If a natural disaster can't get me to post on my blog, I don't know what can.

Mostly for my own benefit (but you are cordially invited to read along with me), I'd like to post some of my thoughts on the tornadoes that slammed though my state almost a month ago, disrupting everyone's lives, and teaching us all some important things that, like I said, I don't want to forget.

Things I was grateful I had on hand:

(Numbers one and two were far and away the things I was MOST grateful for, and, of course, number 7)

1. My full gas tank. Bizarrely enough, maybe a couple weeks before the tornadoes hit, I had decided, because of rising gas prices, never to let my tank get below a half tank of gas. Usually I'm a "ride it until it starts sputtering" kind of girl. I have to say, the very most comforting thing about hanging around in a disaster area (we did hang around for 3 days with no power) is that I COULD leave if I wanted, at any time. Now, what started as a way to save a few dollars has become one of my essential emergency preparedness routines: never ever let either of our cars get below a half tank of gas. That way, if the crap hits the fan (again), we could always siphon Dave's tank into mine and have that same comforting full tank every time.

2. My extra propane. A while ago, Dave and I decided to always have an extra tank of propane on hand, just in case. How great it was to be able to invite all our neighborhood friends over to cook our soon-to-be-spoiling food and not worry even a little bit about running out of propane.

3.My water storage. We store water in 4 50 gallon barrels. We also store some bottled water. When no one knew when the water treatment plant would run out of generator power, it was really nice to know that if it did, we would still be OK for quite a while.

4. My candles. I have tons and tons of scented candles. Just because I like them. I also have multiple and many ways to light those candles. I'm not sure why. I also have an oil lamp, which I loved, but which I admit, is probably not necessary for Your Emergency Preparedness. But I loved that there was absolutely no chance of running out of light (when no stores in a 10 mile radius had any batteries), and that my house smelled AMAZING every night.

5. My bike. I like to bike anyway. It was nice to use it as an actual mode of transportation.

6. My emergency radio. We have a radio that can be powered by a cord, batteries, a hand crank, or solar power (the one we used the most, by the way.) It was so important to be able to hear what was going on, especially while the tornadoes were still happening, but the power was out.

7. My friends. Oh, goodness. How to survive things like this is there's no one to talk to, no one to support you? I was so very grateful especially that we had friends that were within walking or biking distance, and that we could support each other. And, of course, the beach house of a certain friend that we could escape to. That was important too. :)


I sound So Prepared from all that, huh? That's because I haven't done my second list yet.


Things I wished I had on hand (over and over):

1. An organized house. Oh, to have not let the laundry pile up for days. I was planning on my (procrastinated) laundry day being the day after the storms hit. Crap.

2. Paper plates. Not that I'm not capable of doing the dishes by hand every single meal. It just would have been nice not to have to, that's all.

3. A charged cell phone. Alas, I am not one to make sure my cell phone is at full charge all the time. Or even at any charge.

4. A generator. Just one powerful enough to keep my deep freezer and/or fridge going, at least. It would have been nice not to have to worry about (and eventually throw away) all of our food.

5. Batteries. I didn't have many extras. Wished I had.



Now, you may (or may not) have noticed that that entire second list is composed of ways to help me keep the electricity-laden leisure lifestyle that we are all used to. Because I didn't have all those things, I washed dishes by hand, did the laundry by hand (yes, yes I did), figured out how to keep food coldish the old fashioned way, etc. Which brings me to :

Things I learned from living power-free:

1. We save a LOT of time by having electricity that our ancestors didn't have. As I was washing my dishes and laundry and remembering that I didn't used to have to do it, I wondered: what do we do with all this extra time? It seems we are always busy doing SOMEthing, but what is it really? With the couple hours I save myself by not washing things by hand, what do we do? Is it worthwhile? Does it justify spending our precious time on it? And I found that while sometimes the answer is yes, too often it is no. Too often in my leisure-filled life, I spend my time on something worthless. Over 300 people's time ran out in that storm. It taught me to try to use mine more carefully.

2. I don't actually have to turn on the lights in my house during the day. With the exception of bathrooms and closets, all of my light needs were filled by opening windows. I think I was just turning on lights before out of habit when I entered a room. I also learned that when the weather was nice, although there is slight variation on the temperature, that brings it outside of the Ultimate Comfort Zone we are all used to, we experienced precious little discomfort by not having and using air conditioning/heating. Just because we have air conditioning doesn't mean we can't open a window and get the same effect. Who knew there was such an easy way to help out the environment and save on electricity bills?

