Storm preparations

Well it is springtime in Kansas - no doubt about it this weekend.

Without going into specifics about exactly where I live, suffice it to say that I'm in the middle of that big red blob. Not on the edges of it where there's a chance that it'll blow over, but in the middle. Yay us!

It's no secret that I love storms. I really do. I don't even mind the occasional tornado warning. I have lived in Kansas for just over 14 years now, and while I haven't seen an actual tornado (yet) I do respect what they can do. However, I refuse to panic. I watch the weather, I watch the skies, and I take the warnings seriously - but I get accused of enjoying the storms too much. So be it. I can enjoy them and still be cautious.

The girls aren't here tonight - they are with their father so that they can go do a 5K in the morning. So I have all 3 boys here with me. We went outside for a while this afternoon so that they could burn off some excess energy and so that I could prepare. I moved everything that wasn't necessary off of the porches and into the garage and made sure that all of the toys were put away too. And I cleaned out the only gutters on the house - right by the front porch - so that involved climbing up onto the shaky garage roof. But I started out by pulling the trees out of the flowerbeds - not sure why, other than I was bored and needed something to do, and the trees were annoying me.

The boys had fun on the swingset for a while....of course, the backyard looks like a jungle right now, but I figure I'll mow after the storms. No sense in doing it now.

Jared had fun taking pictures of me on the roof of the garage....

And I got some cool shots of the clouds. The sun was setting for the second one so the colors were just gorgeous.

So as of right now, at 10:16pm CST, we are currently under a severe thunderstorm watch and a high wind advisory - which is funny because there are no storms around for miles and not a speck of wind. But that will change overnight and throughout tomorrow. I haven't decided if we are going to go watch the girls run or not - I want to go, but it's quite a hike from here and I'm not sure that I want to be out running around, not knowing when the weather is going to hit. I guess we'll just wait and see in the morning. Assuming that we don't blow away, I'll post pictures on my facebook page as the storms hit.

(OK, the severe thunderstorm watch was just dropped as I was typing this. Literally.)