Tennessee Tornado 2012: Psa 107:25 For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind..

(I write this to document this day for my children and so the oldest who lives out of town can see.)

On March 2nd, 2012, we worked in the yard, on a very warm day for this time of year. It was 75 degrees and sunny, but there was quite a terrible wind blowing and storms were on the way. It is easy to take the weather warnings for granted when most storms pass over you.

We watched the clouds come in with a little rain, but not much. 

The clouds changed however, they began to turn pink and yellow and even green. Some started to swirl while a dark ocean-blue-green wall come up over the horizon.

I saw on weather.com that a 'red' cell was on us. Because of the lightning, I shut everything down and we watched the windows. We should have been in the basement.

My 16 year old, looking out the front door said, "There's a tornado." At a glance, I saw he was right and ran them all downstairs to the basement into the corner that is underground. 

Within seconds, the power was out. It had lifted and touched down just over the hill across from us.

We heard 16 houses were destroyed and 60 were damaged. I heard no one was killed but several were injured and some had to be rescued from the debris. One farmer was frantically searching for his livestock specifically horses from his barn, which were all gone.

Below are pictures that my children and I took, with the exception of one that was forwarded to me, of the tornado, I believe taken by the Lee family. 

These don't show what I hear to be the worst damage, the troopers wouldn't let us down there.

Our God is mighty in power! His strength- His might- His creation- is above all that I can fathom.

His grace to my family and my neighbors brings tears to my eyes.

His love through friends who blessed us while our electricity was off, goes beyond mere human love. They were God's hands, love, and hugs to my family as they brought convenience food, money, and generators. We are so blessed!

The sky began to change and we started seeing hints of yellow, green, and pink.

 This is from the front porch; crazy clouds but not too unusual here in bad storms.

This is out the back door and you can't tell from this pic, but right in the center, the sky was yellowish and over to the right it was green and over a little more; pink.

Then the craziest thing I've ever seen- that wall- it looked like a giant wave out of the ocean- it was blue-green and if you had told me that a tsunami was coming I would have believed you.

'that wall' from my son's Ipod

"The Wall" -breath-taking- Can you see that ocean color? The picture does not do it justice. It was much darker and nontransparent.

It's hard to run to the basement when it's not raining or hailing and this amazement is right outside your back door.

Pardon me while I look to the 'Eastern Sky'- the Lord might be coming in this mess! :-)

We drove out that night but honest before the Lord, I was so crazy, I could not work my camera- at all! I couldn't take pictures or movies or anything- on any device! But it was right after the above picture was taken that my son first spotted the funnel coming down on the other side of the road in front of the house. We ran downstairs, but within a second or two, it had hit over the hill then picked up again and touched down on the main road taking out a line of pines, and power poles and electric lines..and ...the power went down. 

This below was sent to me on my cell phone. It was taken I believe by a family who lost their home. I pray the Lord is quick to rebuild for them.

Tornado 2012 Jackson County Tennessee

from my cell phone....right after it hit this second funneling cloud was right outside my back door

We saw that night, innumerable trees covering the main road, but the next day the following pictures were taken as they had cut the debris from the main road. The worst hit area, over the hill from my house, was still blocked off by State Troopers.

5 houses down from ours, at the end of our street, this house was buried in trees the night before but they had cleared some

The front view of the same buried house. It used to sit surrounded by pretty trees like a little house on the hill, but now we can barely see it.

This house had been beautiful. It had trees all the way around it like a canopy, but now the trees, the roof, and more are missing. Metal scraps are all over from some one's barn or home.

Another view of the same house. I think it blew all the windows too. There was glass in the road.

Turning from our road to the main road (through our rural area): This road was lined with pines on the left but they've been snapped. All the power lines and poles are gone but one. Last night, this road was impassable from all of the trees. I'm shocked by what I see. Those pines- they're gone! They were tall.

This house lost part of its roof, some of it's siding, and I can't see their garden, nor their fence where their beautiful grapevine used to grow. To the left of this home is a mobile home that was knocked off of it's foundation.

Notice the snapped tree to the left, the metal on the line, yet those lines didn't come down.

Notice this huge tree broken in the center and all the pine needles are gone except on the sides.

Closer view of those once-tall pine trees, just snapped.

