Ugly Storms Rip Across the Midwest on Tuesday

Another very windy day today across the Midwest brings back memories of the ugly storms that slammed our region yesterday. Monday night to Tuesday morning was unseasonably warm. It made it hard to sleep. Early in the day despite the wind the girls and I wanted to go out and play. By the time we got ready to step outside it had started raining. It was only light rain so we decided to go out for a few minutes. We barely got up to the swingset when the raindrops started to sting. The wind picked up and so did anything that wasn’t nailed down. It was time to go inside.

No sooner did we get in the door that my phone started ringing. It was DH telling us we should get ready to take cover. The radar images showed that a nasty storm was headed right for us and there were at least four unconfirmed sightings of tornadoes to our west. Right away I asked Yeyda to get her’s and her sister’s pillows, some blankets, and books and take them to our little bathroom. It is the most interior room of the house and the only one without windows. That is our storm shelter since we do not have a basement :(.

I ran around getting flashlights, water bottles and snacks as well as jackets and ID to take in the bathroom with us just in case. Bonbon was very frightened because the winds had seriously picked up and the rain was falling so hard and fast you couldn’t see anything out the window. She kept saying, “Mommy, ouside, ouside Mommy,” in a very worried tone. I just kept asking her to go back to the bathroom with her sister and sit and wait for a few minutes. I opened a west window to see if I could hear the tornado sirens of the nearby town, but I couldn’t hear anything with all the wind and rain. DH had said the sirens had already gone off in the town where he works and they were 20 miles to the east – the storm hadn’t reached them yet. The storm roared through and shook the house and by 11:30 the Tornado Warning was lifted. DH called and left a message that a guy that works for him got a message from his brother that a tornado had touched down just 20 miles west of us. I thought this was odd since most of the storm had past us according to the radar images.

Needless to say this ruined our outside playtime for the rest of the day. I need to cut down the rest of my plants and harvest what hasn’t yet been ruined by frost. Hopefully, I find some more that is still OK. The other day I picked up a few tomatoes that apparently had rotted on the vine. They looked OK but tasted terrible so I had to pitch them.

Winter blues seem to be setting in early with me this year. I don’t know why. Going from being outdoors everyday to almost nothing at all is hard to get used to. I need to be less of a chicken and go out even on cold days.