Weekly Wrap Up - Stranger Things

Well, this has been an interesting week.  Monday around 2pm, Lindsey and I were in the sun porch, when we noticed and abundance of fresh green leaves blowing through our yard, followed by our deck chairs flying by the back door.  Torrential rain started, and then the hail started, HUGE hail, bigger and in more abundance than I've ever seen.   I told Lindsey to get to the basement, and just as she started back the hallway, we heard a loud thud that stopped us both in our tracks.   I went to investigate and noticed that our bedroom was way more dark than normal.  I opened the blinds on the window to see nothing but green leaves and branches, a tree was on the house.  

I grabbed and umbrella and ran outside in the still pouring hail and rain, to try to figure out if the tree was through the roof or not.  The way it landed I couldn't really tell, so I ended up calling the fire department to come assess the situation.  They had to go up in the attic to make sure it hadn't come through the roof; they determined that there was no structural damage, thank God!  While they were leaving, everyone's phones started going off with emergency weather alerts...the first ones to be issued all day, and the storm had already stopped.  I was not amused. 

Thankfully, the way the tree fell, the chimney/rooftop intersection pinned it in a way that didn't allow it to slide or roll and cause more damage.  The imprint of the tree was left on the shingles, but not a shingle was ripped off needing replacement, thank God!

As you can see, our house is dwarfed by large maple trees on the property directly beside of us.  We've been asking for years for the trees to be trimmed to a safe and healthy size. Now that one of the trees has fallen on our house, they've agreed to the trimming.  Better late than never?

Tuesday night we had another round of crazy storms come through, and our town received a great deal of flooding and wind damage.  Lightning struck the neighbor's property, and there were water rescues required on some of the main roads.  Again, the warning alarms came after the storm had passed.

Wednesday was calm and quiet, although hot and extremely humid.  The kids and I met friends in the evening at the county fair.  We were so excited to go, but once we got there we saw that the rides were all little kid size, even Lindsey wouldn't fit.  We still had a good evening watching drag races and eating deep fried Oreos.

Thursday was pretty average with grocery shopping, laundry and house work.   We had severe storms in our forecast, but nothing every popped up.  Here's an interesting factoid for you.  In 2019 our city school board got caught up in the "let's rename everything" cancel culture trend, and changed our high school name and mascot.  The new mascot name is the name of our city followed by "Storm".  Since that time, we've had unprecedented storms that have caused millions of dollars worth of damage.  Coincidence, maybe, but none the less, the irony is not lost on me.

Friday Lindsey spent her day working on a baby quilt.  I'll share finished product photos next week.

Olivia is still working seven days a week.  She got a raise at her weekend job.  Lindsey finished up her summer work schedule.  Family #1 is on maternity leave, and family #2 is done with summer lessons until the new school year starts.  

Have a great weekend??