I think a tree had been on top of this one because the nice big tree that used to be to the left of their house is no longer there and I don't know where all the mess came from in their yard, which is usually immaculate.

This house and yard was normally quaint and beautiful but it now looks like there are pieces of another person's home every where.

Homeland Security is here and several groups have hot food set up as there is no electricity for miles and we are kinda in the middle of nowhere. We've seen and heard lots of helicopters and airplanes today. We've also had tons of traffic.

There's lots of metal lying around and I thought at first it was from some of the destroyed barns, but if you look at the roof of this house, you can see that the tin is peeled back. Some of the strips from roofs just like this one, are laying around bent up or in curls.

This has to be so horrific for those who have grown up here and are/were living in homes that their parents built.

This home was pretty new, very large and fancy, but now has lots of damage to one side and the tarps indicate there's more damage to the roof on the backside of the house.

Those snapped pine trees coming from the opposite direction.

Why the candy canes? Well, while I was frantically trying to get everyone downstairs, the 14 year old was grabbing candy canes to take downstairs just in case "we got stuck and needed a snack"- -after we spotted the tornado across the street!

I hope to get down that other road today. And strangely, they're calling for some snow tonight.

We were so blessed to be unharmed and also to have friends who came to our aid so quickly. One precious couple we know even located us not one, but two generators, to borrow during this time. But, God be praised, while they were still here- they got the electricity back on, on this street!

God is merciful.

More pictures are here from Mabry School Road and on the other side of Dodson Branch Highway.

The Spitter: A Tale About Naivety and Naughtiness

As a young mother, I must confess that I was very naive, and I guess sometimes I still am, but so much worse then! I really thought that these sweet little toddlers that I had seen grow up since the innocence of infancy, would always do just what their mother told them and stay true to their character- at least the character that they portrayed in front of me. (I snicker at my lack of good judgment here.)

My oldest had always been the "law-abiding citizen". For him, things were black or white, right or wrong. I was aware that he had a stubborn streak, but in my pride, I thought that I had thus far been successful in curving that stubborn streak towards righteousness. If he was going to be stubborn, I wanted him stubborn about doing good and right, and stubbornness there would suit me just fine.

My second-born son had been the restless one, the creative one. It was he who discovered that underwear looked cool spinning around on the ceiling fan, after all. It was also he, that as a little toddler had shocked me one day when he climbed up on the couch, walked across it to the other end, stood on the end table, and jumped. I remember saying to him; "Are you new here? We don't do that." He was totally the opposite of his older brother. The rules didn't come natural to him. He had to figure them all out. He never liked "being in trouble" but he didn't automatically know that you don't do certain things, like dip your toothbrush in the toilet and that sort of thing.

Now that you have the "background", on to the story!

For several weeks after baby boy #3 was born, the restless-creative, second-born had been getting into lots of trouble for a naughty habit he had developed that he was using primarily at church. The habit? Spitting. Remember, he's also the creative one so he developed ways to do this that I can't even describe! 

I would be holding the baby and enjoying every lady in the church gushing over his blonde hair and blue eyes when I would hear "that sound" behind my back or my older child, the law-abiding citizen, saying; "Mom, he's doing it again."

This had become a routine for weeks. I would be talking, he would start spitting, and off to the car we would go with promises of the trouble he would find himself in once we were in the safety of our home. He would fret all the way home, because he KNEW that I always kept these kinds of promises. But the problem that kept really frustrating my mind was- why does he keep doing this?!?!  He hates getting "in trouble", he loathes this drive home knowing what's coming, and he does know quite well that I'm not going to let this slide.

Now, before I go on, do any of you wise-by-nature-mothers know what could have possibly been going on?

A hint: the creative one was often creative to get a laugh or shock out of the law-abiding, older brother.

(The hint helps to know how this surely must have gotten started.)

Another tip: Don't worry so much about the "wild one"- the toddler who is busy, but be much more concerned with the child who says, "I may be sitting down on the outside, but I'm standing up on the inside!"

Well, thankfully, I had a very good friend at church who had the guts to point out something to me one day after watching this event unfold for weeks herself. ...And I say guts, because there are some people who get downright angry when you tell them their little angels did something that could even be considered wrong. ...Now I must admit, when she told me the truth of the matter, I was very embarrassed that I had somehow been missing this, but I was THANKFUL to her for telling me the truth as I was then able to solve this problem (and a few more) within ONE day.

