So I saw this link up that a lot of people are doing for the month of May, and I thought…hey this is a great idea! It gives you a topic to blog about every day. Let’s be honest people, there are some days when we stare at this blank screen trying to gather our thoughts in to words and come up empty. I may not stay with this every day, and there may be some days that I do two posts…you just never know what you are going to get with me.

Today is day 2, and the topic is: “Educate us on something you know a lot about, or are good at.”

I sat and thought about this one for a little while. What am I good at. Hmmmmm. I am good at procrastinating. No…that is not something to write about on the blog. Oh, I am good at over analyzing everything! Um, let’s not go there, every girl is good at this! 

To be honest, I am in a constant state of learning in every aspect of life. One thing that I have become quite good at is faking it til I make it. 

Let me give you an example. I am a newlywed, Chris and I got married in November of 2012. We did live together for almost 2 years before we got married…which I would suggest this to anyone…that topic is really a post in itself for another day haha. However, I had no clue how to be a “wife.” Yet alone a wife that my husband doesn’t hate coming home to at night. 

A lot of Chris’s friends seem miserable coming home to their wives. They don’t “allow” them to do things and are constantly nagging them about this that and the other. I didn’t want it to be like that in our relationship. If Chris wants to go grab a drink after work with some guy friends, that is completely fine with me. If he wants to go downstairs on a Saturday and play video games for 6 hours with his friends….that is fine with me. I don’t need him to pay attention to me every single minute of every single day. He is the same with me. He is supportive if I want to go shopping with my mom for the day or have lunch with some of my blogger friends on a Saturday.

When you live with someone you learn the quirks and you find out real quick the things you like and don’t like about a person. Sometimes Chris leaves his clothes laying on the floor for several days or leaves his dishes in the sink with stuff all over them, and isn’t a huge fan of cleaning. I know he does this and I have chosen to marry him…so I don’t nag him about it all the time. People are who they are and you shouldn’t be trying to change them. You chose this person based on prior knowledge…so accept it!

One thing I was nervous about when I first moved in with Chris was cooking. Prior to living with him, I lived alone and hardly ever cooked for myself. Usually I would just have a salad and a few slices of some fun cheese from Whole Foods when I got home for work. Special K for dinner was no stranger to me. My mom always cooked dinner for our family growing up, and I liked that she took care of us and my dad. I wanted to be the same way. I learned how to start cooking. At first, even though he didn’t say anything, I am sure that it wasn’t that great. Cooking really is all about trial and error. Now, I cook at least 4-5 home cooked meals every week. My co-workers are amazed that I do this, but to me…it is just part of being a wife. I enjoy cooking meals for us. I like to find recipes that I think Chris will enjoy. I like taking care of him. I even get crazy sometimes, and make my own of a lot of recipes. Fake the cooking til you make it! 

The last few months I have really become diligent on meal planning every week. This is something I knew nothing about when I first started. I just sat down one day, looked through recipes and wrote out a grocery list. Now every week, usually on Sunday, I sit down and meal plan out our week. I take in consideration what we have going on for the week, what nights we might be eating out and what I have going on at work that may make me late to come home, therefore needing something that is quicker to prepare. I usually have at least one crock pot meal a week planned for ease, and I try to keep our recipes as healthy and clean as I can and I also consider snacks. Some nights it may take an hour to prepare our meal, so I will make Chris a snack when I get home to hold him over. I also pack our lunches nearly every day during the week, and plan those out as well. 

I am by no means perfect, and am in constant learning mode with many mistakes…but I think I am pretty good at faking it until I make it! 

According to dreammoods.com this is what it means:

Linking up with Sami for another recap of weekend shenanigans! 

Sad to see another weekend come and go. They really are too short! I am still down to partition for 3 day weekends, any takers?  I tried to be better about taking actual pictures of my weekend events, usually I forget!

Friday – When I got home, we hung out here for a little while.

 Chris and I decided to go out for dinner Friday night. We had a few ideas in mind, but none of them really panned out. We ended up at 26. Our night started with some local brew, Back Forty Truck Stop Honey Brown…yum yum. My favorite local brew!

