Wind and Honey Creations: 6/1/13

My last post shows that its been a full month since I've posted here. It might look like I just wanted you to have lots of time to enjoy getting to know Karen deCordova and Target. And while that's not a bad idea, it wasn't actually the plan. This month has been huge. First we are moving. Tuesday the truck will be loaded so every tiny thing has to be packed into a box. I've been finishing up my local classes along with their annual art show. And I've been packing....and packing...and packing.

Then 2 weeks ago just as the tornado was ripping through Shawnee, OK, I went to bed. I'd not been feeling well and had a cough for a couple of days. I just thought it was from packing and all the dust. --yes, there is dust in my house! So I had just been pushing on. By the time I realized I was really sick, I was really sick! So, I lost 6 precious packing days as I slowly recovered from a rip roaring case of Strep throat. Ugh! No time for that!

Meanwhile I lay in bed and watched on television as the world all around me was blown to piles of sticks in swirling violent winds. -- Yes, I live in Oklahoma! Where the wind goes sweeping down the plain... We have not been in the direct paths of the tornados. But we are very very close. We drove through Moore about a week after the tornado. The media is correct when they say the pictures don't really give you a grasp of it. It is beyond words and quite overwhelming.

I have used this image in good faith that it is a public domain image.

Finally, I am up and back to packing. We have downsized quite a bit but who would ever guess with so much stuff to pack! We will not be complaining, though!!! We have things to pack. Many around us do not. I have a cousin who has lost everything in the Moore tornado and a life long friend who lost much in the Broken Arrow tornado. And, of course, there were many others and even those who lost beloved family members.

My son and my husband were such princes as I lay in bed with fever. They packed my dining room and part of the kitchen. They packed it a little differently than I would have. But I'll not be complaining about that either! What great guys I have!!

So, this has been a month for perspective. I think it will be affecting my thoughts for some time to come. Here is a great example of overcoming. This birdhouse is wired to the pole. A family of birds had moved into it. In one of the storms it blew over clinging by one partial wire. It was a few days before I could get out there to turn it right side up and in the meantime I kept noticing the mother using the roof overhang as a porch. When I finally walked up to the house to turn it right side up, I could see babies peeking out! They had simply adjusted -- rearranged the furniture, if you will -- and had gone on with their happy little lives.

Life can be rough. But we can persevere. We dust ourselves off, rearrange the furniture, and make the best of it. My moving and packing and even the crud in my throat are small things. Oklahomans have had a tough couple of weeks with the tornados. And that is not a small thing. But those affected will adjust and life will go on. Because that is what people and mama birds do!