3. It's really nice to spend a lot of time outside. I should do it more often.

And finally, I learned once again that people are generally good. Seeing good souls mobilize again, and help again for yet another disaster is always inspiring, but it's especially so when it's your disaster. Even though my family were some of the lucky ones without damage or loss, I think all of us in Northern Alabama consider this--the problems, the heartache, the hope, all of it--ours. When I heard the news that Japan--which is still recovering from its own much, much worse tragedy--sent relief to us... well, that touched my heart deeply. It is good in a world of sorrow and problems to be reminded so strongly and vividly that God is also there, as evidenced by the hearts of people who care.

Random story #42

(IMPORTANT NOTE: I'm not sure if this is actually random story #42 or not. I didn't go back and count. Although I wouldn't put that past me. Hence the need for clarification. That's right. I just said "hence." I'm reading Austen stuff again.)

So we went to the greenway today. We went to chick- fil-a, got our free sandwiches, took them to the playground at the greenway, then took a walk, and generally had a great family time. Until Conner got run over by a bike. Before I go on, I need to say, he was surprisingly fine. A couple scrapes, a minor bang on the head, and that was about it. How it happened was that Conner was headed for the bike. We yelled (as he was a good distance in front of us) "Get out of the way, Conner!" Which he apparently took to mean, "Dart back and forth in front of the bike as unpredictably as you can!" Unfortunately the bike rider, trying to swerve and miss Conner, happened to make the exact same unpredictable swerves that Conner himself was making, right to the end. The end being, of course, when the bike ran over him. I ran up to him, completely terrified, and picked him up to cuddle him. Dave ran to see if the biker was OK. (the biker was significantly less OK than Conner, having admirably thrown the bike over himself to limit damage to Conner, but OK enough to continue his bike ride.) It was only a few moments into the traumatic occasion that I realized that I just left AJ in his stroller back a few feet wondering why he stopped moving. And here, in the aftermath of the Reynolds Trauma of the Month, I relearned exactly why it is I love my kids so much. Because Conner's first words, and the only words he said for a good five minutes, after having just been RUN OVER BY A BIKE, were "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Only Conner could get run over by a bike and worry only about the other guy.

So finally the whole ordeal was over, and we were walking back to the car, and what, you may ask, were the first words out of Christian's mouth?

"So Dad...what are your thoughts about inventing a two-headed Moose?"

Holy crap, how do I even start?

OK, so I have been a blog-slacker for quite some time now. And I've accepted that. Not everyone can be on time to everything and remember everything and update their blog every week. Or every month. Or every two months. I have other talents. I make pretty dances. For example. But then I started blog-stalking again, and every time I clicked on my blog in order to get to all of yours, I saw snowflakes and snowmen and a Christmas post glaring at me, seeming to say, "This is embarrassing, even for you." The snowmen and snowflakes, weirdly enough, are actually not that outdated. Because it snowed last week. Which is really weird because the weather was in the 80's today. But I digress. (IMPORTANT NOTE: You missed me. You know you did.)

But the problem with blogging again after THREE FREAKING MONTHS is what the heck am I supposed to write? If I were to think of, say, the last week or two, and try to come up with interesting things, it wouldn't be so hard. In fact, here, let's pretend I've only been gone a week or two. Here's what I'd say:

So Christian started soccer! Only 2 people on his team have ever played before, so in scrimmages, he does great. In actual games, if they were keeping score, we would get completely slaughtered every time. Thankfully we are not keeping score, so we don't. And we (that would be the parents I'm talking about) may not have sons who have played soccer for long, and our sons may not score many goals (1 today to about 20 on the other team), but danged if we aren't the loudest, most enthusiastic parents (Great try! Don't worry about it! You'll get it in next time! Good kick, but you're going the wrong way! ) of the whole bunch. And the kids seem to have a good time anyway. Conner wishes he had also started soccer, but I thought I'd better ease into the whole soccer mom thing. My voice is gone as it is.

But see, if I try to catch you up on absolutely everything that has gone on in the last three months it just gets overwhelming. Watch.

(IMPORTANT NOTE: For your reading pleasure, this is a lot more fluid if you pretend I just went from the last sentence of soccer to here. Thanks.)