We both decided to try the burger. We have eaten at 26 several times before, and I have had pork and chicken…never really thought about trying the burger. We were pleasantly surprised by how amazing it really was. See for yourself. Yummo! 

That was really the only “event” Friday night, because I am an old person…I was in bed by 10:30pm. I just can’t hang late after a long week at work.

Saturday – I got up Saturday morning and cooked breakfast and cut up a pineapple. Nothing better than some fresh pineapple!

I was getting ready to leave, and this guy was being super cute. It is hard to leave when this is staring at you!

I was off to meet up with Joy for a lunch blate! We decided to meet at Ashley Mac’s. I love Ashley Mac’s it is such a cute place for a girls lunch. We totally had to have some strawberry cupcakes!

Joy and I were there for almost 4 hours talking! Amazing how quickly the time passes when you are enjoying your company and conversation. The girls lunch was much needed, apparently!

You aren’t a blogger unless you take shameless selfies in a parking lot!

When I got home, I noticed someone was little pooped from hanging outside. Passed out!

What is a Saturday afternoon without some Sonic?

We decided to take it easy Saturday night. Rain was coming in, and I had a coupon to try this pizza…I stopped on my way home from my blate to pick it up. It was super yummy for frozen pizza! 

We also made a stop to pick up some Paul’s Salsa to snack on. There is no salsa like Paul’s salsa. You can pick it up in any gas station in Argo or Margaret. Amazing is all I have to say! We do not even buy jar or grocery store salsa anymore, as nothing compares to this!!

A pizzeria in our very own kitchen, yummy!

And after Friday night’s burger…and Saturdays cupcake and dinner….I probably gained 5 lbs!

Sunday – We were grown ups Sunday. After our weekly Sunday morning breakfast at the Waffle House, we came home and did a little yard work before it started raining, and then I cleaned the entire house and did laundry. I didn’t feel like doing the grocery shopping and meal planning Sunday afternoon because I was being a slacker…so I guess that means a trip to the store after work tonight is a must. Drat!

I also got to text with Joanna some this weekend. Love that girl! Her dog Roscoe and my Gracie are going to be married one day! Puggle love at it’s best! If you don’t follow Joanna.. Go check her out!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! Let’s tackle Monday and just try to hang until Friday!

I started writing this post well over a month ago. Little bits at a time so that I do not become too emotional.

If you lived under a rock, or don’t care about the South East half of the country, you may have missed one of the worst tornado outbreak in history. April 27, 2011 358 tornadoes broke out, taking with them 349 people and my heart.

I have mentioned in posts before about how I am a big scardy cat baby when I even hear the threat of bad weather. By bad weather, I am talking tornado, or sever thunderstorm that could be damaging wind weather. When the sky turns a funky color, my heart starts racing and I can’t focus on anything but weather updates. I have been like this all my life. Perhaps to prepare me for April 27, 2011.

The day started out on a dark note for me. I woke up knowing something was going to happen, I just didn’t know to whom and to what extent. I woke up, and did my usual routine. Chris and I both worked in downtown Birmingham at the time, across the street from each other. We commuted together every day, and this day was no different. As I sat at work, I was constantly checking the weather. You see, when we left in the morning, it was bright, warm and sunny. A disaster for unstable weather if you are expecting storms that day. There was talk about possibly shutting down early if things were to get bad, but we were playing it by ear. Cahaba Heights and other areas were hit very early that morning with the first round of storms that came through. Nothing too horrific, but some major damage. There was a lot of wind damage through the state actually. I remember my dad calling me to tell me he had some trees down at his house. Little did he know that these trees were the least of his problems.

Shit started to get real when we were watching the tornado coverage in Mississippi. Then it started tracking into Alabama. I remember sitting in our office watching the tornado come right through Tuscaloosa. This is only about 45 minutes away from us. It was unreal. Chris and I made the decision to get on home, and left work. I remember driving up I-59, and Chris was checking the weather on his phone. The weather channel was showing that it wasn’t even really going to rain much more. It didn’t seem serious now. We decided to go to Starbucks, and we sat outside on the patio. The wind started to pick up some, and Chris deiced that maybe he wanted to pick up some cigars for himself to enjoy in our sun room at home.

