EHM is in the House!

Extreme Home Makeover has come to Joplin!!!  

I love this show.

I have ALWAYS loved this show.

RH thinks it's ridiculous....but I love love love it.

Cry every time, in fact.

Usually.....one person can't give one family a home.

But....when one person plus one person plus one person plus a few more one persons get together....


Man.

It's awesome.

And these families have been through so much.....

I am volunteering for a couple different days and will post about them later.

But for now.....
Joplin Home Makeover

Check it out.

Jumping the Hurdles....

So last week my baby boy turned 8.

Wow.

Sometimes days seem to drag on and on and on and on and on....
But isn't it amazing how overall, time truly does fly by?

Saturday after Cougar Carnival I cooked and shredded a ton of chicken and baked Ethan's requested pound cake.

Then we had his friend party at Lazer Force and had the blessing (blessing because it was NOT at my house!) of watching 19 little boys run WILD for a few hours.

Total chaotic bliss.

Then we brought 4 of those boys home with us, picked up two little girls and partied hard 'till the ripe 'ol time of 11:15 when we all soundly and completely passed out.

Which was fine, until 6 little precious sets of feet came tip tip tapping down the stairs at 6:12.

But you can't beat your son's big beautiful dimpled smile when he sees you at the bottom of the stairs as he and his 3 buddies (all wearing only RH's shirts and underwear because they are sooooooo cool and big) sneak down and he yells:

"MOM!  I AM EIGHT!  RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND!  RIGHT NOW!  I AM EIGHT!!!!!"

What an amazing age.
What an amazing kid.

All 6 of the kids happily got dressed and ate healthy Boo Berry cereal for breakfast and we headed for church.

Serious picture perfect morning.

But for some reason I was antsy.

I couldn't figure out why....maybe just tiredness from the long weekend?

After church the other kids headed out and RH took our 3 to Duck Camp for a bit so I could finish getting ready for the family party (15 people) that night.

I made Crunchy Chicken Casserole.
I marinated the asparagus.
I toasted the toppings for an Oriental salad.
I cleaned areas of my house where the guests might go and shoved all the dirty stuff in random closets where no one would ever think of looking all of my house thoroughly.
I found candles and put them near the cake.

Then I started to set out a stack of plates for the dinner that night.
Then it hit me.

On May 22 I had been doing the same thing.

I had made Bennett some Crunchy Chicken Casserole.
I had marinated asparagus.
I had made Oriental salad.
I had cleaned the house.
I had strategically placed birthday candles.

And I remember the picture of the kitchen that night....

The wooden bowl of Oriental salad.
The full wine glass sitting undamaged and unspilled.
The missing ceiling.
And the stack of plates...mostly unbroken, with the top one strangely flipped upside-down on top of the others.

And the truth?
I consciously did NOT set out a stack of plates for the dinner that night.

I let people simply get them out of the cupboard when they needed them.

And that worked just fine.


Silly little things.
Silly little pointless memories.
Silly pointless things that make my stomach knot up and volcano-sized goosebumps break out all over my arms.

Did Ethan and his Aunt have a good family birthday dinner?

Yes.  I think so.

Was I really really glad to have it over with?

Yes.  I was.

I have the feeling that there may be many of these unforeseen silly mental hurdles in the future.

But I think it isn't just my future...it's this city's future.

Just like after any life-altering event....we have to do things for the "first time".....again.

And these "firsts" are both triumphant.....
and heart-wrenching.

First Joplin Football game?
Triumphant.

First Halloween without certain family members?
Heart-wrenching.

In the grand scheme of life....a birthday dinner isn't all that victorious (although I am quite proud of myself for having the mental fortitude to remember birthday candles!) or heart breaking.

But it was a small couldn't-have-known-that-was-going-to-happen "first".

And while I don't want to obsess about the tornado....I have to say this:

I am VERY thankful for my kids.
I thank God daily for them.
On their birthdays I like to take time to especially thank God for all the things that they have brought into my life.

And this year....with the not-so-distant-memory of how I'd felt when I thought perhaps I'd lost my youngest son .....
Coupled with the unsettling deja-vu of recreating the afternoon of May 22nd....

Well....
my thankfulness was truly...
truly...
truly beyond all words.

