thankful for another day . . .

Wow.  What an incredible, destructive force of nature a tornado is.  Yesterday afternoon, a second line of storms swept through our area and we again headed down the road to our nearest neighbor, to take shelter.  (An RV isn't the greatest place to be in the middle of a tornado!)  We made it just to the front steps when we could hear the wind roaring closer and just made it into the house as hail started to fall . . . 

Golf ball sized hail!  That would *hurt* if you got hit with it.  Again, we lucked out ... the storm was fast moving and we were in the clear within ten minutes.  Todd and I got back in the car and decided to head to downtown New Market to see if we could grab some BBQ for dinner.  As we headed down our road we could see where LOTS of trees had been down.  

And at the top of our road, we saw the first structural damage:

And as we went further down the road, we could see the exact path of the morning storm . . . 

There used to be a house sitting there.

All less than a half a mile from our site at the camp, as the crow flies.  Incredible.  I saw my road on national news last night ... very surreal.  The good news is that there was NO loss of life connected with these storms in our area -- and very few minor injuries.  Hillsboro Circle and Drive are both still without power -- but for once, because the camp connects with a different power source, we did get power back yesterday afternoon, prior to the second storm.  Crazy.

I did go out and gather some daffodils ... I figured I may as well pick and enjoy them before the winds smashed them down.  I'd purchased a 'frog' in an antique shop in Fairhope (they are hard to find!) and put it to good use -- aren't they happy?

I do love happy, sunny daffodils!

Today is cool and sunny with clear skies.  Joc, Jason, and Ellie are headed our way to spend some time today.  Yay!  Ellie's first visit to her Neesey and Paw-paw's!  And, I'm going to take her for her very FIRST golf cart ride, too!!  (Mommy will hold her -- and we're staying on level ground.)

Happy Saturday!

:)

the wind began to switch . . .

I had a lovely day with my Ellie yesterday!  She spend most of the time sleeping on my chest ... one of our favorite activities together!

But she did have some awake time, too.  Hasn't she grown?! And the darling little hat she's sporting . . . 

My sweet niece, Cecilia, crocheted it -- and the flower, too!!  Isn't it darling?!  And it fits Miss Ellie *perfectly*!!

Did I mention that my sewing machine broke?  Yep.  Right smack in the *middle* of quilt retreat.  Luckily one of the other stitchers had an extra machine -- a Janome, even -- that she generously lent me.  Good thing, too, because the breakdown happened before I'd even started working on the DWQ!!  So, until I get my machine into the shop and fixed, there's no machine stitching going on here.  I will be doing lots of hand work ... and I guess I can get my feathered star all cut and prepped!

We're battening down the hatches here . . . rough weather ahead.  Having personally experienced (on more than one occasion) the damage tornadoes can inflict, not to mention the catastrophe that tornadoes cause in my county last April, I don't take the threat lightly -- especially when local officials/weather officials are especially concerned.  Ugh.  First tornado warning issued ... the fun begins.  I'm glad my hope is not in what the weather does, but in Him!

***Update:  We lost power and the internet before I could post.  Already there's widespread damage in our county -- including the church where my son works.  He IS okay, though.  What scares me is that this is just a precursor to the main weather event which is supposed to hit later this afternoon/early evening.  I sure would covet your thoughts and prayers!  We've got the generator up and running and the internet is back up.  We've got limbs down, but nothing major -- our neighbor, down the way, lost a couple of trees and has the tin roof to someone's shed up in the top of her trees -- blew my MIND!  And just so everyone knows . . . the sunshine is shining, now!***

Stay safe today!

:)

a wall cloud and a finish . . .

Yesterday was an exciting weather day! We were on tornado watch/warning for the better part of daylight. At one point, late in the afternoon, a particularly nasty storm passed through our county. From work, we were able to watch the wall cloud move past us, and I caught a pretty good shot of it . . .

I don't know that I've ever seen a wall cloud so clearly as yesterday. You could actually see lightning and rotation up in it.

All the storms were moving fast -- this one was going along at about 55 miles per hour. While it's reported that it did sport tornado touch downs a couple of times, there wasn't any extended damage in our county. I understand, however, that there were other areas in North Alabama that did get hit hard.

On a happier note, I did finish my Leaf & Acorn Table Topper last night!

This was such a fun little project. I'll give this one to my SP, but I believe I will go ahead and make a second for me. When I was cutting fabric for the leaf tops, I went ahead and cut the fabric for a second!

Instead of making it the same on both sides, I gave it a definite back by using a single fabric, the mossy green.

So there's the back, and following is the picture from the Art to Heart book that I used for the pattern.

This was the Easy Does It For Autumn book. There are *several* projects in here that I'd love to make -- such cute things!

:)