First let me say that I am incredibly thankful that we still have power at our house. We lost power for maybe 3 hours yesterday, but there are so many who still don’t have power. What a crazy storm we had! As I drove home from work, I saw the black clouds approaching. I also talked to Christian who was working the other side of the water, and he said the storm was crazy. As soon as I pulled into Cole’s school, I could feel the wind change. Cole and I rushed home as fast as we could, ran in the house between HUGE gusts of winds, and let Alex use the bathroom quickly. As soon as Alex was back inside, the rain started. The hail started. The wind was intense. We have a lot of old mature trees in our yard. I’m so thankful that none of the branches fell, and the trees all stayed rooted.
Everywhere I’ve gone today, people are talking about the crazy storm – where they were, what they were doing, where they got stuck. I am just incredibly grateful that I was home, safe, and we only lost power for a while. This storm was nothing compared to some of the tornadoes that have hit around our country. The inconvenience of losing power for a few hours and eating cereal for dinner (because all our food requires cooking, and all restaurants near us had no power) is nothing compared to the loss of homes and lives people are experiencing all around us.
Even without a tornado, tragedy struck with this quick storm that blew through. A wonderfully amazing guy that I went to high school with lost his life yesterday during the storm. He works at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. When the storm hit, the winds blew over a large crane onto his portable office building. It doesn’t matter where we were or what we were doing during the storm. We are safe. His life ended entirely too soon, and his family will always remember this storm. A year from now, we won’t be talking about the quick storm that blew through. The loss of his life is a tragedy. My heart goes out to his family.
I’ve talked about my thoughts before on nature appreciation after the earth quake in Japan. I truly believe that something is off-balance in our world. We take and we take and we take from our planet, and we never give anything in return. We are so oblivious to all the harm we cause to the planet that provides us with everything we could possibly ever need to live, and we don’t even give it our love in return. There are so many things we can do that would positively give back to our planet, yet we are to lazy, to unaware, to caught up in the hustle and bustle of daily life to take a moment and recognize what we are doing. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves about the things that are going on around us. It’s so easy to take your own grocery bags to the store. It’s so easy to stop buying bottled water. Drink tap water. It’s practically free! (Want to know why – watch the documentary Tapped. It will make you think twice about buying bottled water!) Walk or ride your bike when you go places. The average car ride is less than two miles in our country. Every morning, my neighbor drives her daughter to the bus stop and back home. She lives 5 houses from the bus stop, and she drives.
I wish I could remember the source, but about a month ago I heard one of the simplest thoughts ever, and it just makes sense. We teach are children to throw things away. We throw away so many things. It goes into the trash can. We put our trash cans and the curb. The trash truck comes. We never think about it again. BUT there is no “away”. When we throw things away, they go somewhere. Next time you put a piece of trash in a trash can, think about what you are sending away. Can it be recycled? composted? reused? Nothing goes away. It all goes somewhere.
I believe down to every cell in my body, that we are destroying our planet. How much abuse can anyone or anything take? At some point, that someone or something has to fight back or it dies. There has to be a balance. Go outside. Walk down your street. Walk along the beach. How much trash do you see? We all just walk by and pretend we didn’t notice. We put that trash there. We pollute and abuse our planet daily.
I can’t scientifically prove that all these storms are the earths way of fighting back. I probably can’t even come up with an argument that would hold any validity in a debate. I can prove that we don’t take care of our planet. I can prove that the health our planet is worth fighting for. We just need to be more aware of ourselves. We need to be personally accountable for the damage we do every day to our planet. We need to be thankful for everything our planet provides us, and we need to give back. It may or may not effect future natural disasters, but I think it’s worth the effort. It never hurts to try.
Kristy Maute 
Thanks for sharing your wisdom…Dad and I raised a pretty awesome person!!
i agree! something is def off. any ideas what you can do with compost if you don’t actually grow anything? i’d compost, but nothing i ever grow stays alive, so what could i do with it after it goes from leftover food things to dirt?
Do you plant anything in containers? As much as you cook, you should plant an Herb Garden. The compost would be great for that! (they also say you can make Tea with it, but I’m not sure I’m sold on that idea!)
Great post Kristy! We compost EVERYTHING! And what we can’t compost, we recycle. Since I’m not a meat eater, we go through a lot of veggies and I compost the scraps–along with coffee grounds, egg shells, egg crates, etc. We grow a garden every year and every year it gets better because of the rich soil we get from composting.
Thank you for writing this. You know i absolutely agree with you and i also believe that mother nature is fighting back. Just look at all the natural disasters we have had in the past few years alone. Humankind has mistreated her for way too long and she is now fighting back. We have to get people to think a different way, to see things in a different light in order to see any change. Otherwise i believe it will just get worse.