We headed to go get those, but most of the tobacco stores were closed, so we decided to just head home. It started to get pretty nasty pretty quickly on our way back to our house. It started raining, and the sky started turning those funky colors before a nasty storm comes. I started to cook dinner, it was pork chops and roasted potatoes. The meal was about 15 minutes away from being done, and Chris and I were watching the weather on TV. It looked like a long tracking tornado was making it’s way right for us. We quickly made the decision to turn off the oven, pack up our dogs and head to his parents house where there is a basement.

At the time, our rental house was about 10 minutes from his parents house. We got in my car, and I sat in back with the dogs as Chris drove our way through the pouring down rain, very heavy rain and debris filled the streets to his parents. The debris at the time was from tree limbs and other such nature that was falling due to the winds.

We got to the house and got the dogs inside. We ran upstairs and they were telling everyone to take cover, that the storm was right over us. We all ran downstairs to the basement and took cover by the back wall near the dogs. Chris and his dad went upstairs for a minute, and they heard/saw rotation in the sky and came running back down.

Luckily for us, the storm happened to not make land fall and skip over our area, and land in St. Clair County.

As soon as the storm passed through, it started to calm down and Chris and I headed back to our house. I texted my dad, sister and mom and let them know that we were OK. I told my dad and my sister that it was coming for them.

My sister was at home by herself with 2 of my nephews. Her husband was at work, and her in-laws were across the street. Her mother-in-law called her to come on over, as she usually does in bad weather. For whatever reason, my sister felt she should stay at her house.

She took my nephews and some pillows and blankets and hunkered down in her hallway that led back to the bedrooms.

Minutes after Chris and I got home my mom called my cell phone, she was hysterical. She was crying and screaming and I couldn’t hardly understand her. Then I realized what she was saying. The tornado landed in Shoal Creek, my sister lost her house and is outside looking for her in laws. She called my mom screaming and crying after it went through, and they lost connection. My mom was unable to get a hold of her again and didn’t know what to do. She knew she couldn’t leave to come up there because there were hundreds of trees down blocking the roads.

I called my dad. He didn’t answer at first, then called me right back. He too lost his house. He, his wife, and a few other guys from the fire department were out helping people when they saw the storm coming and took shelter in a pantry that was built in under the stairs in his house. There was more of his house standing than my sisters, but it was a total loss. He told me that he was going to start cutting trees up and try to get to my sister. She needed help because she was trying to find her father in law and mother in law.

My dad never made it to my sister that night. They live about 2 miles from each other and there were just too many trees down, and too many people around his house that needed help. What was left of his house became a triage for the rest of the area. As he went to the area he could get to, he was pulling people out and sending them to his wife for her to help them in any way she could.

My sister eventually found her in-laws. They were thrown a good bit away from their house, landed next to each other in the yard. My sister’s father in law was not alive, and her mother in law was barely breathing and injured. My sister was also part of the fire department, and called for medical help. They landed a helicopter to take her mother in law to the hospital.

Unfortunately, her mother in law did not make it. She passed a few days later, never to come conscience. There was a joint funeral for them. The funeral home was in Pell City, and the burial was in Shoal Creek Valley at their church’s graveyard. I have never been to a funeral were there were so many people. Chris and I had to stand in the back because they ran out of seating. I never made it up to the front to view or see my sister or any of her family because the line was so long that they had to cut it off and start the service. When it was over, I ran to the back to hug my sister. I can’t imagine going through something like that. She had just turned 23 a month before all this happened.

The processional line to drive to the grave side service was just as long as the line in the funeral home. It was so long, and there were so many cars that the back half the line missed part of the grave side service. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen though. The National Guard and about 300 volunteers were meeting at a gas station on the corner of a road we had to cross to get to the grave side. All of the National Guard stood still, with their hats over their hearts…and all the volunteers lined up around the corner as well as our line of cars made its way through the rubble that was left of the area. I felt like it was a scene out of the movies or something. I cried, silently, the rest of the way to the grave side.

