Where In The World Is Deb?

June 22, 2009

The Best Birthday Surprise Trip Ever!

Chad had been planning a surprise birthday trip for me for the last month but would not even give me a clue. We are major outdoor folk, so I assumed it would be something in that range. I finally got a clue last week when he said that I just needed to pack shorts because we would be inside all day. Huh? We are NEVAH inside!

He picked me up after work on Friday and I see my two spinning wheels (Ashford Traveller and Louet S10) lovingly seat belted into the back seat of his truck with my spinning basket and a weird assortment of fiber. What the hay? We drove five hours, stopping for the night near Kansas City (we are from the very Southern tip of Illinois). ?what, is there a fiber festival I didn’t know about? Is there a workshop I didn’t know about? Is there a major yarn shop that mustn’t be missed? WHAT?

While we were driving, I had to laugh and finally told Chad, “I need to know the rationale for the fiber you chose to bring so I can see how your brain works”. He said, he didn’t know what I would need so he just brought a little bit of everything. He had three skeins of finished yarn, what I was currently spinning, and some yucky fiber that I had gotten from the woman I just bought the Louet S10 from two weeks ago - the S10 that he hurriedly oiled, polished the chrome, balanced the wheel and changed the flyer hooks on THE NIGHT BEFORE WE LEFT.

The next morning, we eat breakfast and mosey on out around 9:40am...

To a rural neighborhood in the middle of farmland…

We pull up to a big brick house…

Knocked on the door…

And met JACEY BOGGS!!!

She actually introduced herself to me as I stood there stammering. (Chad later asked me if I knew who she was, LOL – are you kidding? How could you NOT know? She is a rock star!). I had ordered her DVD several months ago to learn how to make art yarn and fell in love. Chad watched the video with me twice! About a month ago, he asked me where the video was and to my horror, I couldn’t find it. I should have known something was up then.

Apparently Chad made an email presentation to Jacey to convince her that she should give me a PRIVATE workshop. Yes, you read that right. My birthday present was a private, seven hour long, workshop. He showed me the emails back and forth after we left her house and oh, they make me want to cry with all the planning that went on!

We met her very sweet husband and awesomely beautiful son and heartbreakingly adorable daughter before they went off to a skateboard contest for the day. Chad parked himself on the couch in front of us, took pictures and chatted while Jacey walked me through her entire two day workshop. I had immediately felt nervous upon meeting her about my spinning skills because I am mostly self taught. She put me at ease and as easy as she makes it look on the video is how easy a teacher she is. I was able to pick up on most of the techniques (beehives still kick my butt). She is truly as nice and funny in real life as she is online and on her video!

The three of us kept a running conversation about everything under the sun. Jacey even fed us a really yummy lunch (we need to know what the salad dressing was) that was almost all grown in her fabulous garden.

Toward the end of the day, I realized that I had become spun out. What an awesome day! We called it a day but not before we got a tour of her “square foot” garden (who knew a pumpkin plant could grow 5 feet tall?!) I also got a fast and very helpful discussion on how Jacey dyes her fiber (she felt sorry for me after I explained what happened with my first hand paint a few months ago).

More pictures of the day in the gallery, click on this sentence!

Before we had left for the trip, Chad told me that half of his plans had fallen through but he would not tell me what they were. After we left Jacey’s, I asked him what it was. He showed me the emails between Jacey and him. Then he gave me a handwritten letter.

Debbie,

Deborah Lynn Codding, I Love You! Will you marry me?

He told me that he had to write me a letter because he would never be able to say what he wanted to say without crying. Too bad. We both ended up crying. Saturday was the most awesome day ever. It wasn’t until the next day that I realized I didn’t even answer him. (I said yes, of course) As for the plans that fell through, he had ordered the Lendrum (my dream spinning wheel) from The Woolery and had hoped to have it for me to spin on at Jacey’s but it is on back order for a few weeks.

I cannot wait to marry this man. He is truly my soul mate and I love him with all my heart!

