The Perfect Storm

We made it through our first big storm yesterday. Fay decided to take her sweet time getting to us and then took her sweet time leaving once she got here. She’s a hoverer. Anyone in her path knows that. She just hung out and dumped rain and left tornadoes in her path.

We didn’t know what to expect, so all we could do was prepare based on what we knew. We were ready for power outages and flooding. We got flooding but our power stayed on. Thank goodness, because that meant I was able to obsessively watch the storm on weather.com.We had high winds, lots of rain – which flooded our yard and only momentarily seeped in our front door. Handy hubby came to the rescue early yesterday morning and set up a few water pumps to take the water away from the house and out to the road so it kept most of the water at bay. If not for that, we’d have had water inside early on in the day.

Here’s a view out our front door around mid-morning

This storm was a good learning experience for us. We now know what a tropical storm is like, we know some things we can do better next time, and we also found the fun that can come from them. The kids made the day completely fun. They weren’t scared, they weren’t worried, they just thought “puddles!” While they had the front windows open and were throwing bouncy balls and rubber duckies outside to watch them float away in the yard, we were nervously watching the water rise hoping it wouldn’t come inside.

This storm was a perfect metaphor for life. There are times of calm and during those, you still have to prepare for the what ifs by having a plan in place, supplies on hand and some emergency money. When the storms come along, hopefully you’re as ready as can be and open to finding the silver lining. For all of those things, this was the perfect storm.