Speaking of Conner, it's so much fun to watch him in any kind of social setting. If there is a child within, say 2 years of his age in a 20 foot radius, he will be friends with him or her within about 10 minutes. It's crazy. But it's really fun too.

Oh, and he had a birthday! It was great. He's really cute. His Granny and Papa came that weekend. And I had a birthday too.! I'm 29 again. I got an Ipod touch!!! That's what I wanted! And the cutest dress in the world! And AJ has become really cute. He said "bye bye dada" the other day. He giggles a lot and says really cute things and gives me hugs and whenever he's excited he screams "MAMA!!!!" That's fun. He also waves at everyone in the whole world. Most of them think that's cute.

And I took my dancers to their first competition ever! They did good!

And we decided we are going to Hawaii! How exciting!

SEE????? I can't write like this. Too much pressure. See you next week. Maybe.

The Spirit of Christmas, disguised as a four year old

This post is dedicated to Conner. He is my own personal little sunshine. He is also the spirit of Christmas. Not only does he sing Christmas songs all (and I mean ALL) the time, but he really wants to make everyone in the world happy. He loves Christmastime, I think, because everyone in the world becomes a little more like him. OK, sure, I'm his mom, I'm a little biased, but he really is one of the nicest people I've ever met. Like when we went and did an angel for the angel tree. We picked a 4-year-old, and I told Conner his name. We ended up losing the ornament (despite my amazing organizational skills), and I told Conner we might not be able to get the presents to Bryan (his little four year old). He burst into tears, saying "Bryan will never get these Christmas presents????" It's just the way he is, and I honestly don't know what I would do without him. That's not to say he doesn't have his moments, though. If he is being mysteriously quiet, watch out.

He might have the camera:

Or he might have gotten a hold of some scissors:

But he's a boy, so the resulting haircut wasn't a huge deal. Most of you probably either a)didn't notice, or b)noticed, but thought it just wasn't a great haircut and were nice enough not to mention it. But it was pretty silly looking for a while there, and makes for a good picture. When I told Conner his hair didn't look cute that way, by the way, he cried and cried. Me:"Why are you crying?" Conner:"My hair doesn't look cute!"

So I suppose the moral of the story is, if you are incredibly loving and cute (even if your hair isn't) and happy, you can get away with almost anything. Ah, well.

Ha!

Surprise! I'm back. And it's for a stupid reason that only like 5 of you will get anyway. But so worth it. Oh, so worth it.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/TOUSLED

Notice the CORRECT pronunciation, naysayers. Who's making fun of Dahnelle NOW????

Edit: so you'll have to copy and paste because I can't figure out how to make the link work. So I guess the making-fun can resume:)

I dare you to read this whole thing...

So I'm sitting here by myself right now, Dave is away on travel, the kids are in bed, and I am doing some blog-stalking. It's great. I hardly ever just go around reading people's blogs anymore. And then I start to think how shameless it is, that here I am doing nothing, NOTHING, and yet I'm still procrastinating updating my own blog. See, some of my friends update lots and lots. So it's cool if they blog about Interesting Daily Events, Fun Grocery Shopping, or Fun Things to Buy. But after leaving you all hanging (desperately on the edges of your seats I'm sure) for a freaking month and a half, it better be this great post, right? The bright red hair, if I do say so myself, met my standard of "It's been forever, so this better be good." Back in the day when I used to blog all the time, I had a couple posts like that too. The airplane one. The Christmas Poem. And, in it's own incredibly long and somewhat indulgent way, the Disney one. Never mind, not the Disney one. But now? I finally am shamed by my lack of excuses and complete and utter boredom into updating, and I find myself, instead of actually WRITING anything, giving you all an entire paragraph of Journey to the Center of my Blog Post.

Lovely.

How about a story? Before I tell this story, lest you think I am a heartless and neglectful mother, I will tell you that I did call poison control, and they said he would be fine. So I guess Conner tasted some of my nail polish remover. I found him in my bathroom, and said to myself, what is that smell? And then I recognized it, and (rather frantically) pointed to my nail polish remover and said, Conner, did you taste that??? And he said, "yeah, it was spicy." Thankfully it was the kind that you have to squirt it up into the top first, so he didn't get a whole swig of it. But I swear, it is rather amazing that I have managed to keep him from going to the hospital yet in his young life, what with all the things he climbs on, gets into, and puts in his mouth.

