm, and last until around 9pm.

I made plans to leave work at 4pm.

Around 3:30pm my husband called. He had run into a local sheriff's deputy, who said a tornado had touched down in Crittendon, KY and was headed directly for us. Should arrive in 30-45 minutes.

I left work.

My parents were watching Jena that day. They live farther north, and have a basement (we do not).

Since the storms were predicted to last until 9pm, when my mom answered the phone I simply said
"You're keeping her"

She understood what I meant, but said she had more.
According to the news, a tornado had hit Holton, IN and was headed straight for us. Would be here in 30-45 minutes.

You heard that right. Two tornadoes had touched down, and both predicted paths were aimed at our home.

Then my sister called, and begged me not to leave work. The storms were moving faster than originally predicted. I didn't have time to make it home.

But I was already on the road. Halfway home. No sense in turning back now.

The roads were packed. It looked like rush hour, with one notable difference:

We were all driving as fast as we could, 15-20 mph over the speed limit the entire way, we all flew along, everyone like-minded in their driving.

About 10 minutes from home, the sirens went off.

I made it home, rushed in the door. Grabbed the cat carrier, and briefly discussed with Jason what to do with the dogs, and how the chickens were just screwed.

Then we watched the news. And waited.

And it never came.

Both tornadoes miraculously seemed to have changed paths.

We waited. And waited.

It never came.
We watched the radar as the path of the storm headed east.

It was over.

That night, we realized the tornadoes touched down south of us, east of us, and northwest of us.

But spared us. Praise the Lord.

A day later, we found a piece of sheet metal, various small pieces of styrofoam, and multiple small pieces of shingles on our property.

Two days later we found out that a tornado was reported by a trained spotter over our area. Did not touch down.

We also found that the system that hit the area was extremely rare, in that instead of one tornado staying on the ground then losing power and dissolving, it essentially hit the ground, picked back up, dropped down again, rinse, repeat.

It also contained at least one multi-vortex tornado.

So, in effect, while the tornado that hit Crittendon changed paths, the tornado that hit Holton was simply pulled up into the clouds and stayed there while over our area, before dropping back down further east.

We are very blessed indeed.

Many others were not so lucky.

Multiple deaths across several states.

Numerous injuries.
A great number of homes destroyed.

Amazingly, as close as these strikes were, neither Jason nor I personally know anyone who was directly affected.

Friends of friends, yes.

Family of friends, yes.

But no one we know ourselves.
At least not that we've yet discovered.

Amazing.

If you are familiar with the greater area at all, when you look at the map you can see that we were, actually, very, very lucky.

Although I'm sure it is small comfort to those hit, the fact is the tornadoes pulled off the ground before hitting any majorly populated areas, hitting farming communities instead.

I cannot imagine the loss of life we would be reading about today had any of the tornadoes hit areas such as Louisville, Lexington, or Cincinnati - all of which were in such reasonable proximity that a simple change of path would have led the storm directly to them.

Even suburban areas, such as Charleston, Madison, Lawrenceburg, Burlington, Florence, Independence, Dry Ridge, Maysville, Alexandria, or New Richmond - all would have equalled an even greater loss of life, even greater destruction.