Too Many To Count

Tornado weather is my least favorite thing about living in TX. We have been having stormy weather lately. Last night I woke up to a strong wind, which is unusual, and then saw my weather alarm was going off (the volume was off), so I switched it on and then DH woke up and we both went to look at the hail falling, wind gusting and storm blowing around the house. We checked the kids and switched on the TV to see what was coming toward us. Sadly we had a bad night and are expecting two more. Every time a storm passes us by I feel lucky. We have seen some damage from tornadoes and never want to be directly hit by one. I remember the first really close call we had while living here. It was a Wednesday night and we were at the church early to set up. The storm started blowing, the air around us literally turned green and the hail started falling so thick that we could not see the cars in the parking lot from the foyer. The Bishop told everyone to get into the women's bathroom so we all packed in and sat around feeling scared. Luckily I had a pan of brownies for the treat that night and we ate those while keeping each other company. It ended up tearing down fences and trees and damaging some roofs in our town but pretty much swept by us and struck down town where it did a lot of damage to several of the big sky scrapers. It was lucky that the work day was pretty much winding down because most people had left by then. Still scary stuff. After the storm passed we went home. J was very freaked out. She was small then, about 7, and the storm was scary and very real. When we got home she ran upstairs to her room. I was putting stuff away and checking the house and watching the weather and getting ready to put the kids to sleep when she came down and said "don't worry mom it's going to be fine. I was praying and I heard a voice tell me it would be okay." She wasn't afraid anymore. And we were okay. And her little testimony of prayer grew that day.

In other random news Brother had his friend Blaine come play after school. It was wet outside but the boys didn't care. The ran around, threw baseballs at each other, made up a game called roll-ball~ which meant they rolled the baseball down the porch to one another and swung a bat at it like a golf club and tried to get the ball to go up the rain gutter. We made chocolate chip cookies and they had a grand time.

J went to the doctor today, now she's also on an antibiotic. I'll be happy when the weather clears up and the sniffles leave the house.

Lastly I am reading another Fannie Flagg book and it is just a delight. It's called "Standing in the Rainbow". I think what I like about her is her down home style and the way she makes the characters in her books come to life. Small town life, and people living side by side trying to do the right thing, what's not to love about that?
For example: one of my favorite paragraphs
If a stranger walked down the street past the barbershop in Elmwood Springs on Saturday afternoon and glance in, he would see a group of middle-aged, gray-haired men sitting around chewing the fat. But if you were one of the men inside you would see six friends you had grown up with, not old men. Doc didn't see the wrinkles on Glenn Warren's face or notice that his neck had turned red and sagged with age or the wide girth straining his suspenders to the breaking point. He saw a skinny boy of seven with lively eyes. They were fixed in one another's eyes as the boys they used to be. When Doc looked at sixty-eight-year-old Merle he saw the blond boy of ten he used to go swimming with. And to all of them, the balding man in the short sleeves with the little potbelly was still the boy who scored the winning touchdown that won the county championship. There wasn't a secret among them. They knew one another's families as well as they knew one another. Their wives, now plump gray matrons in comfortable shoes, they still saw as the pretty dimpled girls of eight or twelve that they had once had crushes on. Since they'd all grown up together, they'd never had to wonder who they were; it was clearly reflected in each other's eyes. They never questioned friendship; it was just there, like it had been when they were children. They had all been at one another's weddings. They'd shared in all the sadness and happiness of one another's lives. It would never occur to them to be lonely. They would never know what it was like to be without friends. They would never have to wander from town to town, looking for a place to be; they had always had a place to come home to, a place where they belonged and where they were welcome. None of these men would ever be rich but they would never be cold or go hungry or be without a friend. They knew if one died the others would quietly step in and their children would be raised and their wives would be cared for; it was unspoken. They had a bong. Small-town people usually take these things for granted. As a certain young man named Bobby Smith was to find out for himself that year.
How sweet to be swept away to a life most of us don't live anymore, but that maybe a part of us longs for.