Rain!

Okay, first as most of you might already know, I live in
Iowa–northeast Iowa in what seems to be the only little island of land
around which seems to not be flooding with 6 feet of water. 
I actually feel guilty even saying that.  Everyone surrounding us is. 
We’ve been getting the severe storms, the tornado weather and in our
town, homes are getting water damage but when one compares this to what
everyone around us is experiencing…

As of this morning the water was 5 1/2 feet ABOVE any levels ever
recorded.  Ever.  That just boggles my mind.  I don’t know what these
people are going to do.  We’re talking homes under water in areas never
even considered for flood damage.  Entire towns flooded.  Cedar Rapids,
being the big city around here gets the news but there are all these
little towns that experienced this flooding.  So often and I’ve found
myself in this same thinking pattern, we think of people living along
the rivers as asking for it when they get flooded and live only a few
feet from the water line.  But this is not the case here.  We are
talking areas that have never flooded before.  Its shocking.  Hard to take in.  Hard to believe.

One thing I think is remarkable about all this is–people are
evacuating when told, are responding and taking this serious.  And if
you look at the low numbers of rescues taking place, you’ll see how
truly incredible this is.  I personally believe that the whole thing
with Katrina helped people realize flooding is serious.  Water is
dangerous.  2 feet of water can knock a grown man on his butt,
float a vehicle… 2 feet of water does not look like much and add to
this the violent force with which it is flowing…it’s scary.  I
know many may think that whole thing with Katrina was handled badly and
I’m not disagreeing but when in history have we had to deal with such
flooding?  We have now.  We learned.  I do believe one good thing came
out of Katrina and its constant coverage…it helped the rest of the
country be better prepared.  We here have been respecting the warnings,
preparing days in advance.  Just take a look at Iowa City and all those
surrounding towns.  Maybe you guys don’t get it on the national news
but they have been sandbagging for days already.  They have been
evacuating for days already.  They are preparing.  Of course as the
water flows downwards it gathers force and water.  One area astonished
me, they had sandbags stacked about 12 feet high, are still stacking
but–they don’t expect it to hold. 

My husband works in Cedar Rapids and his company went to help fill
sandbags–sadly in the end they did not work but being a part of trying
to help…there are no words.  Of course my hubby then needed major
massage because of course he was determined to keep up with the young,
in shape guys… :-)  Silly man!

They are forecasting sunny weather with scattered showers today and
tomorrow–YAY!  All this funky weather has affected my running.  Its not
been happening.  :-(  Can you hear me growling?  Today looks like the
first day I can go in a week!  And I plan on finding a way to go from
here on out–I HAVE to.  Though granted its hard to force mother nature
to listen.  :-)  But I just had to share what happened last week.

I was so excited to be feeling great, not sick(see last post) and
able to go out for a run!  I couldn’t wait.  AND the schedule said I
only had to go 30 minutes.  What a bonus.  True, I could have done
whatever I wanted but I wanted to get back on schedule.

So, off I went with Kia telling my kids I only had to go for 30
minutes, I’d be back before they knew it.  (This is mostly for the
youngest who didn’t really want me to go.)

In a steady stream of storms lately, the day was beautiful, sunny, a
bit windy, a bit hot, a bit humid…okay a LOT humid and hot and windy
but…I felt great!  I was running!!!  I kept a steady watch on my time
and counted down my time…15 minutes left…10 minutes left…5 minutes
left…whoohoo!  30 minutes done!!!!

I turned around and man you wouldn’t believe the strength of that
wind!  I was kissing the ground trying to move!  I took a couple of
pictures of the grass laying flat from the wind(all there was to show
you–I live in Iowa remember
) but they’re on my phone and I haven’t figured out bluetooth yet.  I
will though.  :-)  Oh and for our area not having any hills, we do have
steady inclines/declines.  Well, going away from my house its all
downhill(why we personally haven’t been flooding).  Thus it doesn’t
take a genius to figure out, I’d run downhill with the wind at my back
all the way out.  Now going back I was against a wind I could hardly
stand up in, muchless run in and was going steadily uphill. 

But it gets better.  Did you happen to notice when I turned around?

Yeah, at 30 minutes.  In other words, I ran for 30 minutes in one direction–away from home THEN turned around.

Can we say diddle brain!??!

AHHHHHHH! LOL.  *sigh*, I do love to run but for the first day back
after a week and half off from being sick… an hour run was NOT ideal. I
made it and my kids had a good laugh at my expense.  Heck, I’m still
laughing.

30 minutes in one direction—Dang but I thought I was smarter than
that.  No wonder I’ve had a hard time learning my new phone out! 

Cole

Nicole Reising
www.nicolereising.com
www.nicolereising.com/blog

Imagination... the magical whispers from within.