Texas Flood

If you’re a news watcher, you’ve probably heard “Sherman, Texas” bandied about on the national news. On Monday, we had buckets of rain fall on our area. This railroad bridge/underpass is somewhat close to our house – same part of town – and is about 14 feet deep. I used to take this route to school in high school, and to see it full of water like this was just… amazing. Monday evening there was still at least 7 feet of water still standing, and on Tuesday morning they were just beginning to get out all of the mud.

There were, sadly, also a couple of fatalities in the area (here and in Gainesville, just up the road). I don’t know many of the details but it was just shocking to be in the middle of such a weather event so close to home. Several members of our church were affected, including my dad’s boss, and a friend of our family who had 4 feet of water in her house and lost everything, including her piano and all of her music.

We are fine, though… the worst damage for us was that Ryan had to work a 12-hour day in wet socks and didn’t even get to eat pizza with the rest of the newsroom. I put together a proof-of-performance spot for our coverage that I’ve gotten a lot of compliments on, which feels good. Our crew really did a great job covering the floods.

Questions/Concerns

The proverbial crossroads of life…. is where I sit.  Some lights are red.  I’m way passed the annoyed stage – the part where you can’t understand why it just won’t turn green.  Approaching this intersection, all the yellow lights cautioned me to take things slowly.  I wasn’t too worried.  I guess maybe I’m starting to get that way.

I know I’m cryptic, but I can’t really say that much.  I’m deep in thought, and prayer.  I had a mini-meltdown yesterday.  Life is so uncertain, so why do the seemingly little things get in the way?  My mind is tired, and all these questions are popping into my head, making it even harder to stay awake literally and figuratively.

Please pray for me, if you’re the praying type.  If not, please send waves of peace in my direction.

Let there be Light

Although the light isn’t turned on here, (because the picture quality wasn’t that great) let me tell you there is plenty of light from our new chandelier I wired and hung yesterday. It was a booger at times… it was, afterall, my first electrical installation by myself. Our den remodeling project has a few new electrical additions, all of which my father-in-law John helped me with. And let me tell you, it’s been so fun! I haven’t posted den update pics on purpose. I want to do a before-and-after post when it’s all completed! I barely want to look at the complete mess in there right now, so I surely don’t want to torture any eyes while it’s still a “work in progress.”

While all this goes on, I’m still trying to find time for my other projects… which are not so much home remodeling, but self remodeling. Finding time to be alone, to squeeze out the noise, to read, to expand my mind and open my heart, and to practice my trumpet and mandolin, are all so difficult because of what I will call ‘back-log’ time. Instead of beginning on a completely fresh note every day, I begin on backed up sleep and the previous day’s endings. In other words, the previous day carries on to the next, every single day. I wake up groggy about 3am, hit peek-alertness around 7. It lasts until 9 or 10am. By noon I’m already winding back down. When I get home, it’s usually nap time and I sleep entirely too long, until 6 on average. Then I get up, eat dinner, and play until late….. again and again and again. The cycle is hard to break. I hope that I can revise my schedule so that I will be in bed by 8 — so far haven’t made that deadline yet. But why focus on the past and the negative?

I really want to go to the library and sit and read. I was there last week for a story assignment, and I just noticed how wonderful silence actually is. What a way to take away the noise in my head.

So far this morning, the scanners have been putting all that noise back in. My head is like a box… sooner or later, there won’t be enough room to put anything at all in. It’s Tuesday, and that means garbage day on our street. Do you think they could make a stop here at work to empty my head?