The last few weeks have been full of stress and anxiety for a number of reasons. First of all on August 10th my state experienced a horrible storm that pretty much impacted a huge part of my state. The storm is called a “derecho” and I’ve honestly never heard that term before, but it is a storm with very strong straight line winds that are similar to hurricane strength winds. So basically my state experienced a category 2 hurricane with no warning and a huge part of the state was devastated. Millions of acres of crops were destroyed, homes were destroyed, and people in some parts of the state are still without power. In my area we were very lucky because we were toward the beginning of the storm so it hadn’t gained as much strength yet, so we experienced around 70mph winds and after it went through here, the winds got stronger.
Just before the storm, my kids and I were outside playing when I noticed really dark clouds off to the west.
I looked at the weather on my phone and saw that we were already under a severe thunderstorm warning and that the storm was packing 70mph winds and large hail. So the kids and I picked up all of their outside toys and put them in some sheds and brought the dogs into the garage. By then the winds were starting to pick up and I looked at our weather station and it showed that the winds were at 50mph already. A few minutes later, I looked out the window into the corn field and the wind was blowing so hard, I almost couldn’t see anything, it was a big blur. So the kids and I went down to the basement to ride out the storm and the hail started pounding the house pretty hard. The storm lasted about 15-20 minutes and then it was over. I looked outside and saw that there were some trees down but thankfully it was far away from the house and when I went outside to assess the damage, there were no trees down around the house and the main damage seemed to be 3 trees and the sweet corn patch that was blown over.
We were very lucky and I know that across the state there are so many that weren’t so lucky and my heart goes out to them. So many are still without power and many people had severe damage to their homes and farmers experienced devastation with their crops and buildings. I know that it will take a long time for people to recover from this but I know my state is very strong and this experience will only make us stronger.
Another issue that has been stressful for me over the past few weeks has been the issue with school returning. My children are 4 & 5 and they are in preschool and kindergarten this year. We have gone over our options extensively and have made the decision for me to homeschool them this year. My son had attended preschool for several years and loved it but we know that this year is not going to be a normal school year and really feel like it is best for our family to keep them home. I know so many parents have grappled with these decisions and many don’t even have a choice because they are not able to stay home with their children. I feel very blessed to be able to be home with my children at this time and also felt that by me keeping them home, that is 2 less children that the school district would have to make room for.
So things have been crazy lately and my eating hasn’t been the greatest but I am turning things around so that this week I will have a good loss. I have continued to keep track of my goals for each day like I had mentioned in my previous blog. I have had many days where I wasn’t able to check off everything, but I am still moving forward and determined to keep going. I’m thankful that I have turned this month around. It is hard to believe that there are only 4 months left of this year and I’m determined to make them count.