Friday, October 21, 2016

lyrics I learned long ago

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in His wonderful face.
And the things of Earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Tea

As I opened this empty box and pressed the sides together for recycling today, I thought...I buy too much tea. I like hot tea, but I don't drink it as much as my many containers make it appear. There are teas with caffeine for the morning, and teas for relaxing at night. There are teas for your tummy and teas for your sniffles. And some just come in pretty boxes or are loose in bins, and I want to try them all. On the days when I grocery shop, I now give a sigh of relief when I pass the tea aisle without buying.

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

photo of the day

It was a pretty day to stop by Greenfield Lake, and I wondered what the bird situation would be after the hurricane. As I was taking pictures of some mallard ducks cavorting in the water, an egret flew in and rested on a tree branch for a minute or two. I liked the way the late afternoon sun shined through his feathers.

Monday, October 10, 2016

The Aftermath

Yesterday I stayed in.
Church and other places were closed, and though I was curious what was going on, I relied on my iPad's images rather than going to see for myself.

Today I got out. In my neighborhood, there were several trees downed. Just about every house had a pile of limbs and yard debris by the curb. My house has only a few leaves and pine needles. Nothing else. (Thankful.) The marsh behind my house is pretty amazing. It really does act as a sponge!
It has been a beautiful, crisp clean day here. But because of the pattern of the hurricane and its huge water wall, neighboring areas more inland are still flooded badly. I hope the wind and drier air help the water recede before too much more damage is done.

Saturday, October 8, 2016

Getting Hit

"They say" when Jim Cantore comes to town, you know you are in trouble.
He has been here all day, reporting on the effects of Hurricane Matthew. While he was practically getting blown away this evening, he actually said he was surprised at the worsening intensity of the winds and rains. I have learned this is the "back side" of the hurricane, and in our case, it is more powerful and damaging than the front part that started this morning. It does sound threatening and scary at times, and I will be glad when it blows away.

Friday, October 7, 2016

The Weather

Following the weather news on television has me a bit spellbound. Whether it is the repetition of the stories or the potential for disaster, I am into the drama.

The poor state of Florida! It looks like very little of it was spared by Hurricane Matthew.
When will it weaken to a tropical storm? Before or after it hits Wilmington?
Will there be flooding in my neighborhood?
What will my children on the coast of SC experience?
Are those reporters safe?

So far all we have had here are gray skies with light rains.
Nobody plans to leave, and unless we live on the beach, we don't have to.

So it will be watching and waiting. About this time tomorrow, the intense, slow moving storm may be passing by.

Thursday, October 6, 2016

butterfly

My bug pictures aren't quite what they used to be, but here is a closeup of an orange butterfly on an orange flower that I took on Sunday.


Wednesday, October 5, 2016

what hurricanes can bring

We on the Southeast Coast are waiting to see which way Hurricane Matthew blows and hoping it is not toward us or any other highly inhabited area. Best case scenario is it will head to the open waters and dissipate. We will see.

I remember Hurricane Hugo in 1989 though some of the timeline is sketchy.
We were living in Columbia, a hundred miles inland, but Hugo cut a wide destructive swath. I remember lying in bed around midnight, listening to the pounding rains and strong winds, and sensing the strange atmospheric colors and sounds. At one point, I felt the eerie calm eye pass over. The next morning we found the neighborhood to be littered with debris, and trees and mailboxes down.

But what I remember the most is the new batch of patients who arrived at my hospital in the wee small hours. Possibly it was the next night. My diary would know, but I am not going fishing for it.

During the evening shift as I was working, my small privately owned psychiatric hospital got a call from its sister hospital in Charleston asking if we could take some of their patients who needed to be evacuated. The more stable patients could have gone to their homes or families, so the ones we were getting were not in good enough shape to be turned out in the community. A hospital rarely has extra beds, so we had to prepare exhaustively, using every available space and resource for them.

I stayed on. About three a.m. the bus arrived, and out walked a group of people, the likes of whom I had never seen before. I struggled to be professional and keep my true reactions - that I now attribute  to naiveté - to myself. But at the time, I thought they were the weirdest individuals I had ever seen. I had never heard names such as theirs, nor had I heard such stories! I had been a nurse only four years and had become pretty comfortable with the types of patients I had in my geographical area, and these new ones were as foreign as they come!

But over the next few weeks as I took care of them physically and emotionally, I began to love them just as I did my other patients. They got better - more functional - and one by one they were discharged. It was an experience for me, a growing, learning one.

I hope those will remain my two best hurricane tales.