Weathering the Storm!

Check this tree out! It was beautiful and completely vertical but not anymore. One of the fun things about living in Texas is the tornadoes or almost tornadoes. Not that it's fun but it makes life here a little interesting. I woke up last night from a nap and I couldn't help but hear the loud howling of the wind. It almost sounded like a freight train which is my mental indicator that a tornado is almost upon me. My sister was sitting next me looked at me and I looked at her and I yelped, "Shit, a tornado!" I jumped out of bed and started rounding up the cats, got away from the windows and formed a plan that consisted of my sister and I jumping into the tub and pulling a mattress on top of ourselves. I gathered all of our candles and lit them and grabbed our cell phones. I sadly don't have a weather radio or any radio that runs off of batteries so I was SOL there. My husband is frantically calling from his work, checking to see if we were okay and in mid call the power goes out and so does our phone. He calls me back later on my cell and says that he and all of his coworkers are corralled in the pseudo storm shelter at work. So, my sister and I are in the dark, my cats are gathered in her bathroom and my bathroom was free our plan. No air means, it got stuffy fast and we opened the door and admired the fury that was nature. The wind was blowing so hard around 70 to 80 miles an hour and the rain was almost horizontal. It was scary for about 15 minutes then the weather abated. The rain was still pouring but not as hard and the wind dropped considerably. They let my husband come home and we all munched on some cold dinner and popped open a bottle of champagne. My sister had already started drinking wine since her great plan in Miami when hurricanes hit and the power goes out was to start drinking beer and barbecuing all the meat in the fridge. So, we drank and relaxed and my sister fell asleep on the couch and we listened to the pitter patter of rain and the gentle lull of her snoring. Today we got to see the wreckage caused by the storm and it isn't pretty. Trees and tree limbs are everywhere and it's a sad sight but we weathered the storm just fine and that's all that really matters.