And that is both heart-wrenching.....AND triumphant.

Happy Birthday, Little E.
I love you.

Wow...

Wow.  This had me smiling and crying.  Actually had to put my tea down for fear of spilling.
Sweet little Emma Cox shown in this video lived in my neighborhood....
so strange to see her house like that.

Watch the video.
Trust me.
It's worth your time.

Joplin Strong

Affected,,,,

Tonight Bennett told me "His Story."

4 1/2 months after it happened he spontaneously spoke about it.

After I've asked him time after time after time after time
if he wanted to talk about it....
if he would talk about it....
if he could talk about it.....

After he's told me time after time after time after time
NO!!!!

He finally talked.

I asked him if I could write it down, and he said that I could....but he didn't want to have to speak about it again so I'd have to do it from memory.

I will ask him if I can share it on the blog.....and hopefully he will let me.

Until then....I will simply tell you that he remembers a lot of things that I do NOT recall...and that again, my stomach churned, my eyes teared up, and i had monstrous goose bumps all over my body while I listened to his account of May 22nd.

We were driving home from the Young Life "non-banquet" and had to go down the entire stretch of Main Street.

You simply cannot drive from the South to the North end of town without passing through the DZ.

Somehow....be it fate, God's provision, or simple unconscious avoidance I have been able to NOT go through the DZ at night very much at all.

In fact, this was only the 2nd time I'd done it....and I CERTAINLY hadn't done it with the kids.

We drove past Auto Zone, and Carolyn was reading the letters and asked Ethan what it spelled.

The 'T' was gone in the sign, so Ethan wasn't really sure what 'ATO" spelled and asked me.

I explained the missing letter mystery, and Carolyn asked where the 'T' had gone.

This store sits on the edge of the DZ, so I replied that the tornado had probably knocked it down.

As is so often the case, the simple mention of the tornado changes the atmosphere in the car....especially as we drove into the eerily darkened area of Main St.

It was only 7:40ish, so you could still see outlines of busted buildings and empty spaces (and I realize that empty spaces don't officially HAVE outlines but you really do know somehow that the spaces are THERE and maybe it's just a felling of the lack of ANYTHING being there when there SHOULD be something there??) and an occasional random flashing yellow light.

I guess that everything combined got my kids in a talking kind of mood.

As we drove I asked Ethan if he remembered being in the car with his uncle.
He said he did.
I asked him what he remembered seeing, and he said, "Things flying by the car....like cardboard and other stuff I didn't know what it was."
I asked him if he remembered pulling up into some guy's front porch to take shelter, and he said, "No."

Bennett turned around to look at him, and began quizzing him on WHY he didn't remember a fact that he had not only TOLD us about but had SHOWN us which house it was.

I gave Bennett one of those copyrighted "Mom-looks" (later to explain to him that sometimes God lets us forget things that are too hard or painful for our minds to remember and to let Ethan remember what he wants to right now....hope that was the right thing!) and asked Ethan what he DID remember.

Ethan told us something we hadn't heard before.
He said that they were driving to our neighborhood and he and his cousin had their heads on the seat like their uncle had told them ("Put your heads down and take a rest boys, just take a rest...") when the car stopped.
A man was standing (according to Ethan) on TOP of his wrecked smashed-up car, and their uncle stopped his truck and asked him if he was hurt or needed help.
The man replied no, that he was just trying to call someone on his phone, and so their uncle continued driving toward our home.

(Later in the evening Ethan told us that when Uncle Frank's truck "Made it to my house I was scared when I saw the house because I thought that the people who were in it were maybe dead." "You thought WE were dead?"--asked Barrett, and Ethan nodded....)

I said to Ethan, "That must have been so scary for you."
He said yes, and then I asked Bennett if HE had been scared that night.
He said he was scared about Ethan and Wyatt and his aunt and uncle.
I said I had been scared about them too, but then asked him if he had been scared for HIMSELF when we were in our basement.

He thought for a moment and said, "Well, when I heard all of the (insert appropriate sound effects here that mean crashing and banging) noise I was pretty scared that the house would fall in on us."

Then he turned to me and said, "Do you want to hear MY STORY?"

And I kept looking forward, slowed down, and said, "Yes."

