The Writing Re-Start

Four years ago on May 18, 2010 I opened up a blogging account, mostly to give my mom details of a Hawaii vacation we took.  I figured if I was going to be typing up that much info and sending that many pictures I'd go ahead and make it public and if anyone wanted to read it, they could.  The blogging continued for a year after the vacation, but eventually I got pregnant and I saw all my hobbies fade away.  Free time turned into reading 'what's happening to my body' books, weekly trips to the baby stores where I aimlessly wandered around never before realizing how one item comes in 10 different types in 50 colors from 5 different companies, complaining how my hips were no longer attached to my body, loads upon loads of baby laundry, creating a calendar to sort out my doctor appointments/baby showers/registering/professional photos/thank you notes/baby name lists/pediatrician lists/daycare lists, complaining how my hips were no longer attached to my body, nesting, resting, watching Joe build things, eating whatever I wanted and complaining how my hips were no longer attached to my body.  Then the baby came and even more free time went out the door.  You get the picture.  Long story short - one of the many hobbies I stopped doing was blogging.

I've always enjoyed writing.  As a child I was really into poetry. I have a whole book of poems hiding somewhere.  One stormy night, maybe in middle school, I got on my parents computer and wrote a horror story that to this day makes me wonder how I didn't turn into a serial killer.  I was morbid and probably shouldn't have even had those thoughts in my head at that age.  I recently went through an old box at my parents house of high school papers I wrote and found some really well-written reports as well as funny group projects I had no recollection of writing.  In college I was a TV Production major, writing scripts and commercials.  I was also a package producer on a student-run late night talk show where I wrote comedy skits.

Somewhere along the way I stopped writing.  And I miss it.  So I'm hoping this is my re-start.  I hope to improve upon my rusty writing skills.  I hope to entertain.  I hope to mix up the topics.  I hope to evoke emotion.  And I hope to become famous.  Just kidding.  I don't like attention.  That's why I write.  I'm a behind-the-scenes kind of girl. 

Volunteering in Tuscaloosa, AL

I haven't written on here in about 6 months, but I thought the nearby tornado devastation is definitely worth writing about.  I've had to hide in basements and closets a few times in my life living in Indiana and Alabama, but never have I experienced the level of threat that came through Alabama last week.  When you see these types of disasters on TV, such as Katrina and the recent tsunami, your heart obviously goes out to those people and you feel terrible, but when it happens right by you and to the people you know, it's a completely separate feeling.  The desire to help becomes so overwhelmingly strong and the sense of community is shown every few miles whether it's a dropoff station someone set up for donations, men on a roof removing a tree, electricians in their bucket trucks trying to get power turned back on, or trucks towing damaged vehicles to get them out of the way of more pressing matters.  These are all things I've seen the past 4 days among many other services and helping hands.  I keep hearing people say they're proud to be from Tuscaloosa or from Alabama because of the outpouring of love and help that's been seen, but I honestly feel like any American community would respond this way...that's just how this nation is.

