All together now!

We had our first couple of Tornado Warnings in the state yesterday afternoon, so I guess it's official... Tornado Season is here ladies and gents! And what better way to kick off this season of death and destruction than with a little (Primary) song? Back for it's 4th year, I present to you...

I looked out the window and what did I see?

Great big tornadoes coming to destroy me!

Spring has brought me such a bad surprise,

Great big tornadoes right before my eyes!

I can go and hide in my "safe" bathroom,

But if its an F5 I'll be dead soon!

I wish it weren't so, but it seems to me,

Great big tornadoes coming to destroy me!

Ahhh, now I am ready! ;)

Scary day

So as most of you probably already know (unless you've been living under a rock with no TV) we had a nasty tornado outbreak on Monday. Thankfully, we are ok and our home did not suffer any damages. Sadly, many were not so lucky... NOAA has confirmed 12 tornadoes in the state, 4 of them in the OKC metro area. There were 5 fatalities and 60+ injuries.

Here is a video shot by a local submitted to our ABC news affiliate, KOCO5. It starts off silent but the audio kicks in after about 30 sec. The guy on the radio (about 1/2 way through) is my favorite Meteorologist, Rick Mitchell. The others get too boisterous and scare me senseless...

Also, some crazy pics... courtesy of KOCO5!

WOW... seriously, wow.

Baseball size hail... this could kill you.

So where were we when this all went down? Well, Ben was at work, hunkered down in their safe room. I was at school, after just taking a Chem test. I was trying to decide whether or not to drive home (and try to beat the storms that were racing into the city) or stay put. Fortunately for me, the security guards made the decision for me because as I was texting back and forth with Ben, they started shouting, "Tornado on the ground, everyone follow me... NOW! No one leaves this building!" So... off I went, to the the science building's safe rooms (i.e. labs) and hid there for a good hour or so. They pulled up KOCO5's live streaming coverage online and we watched it on the overhead projector screen. Ben and I stayed in contact for most of that time via cellphone. Once the tornadoes were well to our east, they let us go. Fortunately, we only got golf-ball sized hail, which yes... left dings on my already dinged up car. Such is life in OK. At least my windshield/windows were intact.

I raced home to check on our home since a tornado had touched down in Bethany, which is a neighborhood (or rather subset of OKC) just a few blocks away from where we live. I had purposely left the pups locked up in the kitchen, hoping their instincts would tell them to hide in our pantry/safe room. Thankfully, the pups were just fine, as was out house. Nothing but a messy backyard (branches, leaves, and random debris) to show for it... phew!

My school has been closed for 2 days though, as it has no water because of some damage. My last final has been rescheduled, which I guess is a good thing... although I much rather get it over with, but whatever. All in all, we were VERY lucky and blessed to have escaped unharmed and with our property undamaged.

Well, looks like this evening will be active as well. Tornado warnings are popping up in western OK. We'll be in for some of this later on tonight... *sigh*

Argh...

This weekend was a rough one. I had to work and thanks to the blizzard on Christmas Eve (Thursday) not many people could get to work. This meant we were severely short staffed. Some nurses had worked 20 hour shifts, sleeping at the hospital because they were stranded and the ones that were supposed to come in couldn't get out of their driveways, much less drive there. When I got there Saturday morning I was greeted by some grim faces and told that I would be 1 of only 2 NA's that shift. There are usually 4 of us. That meant I had double the patient load... yipee.
Mind you, this was only my 2nd day post training, without my trainer. My first had been earlier that week and horrendous, but that's another story.

Anyway, the patients were also cranky, since I'm sure spending Christmas in the hospital is no fun... especially when there is a nursing staff shortage and they probably had to wait forever for everything. On Sunday afternoon, there was one particularly disturbing occurrence that had me wanting to choke myself with the nearest nasal cannula. I went into the room of a patient to answer his call light for the umpteenth time. (He was one of those patients, you know?) The following conversation ensued-

Patient: Blah blah blah... are you married?
Me: Yes sir, I am.
Patient: How many kids do you have?
Me: None, sir.
Patient: None? How old are you?
Me: I'll be 29 in a few weeks. (At this point I steeled myself for the lecture I knew I was about to receive from this 80+ year old man)
Patient: Well you're almost 30! Don't you want any children?
Me: Yes sir, I do.
Patient: You better get a move on then... Don't you think it's about time?!?!
Me: (Trying hard to not betray the boiling fury bubbling up in my head) Some day *fake smile*
Patient: Well, doesn't your mom want any grandkids? I bet she does.
Me: Oh, she has plenty to keep her busy, sir. Three and another one on the way.
Patient: Hmph... well, you're not getting any younger, you know!
Me: *Fake smile and nod*

It's been a while since I last had that outright of a rebuking for my childlessness from a complete stranger. Of course he had no idea... nor was I about to tell him of our struggles as it was none of his business... It just sucked and made my already bad weekend even worse. I'm proud of myself for not flipping out as I was already teetering on the verge from the stress of the workday and being sick with a nasty stomach bug.

