The Things I Took With Me

The stuff I grabbed to put in the closet with us and Julie's cats on Friday night probably says something about me.  What exactly, I'm not sure.  You be the judge.

I was wearing my favorite (and I think lucky) T- shirt, called "Blue Sweater" by Michael M. Ornstein.

My "lucky shirt."

I grabbed my broken cross pendant and Matt's grandma's wedding ring, the earrings my folks gave me, every single pin and/or Christmas ornament that my friend Julie ever made for me, and my "thistle-heart" earrings.  I was already wearing all the rings I always wear, the ones Matt has given me on special days.  (Wedding and engagement rings, Claddagh ring he gave me right before we left for Germany, and the Black Hills Gold ring he bought me while we were at Rhein-Main, for our 8th anniversary, I think.)
I grabbed the usual financial papers, car titles, insurance documents, our birth certificates, etc.

I grabbed every thumb drive I own and crammed them in my purse, which I wore with the strap across my body like I do when out shopping.  Of course, I had my cell phone, BOTH my e-reader/tablets, and my laptop, all the charging cables for all of those, and the cable, etc. for my FitBit.  (Also threw my little camera in my computer bag.)
Matt had all his small electronics, his medicines, meters, the good digital 35mm camera, and his laptop.
There is a first aid kit that lives in that closet precisely because we shelter in it.  Alas, I was out of D-cell batteries, so if the big flashlights had died, we'd have been in for it.  Those two flashlights are on either side of the bed, and we grab those when we head for the closet.

We also discovered that a Christmas gift I bought for Matt purely on a whim was one of the most useful things I've ever bought.  It was a collection of small LED lamps, all sizes.  There is one that looks like a miniature camp lantern,  and it puts out quite a bit of light.  There are also two little "headlamps" with straps to wear on your forehead.  (More useful than you would believe in a pitch dark house with two frightened cats underfoot.) The two battery powered candles I bought for Christmas decorations this last year also made nice little lights for the bathrooms when the power was out.  Just enough light to figure out where you were without stubbing toes on doors and door frames.

The reason I grabbed all the pins Julie has made over the years is that they are true works of art.  I would not forgive myself if I lost one of Julie's creations.  Especially as right now, she doesn't have a studio to work in. 
 Some of these pins are miniatures of collage/paintings she has made, others are reductions of some art I own copies of that she made wearable for me.  I treasure these pins, and have them hanging on a ribbon on the wall so I can enjoy them when they are not being worn.

 I will try to find the pictures of the Christmas ornaments.  They are also pins and/or pendants, and are all original collage/paintings that she makes reduced images of for the ornaments.  She is very worried right now because if they don't find a place soon so she can set up a studio area, she won't get her Christmas cards or her ornaments made.  She was also working on a memorial piece for a good friend of Matt's and mine who lost her daughter last year.  The tornado took all the pieces she had set out of that piece.

Here are the Christmas ornaments that I have pictures of:

These are in no particular order, but you can see how detailed, and how beautiful they are.  I would have been heartbroken if I had lost them.

Some of the things that are precious to me are far too large to put in a shelter or a closet.  They are things I have had since I was a child.  My piano, which my parents bought for me in 1967 when I started lessons, and has been to Germany and back with us, and the hope chest my Pop made for me with wood from an old table we used to have, the lid is made from an old headboard that my parents used, and it is lined in cedar planks.  (It also has the majority of our bed linen in it.)  Pop made the hope chest for my 16th birthday.
I guess when faced with having to make quick choices, we grab the light stuff.  I didn't even think to put the wedding album in the closet, but I do have many of those photos scanned and on one of the thumb drives I had with me.

I also have a chair that belonged to a very old dining set my parents owned.  It is the chair I always sat in when I was a kid.  It used to be my desk chair, but now it lives in the dining room again.  It's not valuable or fancy, but it holds many memories.
So many people are sifting through what is left of their memories these days.  I pray they find that they still hold more than they can ever lose.

One thing all of this has brought home to us is that we need to buy and build a real storm shelter.  We are thinking an above ground one on the north side of the garage.  (In ground shelters here get full of water pretty quickly.  As a California girl, I have this strange aversion to being in a tight space under ground.  I can't imagine why.  Earthquake, anyone?)

 I think I will pack a special case with the paperwork, electronic records and some small items that we would be likely to want to

take with us, and will keep it handy to grab and take out to the shelter.  The only thing we will leave in the shelter is bottled water and a couple of tools. We need to have room to put ourselves in the shelter, after all, and maybe the odd friend or two who might be visiting when bad weather develops. 

The most precious things of course, aren't things.  They are family and friends.  My family all live in other states, and many of my friends do, too.  I do have lots of precious friends here in Oklahoma though, and I worry about them as they worry about us when this weather strikes.  We sometimes gab back and forth on Face Book in the midst of the storms, and certainly everyone checks in afterward.  I have discovered that I have some "friends I've never met in real life" that want me to check in after storms, too.  (I love you guys, you know who you are.  Means a lot that you care.)

So, as it turned out, I didn't lose anything in these last storms, either.  Only a little of my peace of mind.  Our favorite local liquor store has another marquee up this week that pretty much sums up what a lot of folks around here seem to be thinking.

I do know these storms were not God's choice, just something that happened because the conditions were right.  Still, it does make us wonder sometimes...

As Ever,
Katie