Wednesday morning I was woken up by my dog jumping into the bed, which he only does when he's scared.  Considering my husband is both the light sleeper and the "weatherman" of the household, it was good Snoop woke me up since Joe was out of town.  Storms were pelting through, but it was just that - storms in Helena.  I watched the weather on TV for a while until it was time to get ready for work.  The workday was a little busy as our biggest client was flying in that night and I was preparing my portion of a presentation for them.  Plans were to go to dinner with them that night and give the presentation the next morning along with other members of my department.  Around 2:00 a coworker sends me a link with a live news feed of a tornado presently on the ground going through Cullman.  This town is about 45 minutes away from my work.  Knowing weather was only supposed to get worse throughout the rest of the day, many people started leaving.  Schools had already closed down as well as city government buildings.  Not knowing if our clients would be able to fly in, I stayed and prepared on still going to dinner if the weather miraculously got better.  At 4:40 signs were getting worse, and even though they did indeed land, I chose to play it smart and go home.  With Joe gone, I had a house and a dog to protect.  I later learned that others actually chose work over safety and being with their families, which is really sad to me.  Driving through the streets of downtown Birmingham were eery.  Tornado sirens were going off and the streets were dead.  It was definitely a very alone feeling.  About five minutes after I got home, the power shut off, but luckily I still had natural light.  I cleared the closet that is our safe spot and Snoop ran right on in.  I grabbed all the necessities and turned on the weather radio.  The power was out so I couldn't listen to a TV, my computer wouldn't connect to any networks, and my phone was going in and out of service, so the weather radio was my only way of knowing what was going on.  The man was on a rotation giving weather warnings, but because there were so many storms and tornados that had touched down, it would take forever for him to get back to the storm I needed information on.  Joe was experiencing the same thing in the Florence/Huntsville area but due to the number of storms we weren't hearing about each other's.  At one point the tornado that had been sighted near me put us in a tornado emergency level which I had never even heard of.  I stayed in the closet for 2 hours depending on Facebook and text.  Joe was finally able to let me know that I was safe so I came out of the closet.  Five minutes later my power came back on.  I realized right then how lucky I was to have power knowing that others would be going a week without it.

The next morning I was terrified of seeing the devastation that was already being shown on TV.  The commute to work was slow as traffic lights were out.  I passed one church with men on the roof removing a huge tree that had fallen on it along with trees down all around the perimeter.  But for the most part there was not too much damage on that route.  I was closed off to the outside world that day due to being in the boardroom all day, but already knew I wanted to help.  Joe and I decided we would do anything we could that weekend. And when I got home from work that day, seeing him for the first time, we gave each other a very long hug.

Saturday morning we went through our entire house within about 90 minutes and created a large pile of donations.  Donating after a natural disaster is the best way to purge because you're not thinking about it.  You're not spending time trying on clothes and debating on whether or not you should keep it because you're thinking of all those people who need it now and way more than yourself.  We loaded up the car and dropped it off to an amazing group of people that set up a donation station in our small town of Helena.  We picked up our friend Mandi and headed to Tuscaloosa.

Plans were to arrive at a church that was taking volunteers and distributing them to different places that needed help, but when we got there they were turning people away for that day due to too many volunteers.  As you can see there were so many people volunteering at this church people had to park on the shoulder and in the median of this road.

With Joe doing business there and Mandi having gone to school there they called up their connections and we found some opportunities.  We met up with a man named Jason at a water supply station to pick up and deliver water to a town called Holt that was severely damaged and low on water.  We had a caravan of about 6 cars filled to the brim with water and traveled through the town to a school that was collecting necessities.  The traffic through this town was horrible due to closed off roads which allowed me to take many pictures from the car.

This was a house.

It appears as though there is a random Pepsi vending machine where houses used to be.

Steps leading to a house that is no longer there.  And the house behind it remained.

After dropping off the water we decided to help the Child Nutrition Director of Tuscaloosa city schools that Joe knows through work.  There were two schools in this district that were demolished, however there was still good food in the freezers that needed transported to a school that still had power.  Somehow after 3 days of no power in this school the food was still very frozen and salvageable.  We loaded up an entire delivery truck of frozen food and headed to a shut down school that would be reopening due to the given circumstances.

Side of school ripped off.

Top of school ripped off.  I believe that's either a closet door or classroom door visible from the parking lot with a poster hanging on the door.

This pile of rubble was in front of the school and I didn't even realize there was a car in it at first.

From inside the school kitchen.

From side of school looking out to what used to be residential Tuscaloosa.

As we were waiting for the director with his truck we were able to walk around a bit and actually be in the midst of the destruction.  What hit me hardest was a residential street (below) directly to the right of the picture above.  I'm sure there were at least a few kids who lived on this street that walked to this school every day.  They now no longer have a house or a school.

