Tornado in my Town

I am sure most of you have heard of the devastating tornado in Joplin, Missouri.  I watched the news with heartbreak.  As sad as I was for those who lost so much, it seemed far away and a little unreal because I couldn't see the devastation in real life.  Well, now I have.  You see, we call our little house "The Triple P" and that stands for "The Parnell (our last name) Piedmont (our town) Plantation (makes our house sound bigger then the 1300 square feet it is).  Our sweet small town...my real life Mayberry...the place I spend most of my days...where my pastor preaches while wearing cowboy boots...where there is no stoplight...where I talk with neighbors while parked at Sonic...where there are John Deere Tractors driving down every road every day...where our barber shop lets you get a cut now and pay later...where people still pull to the side of the road as a funeral procession passes...where our Sheriff wears a cowboy hat...where there is a field full of cows at the end of my street...where my husband and I choose to buy our first house because it was far enough away from the city to see the stars at night.  Yes, my precious town and my wonderful neighbors are now on the national news because of our tragic position in the path of a killer tornado. 

(This is the actual tornado crossing into Piedmont)

We are blessed in Oklahoma to have the nations BEST meteorologists.  The storm that produced the Piedmont tornado (as well as 6 others in our state at the same time) was on their radar 2 days before.  Every local channel broke into regular programming at noon on Tuesday and never went off the air.  There was nothing but weather on every channel.  Each meteorologist gave a timeline of when each storm would arrive in each town in the storm's path.  There were storm chasers all over our county and they relayed their video live to each station.  As each tornado formed and its path was determined, sirens were sounded and as most Oklahomans know, that means get underground!  I say all of that to say, our weathermen saved lives.  There is NOBODY better at that job then these Oklahoman men.

My family and I were blessed to have friends who lived a short distance away who shared their storm cellar with us.  We rode out the storm and emerged without any damage to either of our homes.  Once we returned home, we found our whole neighborhood was untouched.  However, we quickly learned that just a mile and half away, the scene was quite different. Trees were stripped of their bark and power lines rest on roads like balls of yarn A couple housing additions were completely destroyed.  Some homes had only their foundations remaining.  At last count, there were more then 100 houses that were a total loss.  Each of those houses contained a family and their clothes and their photos and their furniture and their memories.  Sadly, we know many of those families.  Many are members of our local church.  Others, we do not know personally but they are our neighbors, our fellow Piedmontians.  I have never witnessed such destruction so close. 

After the news got around of who was most hurt by the storms, our community ran into action.  Within 2 hours, our church became a command center.  There were tons of people who showed up to help in any way they could.  Within 24 hours, it was overflowing with donations of food, clothes, bath items, gift cards and even money.  There were work crews dispersed across town to help people salvage what they could and help free storm shelters from debris so those safely inside could get out and start picking up the pieces.  Now that we are 72 hours away from the event, the whole operation is a well oiled machine.  There has been 24 hour activity in our community and I am in awe at how many people are willing to sacrifice vacation days, finances and free time to help their neighbors...even neighbors they did not know until today.  This town has shown itself to be even more wonderful then I thought.  God has blessed Piedmont with wonderful families who get knocked down but just as quickly get back up and dust themselves off again.  God has also blessed Piedmont with people who don't think twice before helping their neighbor, no matter the sacrifice.  Funny thing is, nobody sees it as a sacrifice.  God Bless Piedmont. 

Re-do for the Original Laundry Room Re-do

Doesn't this look like a fun place to spend a lot of time?  NO!!!!!

But THIS does!

I removed the cabinet doors above the washer and dryer and painted the inside a cheery yellow!  I then used various baskets from Hobby Lobby to corral everything.  I made tags for all the baskets and aged them with distress ink.  I even found some cute brown pom-pom trim that I hot glued onto the shelf edges.  I wanted a yellow/green/burgundy color scheme.  I love FALL and wanted the entire area to just ooze autumn!  I found these super cute sunflower clothes pins at Hobby Lobby after Halloween for 90% off!

The original shelf with detergent was very different a week ago. (This whole makeover, other then this shelf is a year old)  I made some homemade laundry detergent from a recipe I found on line that I have fallen in love with!  So...what I previously had wouldn't work with my new products.  I have even been using white vinegar as fabric softener in regular loads and believe it or not, it DOES NOT make clothes smell like vinegar.  I use regular fabric softener on towels because I love them to smell pretty!  The vinegar is in a olive oil bottle from Kitchen Connection and the fabric softener is also in a bottle from the same store.

The buttons are my Aunt Lib's buttons that I  modged  podged onto scrapbook paper.

I made tags for all the bottles.  I bought tags at Hobby Lobby that I aged with my distress ink and tied them on with twine.  I even already had this cute box in a stash of kitchen nesting boxes.  It is perfect for my Shout and Bleach Pen and extra bar soap for my detergent.  The basket hanging on a nail holds all loose change and things I find in the laundry.  This little basket is how I support my Sonic habit!

This is the bulletin board one of the walls where we keep a lot of Log Home pics to remind us of our dreams!  I covered it in fabric.

I am linking up to Met Monday over at Between Naps on the Porch!  Go look at all the other great DIY ideas!!!

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