4 1/2 months.
That's a long time to go without talking.

He's ok.
We're all ok.

But we've been affected.....so are we affected?

Geeze.

My dad and step mom came last week for a visit, and my dad told me that every single one of my friends and acquaintances he spoke with had PTSD.

He's probably right, you know.

This whole down does, to some degree or another.

Maybe you talk about the tornado INCESSANTLY.
Maybe you continuously call yourself a victim and look for free help.
Maybe you've been "relocated" and are trying to find that lost sense of home.
Maybe you refuse to speak about it because it was just a storm and it's over now.
Maybe you cry at random things during the day.
Maybe you never cry during the day but keep waking up with a wet pillow.
Maybe you get annoyed at people who "just can't shut up and be over it."
Maybe you still live in a tent (and these people are out there).
Maybe you are rebuilding and praying it will bring you a sense of closure.
Maybe you are finally getting used to going to the "other" Walmart.
Maybe you keep making the turns that lead to your old house instead of your new one.
Maybe you question whether your lack of memory and organization can still be blamed on the tornado or whether you have an actually biological issue.
Maybe you are totally fine until someone asks you if you're fine and you get angry because you are SO fine.
Maybe you have a lot of migraines.


Maybe more than one of these apply to you.
Maybe there is something more you could add to this list.

All I'm saying is.....4 1/2 months.

Life is going on....the blessings are flowing and MY gratefulness truly knows no bounds.....

But 4 1/2 months ago something happened.
And it did affect us.

Rabbit Holes

Busy.

This was a very busy few weeks.

You know those times when you are stretched in LITERALLY 8 or 9 different directions?  And each of those directions are important enough that you truly canNOT ignore them?

Yeah.

So....some of those "pathways" I was traveling came to happy destinations.

Some seem to be leading to strange rabbit holes that I am deciding if I should follow.

More of them are ongoing....

And others are just part of life.

This weekend my friend missed her flight because she thought her arrival time was her departure time.

Then...she realized she had not yet made the flight reservations she needed for the following weekend....even though she was SURE she had done it months earlier.

Another friend went back to the cleared-off lot where her house had stood to gather a few splinters pieces of her home for a project. 

She found one of the favorite outfits her son had worn as an infant half-buried under dead weeds and told me she remembered why she had stopped going back there.

Ethan's hermit crab was crawling UP the walls of his cage.  He was having a serious crab party.  This was possibly the 2nd time ever we have actually SEEN this crab in the year we've had it....he is honestly the most un-interactive doofus pet we have ever owned.  When I pointed it out to Ethan he started laughing and asked me what the crab was doing.  I replied that that I thought maybe the crab was just happy...and then totally flashed-back to grabbing the cage and crab food that night when we were fleeing the house and started crying because I was so happy that the stupid crab was happy (and I don't even know if Spider-Crab actuallyWAS happy).

I ran into a Wal-Mart employee I have gotten to know over the years.  I knew he had been "displaced" (which is the new PC way of saying your house was smashed on May 22nd and you are currently living somewhere you had probably never planned on being) so I asked him how he was currently doing.

He told me his brother --who had refused to leave his mold infested half-smashed house due to fear of looters --- had passed away last weekend.  Apparently the doctors said it was due to the large amount of mold he had been breathing over the past 3 1/2 months.

I went to a Dr. appointment and the tech ---while I was trapped cooperating nicely on the table -- told me how he and his entire extended family rode out the storm in a restaurant just north of the DZ* and upon exiting saw mass amounts of emergency vehicles rushing southward so he knew something bad had happened.

I went back to the warehouse and hauled the very last load of salvaged stuff (that's not holiday decorations because there is no where to put them in this new home).  

The "load" consisted mainly of extra lightbulbs and batteries from a drawer in the laundry room and loads of nails/screws/washers/anchors that somehow remained rust-less.

There was also an under-bed Tupperware box of wrapping paper.  

Bonus.

In the bottom of a really pretty drawer that made me remember how much I had loved my old-newly remodeled kitchen I found a little lamp.

It's just one of those "accent" lamps that stays on all of the time.

It had been in the white shelves next to the bay window that blew across the house....and I had NO idea how it had ended up in the tool-drawer.