This house on the left had 5 shirts on hangers hanging on a tree branch (not pictured).  My thought was they were able to save 5 shirts and knowing they no longer have a closet are using a tree for the time being.  Across the street was a house just as bad with a man carrying out some board games.  He declined my help but I'm guessing there wasn't much more to be found in the house anyways.

Looks like a guard rail literally got wrapped around a tree.

The street in front of the school was just as bad.  All the houses had their addresses spray-painted on the brick.

This was a neighborhood.

After unloading the food at the other school we decided to head home.  On our way we drove past McFarland which is a main road through Tuscaloosa that used to be lined with retail and restaurants.  This is what it looks like now.

Looks like a bomb went off.

Here is something that will put the power of nature in perspective.  This Chevron is on one side of McFarland.

This strip mall is directly across the street.

These are only a few of the pictures I took.  It was amazing to see people walking down streets handing out water, construction workers already replacing roofs on churches, and windows being boarded up to prevent further water damage.  Although situations like these always bring out looters and thieves, there was definitely more good being done than bad.

When we got home we bought some steaks and had a cookout with Mandi and her parents who are displaced due to an ongoing power outage at their home.  It was a long day starting with helping lives and ending with celebrating life!

American flag in front of leveled city of Holt

I am Superwoman

Whenever Joe leaves town I get these HUGE kicks of motivation. Maybe it's because I feel like I'm not having to share my time, but whatever the case I always get a lot done. This time, however, was a little more intense than usual. Between Wednesday night and Friday night I worked one day, did my boot camp class, did laundry including clothes, sheets, towels, bath mats, and Snoop's stuff, ironed, dusted the whole house where I actually remove items from shelves, hardcore kitchen scrubdown including inside refrigerator, inside stove and microwave, vacuumed whole house, wetjetted tile and wood floors, cleaned bathrooms, cut coupons, picked up dog poop in yard, reorganized some stuff in the closet, cleaned fans and blinds, painted my nails, decorated front door for fall by switching out the mat and wreath and adding some pumpkins, trimmed the bushes, mulched a third of the landscaping, potted some flowers, cleaned all our trash cans, gave Snoop a bath, went shopping twice, and took a bath to cure this aching body. I swear whenever Joe leaves town I become Superwoman.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Befores & Afters

As I reflect on some recent events I came to the realization that everything has a before and after.  It's a pretty basic concept and of course nothing can have an "after" without a "before," but when I got my hair chopped off, which is an obvious before and after, I started thinking about bigger befores and afters.

So starting with the small hair event that got me started on this thought train, here is my before and after.  Joe loves long hair so I've been growing it out for a couple years now, but every time it gets to a certain length, it just stops growing.  And it looks nasty.  It always gets to a point where it looks like I put the ends into a toaster and fried it.  I would love to have long luscious locks but without any curls or natural character, it just ends up looking like a dog chewed on it.  Here is me on Wednesday, the last day of the long hair.

I don't think I can get any mousier looking than that.  I got brave and for the first time ever went into the salon and said 'you can do whatever you want!'  I think the stylist got pretty excited.  My only requirements were she take at least 4 inches off and leave it long enough to pull back.  So here is the new style.  I definitely like it and have gotten a lot of compliments on both the cut and color.

Not the greatest picture to show it off, but she went a little darker and put in a lot of layers.  I'm definitely relieved to have that mop chopped off.  If you'll notice our plant in the background is growing out of control.  It's like that plant from Little Shop of Horrors where it eats people.  That tall leaf is growing like one blind per day.  It'll be to the ceiling by the end of the year.

