hellish hail

As if I wasn't having a hard enough time trying to keep my blog current, our power was out for 48 hours this week, throwing my week into chaos.

A little after 10 on Monday night I was enjoying a relaxing shower at the end of a very productive day when, about halfway through, I heard and felt a frightening sound--above the sounds of the streaming water and the radio. Fearing my furnace was about to explode (our hot water heater/furnace combo--an antiquated beast--resides in a closet in our bathroom and at times makes menacing thumping noises). "Oh NO!" I'm thinking. "The house is going to blow up and I'm going to be found naked and dead in the street! What an embarrassing way to go."

And then the lights went out.

It didn't take me too long to deduce that we were in the middle of a tremendous thunder and hail storm. Thankfully John, knowing I was in the shower, was quick to bring me his Nintendo DS, which when opened and sitting on the counter, provided adequate light by which to dry off and dress. Whew! I wasn't going to die naked after all.

I was impressed by the kids' quick response to an emergency situation. The storm hit so suddenly and with such severity; thanks to their quick response time and action (as I was otherwise occupied) windows and doors were expeditiously closed, allowing no water to enter the house.

The outside of the house, however, did not fare so well. We awoke the next morning (still no power) to find the back of house looking like this:

Some of the holes are three and four inches big! We were fortunate that no windows shattered, as many of our neighbors' did. However, the frames are broken, dented, and cracked--like this:

Our gutters and window frames look like someone with anger issues took a ball-peen hammer to them. The saddest part to me is my little garden in the front of the house. Remember reading about my efforts to beautify? Well, Monday afternoon I decided I would surprise Mark (who was out of town) for our upcoming anniversary and add some finishing touches to our joint gardening effort. I stopped at the nursery on my way home from work, dropped another $50 for some fill-in plants, and together with the kids planted everything for FHE Monday night. For at least three whole hours my garden looked really good.

On Tuesday morning my garden looked like this:

. . . and my potted basil looks like this:

Emily, Sarah, John, and his friend George helped me rake and clean the yard (remember I said that Mark was out of town?). After a few hours of work we had raked about 15 bags of leaves--just from the front lawn. Though the decimation of my little garden is disappointing, it was somewhat heartening to at least get the debris cleaned up, and it felt pretty neighborly, as everyone else on the block was out in their yards doing the same thing and we would occasionally walk over to a neighbor's house to exchange storm stories and damage estimates.

The good news? Our power came back on last night around 10 p.m., but not before I had to attend to some urgent Relief Society business by candlelight and flashlight.


The bright spot? My rose bush, a Mother's Day gift this year from Mark, came through the storm nearly unscathed--amazing, when you consider the state of everything else in the vicinity.

For another great account of our eventful week and more photo documentation, see Emily's post.