We salvaged THREE lamps from my old house: Carolyn's beside lamp and the two bedside lamps from the basement guest room.

Since there was still an unbroken lightbulb I wiped off some of the drywall and plugged it in.

It worked.

????????????????

And I cried again.

I guess I may be traveling on this particular pathway for quite a while.

*DZ= Disaster Zone

Random Memories III

We're moving on.
Things are changing.

But every so often....

there's a certain sound....
there's a certain smell....
somebody asks "do you remember when...."
I do some silly little every day thing .....
a kid asks where one of their "lost" things are...
something gets rebuilt...
I have a dream.....
we pull into the driveway of our old home and feel that specific "bump"....
a tuft of insulation (or glass or dry crispy leaves) falls out of a "not-yet-worn PT" piece of clothing...

And a memory comes back.

I don't want to forget these things.

I want to move past them.....
But I don't want to forget them.

Some of you may think I'm crazy morbid sadistic mart-ish attention-seeking a little nuts....
but too many people have lost too much to lose these memories too.

Besides....it's my blog and my prerogative.

***************
I remember when 2nd St was closed from Main to Murphy because FEMA had set up its' headquarters there.  All you could see where huge antennae from satellite trucks and tons of trailers.  So surreal.

***************
I remember standing in line for over an hour at the only post office left to get my mail from the 2 weeks PT.  Everyone was so nice and polite.  There was a police officer --fully armed--handing out water and post-it notes to write our names on.  It was hot and everyone felt the need to share their "story" in the echoing area of PO boxes.  When I finally got my name called I received a huge armload of nothing but catalogs.

****************
Our luggage had been lost the way home from our trip.  On Wednesday (or Thursday?  I remember it was actually sunny.....) as we were trying to get our belongings out of the old house a random car pulled up in the driveway.  A older man got out and just kind of stared at us...then went to the trunk of his sedan and pulled out one of our suitcases.  "I have your luggage here....do you have your claim tickets?"
I just stared back at HIM, and then pointed in the direction of where my kitchen USED to be.
"They might be in there," I answered, "Or 17 miles east of here."
"Oh,"  he said slowly.  "I think that will be ok."
And he got back in his car, and drove away.
*******************
Late Sunday night after we got to my sister-in-law's house my best friend from Atlanta called me on the land line.  I took the phone outside and couldn't hear her because the sound of the helicopters going over and the sirens wailing were too loud.  I went back inside to talk.  She says that I just kept repeating, "It didn't sound like a train.  I didn't believe it because it just didn't sound like a train."
**********************

Tuesday morning at 5ish RH called me at my mom's.  He said his cousin (who's a realtor) had just told him that FEMA had called to get a list of all the vacant properties in Joplin and that I HAD TO GO LOOK AT HOUSES THAT MORNING AT 8.  Then at 7 my father-in-law called and said he'd gone with the realtor to look at the few available houses and narrowed it down to 2 of them and I had to go ASAP.  I got the kids out of bed and we showed up....with the dog (who is HUGE) and me in the same clothes I'd worn since the tornado.  The kids and the dog on her leash and I (and another adult....but I just can't remember who....) went through the two houses in about 10 to 15 minutes each.  One needed work, the other didn't.  We chose the latter, and got it that next week.  I couldn't even remember what the inside of it looked like...
***********************

For a while we weren't able to go into the DZ (disaster zone) without a permit.  To get the permit you had to wait in a 2 hour line and show your ID that said you had business in there.  The permit thing lasted almost 12 hours....and wasted alot of people's mornings.
************************
I got a text from my friend Kerry saying that the K9 unit was in her backyard "sniffing" her pool for fatalities.  Praise God they found none there.
***********************
People kept showing up at our doorstep with amazing gifts.  We got bottled water 2 or 3 times an hour.  Some people brought moving boxes, some brought trash bags, some brought pizza, some brought bratwurst. Some people offered us their storage units, and some offered us coats.   A group of people from a church asked if we wanted our trees moved, and then 13 men with heavy moving equipment chainsawed the trees and pulled out the stumps and sawed off branches and made a beautiful ugly neat pile by our curb.  Then they disappeared down the road.
***********************

We had a curfew and a boil order.  Then some wonderful people at Starbucks stayed up all night boiling billions of gallons of water and my sister in law heard about it and drove up there but (because of the lack of cell towers) they couldn't take her credit card so they just gave her a whole bunch of lattes for free.  That was the very best coffee I'd ever had in my entire life.

