I'm MOVING!!!!!

To a new blog address that is. I'm going to keep this current blog but won't be posting to it much anymore. I decided that my blog needed a little more focus, so the new blog will concentrate on single parenting as well as the usual stuff I've been posting here. Make sure to go there and follow it with your gmail/blogger account ok? Or you can just bookmark it. You can find it by clicking on this link....... More Than Fine.

Gotta try this cider recipe!

"The Kurtz Corner": Fall Cinnamon Cider: Fall is finally here! Well, it's still in the 80's to 90's here in Texas but Fall weather is on its way! Today, I wanted to share with you a...

Why is Lydia laying on the grocery store floor taking a picture of her slippers? Why is she wearing slippers at the grocery store? Why am I wearing her furry boots? We so classy.

6 Months

Yesterday marked six month since the tornado outbreak on April 27th. The day was marked by some ceremonies and plenty of media coverage. With a knot in my stomach, I took some time to browse through videos and news stories this morning. The way I felt in the days after that storm will stay with me forever. Coming home from Knoxville the next morning we drove through a police barricade in order to get down our street. We sat in a long line of emergency vehicles, power company trucks, and vans full of prisoners brought out to try to clear the road. We were just blocks from our house but couldn't see it as we sat in line.  We watched as a pickup truck zoomed past and a group of men spilled out and checked on the residents of each home, marking the street in blue spray paint to indicate the number of survivors and the number of deceased.

When the line finally snaked up over the hill and descended towards our home I couldn't believe what I saw. The wooded areas that were once so beautiful were gone...debris of all kinds was scattered everywhere...in our yard, in the road. Every.single.last power pole was laid over the road and into our yards, taking the power lines with them. Everything that had once been big and tall and strong was flattened. There was a rainbow of colored barn boards in my yard...shingles were everywhere. You wouldn't believe the odd things that turned up in my yard...a baseball card, road signs, trash cans. Across the street there were no longer houses...just piles of debris. I mean debris obliterated into such small pieces you almost wouldn't know there were houses there. There was a trailer in a tree. It's contents spewed all over the place. We walked down the road and stared at the ruins of one house where a man road out the storm...trapped against a wall by his dining room table...He was sifting through debris looking anything important and I couldnt believe I was seeing him stand there. We watched as the media interviewed several people. News began to trickle in of the members of our community that did not make it. They said 13 people were dead. Thirteen in a town this size!

As the days turned into weeks our neighborhood continued to be chaotic. Search and rescue teams came through, the Red Cross brought us food, churches stopped by to see who needed what. The sound of chainsaws and the smell of smoke will forever remind me of those days. There is still SO much cleanup that needs to be done. I can't imagine that all of it will EVER be cleaned up.

I say all of that to explain why it is that Lydia throws up when a thunderstorm rolls through, even though we got out of town the night of the tornado. She didn't hear the wind or feel the house shake, but she topped that hill that day and saw that there are things so uncontrollable they can destroy your world in 2 minutes. She got to the point where she wouldn't look out the windows because she was so tired of seeing the destruction. We've gotten to where we keep all the shades closed because if you look out you can see the path over Taylors Ridge where the tornado bore down on our area. You can see the bare hills and the remains of a barn where 3 horses died. There is still a tree or two down in our yard. Every day Lydia counts the days until spring and tornado season again. She's panicked. I'm debating taking her to a counselor because even now she wants to know the plan. What would we do if it happened again? As her mother I can usually figure out a solution to most dillemas, but on this one I'm stumped and it's partly because I feel the same way she does. What WILL we do? Every so often I'm struck with the "what if's". This thing was yards from our house. What if we had chosen to stay home? What if it had shifted a little bit our direction? I don't know how Lydia and I would have survived given the age and structure of our little house.


So, ya'll. I'm admitting it. I'm scared too.

Change is good.
Change is scary.
Change is hard.

You've heard people say these things right? Like when you were placed in another position at work, or decided to move to a new city, or your boyfriend left you for someone younger and blonde.

When I think about change an analogy comes to mind. I think, but I'm not sure, that it came from an Amy Grant song. I think about the iceberg scene from Titanic...the moment it became clear they were in trouble and every ship worker engaged every system possible to try to get that thing stopped, or turned or at least slowed down.

When I visualize this I add another statement to our list of cliches about change. Change is hard WORK. It's painful. It's God taking an entire life and all that's connected to it and applying pressure just fierce enough to turn things around without completely overturning the ship. We lament our lost jobs, our lack of money, the end of relationships, etc. and that's fine because we're human, but we fail to realize that in order for God to get us between the bouys again we're going to have to let some stuff go. We're going to have to heave some baggage overboard. We're going to have to take a second look at places we originally said we wouldn't go. It's going to be hard, but it's going to be so worth it when the sea is calm and the sun is rising to warm hearts that have grown bigger, deeper, and more accepting.