Go me :)

Ghosts, Migraines, and Tornadoes, Oh My!

Wow, I haven't posted in over a week... what a slacker! Psssh... actually, I've been hecka-busy and just now getting around to regaling you all with this week's highlights. So, here I go...

Last weekend Ben and I were treated to a wonderful night of wining & dining (except for the wining, of course... it was more soda-ing for us!) at a really posh restaurant downtown, courtesy of our job, The Hartford. Ben was one of the Excellency Award winners (yay Ben, good job babe!!!) and they held a dinner to honor them, complete with 5 courses of really yummy food! After all the food and pagentry, we were treated to a night at the Skirvin Hotel, a really old (but recently remodled) and famously "haunted" historic hotel here in OKC. Ben swears he heard the ghost baby crying that night, lol! Anyway, it was a great evening and the hotel was really nice! (Oh and Ben was kind enough to let me watch Twilight on PPV!!!) Here is a picture of us that evening:
Unfortunately for me, I woke up the next day with a horrendous migraine again (yeah, we still haven't been able to get those under control... it's getting really old) which of course lasted all weekend. That made getting all my homework/tests done a real BEAR! I managed, but ugh... not fun.

Then on Tuesday, things got a little crazy. The stinking weather decided to throw a curve ball and all of a sudden we were spending the day trying to survive a ridiculously early tornado outbreak. Five tornadoes on February 10th, that's just not normal! One of them smashed up some businesses down the road from where we work. Fortunately, The Hartford has a concrete reinforced safe room with these huge metal shutters that lock us in, nice and snug. We spent the majority of the afternoon in there until the worst of it had passed and they let us all go home early. There was quite a bit of destruction done to parts of the city and many homes. Fortunately, no one died... in OKC. I'm sure many of you saw on the news that a deadly EF4 tornado struck some small towns down in southern OK and did a lot of damage, and killed quite a few people. *sigh* I hate hearing these things. No one was expecting that many (much less that intense/dangerous) tornadoes this early in the season. Technically, we're not even IN tornado season yet, that's the freaky part!
Anyway, I have this ritual every year at the start of Tornado season, but the dang things beat me to it this time. Uh oh... might that be a bad omen?!?! Hmmm.... anywho, here goes, feel free to sing along everyone!

I looked out the window and what did I see?
An F5 tornado coming to destroy me!
Spring has brought me such a nice surprise!
F5 tornados right before my eyes!
I can go and hide in my "safe" bathroom,
But if it's an F5 I'll be dead soon!
I wish it weren't so,
But there seems to be,
An F5 tornado coming to destroy me!


So there, that was my week in a nutshell. Well, all that and my hectic training and all my schoolwork. Oh and Seminary, that too... You know, it really stinks being an adult sometimes... there is no such thing as a summer break to even look forward to! :/ Thank goodness for small diversions, like good books and blogs to escape to! :)

Close Call...

Yesterday we had 2 tornadoes hit Oklahomna City. One of these touched down a mere 1/2 mile from our home. Yeah, thats WAY too close for comfort... Both Ben and I were at work when this happened, so we're ok. I had to hang around at work an extra 30 minutes while the storm passed well enough to our north to where it would be safe for me to go home and check out the damage. I was terrified for our puppies! We keep them inside when we know the weather is going to be rough, but a tornado can get you indoors too, so yeah... I drove home FAST.
I have to say, we were very, very lucky to not have sustained any damage to our home. Just 1/2 a block away a big tree was uprooted and fell on a house, crushing the roof in. There were quite a few snapped limbs around us, but nothing big enough to cause damage. My puppies were all fine, phew!
Here's the kicker though- we weren't even under Tornado Watch! According to all our expert meteorologists, this wasn't supposed to happen. A tornado was on the ground and the sirens hadn't even gone off! So much for Oklahoma having the "best" weathermen, lol. Something very similar to this happened last spring too. I am sorely dissapointed.

It's that time of the year again!

It's not officially Tornado Season in the Young household until we sing this song, so here goes... feel free to sing along!