Moving on to a much bigger and more important topic, last weekend was the 9 year anniversary of 9/11. I pretty much got stuck on the History channel that day.   Every time I watch documentaries about that day I learn something new or remember something I forgot about.  It's amazing how many stories there are out there because of how many people witnessed it first-hand.  I watched about five different shows, the last one being a new documentary for the year that was a collection of amateur video called 102 Minutes That Changed America.  From the beginning to the end was people's recordings from their apartment windows, on the streets, from tops of buildings, from inside the towers, etc.  It was very moving and made it all feel much more real.   The morning of 9/11 I was a sophomore at Indiana University.  I was actually still sleeping when the first plane hit, but my boyfriend at the time called to wake me and tell me to turn on the TV.  I sat there dumbfounded in my single dorm room by myself watching my 13-inch TV in disbelief.  The entire day was quiet, people walking around like zombies, going to class and not able to pay attention.  Student union, dorm lobbies, and the like all had TVs on surrounded by crowds of college students.  It was so early in the school year that I hadn't had a chance to get to know everyone on my floor very well, but there was a girl at the other end of the hallway who I had briefly met who lost her dad in the towers.  They actually lived in Ohio, but he was in NYC on a business trip in which he had a meeting in one of the towers that morning.  If I recall correctly he was possibly on one of the floors that the first plane hit so I can only hope it went fast for him.  I couldn't believe that on a campus of 45,000 students, where 2 of them lost a parent in the attacks, one of them actually slept a few yards from me.  She took the rest of that semester off to be with her family, but I remember a few of us threw her a little going away farewell in our hall's lobby and she was the strongest one there.  Here is a 19-year old girl who just lost her dad unexpectedly in one of history's most horrific events and she was the only one in that room not crying, telling all of us that things were going to be okay, that her family is going to get through it, and for all of us to have a great semester.  I don't remember her name, but she will always be a part of my memory of that event.  

Because that has played such a huge role in the aftermath of everything, it's hard to imagine what life would be like had that not happened.  Vicitms would still be in people's lives, security wouldn't be so strict, the twin towers would still show up in movies of the past decade, every little accident that happens wouldn't be looked at as a possible terrorist attack.  I hate when I hear about something fairly small happening and the government's first instinct is a terrorist attack, therefore it gets plastered all over the news that way, only to find out it was an accident or malfunction of something.  The attack has forever changed how this country lives.

Recently I have chosen to do a couple things that only have a before at this point.  The after is yet to come.  I have always wanted to learn how to play guitar, but didn't want to spend a lot of money on one.  Conveniently, a coworker recently sent out an email that he was trying to sell a lot of stuff cause he's moving into a smaller place and one of the items listed was "a random guitar."  I jumped on the opportunity and found out it was a 6-string acoustic which is what I wanted.  It even came with the case, so I got my old, used, cheap guitar to start practicing on.  I think it's from Brazil and is about 40 years old, but the sound is good.  Just need to dust it off and have it re-stringed.  I don't even know if that's the correct term, that's how little I know about guitars.  I even downloaded a free app on my iphone that gives a few lessons and has the chords listed out with charts of what strings and frets to play.  I'll be a pro by next year.  HA!  Doubt it.

I also thought of a really good storyline idea a few months ago and thought about trying to write a book. I sat down back then and wrote a couple pages, but the hardest part is always the beginning and I don't know if I like how it starts.  It's totally a story that could be a movie and the other day I was thinking to myself why am I trying to write a novel when I know so little about books, yet watch movies like it's a necessity?  I even have practice writing scripts from college courses, so I've decided to write a screenplay with my idea instead of a book.  Look for it in 2017.  ;-)  Yet again, an idea is born.  You have to wait for the after.

August Happenings

Yikes!  I've been slacking on this blogging hobby I'm trying to pursue.  Here I say I wanna blog cause I like to write, but then I can't find time to write!

Now that I think back, a lot actually happened this month.

On 8/7 Joe and I celebrated our 8th anniversary since our first date.  I guess I can't really say we celebrated.  Neither of us even mentioned it.  I only know because it's written on my calendar each year, but each year as that number gains a digit I can't help but think how time flies.  Seems like we were just in college when we met, but I've already been out of college for almost six years.  Doesn't seem possible!