Posted by DebC at 4:27 PM | Comments (19)

June 19, 2009

Hog Roast Swamp Branch Style

A couple of weeks ago, Chad and I went out to Swamp Branch for the annual Hog Roast. Good, clean (okay, not all that much clean) redneck fun. I started out writing this and quickly realized that some of my best stories can't be told on the web if I want to be welcome back there. I jammed my gallery with pictures, however I will share a few highlights.

* The last few years have been dadgum hot with rain the first year and 80 degree temps at 2am last year so we decided to take our camper so we could have air conditioning (we is gud campers). This year, we ended up turning on the HEATER because it was in the low 50's. Moral of the story, if you want good weather bring your camper.

* Last year, they added a group of guys that played bluegrass. Their payment was beer and food and they played all night long. They are awesome! This year, the pickers were back, bringing another guy and they were more awesome. But added to this year's mix was a DJ to play music for the younger crowd later in the night after the pickers were done. Except that the DJ was drunker than most of the party goers. He started and stopped songs randomly to shout out dedications that no one had made. Moral of the story, pay the DJ with ice tea instead.

* There was a slightly ill advised jeep trip way after dark and beer with several people who had never gone riding in the dark. We took a trail called the back bone that straddles two hollers where the drop on each side is at least a hundred feet STRAIGHT down. Did I mention the trail is the width of a jeep? One of the jeeps bobbled a bit causing the twin girls riding along to scream classic girl style. Good thing it was dark and they couldn't see why they had a right to scream. Then Chris's jeep broke down causing Steve to rack up a personal best - eight people in one jeep.

*Steve Piney owns the little jeep that could! On the last day, we went for one last trail ride on fairly muddy trails which left the jeeps scrabbling to get up some of the leafy muddy trails. They did alright until the last big hill where Steve got stuck. He very calmly winched his jeep to a tree near the top and hauled his ass up. To illustrate how scary this was, Sarah, who grew up on ATV's and Jeeps, bailed out of his jeep and walked up.

I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story - click on the pig to go to the photo album.

Posted by DebC at 10:44 PM | Comments (1)

May 13, 2009

We Are On Day Six

Day Six of the most amazing, jaw dropping disaster that no one outside of Southern Illinois seems to know anything about.

On Friday, May 8th, we had a weather system come through that included severe (golf ball sized) hail overnight. When we woke up, it looked rainy but not bad. I looked at the radar for my area to see what was going on and saw a nasty cell coming that was angry yellow/orange and red with pink in the center (that means more hail). I had a full group of patients but the storm wasn’t predicted to hit us until two or so, well after everybody would be home again.

Around 10am, it became apparent that the storm was going to be violent and extremely dangerous. We were glued to the weather reports. Multiple tornadoes were touching down. The first side of the storm came through around 11am and was just lightening, pounding rain and wind. Whew. No problem. Around 12:45 pm, the patients were ready to go home so the driver loaded them up as usual. After she left, another patient who normally drives herself, came in to say that a tornado just touched down about 15 min southwest of the hospital and that I should get the van back. I said, no problem, we have been given the all clear. As soon as I said that, the tornado siren went off and we lost power. With my heart in my mouth, I called the van back. I had visions of the van being blown off the road. She was only five minutes away but that was the longest five minutes imaginable.

They made it back and we went to the center of the hospital with everyone else. The winds had picked up so much that it looked exactly like the hurricanes and typhoons I have been through. We actually had people streaming in from the nearby trailer park and from cars who had been on the road at the time. We ended up in the hallway for about an hour before it was deemed safe for us to leave. Looking outside did nothing to relieve the fear we were feeling because the devastation was amazing. Huge trees were snapped in half all around the hospital. At that time, we had no way of knowing the scale of what had happened.

In the meantime, Chad was thirty miles away in Marion, at his house when he went through the exact same thing about half an hour later. The storm traveled in a near perfect straight line and devastated (I will say that word a lot because there is no other way to describe this) everything in its path. He took shelter in his basement and watched as a HUGE oak tree fell in his back yard completely blocking the windows. When he went upstairs, he said that the tree fell from one side of his yard to the other, crushing the boys’ two story clubhouse. It crossed over into his neighbor’s yard with the tree top lying on their roof. Our pontoon boat is underneath one section of this tree but Chad is not sure if it is destroyed because it is mostly hidden. Chad said that several trees fell across the road in front of his house which he and a couple of neighbors quickly cut up and out of the way of traffic.

