Another Sleepless Stormy Night

Well, here I am again at 4 am. A thunderstorm came through about 2:30 and once I heard the thunder, I was wide awake. I know there are many people who sleep soundly through thunderstorms but I am not one of them. I think it came from my retriever Rusty when I was first married. He was deathly afraid of storms and moaned frantically through them and always kept me awake. Rusty, seen here with Sundance the beagle, has been gone since 1983 but I still think of him every time it storms. Amazing! He was such a beautiful and smart dog!

I have a pot of coffee, an amazing bottle of Cinnamon Vanilla Creamer and a net book on my lap. I guess life could be worse! In fact, I was just thinking about the tornado victims in Joplin, Missouri, about 4 hours south of me.

My daughter was in Joplin this week with the cleanup and she shared a lot of sad stories when she came back. She worked on a house with her team from Operation Blessing. In three days, they had it gutted down to the studs. The roof was partially destroyed and the windows had blown out during the tornado. After the high winds a additional rains, the house was covered in mold on the inside. Everything was lost and had to be removed.

The two homeowners had recently canceled their Homeowners Ins. due to loss of income. I'm sure there are sad stories all over Joplin similar to theirs. Operation Blessing went in and will have the house completely redone by the end of next week at no charge to the homeowners. The roof was already on and the wiring was in place by the time Sarah came home. 1/3 of the city is gone, demolished and it's not a little town, pop. 49,000. There were 8000 structures damaged or destroyed. 150 people died.
Here's a website that talks about Joplin, the city and the tornado damage.

http://www.joplinmo.org/#

They still need volunteers down there and will for a long time. If you have time to help or want to donate, contact Operation Blessing.

http://community.ob.org/site/PageServer

I took the opportunity to play on the Blog again tonight. I'm trying to be quiet for everyone else and the computer seems to be the safest place to be. Let me know what you think of the new font. I'm not sure if I like it or not. I need feedback!

It's been a few weeks since we had a drawing and I think it's time this week. I'll post it tomorrow so stay tuned!