Two days later our first nephew was born!  Aaron Dean Scherf was born on a very cool date - 8/9/10.  He weighed 7 lbs, 13 oz and was 19.5 inches long, born at 5:49 pm.  For those of you that don't know, this is the son of Joe's sister and her husband, Christy and Eric.  This is child numero 2 for them and I know they're thrilled! Hoping we can meet him sooner than later, however they're way off in Arizona.  I wish everyone I knew lived within 30 miles of us.  That would be awesome!
Meet Aaron!

And here is baby Aaron with big sister Maura and mommy!

                                                  

So the big 2-9 came around this year for me.  Not too thrilled that I'm only a year away from 30, but can't do anything about it.  My birthday fell on Friday the 13th this year and although I planned on working, Joe told me to take the day off.  I had no idea what he had planned, but my work allows one paid day off the month of your birthday, so why not use it on my actual birthday if it's going to give me a 3-day weekend.  So I granted Joe's request.  First of all Joe had been spending the previous weekend and that Thursday before my bday making the house squeaky clean.  That right there is like one of the best gifts a girl can get.  Then at about 10pm that Thursday night the doorbell rings and I'm thinking who the heck is that?!  None other than my parents!  I hadn't seen them in about 3 1/2 months and Joe talked them in to driving down for the weekend!  And then the next morning he sent me off to get a 1 hour massage.  So basically my husband is awesome and got me the 3 best gifts I could have asked for.  Joe still had to work on Friday so after my massage I spent the day shopping around with my parents and then Joe met up with us for dinner at Firebirds.  We finished the night off with gifts, games, a movie and strawberry/funfetti cake covered in homemade strawberry frosting that Joe made.  It was delicious!

Moving on to work-related news, my company's traditional media department has previously done a 3-day media presentation where they bring in lunch and for about an hour each of those 3 days they gave a presentation about what new shows are coming out in the Fall on the main networks.  It's always entertaining and a great way to see what new shows you might like.  Well this year they decided to up it a level, combine it into a full morning and hold it in a lecture hall at Samford University allowing clients and vendors to come and watch as well.  They had a red carpet with cutouts of TV stars and "papparazzi" taking our pictures.  They then had breakfast food to eat while mingling until the presentation started.  Our group of presenters did a great job!  It was extremely informative and entertaining.  Intermission sent us back to the lobby where little bags of popcorn were available and we all entered for the second half of more new show trailers and information!  I really thought having that take up our whole morning would make the day go by fast but for some reason the second half of that day felt like 2 full days.
Here we are with Kyra Sedgwick from The Closer watching us walk the red carpet.  As you can see I got Joe to come along and enjoy the festivities.

So moving on to this past weekend...a good friend of mine from work got married!  They had the wedding in Atlanta and it was beautiful!  The ceremony was outside the Hilton in the extreme southern heat of August, however their programs were also fans!  What a brilliant idea!  Darien looked stunning and Josh looked happy, although you couldn't tell their sweat from their tears.  Luckily the ceremony was short and sweet because those blue skies started dropping tons of rain about 10 minutes after we went inside for the reception.  The food was really good, the decorations looked awesome and the bridal cake was beautiful.  They did a really good job.  And apparently they got the hookup with our Krispy Kreme client cause the grooms cake was a pile of donuts.  haha

One good thing about things happening in Atlanta is we always have our good friends Nick and Kate to stay with.  Nick was a good friend of mine in college.  And what made this visit even more special was we got to meet their 2 month old twins, Jack and Harrison!  They were such good babies and the two nights we were there were the two nights they had slept the longest ever...like 8 hours or something crazy like that.  Both of them!  

They loved their boppies.  They were so calm sitting in those things.  I believe that's Harrison in the front and Jack in the back.  

And here I am holding Harrison.  Sweet babies!

And in completely unimportant news I should have a new wreath to add to my Facebook Wreaths Page soon that is for sale.  And our dog likes to sit with his long arms in twisted and stretched out positions like this quite often...we've just never been able to get a picture of him doing it until now.