Calm after the storm....

We don't worry about tornado's in Florida too much; even when we do have them, they're usually quite small especially since I have memories of the huge tornado's of Indiana and Ohio...but yesterday, well, I have to admit that I was pretty darn shaken up.

I had my annual hair appointment yesterday morning - cut and color and as most women know, that is several hours worth of sitting in the salon (and I'm exaggerating only a little bit about it being an annual thing with me~~). Yesterday, we all knew the weather might get a bit rough but I don't think most of us expected it to be quite that bad....I began to wonder as I watched it turn dark as night out the salon window and watched the street lights turn on one by one at 1:30 in the afternoon. Driving out of the parking lot about 15 minutes later to head out to pick up Hunter from school, I turned on talk radio to get some weather news.....! Tornado's and funnel clouds were being reported from Duval, to Clay, to St. Johns county....school dismissals were being held for bus-ers and walkers and they were asking the parent pick up folks to wait a bit to head out for their kids. Twenty five minutes from home and only about 10 minutes from the school, I decided to get to the school asap...and then decide whether to drive on home or take shelter in the school.

In hindsight, I should probably have remained at the school (where they kept all the kids for an additional hour and fifteen minutes~~) because as Hunter and I raced home, they were reporting tornado's heading our way from two different sides of us....we saw one funnel cloud as we crossed over I95......

We made it home just before the rains and winds hit our place...driving up the country road and looking at the sky our little house appeared to be in the middle of a circle of clouds.....all the dark and dangerous looking ones seemed to be circling us......I know that part of it was the illusion of safety that came because I could see the end of our rather harrowing drive home but the house looked sheltered in some way from the chaos that surrounded it....

We stashed our stuff and shut windows and doors as the first bit of rain came down, we watched as debris began to fly and hit those windows and we listened to the silence of a house in which the power has failed making us more aware of the howling winds just outside......Two hours later, it all calmed down and we ventured out to check on the chickens equipped with our raincoats and mud boots.....and spent the remainder of our day talking to family and friends and being grateful that when all was said and done, not too much damage was being reported......the only thing we lost yesterday was a few hours of Internet connectivity......I wish the Haitians had been so lucky.

6 reforms I'd like to see in America's heath industry