Around two pm, I finally felt comfortable enough to let the driver get back on the road to get our patients home. Not a good situation but what can you do? The driver called me almost two hours later to tell me that she was still only 15 miles away and had not dropped anyone off yet. She ended up getting back two hours after quitting time. I finally got on the road myself and felt like throwing up when I saw all that had happened. I think the two most shocking things I saw was a house trailer with wheels up to the sky and someone’s front porch that had been completely crushed by a tree that was eight foot in diameter. I was not able to go my usual route because it was blocked by power lines and trees.

Amazingly enough, once I got about ten miles south of the line of the storm, all was fine. My town was not involved in the storm beyond wind and rain. I lost power for about four hours. I was one of the lucky ones. My personal damage is limited to my car which was in Marion for an oil change and had its windows blown out (the dealership’s sign broke in half and crushed eight new cars on the lot). Chad did not get so lucky. He still has no power, a tree fell through his pole barn and another tree is across the backyard. People have lost their homes, cars were crushed, we had one fatality and many, many injuries. 48 hours after the storm, 68,000 homes and businesses were still without power. Now, that number has probably been cut in half but at least fifty percent of six counties are still without power six days later.

Chad got called by a local tool store called Matrix at 10:30pm to haul generators at 6:30am on Saturday morning. He is longtime friends with the owners and they know he has a 30ft gooseneck trailer. He made the trip to St. Louis, picked up 60 generators (there was another truck that picked up 48 more) that were all sold before they pulled back into town. So off to St. Louis they went for another load. A very, very good day to be a tool store owner (not to speak of the roofers, electricians, landscaping, etc companies!).

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn was here yesterday to see the damage in preparation for requesting federal disaster declaration (state disaster has already been declared). He flew over the area and ended up adding a couple of extra counties to bring the tally up to six counties. The county I work in was absolutely leveled. It has been identified as the hardest hit (see the Paducah weather link I listed below for pictures). I can’t even describe how bad it is. People have been awesome though. The electric companies have brought in armies of trucks and have been working 24/7 for the last five days. Neighbors are getting out and helping each other clear trees off houses. The local radio station that runs five different channels, "River Radio" went on disaster mode and has broadcast across all channels nothing but disaster information for the last five days. They let mayors and police and other personnel get on and give current information as well as take calls from citizens asking questions. Very cool idea. Red Cross has been hugely helpful as well as the local churches. While folks are starting to get downright grumpy (gubment conspiracy and all), the overall attitude has been very positive, roll up the sleeves and gitterdun. Chad, the boys and I spent two hours last night clearing trees from his friend’s property in Carbondale. I am including pictures in the gallery (too many to put in post – would take forever to load).

So what the hell happened? We don’t know. Some are calling it an “inland hurricane” as it had a very hurricane like shape”(see the picture in the weather service link below), some are calling it a “derecho” and some are calling it a “microburst”.

I had never heard of a derecho before but I will be gol-danged if we didn’t make it into Wikipedia over it!

Here is the page devoted to it on the National Weather Service Paducah (be sure to scroll all the way down to see pictures of storm damage)

Here is an awesome YouTube video someone made (there are many more about this storm!) Toward the middle/end of the video, you can see the car dealership where my car was - they are showing the sign that snapped and crushed the cars. You can get lost in the youtube videos related to this storm.

Couple of newspaper articles:

Storm article

Another storm article

Oh, and horrifyingly enough, we are expecting a similar storm to come back in tonight. Somebody hold me.

Update: The storm system for tonight seems to have passed and was not as bad as expected!

5/14/09 Updated update: That was a wicked storm that blew through around two - three last night. I can't believe there wasn't hail and tornadoes! Lots more branches down and we got little sleep but all seems to be alright this morning. The radio has gone back to regular programming which is a very good sign.

Here is the link to my photo gallery with storm pictures.

Posted by DebC at 7:17 PM | Comments (0)