I appear to have covered Interesting Daily Events now, despite my entire paragraph of nothingness telling you that I wouldn't. What else is there to do, but to move on to Fun Grocery Shopping? Couponing rocks. For quite some time, I was in the habit of blasting my food budget out of the park. In my Post-couponing world, I'm going to have to move it down if I don't want to come in way under budget every month. And I don't. Because then I would have to, you know, SAVE that extra money. And I already save plenty of money. I either need to move it down, or make it, instead of my "food" budget, my "food and whatever I want to buy for myself this month" budget. I like that one better.

So about two months ago, we went on vacation. It was fun. Yeah.

[IMPORTANT NOTE: It's really a lot harder to write about something interestingly if you wait so blasted long between when it actually happens and when you write it down, you know? Let's try again.]

So about a million years ago I went on a vacation that seemed really interesting at the time. It started out in a rather un-fun way, though. When we got to the airport an hour and a half early like the Seasoned Airline Travelers we are, we had no idea we would be in that airport for HOURS. First we stood in line and went through security. Apparently AJ was not accounted for on our tickets, so I had to go back and stand in line to get my ticket changed and then stand in line and go through security again. Not a great start, but it was about to get a whole lot worse. We apparently weren't sitting together on the flight after this one. So Dave went to the desk and asked if he could fix it. And apparently it didn't matter that we weren't sitting together, because this flight was delayed and we were not going to make the connection. You notice that the only reason they informed us of this is because we asked about our seats. She said she'd work on it. Meanwhile AJ, in his baby bjorn, has decided that now is the perfect time to leak out of his diaper and onto me. I go into the bathroom and do the very best I can with my very limited cleaning supplies, and am still feeling pretty nasty. You all know how much I love those types of bodily whatever. So after about half an hour of Good News Lady trying to come up with a flight (ANY flight) for us to get there, she came up with one that would have us arriving in Salt Lake City at 1:00 AM our time. (We were supposed to get there at 3:00 in the afternoon) Nothing else available, apparently. So we suddenly had HOURS to kill in this tiny little airport. We decided we would try and get on the standby flight in a couple hours, and then that would put us in the airport slightly sooner so that we could maybe get on the standby flight that would get us there by 8 instead of 1. In the meantime, a very nice man came and asked the kids if they wanted some horse stickers. Which they did.

This is a lot longer than I meant it to be. Oh, well. Anyway, we went to the flight and made sure we were on the standby list, and began the waiting game. Slowly our names crept to the top until--hallelujah! They called us up. And said that our party of 3 could get on that plane. Wait, we said, there are four of us. Oh, they said. Well nevermind then.

So then we had a couple more hours to kill, and I decided I was going to have a good attitude if it killed me. So I went exploring with each of the kids in turn, and we found a giant lego house, and actually had a decent time for those couple of hours. As long as I didn't focus on the horrible 1 AM end to the day coming up, I was good. Then a nice man came up and asked if the kids wanted some horse stickers. Which they did. Again. So we got our names on the list for the standby flight that was going to arrive at 8 anyway, because even if it was going to be a little tight, we could still make the connection if we hurried. Then THIS flight was delayed. And they said, Oh. Well, probably not now. So I asked if there was any way we could tell them that we were coming in case our names were called and we weren't there yet. And they said "no." If we weren't there when our names were called, we were out of luck. And then a nice lady came and asked the kids if they wanted some horse stickers. Hey, why not?

So we got on the super-ultra-delayed flight, and Conner fell asleep. Which would have been okay except he wet himself. So there was that. And yet, despite everything, I refused to give up hope. I prayed for us to make it on the standby flight. I came with a Plan. I would wear AJ and the backpack and tear though the airport as fast as I could while Dave brought the kids and carry-ons on the off chance that maybe THAT flight would be delayed and they would call our names. So I put on those, and THE MOMENT the seatbelt light turned off (which was approximately 20 minutes before the standby flight was going to leave), I TORE up the aisle--and got about 10 feet. Then I was waiting, waiting, until it was my turn to get off the airplane, and I started a very level and smooth (wouldn't want shaken baby syndrome) but fast run that was really quite exhausting. I got to the gate (two concourses over, by the way), and I said, "I know this is a long shot, but you don't happen to have any seats left for standby on this plane?" They said (very predictably) "Sorry, no." " Well, thanks anyway," I said. I think. It might have been more like 'NOOOOOO!!!!" or "&%$$##!!!!" but I think it was "thanks anyway." "Wait," they said, "what is your name?" "Reynolds," I said. "OH, they said, we have tickets for you!" "WHAT?????" I said. "Yes, Reynolds, party of 3, right here." "PARTY OF 3?" I said? "Oh, wait," they said. "We have tickets for four of you." And at this point it was only my excellent upbringing that prevented me from climbing over the desk and kissing all three of them right there. But the story's not over yet, my friends.