I looked out the window and what did I see?
An F5 tornado coming to destroy me!
Spring has brought me such a nice surprise!
F5 tornados right before my eyes!
I can go and hide in my "safe" bathroom,
But if it's an F5 I'll be dead soon!
I wish it weren't so,
But there seems to be,
An F5 tornado coming to destroy me!

Ahhh... how I enjoy poking fun at my greatest fear, in the hopes that it will help me get through Spring with my sanity still intact. Last night we had our first trip to our "storm shelter/safe room" in our pantry under the stairs. After a very pretty weekend, we came home from church to a windy and stormy evening. As things tend to go for us, our satelite dish quit working because of the wind, and about 2 minutes later we found ourselves under a tornado warning, sirens blaring outside... and of course, since we had no reception, we had no idea where the threat was. I jumped online to see that the warning was for our area (our neighborhood included) and as I was yelling to Ben (he was upstairs) to hurry up and come downstairs NOW... guess what? Oh yeah, the power goes out! At this point I'm seconds away from a full blown panic attack... we have no power, there is (surely!) a tornado barreling down on us, and my husband is upstairs, my dogs running around in the dark unsure of which screaming maniac (Ben or I) to listen to! I got my trusty lantern on, and ran into our pantry, coaxed the dogs in after me, strapped on my helmet, and yelled to Ben to get some more blankets. Once we're all "safe" in our pantry, *poof* the lights come back on, and we receive a phonecall from his brother to let us know that we're out of danger, PHEW!
What did I learn from this? Well, for one thing, I need to fix our pantry so that we can all fit better... and 2) I think the puppies would benefit from "tornado drills." Yes, I'm serious... don't laugh! The reason I believe this to be true is because normally they get yelled at if they go into the pantry, and I think thats why they were hesitant to follow me in there. I may have to start running them in there with treats or something so that if there is ever another emergency like last night, it doesn't take us 5 minutes to get them all in there... by which time we could all be dead if there really were a tornado coming to get us!

Anyone need some firewood?

Remember that big ice storm a few weeks ago? Well, it resulted in a lot of downed trees/treelimbs and so everyone in OKC was told to make bundles and leave them on their front yards by the curb... the city would send crews to "clean it all up." Well, what they failed to mention was where all this lumber wood end up. A few days ago we were awoken by the sound of trucks and cranes in what seemed to be our backyard??? We looked out the window and to our horror saw crews filling up the park adjacent to the back of our townhouse with... thats right, you guessed it... TREES! Lots and lots of dead trees. Over the course of the next few days, our little park was converted into Oklahoma City's little dumpster... nice, huh?


As the temperatures have been falling rapidly, and everyone has been scrambling to the stores to buy some firewood, we can at least basque in the knowledge that while our backyard view has been severly compromised, we have all the FREE firewood we want and will probably need for the rest of this winter and probably some of next!

Ice Storm!

Well, typical of Oklahoma, we had a whopper of an ice storm! I wasn't too convinced that it was going to be as bad as they forcasted, but after spending almost 3 hours chiseling ice off my car... well, I take it back. I've always thought these ice storms were rather pretty, but something about spending 3 hours in the freezing rain (and I do mean rain... lots of it, it was absolutely POURING the entire time, but it froze pretty much on contact) battling the inch-and-some thick ice that covered my car... well, I don't think its so cool anymore. I had 3 layers of socks, pants, sweatshirts, etc and I still amanged to finish up completely soaked from head to foot.Oh and the kicker... the second I came in to get warm and change (yes, I was doing all this in preperation to get to work on time!) my phone rings... work was canceled... ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?! Argh!!! I mean its nice and all that I don't have to drive in all this, and I'm happy I got to warm up and rest after almost 3 grueling hours outside,but I mean COME ON! Talk about ironic... *sigh* Oh well, I guess its good that I got it off this morning rather than waiting for tomorrow when I'd most likely be battling 2+ inches rather than 1. Oh, and I had to move my car across the way because the tree that is right up front had some limbs that were hanging dangerously low, under the weight of all the ice. One of our neighbors was not so lucky to realize that in time and had a limb fall on his.
Here are some pics:

Pretty!

(1+ inch thick ice on my car) NOT so pretty!

Also pretty!

(Tree limb that fell on a neighbor's car) Also NOT so pretty!

I looked out the window and what did I see?

So, its not quite officially spring yet, but storm season has started a tad bit earlier than we'd expected. Nothing huge of course, but its coming. Good thing we are nice and prepared with our trusty new NOAA weather radio, huh? Anyway, I've been waiting for this time of year to roll around so I could share with you all my very own version of a much beloved Primary Song... (leave it to me to ruin it for ya, huh?) Ready? Please, feel free to sing along!

