Came In Like a Lion!

The first thing I heard this first morning in March at 5am was a voice coming from my iPad across the room: "There is a tornado watch for your area." Not exactly the words that one wants to be awakened hearing! Though, for those not used to tornado terminology..."watch" just means that the conditions are right for a tornado to form. The word that you don't want to hear is "warning" which means that there is a tornado on the ground heading in your direction. But it was an indication as to what sort of day it might turn into! Woody headed off to the grocery store a bit earlier than usual hoping to avoid the rain...which he did. Since I was up early, I got underway with making Boston Baked Beans (my mother's recipe). I got them cooking on top of the stove for two hours. In between two of the children's reading times I put them in the pot with the other ingredients that I had all prepared and popped them into a slow oven to cook for six hours. I had preschool time with Joseph and then Isaac. Then Elijah, Esther, Joy, and Abigail each came over for a reading time. Not long after Abigail finished her reading time, I heard my 2nd weather warning come from my iPad. This time it was for a severe thunderstorm warning. I looked at the radar and the line of storms was heading our way and was supposed to arrive about the time that I and my library workers would have been thinking about heading to the library. I got on the phone and cancelled our church library work time for today. The storm did hit about the time that they said it would...hard rain and some hail. Our area has definitely fared far better than many in the U.S. today...lots of rough weather...quite a few devastating tornados touched down and changed many lives today. Definitely March came in like a lion today! After the storm passed through, Woody went out and picked up some sticks/branches that had come down. He has started on the daunting task of getting the Christmas decoration boxes back into the Christmas closet. I started cleaning up the living room...vacuumed where the tree had been...getting ready to move furniture back to "normal" positions in the living room. I have done a couple of loads of wash...which included a couple of Christmas towels that need to be put away and also the table cloth that had been on the dining room table since our family Christmas dinner...it had been covered with Christmas objects since the undecorating started. The table is finally cleared. The table pad is rolled up and put away till next time we entertain in there. I can once again see that the table is made of wood!!!! Also the coffee table has its covering off that I have on it for Christmas so the children can play with the Fisher Price Nativity and not scratch the table...amazingly enough I can once again see that it is wood also! Slowly but surely the room is coming back together. I am ready to have it finished so I can sit down in it and enjoy it "normal" once again...no Christmas and also the mess gone that has overtaken it since I have been undecorating. But for tonight we are both ready to just sit and rest...reading or watching TV or working crosswords or all of those! As soon as the storm went through this afternoon, the temperatures started to drop...so once again there is a chill in the air. It's supposed to be in the upper 30's by morning. It is back and forth and back and forth with temperatures this time of the year. Woody has a doctor appointment in the morning so we will get to experience the chill in the air as we will be heading out fairly early...at least this Vandy appointment is in one of their "satellite" offices so we don't have to go all the way to Nashville...but will still "get" to experience rush hour traffic.