***********************
I was standing in my driveway looking through where there used to be a wall into my kitchen area where my "cookbook cupboard" was still intact.  A police car pulled up with 2 cops from Kansas City who were assigned to patrol our neighborhood.  I explained that I was trying to determine if those possibly sopping wet cookbooks were worth going back in to retrieve.  The 2 men found 2 big plastic flowerpots and marched into the remnants of my kitchen and filled them with (pretty darn wet) books.  They they went down into the basement and brought up the last load of stuff I had piled there and put that into my car too.  Then they thanked me for letting them help.  Then they drove off.
************************

My friend Louise came over to help me get serial numbers off of some damaged things in our basement. It started to rain pretty hard, so we made the extremely intelligent decision that we should get out of the leaky falling apart basement and house.  We climbed into the back of my car and sat, with the hatchback open, watching the hail and lightning and rain and shared a big back of Krunchers potato chips we'd found unopened in the kitchen.  I remember telling her that it was the most relaxed I'd been since the storm.
************************

Our friends who lived just down the road had come over to (as she put it) "Escape their disaster for a minute by looking at ours."  We were in the basement and Catherine had to take a phone call.  Jason and I were talking and heard a loud noise to our left.  We looked over and watched all of the paint and drywall crash down onto the bar.  Then we looked at each other and simply continued our conversation.
*********************
Bennett got strep throat that week.  He had to lay in my mom's living room with my step mom (who was also sick) and watch movies all day.  Luckily my father had one prescription sheet left from Atlanta and I was able to get an antibiotic.
**********************

My friend Brandie, who packed up both of our kitchen areas, informed me that I was the owner of 7 springform pans.  Who knew?  I owe her a cheesecake.  Or 7.
*********************

Eat More Chicken!

So....this evening I walked into Chick-Fil-A and cried.

Not a normal thing.

I know.

(I may have issues....I know that too.)

Today Chick-Fil-A opened its' new store.

It was completely smashed in the tornado, you see.  Luckily it was a Sunday evening, so nobody was there during the storm.

But...it was smashed none-the-less, and then bulldozed, and then the lot was cleared, and then it was rebuilt from the dirt ground up.

Now don't get me wrong.
I like Chick-Fil-A.
I like it a lot.
My kids (and RH) like it a lot too.
We have spent MUCH time at Chick-Fil-A in the past.
We eat the yellow Chick-Fil-A sauce with a straw.

But do I have an emotional attachment to
Chick-Fil-A?

Ummmm........no.
Not really.

But....when I walked into the store tonight with Carolyn and Ethan....
and they ran through the huge crowd to the inside play-area....
and I looked around the restaurant....

well....

It was unbelievable.
Totally unbelievable.

It was EXACTLY THE SAME.

Same tables,
same booths,
same counter,
same registers,
same play area,
same condiment counter,
same roses outside,
same gi-normous cow walking around,
same faces behind the counter saying, "My pleasure!"

It was like nothing had changed....
nothing had happened.

I ordered an obscene amount of nuggets dinner for the family and made eye contact with the manager.

He smiled in recognition and I asked him how it felt to be back in the new/old/new store.

"You know," he answered, "It feels like we never left....like nothing ever happened."

I knew.
I know.

So....as I asked for 10 packages of the Chick-Fil-A sauce, I admit...I got pretty teary-eyed.
Part of the "old life" had returned.
It was like someone had pressed "Play" on a paused movie-life....and it had just started where it had left off.

Weird.
But good.
Really really really good.

And you know what?
I counted LITERALLY 17 people in red Chick-Fil-A shirts behind the counter....
and that doesn't include all of the cooks in the back
OR the people outside personally taking drive-thru orders
OR the cow
OR the cow's handler.

Chick-Fil-A had COMPLETELY prepared for the huge number of people that were going to come into their restaurant on opening day and try and order some nuggets, waffle fries and a slice of "life as we remember it."

Hooray for Chick-Fil-A.
What an awesome gift.

And hooray for happy tears.
Just adds a little salt to the fries.