I looked out the window and what did I see?

Great big tornados coming to destroy me!

Spring has brought me such a bad surprise,

Great big tornados right before my eyes!

I can go and hide in my "safe" bathroom,

But if its an F5 I'll be dead soon!

I wish it weren't so, but it seems to me,

Great big tornados coming to destroy me!

Creative, huh? Interesting, the things you come up with while watching the weather channel...

My New Best Friend!

Well, storm season has begun here in Oklahoma... a bit early, but nevertheless, it is here. Thanks to Rick Mitchell on KOCO5, all of Oklahoma City was scared stiff this week because of the upcoming severe storms and thus there are no more NOAA weather radios to be found anywhere in the metro area... all sold out! (Ben actually bumped into a member of our Bishopric while out hunting for one earlier this week!) So, after some doctor appointments yesterday, Ben and I decided to go on a road trip in search of these little devices... (and we got one for our 2nd Counselor as well!)

Ahh, here it is. We went all the way to Tulsa to get it, but alas, we have one now! This nifty little device can be programmed to alert any specific county/counties of severe weather and is especially useful when there is a threat of night-time tornadoes b/c they tend to happen when everyone is asleep. (Like what happened in FL and LA this month) Last night was such a night and as you can see, we were under a Tornado Watch for most of the evening and overnight hours. Besides that little light, it is capable of blasting an alarm of 90 decibels that can be heard anywhere in the house... thats quite loud, let me assure you.

Here is a shot of what we were driving back into on our way home from Tulsa. This was at about 3pm-ish... quite the storm a-brewing! Fortunately nothing terrible happened later on that night or early this morning. But had it, we would have been safe thanks to our new little gadget!

Serves me right!

So you know how I was whining about how puny this ice storm was and how anticlimatic it felt? Well... I spoke too soon. On my way home from work on Monday I lost control of my car, spun a full 180º and ended up 1/2 way in a ditch! NOT cool. It all happened really quickly and I while I didn't really enjoy spinning out(and ending up in oncoming traffic), I was very blessed to have done so (since there were no cars coming), rather than having rolled head first down a 6 foot drop-off on my side of the road! That would have been BAD and I could have rolled the car over on its top and been seriously injured.
I ended up calling Ben on my cell and he and his brother came to my rescue. While I was waiting for them, I saw the same thing happen to pickup, a few hundred feet in front of me. I decided to walk over and see if the driver was ok and needed a cell to call someone... he was alright and had a phone so I walked back to my car I must've been stopped by 5 ot 6 people in cars asking if I was ok and needed a ride/help. Oklahomans are very nice. I reassured them that I was ok and that help was on its way, got back in my car and munched on some Goldfish crackers. (The weatherman said to make sure you keep a blanket, and some food in the car just in case you are stuck for a while... good thing I listened!) About an hour later I was safe and warm and glad to be off the road!
It is now Wednesday and I'm back to work. The roads are still horrendous and Ben is driving me. It is snowing today and we're supposed to get hit with another 6" of snow/sleet this weekend. Considering that it hasn't gotten above 25º all week and nothing has melted, this could make for another rough weekend... So much for complaining about the puny storm, huh?

Hmm...

So the storm is over and as always, it was far more hype than anything else. Sure, we got some ice and yeah there are a few inches of sleet on the ground, but thats about it. At least here in OKC... other places got hammered, but not us. So after alllllllll this talk about being prepared for the worst ice storm since 2002 (the BIG one), yadda yadda yadda, I find this all very anticlimatic. As you can see we are still enjoying the comforts of electricity so I decided to spend some time sewing this afternoon. While doing so, I looked out the window and saw this:

I guess they were bored too! Not too sure how far this guy is going to get. In the 5 minutes I've been watching him, he's spent more time on the ground than upright. Despite the fact that it looks like fluffy white snow, it really isn't. That stuff is packed sleet/ice and you'd probably ice skate on it better than anything else!

And so it begins...

Oklahoma has declared State of Emergency... A 3 day ice storm has begun and we are hunckered down waiting for mother nature to unleash her worst. So far there is a nice 1" layer of ice over everything and on top rests a few inches of sleet. This morning we got up and decided to do some damage control on our front steps, lest we slip and crack our heads open the next time we ventured out of the house for whatever reason. Here we can see Ben shoveling the sleet away and trying to break up the layer of ice underneath. All that white stuff is NOT snow... its firmly packed sleet/ice. Brrrr.... SO cold!