Net and Charlie were amazing people. They are missed greatly. They took my nephew Christopher in as their own. They were amazing parents and grandparents and we were lucky to know them for as long as we did.

Below is a picture of the tornado that decided to skip out on the Trussville/Clay area and land back in Shoal Creek Valley, in Ashville, Alabama. It was decided that it was an EF5.

In this video link below, around 2:52 in, they show my sister’s house. It was brick on the front, you can’t really tell. See the purple wall on the right side? That was my niece’s bedroom…there were other bedrooms there too but they are gone. A tree branch was stuck in the engine of my sisters Ford Expedition. Right through the motor, it was considered totaled as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBJEHjQVOO0&feature=share

After the funeral, I took my nephews home with me. My mother in law and sister in law cooked a dinner for my sister and her family, and took it to them. I was so thankful they wanted to help as well. I know it meant a lot to everyone. 

I took my nephews back to my house. On the way home, my tire blew. Go figure. I had picked up some nails from all the debris that we had driven through. There was a nice couple that was coming back from another funeral, and they stopped and helped us. 

Christopher was exhausted. He told me that he hadn’t been sleeping good because every time he closed his eyes, he could hear his mom screaming and the storm coming over their house. He was 6 at the time, Cooper was 1. 

This is my dad’s house before they started rebuilding. He wanted to keep the fire place/chimney because it was still intact. 

It has been a long road of recovery for everyone in Alabama since April 27, 2011. The weatherman are careful when they use terms to warn us of bad weather. Every week since then, the weather and news crews are in a different city around here programming weather radios for people. 

This is James Spann. He is the best weatherman on the entire planet. Everyone in Alabama knows that if this man is on TV, has his suspenders on and his sleeves rolled up wheeling out his Mac Book, that shit is about to get real! He had been warning us for days before April 27 that is was going to be bad, and he has been there for us ever since.

Say what you want about Alabama. We get a lot of trash talk from other states that think they are better. Let me tell you something about this state. I have NEVER in any of the years I spent in Georgia, Missouri or Pennsylvania, have I EVER seen everyone come together for strangers. The amount of people that poured through Shoal Creek Valley alone was amazing. The very next morning after the storms blew through here, everyone was out and about asking what they could do to help someone. Anyone. These people who came out to help reminded me of how good the world still is, despite all the bad things that happen from time to time. You can no have good without evil. You can not have happy without sad. 

My sister and her family of 4, 6 every other weekend when they have my nieces…had to live in an RV on their land for 6 months. I don’t know how they did it. I am so thankful that their insurance company settled everything and did right by them. My dad and his wife did not move into their new home until June of this past year. Their insurance company was a nightmare to deal with. 

Here are a few pictures of my sister’s house going up. Both my sister and my dad built on the same land and foundation that their original houses sat. 

This is a picture of my sister’s back yard. It pretty much looks similar to this today. The people that lived in that house back there never did anything with it. They didn’t have insurance. 

Now you know a little bit of why I am a 5 year old in bad weather. While I know you can’t control what it does, and all you can do is pray…I still freak out and have anxiety. I have it more for my nephews and my sister, because I know how scared they are. I know that if they are home though, they are hiding out in the storm shelter that they had built into their basement.

These kids are my life and I am so thankful every day that they are still here.

I don’t think this state will ever forget April 27, 2011. Every storm since then gets compared to this. Everyone asks “Will this get April 27th bad?” Anyone who has ever experienced tornado damage and loss can relate, no matter “how bad” the storm was where you were. It is scary business. If they are saying it is going to be bad in your area, be alert and aware of what is going on. It can save your life. James Spann says to NEVER rely on outside weather sirens. They don’t always go off when they should, and some don’t even work. Plus, you may not always hear them. 

I will leave you with the lyrics to a song that has forever since been in my mind.