Now for the truth:

My friend said, "Uhm, Donna, come here for a second."  "What is it?"   She said; "I don't know if you know this, but Keenan (the law-abiding one) is telling Krestan (the creative one) to spit like that."  I gasped and said, "You're kidding!" She shook her head with a smile, both of us almost laughing. I said, "Ew, when I get him home...." She said, "I hate it for him," with a wink. I then thanked her for telling me, knowing that it might have been 30 more years before I caught onto this!

What had been happening behind my back had probably started as a slight and silly gesture from the creative one, but seeing the shock on the law-abiding one's face, and the laugh he got, he probably did it a few more times until I caught him. Then, the law-abiding one, loving to laugh and get his brother in trouble, had continued to provoke the creative one, week after week to get the "shock-n-laugh" that they both so loved. Funny thing, as soon as the law-abiding one had to "pay the piper", it wasn't so funny anymore.....and funnier still; he didn't have the guts to do these naughty acts himself, but to my embarrassment, he didn't mind someone else doing them for his pleasure!

The moral of the story 

for the Naughty One:

Be sure your sins will find you out!

For the Naive One:

We all have a sin nature...."all we like sheep have gone astray.."

Still to this day, I'm thankful to that friend. My oldest would be 'bitten' many more times by that same spirit before he became an adult and had I not been made aware of that nature within him, I might not have dealt with him as I should have.

Prov 5:23  He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.

A Nice Quiet Evening....

It's been chilly and foggy-rainy today, but cozy. We started back to school and had a longer day than normal- getting back in the swing always adds extra time, doesn't it? Then we had to review where we left off in Story of the World (Vol 3), our Latin vocabulary, and a couple forgot about verbs!

But tonight- all is calm and quiet as they have their 1 hour of free time.

2 of them have learned to play a whole song on the harmonica this evening, using lessons from this site. I marked it on my Frugally Free Home School Page too if you need it later, but I was quite impressed at how quick, direct, and fast the lessons are and thought one or two of you might like to see them.

It's nearly supper time too- and I don't even have the oven good and hot! Guess I better get with it.;-)

A note about Netflix, the Coupon gadget on the side bar, and other stuff

1st- Did you know that if you haven't had Netflix for a year, they'll offer you another 1 month free trial? Be sure to check the email associated with your account!

2nd- Did you notice the coupon gadget on my sidebar? Just wanted to let you know that when you print coupons from that (or your other favorite blogs) it does give that blogger a little cha-ching! Thank you to those who have used it- you are a blessing!

3rd- I've been cramming trying to get this month's shopping and menus basically planned out- AND- trying to get 5 book lists together for this coming school semester. Oh what fun! .....Any of you doing this? Any of you have any special books you are planning on reading? Reading lists that you'd like to share? Sites that help you get things together?

Looking for online places to shop or special discounts?

First- be sure to click over on my side bar for Amazon's Black Friday Deals. Remember, they'll change frequently throughout the day so be sure to check back!

MoneySavingMom is running special after special at various stores, along with special promo codes and discounts.

HeavenlyHomemakers is offering a special discount code on all ebooks. Enter PINKFRIDAY and get 25% off. Remember, Laura does have things for children as well.

Homeschool Giveaways and Freebies has an amazing giveaway going on.

Hearts at Home is offering 30% off today. (home school supplies, books, more)

Bright Ideas Press is offering 20% off your entire order for Black Friday/Monday by entering code NoMoreLinesForMe.

The Homemaker's Mentor is offering the 2011 Blessing Bundle II for $8.95- quite a cut from the normal $39.95.

If you have Webkinz fans at your house, Ganz eStore is offering some special Black Friday deals as well. (Some will last through the weekend.)

Alibris is offering $10 off $99 or more. Use CELEBRATE code at checkout.

Kohl's Coupon

Get 15% off. Code: GOBBLE15

Use Coupon

You also get $15 Kohl's cash for every $50 you spend.

If you are going to stores, be sure to check out Surviving the Stores! Go to her "Retail tab" to see if you can locate discount codes for stores that you will need to be shopping at.

