It Was a Quiet Rainy Afternoon...

And your girl Bekah was in the kitchen, happily baking cookies. Chocolate chip, in fact. {Don't believe me?}

 A gentle rain fell, and I unloaded the dishwasher while I waited for the first batch of cookies to bake. I thought {a mistake I will not be making again} how lovely it was to be safe in my home during a gentle rain and how grateful I was to have the time to make cookies for my husband and just enjoy being a homemaker.

My phone rang...and rang...and rang...an oddity I'd never seen before. No break. Just ringing. As I walked to it, the weather radio went off. What?!?! They both blared tornado warnings. TORNADO WARNINGS?!?!!? What about my nice gentle rain and baking cookies? My happy homemaking?

I had no idea storms were on the radar {ha! See what I did there?} for the day, and after talking to several of Ryan's co-workers later, I learned I was not alone in my ignorance. I called Ryan, freaking out, because that's what I do in storms, and he told me to calm down because it was just a little rain. Never one to be quickly calmed, I continued my freaking-outting until finally he asked if I wanted him to come home and get me, so I could be at the hospital with him.

I said no, because I wanted to be with the house, I said. "What are you going to do for it, exactly?" he asked. Well, I'd thought about throwing myself over it to protect it, but I could see how that didn't make a lot of sense. So I finally agreed he should retrieve me. He scooted home, picked me up, and I rushed into his interior office to hang out with Brutus.

Sorry for the blur. I was shaking like you would not believe. Also. Don't expect to see smiles in this post. Not the time.

Not long after that photo was taken, they started closing blinds at the hospital and moving patients to the interior. Time for the water works.

It got so much uglier than that picture, people. I was sobbing and shaking and not breathing AT ALL. Ryan was trying to coach me through breathing {though he does not remotely understand my fear of storms} but I couldn't get it together. I tried to Lamaze, but it wasn't helping much. I fell apart the most when the rain and wind I could hear above just stopped and it was crazy quiet. I thought we were done.

The hospital was fine, but as you may have seen on the news {if you're from around here}, the town did take a hit, including one of our Starbucks stores! {These pictures below were from the Kokomo Herald Facebook page, so all photo credit to them.}

{I don't know how many people were inside, but there were people inside and from what I heard, they were all safe in the bathrooms. If you're not from here and don't know, the bathrooms in this Starbucks are on the right side of the building right above the red shopping cart in the bottom photo. Pretty much the only area still standing.}

It's a lot to take for a coffee loving, tornado hating girl, you know. Coming out of a tornado shelter to find out Starbucks fell over.

I had to sit for a while at the hospital because I was ridiculously lightheaded from all my hyperventilating. I do think that was my worst case of hyperventilation to date. I was a mess. When I got ready to go home...look!

Why yes! Sunshine and blue skies!

Good grief, Indiana.

Ryan got home a little late because they were waiting to hear if people from other facilities were going to be transferred to theirs, since it was still functional. Shortly after he got home, a second round showed up. I packed up all my journals in suitcases and prepared for us to hide in the bathroom.

Except when I turned around, he was gone.

I ran all over the house looking for him and then outside. I hollered his name and this whole group of gawkers down the road turned and looked at me, and I kept running and hollering.

Then I found him.

WITH THE GAWKERS.

See that guy in a white shirt and black pants in the trees? Yeah that's him. I kept yelling and yelling his name until he turned around and I said "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" {What a lovely first impression I made on some of these folks.}

He looked at me quite calmly and said, "Watching the tornado."

I looked over at that lady in the black shirt and said, "What did he say?"

She said, "Watching a tornado."

I said, "FOR REALSIES??????"

She nodded.

I fled.

And by the time I got back to my "safe" spot, he had texted me.

I know you can't see the bottom because of the corn, but I saw another angle online and this was definitely a tornado.

Did I mention he really doesn't understand my fear of storms?

Because after that, I went here:

And he went here:

We went through three rounds in our part of town, and it seemed like every time we calmed down, the weather radio went off again.

I saw chopper coverage on TV and my goodness, what a MESS just not too far from us. Praying fervently for those folks and the cleanup and rebuilding ahead.

Meanwhile, if you need me, I'll be nose-in-Stress-Away-oil.

I think I need to focus on the SECOND part of this verse. Got the first part down.