So there I was, blissfully happy, and waiting for Dave. They called final boarding call. Still waiting for Dave. They tried to do some paperwork something to give me extra time, but the nice man said they had to close the doors now. I said, "Can't you wait one more minute? He can't be that far behind me. We can't miss the flight after all this!" and he said," I'm sorry, ma'am, I have to close the doors now." I did one last frantic sweep of the airport, and THERE HE WAS! I said, "I see him! He's right there!" And the guy said, "Tell him to run." And so I yelled across the airport, "DAVE!!!! RUN!!!!!" And so he ran. Right into some poor guy's lunch. He apologized to the poor guy. still running, right onto the airplane. As we were walking to our seats, Chris said, "I think we're going to make it!" And everybody laughed.

We weren't sitting together, so Chris ended up sitting next to this nice man and telling him absolutely everything about us. (Chris and I had a talk about how much to tell strangers later.) But one of the things that he said to his new friend was, "My Daddy said that we're not going to give this airline any more money. He said they care more about making money than keeping people happy." Conner, meanwhile, was looking at the safety instructions and trying to figure out how he could get to go on the slide. He finally said, "If the plane will crash, THEN we will go down the slide?" So I guess in Conner-land, the plane crashing was a small price to pay for such a fun-looking slide.

So anyway, we got there and I was ecstatic after a very long hard day because it wasn't as long and hard as it was supposed to be. And I thought that was nothing short of my own personal little miracle.

We interrupt the chronology of this blog to bring you an important update on my hair...

So, It's been about a month and a half since I last posted. That's because I'm a slacker. And a ton has happened, including, but not limited to, my recent trip to the mountains. I will post on that soon, as it includes a couple pretty good stories. For now, however, there is a more pressing matter to attend to. You may or may not remember a few posts back in which I so boldly declared the next American Idol. You also may or may not remember what I even more boldly said I would do if he was not, actually, the next American Idol. [IMPORTANT NOTE: That would be "Adam Lambert," who didn't, in case you didn't know, win, and "dye my hair the color of Allyson's," whose hair, in case you didn't know, is bright red.] Well, far be it from me to go back on my word. [IMPORTANT NOTE TO SELF: Next time you make a bet with yourself, do not involve your hair. Also, give yourself something great if you win. Like a manicure. Or a new car.]

Yesterday I bought the dye, which was as close to the color of Allyson's I could get without bleaching my hair or spending more than $10. Neither of which I was going to do for this. Here it is:

I showed it to Chris and asked him what he thought about me dyeing my hair that color. He said, " I think it will look GREAT! But make sure you always wear a name tag so that I still know you're my Mom. "

Today my good friend Jessica came over to help out with and document the dyeing process. Unfortunately for you all, the "before" picture didn't meet my "I'm willing to post this on my blog for all the world to see" standards. But once you see a couple of the pictures I do post, you will see how low those standards really are. If you must have a "before" picture, there's one right down there in the Wicked post that shows the color of my hair quite well.

And now for the real fun: This was while I was waiting for all that fuchsia deliciousness to set into my hair:

And rinsing it out (notice the blotches of pink dye on my neck that are surprisingly resilient and hard to get out of my skin):

Me checking out my new red hair:

And finally, (drumroll, please), the new look itself:

What do you think???

We're famous.

So if you don't live here, we had a mother of a hail storm yesterday. I couldn't stand it, because Chris wasn't here. He was at school, and even though I knew in my mind that the school was about ten times safer than my house, I was suddenly a mama bear who did not like that my cub was far away from my personal protection. In any case, Dave took a couple pictures of the gargantuan hail, and when we were watching the news (you know, to see if any tornadoes were coming), we saw some very wimpy pictures of marble-sized hail. So we sent this one in:

And it made it on the news! So we are now officially famous, in a "quite a few people that we have never met have now seen Dave's hand and our baby tray" kind of way.