A Long Road

On Wednesday, April 27th, 2011, North Alabama experienced a series of tornadoes that left a heartbreaking path of destruction.


I have seen thousands of pictures, read stories that made me cry endlessly and drove through some of the hardest hit areas, where people were sifting through rubble in an attempt to pick up fragments of memories that were once their homes. It is unreal.


I know I was one of the many that bemoaned the nearly week-long lack of electricity and loss of modern conveniences. We incessantly checked our cell phones for even one hopeful little bar of signal. Hundreds of thousands of people were in that same boat. We flocked to the grocery stores in search of ice and any fresh food we could find. There was some humor in trudging through the darkened stores with the somewhat unwashed masses. Lots of ponytails and baseball caps, wrinkled clothes and strained laughter. We weren't prepared, but the spirit of generosity and simple Southern manners prevailed. And we were fortunate.

I stood in my driveway with my family (yes, after the frantic weather reporters told us to take cover) and tried to snap pictures of a tornado beginning to form, while being pelted with hail. But in the end the worst of it missed us and we still had a home, a roof over our heads and our family was safe.


Not so for others.
195 people died in Alabama alone, with a death toll of 340 people in the tornado outbreak area.
The recovery effort is massive. You can help by visiting:

The American Red Cross

The Salvation Army

Feeding America




But there are more ways to donate, other than monetary contributions. People everywhere are reaching out - contact your local churches or civic organizations for more ways to help in the recovery efforts.

Worst. Blogger. Ever,

Not that I consider myself a 'blogger' in any way, shape or form. I have a serious case of envy for those that can take a topic and put their own spin on it that incites hundreds of people to follow, tweet, digg, stumble and all of the other mysterious social networking things that I am slowly trying to familiarize myself with. while I don't think I am a complete moron when it comes to all things online, I am definitely behind the curve. My one and only college computer class taught Wordstar and predated the world wide web. For that matter, my last foray into the real working world was so long ago that Windows was something that put a neat little icon on my screen that did nothing bur promise cool things to come and lock up the computer if you dared to click on it.
But my intentions are good....even if my mastery of the blogger dashboard leaves something to be desired!

All of which leads me to this - my 'congrats, you won' post has been languishing in 'drafts' since I created it, unbeknownst to me. did it occur to me that no one had emailed me to claim their prize? for a moment, but that was when the plague swept through my house, dropping the kids like flies. And the subsequent trips to the doctor, followed by the whining (mostly my own!).

And as we returned to normal, the storms hit. That is a whole 'nother post in itself. Five days without power, hot showers and ATMS. Grocery stores not able to run debit or credit cards... and even if they could, no fresh food. No power to the gas pumps. No ice to save what food you could (again, a topic deserving it's own post). But we were fortunate!

So scroll down a bit. I recovered the post that has been hiding. And since I made you wait so long, a little gift! Enter the discount code ' thankyou ' at checkout for a 10% discount on your http://www.wordstowear.com/ order