Putting things into perspective...

These last couple weeks have been a blur.  Our Catholic schools were out last week due to a teacher's conference, so we had a camping trip scheduled with some good friends.  The day before we were to leave, I checked the weather, and we quickly made the decision to postpone the trip to later in the week. 

On Wednesday evening, I sat paralyzed in front of the TV.  I would get up occasionally and pace or yell out from fear.  My phone was glued to one hand and my rosary in the other.  The scariest sight I've ever seen was playing on our TV.  I'm a huge fan of Discovery Channel's Storm Chasers, but this was nothing in comparison.  The images I was watching were live, and the area and buildings being destroyed were all ones that I was familiar with.  Not to mention, that my sister-in-law and her entire family were in one of the buildings I could see just beyond the tornado that was racing across the screen.  We spent the better part of the next couple hours in the closet under the stairs as Mark Prater and James Spann gave warnings of tornadoes headed directly our way.  One of the scariest moments for me was walking outside and literally seeing debris falling from the sky, debris that had traveled all the way from God knows where.  By the grace of God, the area we live in was untouched by the storm.  The only damage we saw was a small tree and some shingles down.

After a million phone calls Thursday morning, we finally got in touch with my sister-in-law who was fine.  Our friends (the ones we were supposed to go camping with), hubby, and I made the quick decision to head down to Tuscaloosa to help family who had a tree on their roof.  I dropped hubby off to work and traveled 10 miles (over an hour drive) to get to my SIL's home.  For the next two days, hubby helped in any way he could, and my SIL and I drove around dropping off donations.  The destruction in this city is unimaginable.  You can stand in front of an empty space and not even realize that a house was ever there.  The spirit of our wonderful state is being made abundantly clear through all of the clean up efforts.  I've never seen so many people volunteering their time and money to help strangers.  It's a beautiful thing to witness!

And then this week happened...and by the way I'm dealing with it, you'd think that I, myself, just lost everything in a horrific storm.  Sunday, Bright Eyes took a dive off a fence and hurt his arm.  On Tuesday and then Wednesday I spent several hours at doctor's offices to discover that he'd fractured it.  Also on Tuesday, a different doctor appointment for Sunshine revealed that she's going to have to undergo a probing of her left and right eye tear ducts in order to unclog them.  Hopefully, they'll only have to do it once...but it may be something we end up repeating several more times throughout her life. 

So, I've been whining like a big baby.  My house is a wreck, I can't keep up, I'm feeling disconnected, and basically I just want to curl up in my bed and nap for the remainder of the week.  Last night, I recruited my hubby into my own personal intervention.  I had him write out an entire three day schedule for us thinking this would kick my bottom into gear.  And then this morning, Bright Eyes wakes up with a stinkin' fever!!!  If it wasn't for the broken arm, I'd dismiss it and let it run it's course, but nope, back to the doctor I go.

Do you see how pathetic I am????  Big ol' whiny me has three wonderful children, an amazing husband with a job, loads of family and friends who made it through devastating tornadoes unharmed, a home to keep cool in, and a working vehicle to travel to all these doctor appointments in.

Today I'm making a choice!  I'm choosing to rejoice in my "tragedies" of the week.  Because when I look at pictures like the one below, I know that I am truly blessed and that there are thousands of people in the south who would give anything for my LITTLE problems.

May 6th, 2011