The Earth Moved

Today was my second earthquake experience. The first was a very long time ago in Oregon. It was 5am when I woke up and figured I must just be shivering so hard that the bed was moving and then figured I threw the covers somehow to make the mini blinds swing back and forth. It was not until I woke up later in the morning that I found out it was an earthquake.

My family made a couple big moves during my time at home. After a tornado passed in close proximity to our house in Kansas a key question to Dad when he told us where we were moving was "What are the natural disaster possibilities?" One of Maryland's only plusses for me (at that time) was the low chance of natural disasters. An earthquake was not even on the list. Hurricanes were the only real possibility.

Today a few minutes before 2pm I was sitting in the rocking chair waiting for Josiah to pick out a book to read before rest time. He was stalling and I was getting frustrated. I figured I must be far more tired than I thought I was because it looked like the closet, windows and bed were moving. It felt more like a vibration so then I thought that the dryer (I was doing laundry) must be horribly off balance. Then I thought, "So off balance that it could knock down the house?" By then it stopped and Aliza called me. I started thinking earthquake? Not here!? So I went to Aliza and she said, Mommy, I think our house was shaking. I agreed with her and then she rationalized that she must have done it. I went downstairs to check the dryer (haha) and made a call to Jeremy. I figured he was really going to think I was nuts when I told him our house was shaking. I tried to call 3 times and could not connect to his phone. That made me a little nervous so I figured I'd just call Mom and tell her that I know I'm crazy but I was upstairs and I'm sure my house was shaking. Well, I got through to Mom and told her that I was nuts and she said "We felt it too." It was about 5 minutes too soon for the earthquake in Richmond to make the news, but we found out soon enough.

Since we don't have TV, my father-in-law keeps me updated when I need to know weather related information. (We've worked out the details of what I need to know and what I should not, for my own mental health, know.) He texted me right away and then called. My Mom made sure I was ok. I had a couple other people text me and I was reminded how absolutely blessed I am to be surrounded with people who care about me.