What a Morning

I awoke this morning to the sound of objects bouncing of the window of my bedroom. I jumped up with a bit of a start because Big Daddy was away working this weekend and it was just critter and I all alone. I'm typically not paranoid about possible intruders, but this morning I was a little frightened. We have an alarm system that I keep armed when Big Daddy isn't home, so I figured if it was someone trying to get into the house, the alarm would scare them off quite possibly.

The sound started getting louder and louder and I realized after a couple of seconds of rubbing my eyes and really focusing, that it was hailing and the house was being bombarded with pea to ping pong sized missiles. As soon as the hail started so did the thunder and lightning! Usually that isn't a good sign here in tornado alley, but I knew that we hadn't had warm enough weather the last day or so to make the storm really threatening. So I did what any stupid person would do and grabbed my camera and headed for the front porch. In my excitement, I forgot to turn off the alarm so within a second's time the thunder, lightning, and pounding of the hail was joined by the deafening sound the house alarm going off. I was a touch embarrassed as you can hear the siren throught the neighbourhood. It's a good thing no one was home next door. I'm sure I would have woken up Superstar and his folks.
So..again like idiot, I get the alarm turned off, talk to the alarm company..reassuring them that I'm the only person dumb enough to be outside during this storm and not needing any assistance. I grab my camera once more and head for the door. I went to front porch first because it has the most coverage and it was semi dry, which means that my camera and I weren't going to get pounded by the hail. I didn't take the lightning into account and so I didn't last long out there. I'm scared of the lightning here in the mid-south. It's different then the lightning that we had in Canada. It's bigger, brighter, faster, and closer. Big Daddy says the same thing (he grew up in Ohio). So..well..I got a few pictures, but nothing that really turned out as it was only 7am and I was pretty jumpy. I know..if I were a really photographer, I would have gotten the shot. But hey! Not giving up, though I probably should have, I tried the back porch instead. The conditions weren't favourable their either, but I managed to get a couple of pictures (see above).

All this time, Critter continued to sleep. I was amazed! I wish I could have been so lucky! Thankfully the rest of the morning was a great deal less eventful and I went back to sleep myself. At least Critter picked a good morning to sleep in. Maybe I'll get lucky tomorrow as well?! Who knows.