Baby, Why'm I Worried Now...

It was quite an exciting evening last night. If you're not aware, Oklahoma got a large outbreak of tornadoes last night. It was pretty scary for me because I was home alone and Phil was still driving up from Norman. As the sirens started to go off, I started to panic! I'm not good with crisis situations when I'm completely alone. Granted I had three cats with me, but they're not always helpful ;) I threw the cats in our safe place, the closet/bathroom downstairs, and tried to get ahold of Phil. He said he was getting closer and listening to the radio. I then corresponded with my mom on the phone several times just so I wouldn't have a panic attack. Even after Phil FINALLY got home, (the second time the sirens went off), I was still a little panic-y. Once the storm shifted and went straight east, I started to calm down a little. You see, at the time, there were 3 storms southwest of us fighting for the same atmosphere to start up a tornado and one further south. Once I was feeling better, we watched a video of the storm in Norman that made a van on the highway spin around at least 1 full time and then flip off the road. I immediately called my bro in Norman who said it was all east of him. *side note: If you remember my tornado story from last year, after all of that I called Mikey who had been doing laundry and was blissfully unaware of how bad the storms were. Yeesh.* Luckily no one I know personally got hurt. A few have some roof damage, but nothing too bad. Phil and I were sad to see the only 24-hour Sonic nearby might be damaged. If you see coverage or pictures on your news and they're talking about a Love's gas station in Choctaw, the Sonic is across the highway from there. I know it's silly, but we love our late night trips together :) I saw we were mentioned on the Today show this morning, but then our local stations cut in so I'm not sure what they said. I'm just glad my mom and Phil helped me keep it together as much as I did!

With all that excitement, Phil and I didn't eat dinner until almost 9. It was worth the wait though! I made a favorite of ours and tried a new side dish. I've never eaten bok choy on its own before so I tried a recipe I found online! It turned out pretty good to me :D The main course is a Peanut-Chicken Stir-Fry from a Southern Homes and Gardens cookbook I got at a wedding shower. It's delicious AND it calls for jasmine rice. If you've never had jasmine rice, you should try it! We love making it in our rice cooker because it smells wonderful. We watched a little anime while we ate, then went to bed early. I'm sure my panic attacks/hot flashes are not good for my blood pressure anyways.

We're supposedly still in the right conditions to get severe weather the rest of the week so I'm hoping it chooses NOT to do anything. Ugh. I feel like one of 10 people in the entire state who hates storm season. People were posting pictures on facebook of them seeding their lawns or hanging out in lawn chairs with a beer. I was pacing my apartment in between hot flashes trying not to cry. Ah well.

I thought I'd share some pictures that people posted online of the actual storms/tornadoes. I found them all here at a local news station website. It's best to watch the slideshow because sometimes people upload pictures of themselves =P The slideshow will show some of the best pictures directly related to the storm.

This is actually one of the first tornadoes that hit the Tuttle/Minco area. This is about 35 miles southwest(ish) from downtown OKC. To give you idea of where I am, I'm literally 6 miles straight east of downtown.

This is the one that hit Norman. It started off smaller, but then got this big. It wasn't the biggest one of the night, but its the reason I had to check on Mikey!

Here are some of the hail stones in the Moore area. Moore is between Norman and OKC. The hail in Midwest City was about quarter size at best. We got really lucky.

Now I'm just finishing up my first official lesson for my online class. It's Intro to Grammar and now I'm feeling very paranoid O_0 Hopefully this class will help me feel more confident with my skills :) One can hope right? HAHA It good news, I received my grades for the semester and I have 2 As and 2 Bs! One of the best semesters I've had in awhile :D Now my overall gpa has gone up to a 2.48!!! W00t! If you're still taking finals or waiting on your grades, I hope you receive good news.

I hope y'all had a better night than we did weather-wise! Stay safe and have a great day.

Peace to you,

"Middle Cyclone" by Neko Case