Happy shopping!

Thinking Out Loud Tonight...Children, the Bible, and the Vipers that Await Them

During recent days, I took some time (too much really) to look around at the big, bad, and sometimes ugly world and see how things were ticking. Please don't get me wrong, I'm an optimistic person by nature. I can usually find something promising in a rock! But- looking at what others are saying here and there on the big WWW, I've nearly made myself vomit with nausea.

There are atheists and venomous vipers out there lurking and waiting for your children and mine, to come out of our warm, safe, Christian homes- and right into their traps.

They've made it their life's goal to educate themselves on logic, fallacies, ad hominem, and lunacy and rebellion against the Word of God....like NOTHING I've ever seen here in Smallville.

They know the Scriptures probably better than you and I, and they are so much like their father- the father of lies?- that you almost can't tell them apart. It's only a little flesh on their bones that gives them away... They take the blessed Word of God and they do just as our arch-nemesis did in the garden. "Thou shalt not surely die!" And they go on to say that "God lied" because Adam and Eve did not die right then and there. Do your children have an answer for that? The snakes have one that they are lying in wait to give to your children and mine.

Looking further my eyes and heart burned with indignation for our beloved God. And fear nearly rattled my brain at the thought of what this great God will one day do to those who refuse to turn from their sins. These vultures are lurking and they can't wait to pounce on our children and back them in a corner with; "If your God is so loving, why are kids starving to death this very night? And if your God is so loving, why did He order so many deaths in the Old Testament? And if your God is so much better than their god, then why did He say people who did certain sins in the Old Testament should die...after all, He is the same God as in the New Testament, isn't He? So what makes Him any better than their god?"

Oh but the madness doesn't stop there my friends in the faith! I had one tell me just today that the only things that mattered in the whole Bible were just the exact words that Jesus Himself spoke in the New Testament.... while telling me that I needed to go read my Bible. In my exasperation, I tried to quote some verses back to this person, but the Words of that precious Book were unacceptable on that forum. Seems that "Scriptures" are equated with "curse words" in many places today. But again I ask, do your kids have an answer for that?

I think of these verses and I'm convicted:
Deu 6:7-8 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

And I think of this:
1 Pet 3:15  But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh..


And this one;
Col 2:8  Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

I'm forced to confess my inadequacies to God and beg for His guidance, knowledge, and help.
He promises to help you and me!

James 1:5-6  If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering...


Well- what about faith and asking in faith not wavering?
Rom 10:17  So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

His Word is our supply of faith and the more we go to It, the more faith we can gain. The more faith we can gain, the more we can ask for that "wisdom" in prayer and be "given liberally"- it is a wonderful cycle that He has created!

Oh that God would help us, because the vain philosophers are there, crouching and waiting.

I shared this because it was on my heart tonight (after reading so much filth) but it is reading these things that has caused me to add a couple of things to our reading list this year. (One
and Two and I would love to get the series
for younger kids.)

Let us pray for one another!
And please do tell me if you have other suggestions for preparing children, spiritually, for the wild world!

"Have We Forgotten How To Raise Boys Into Men?"

That is the title of an article that I read a few weeks ago on Fox. It was written by William Bennett, whom many educators and conservatives appreciate. It is a post promo for his book but it also has some thought-provoking statistics for those of us with a quiver full of boys!

Thought some of you might enjoy the read.

Here's a few of his other books that we've enjoyed:

A Unique and Free Civics Class for Your Whole Family

WTN, our local conservative talk-radio station, is hosting a unique but very informative program. I learned the other day about some very interesting things that were in the Constitution of my state. 1) A minister was held in high esteem and could only run for local office and not for the State as nothing could be allowed to come between him and his profession. 2) Anyone who professed atheism or disbelief in The Word of God was not allowed to hold office. Without Biblical morals, how could they rule justly?

Here's a link to the page where you can listen to the audio from Professor (and former State Representative) David Fowler, view notes, and there's even a test. They encourage you to do this as a family, which I think is very neat for homeschoolers! You can even receive your own WTN University diploma

Lots of history, Founding Fathers info, and Truth!

New Page at the Top

Be sure to check out my new page tab at the top called Frugal Home!
Blessings and hope you all in the South with me are having a nice rainy and foggy day! I love Fall!