More Beach Pictures

We went to the beach with some friends from our life group. We had a great time, although I got a little sunburned. Did you know you could get sunburn on your toes? our precious kids.kathryn. me, paige & kelly

New Camera & Beach

Just got a new camera & took it to the beach! More pictures coming soon!!!

My Very Own Cookbook

Here it is. My very own cookbook. I made this in December, but haven't shared it because I feared my organizational nerdiness would be mocked. But Lance is calling my blog "boring" again, so I need something to blog about.

Anyway, I have been working on this for about 2 years. My stack of magazine-ripped-recipes was growing ridiculously. So when I had a few minutes to spare here & there, I found the online version of the recipe and added it to a word document. If someone emailed me a recipe, instead of printing out another sheet of paper to add to my stack, I copy/pasted it directly into my document. Pretty soon, with a few minutes here & there, my little cookbook started to grow! It now has several hundred recipes in it! I've gotta tell you how much I love this. I use it all the time, and it's SO much easier to flip through than my recipe cards, or all those stacks of paper. I grouped them all by type of food (appetizer/main dishes/dessert, etc). I would highly recommend making your own cookbook!

Volunteer State

Many of you don't know a whole lot about Tennessee. But there is a reason why we're called the Volunteer State. It makes me weepy & proud to see all that people are doing to help their neighbors right now. My brother, who owns Baja Burrito, donated 50% of his proceeds from Monday to flood victims. My church family has been helping in countless ways, including putting together over 3,500 sack lunches to victims & workers in affected areas. My husband has been picking up & delivering furniture to people who need it. In my opinion, this is Nashville's Finest Hour. I am so grateful to live in a community which Loves Their Neighbor. I love this video. It's what I've been seeing every day since our flood hit.

click on the actual video for a new full-sized screen.

Pink Pancakes & Pea Fritters

I'm still making a slow & steady return to cooking. Not quite back to normal, but I have tried a few new recipes that I'm happy to recommend. First, I tried another one of Jessica Seinfeld's recipes. Aren't these Pink Pancakes beautiful? I was afraid my son would revolt to the pinkness, but everyone loved them! Also, Martha Stewart published these Pea Fritters in her "Kids" magazine, when it existed (oh, why did you get rid of that mag, Martha?) I've been hanging onto this recipe for 5 years now. And I'm so glad to finally get around to making it. As I was making it, I was sure that it was going to be a disaster. So I made a back up snack! However, we all thought they were delicious. It was a pleasant surprise. It does make a TON, so make sure you have a hungry family around for these guys. (Fritter Photo from Martha)

Peonies & Random Thoughts

And so life goes on. Unless your house was one of the many that was extremely damaged, things just return to normal. What a weird week has this been. We do own a rental house which suffered damage, so we're trying to decide what to do about that. We're certainly not filing a claim on that one.

So now I'm returning to thinking about simple pleasures, like my peonies that are in bloom in the front yard. And wondering if my plants will bounce back from the 14 inches of rain we received in 2 days. And thinking about what kind of terrible timing it was for our camera to die the week before the worst flood in Nashville history. And hoping I get my creative blood flowing again soon. I am missing the boring little tasks of everyday life & looking forward to its' return.

FYI: Although a federal natural disaster is completely different than a car running into your house, here's my TOP 10 LESSONS LEARNED ABOUT INSURANCE CLAIMS, in case some of these things apply to some of you reading.

Watch This

Nashville In The News

picture of our downtown, from here.It's a bit surreal to be going through what our city is going through, while it's barely being mentioned in the national news, due to other also-important world events. I have included a few news clips below which do pause to tell our story. If you would like to donate relief supplies or help with recovery, visit Hands On Nashville. If you would like to help in a more personal way, I would love to talk to you about specific needs of this community. Our church is collecting many donations, including gift cards for groceries, and other household essentials for community neighbors. I'm keeping it short, still, since there is much to do around here. But please take a minute to read/watch some on the below links.

*Keith Obermann clip: In one minute, he sums up our situation, while actually acknowledging that it's a huge story that just can't be told because of other huge stories.

*A local blogger's perspective for why our story is not being told. "A large portion of why we were being ignored was that we weren’t doing anything to draw attention to ourselves. We were handling it on our own."

NBC Nightly News & Weather Channel
NBC Nightly News & Weather Channel

Here's a flickr photo stream.

A more pensive/moving videographic collection of images from Nashville & surrounding areas. It's a good one.

The Grand Ole Opry is submerged, as are many historical landmarks. Like Downtown's Bicentennial Mall, before & after the rain. Opryland Hotel is underwater.

Here are 2 cnn links. CNN News Link #1 and CNN Link #2

Aerial Photographs from the Tennessean.com

Watch as road collapses in real time. This is what the water is doing all over here. Massive amounts of water.

If you don't live here, are you getting this picture from your news stations? I'm just not seeing it!

Sandbagging Nashville

Pictured, about an hour ago, 7:30 pm, May 3, 2010. My husband took this of people waiting to surround areas of Nashville, an effort which is not yet completed. If you are available to help, please see hon.org .

Today has been crazy. There is tons to say about what's going on here, but not much time to say it. I love my husband, and am so proud of his efforts, working so hard to help so many. Of course he's not alone. I'm proud to be part of a church community which has come together to help those in need.

If you would like to assist in volunteer efforts for Nashville, please contact me or post here. We've got a team of major efforts going on right now & I can easily get you plugged into needs of Nashville.

In the next few days, I'll fill you in on life around here. I can't believe this isn't getting more National News. They are saying this is a ONE THOUSAND YEAR FLOOD.

More to come later. Am pregnant. Must eat.

It's as Bad as it Looks

(picture from tennessean.com). It's been a crazy, crazy couple of days around here. It's a major, major disaster in Nashville. Downtown Nashville is flooded and the waters are rising. It has been a relentless downpour for 2 days. Water is in short supply in many places, power outage, hotels are being evacuated, hard line & cell phones are out, the lakes are overflowing. Here's a slide show of photos on Tennessean.com. In evidence of where we live, Naomi Judd called the local news to warn of her 6 buffalo on the loose in Liepers Fork. We are fortunately safe, but many in our neighborhood have serious flood damage. Many people were stranded on the roads, as you will see here, where a building floats by the stranded cars. Or how about this huge carp, captured on Blackman Road? This guy, who may now be making his big break into country music super-stardom, summed it all up in this little ditty.

Hopefully in the next few days, the story of the damage being done here will be told more in the national news. The kids, on the other hand, loved the rain. We took a walk to check out the damage around our house.Below is a friend's house 2 doors down from us. Their home stayed relatively dry, if you can believe that. Keep our city in your prayers. There are so many stories of tragedy coming out of our hometown.

Monsoon Wedding

In case you are wondering, these are the shoes you wear to an outdoor wedding in a monsoon. If you don't live around here, we got more rain than I ever remember in my 31 years. The streets were flooding all over the place. Our house, fortunately, stayed dry. But Lance missed the wedding because he was helping a neighbor shop vac out their flooded basement. :(

If you are from my neck of the woods, did your houses stay dry?

Edited Note: This post was from Day 1 of our devastation. The worst was yet to come.