Half Way!

I can't believe it but as today ends, June 30, 2011, so does the first half of this year.  Where has the time gone?

It seems it was only a few weeks ago that we were buried in snow drifts and it was freezing cold and now here it is summer time.

The beginning of the year started nice but by the second week, it was cold and blustery and then the snow came and it came and it came.  We were snowed in for days, no mail service, stores closed as people couldn't get in to work, let alone customers being able to get in to make purchases.

But by the end of February, it was all behind us as we looked towards March and a pleasant change of weather and it wasn't a bad March.  We got a lot of rain and I mean a lot of rain.  I worried at the time that it would rain itself out and by summer time, we'd be sweltering in the heat and dry as a bone.  Guess what?  We are sweltering in the heat and dry as a bone.

April wasn't to bad and we got some good rains during that month but then May came along and it began to warm up, a lot warmer than usual but nothing like this month has been.  We made the record books for the second hottest month with temps over 90+ degrees for 29 of the 30 days.

And a lot has happened in my personal life during this first six months.  My brother, my niece and my daughter and I made a trip to Iowa to move our mother to a nursing home in January.  However, she was removed by our younger sibling in February and sad to say, passed away in March.

It has been hard for me to accept her passing and I still think I need to call her when something happens or especially on Sunday afternoons.  For years, every Sunday afternoon we had a nice long visit by phone and I miss those calls and miss her voice and I miss telling her what is going on or what is happening and I miss her telling me what she has been thinking about or doing.

Then in May, my daughter decided she was going back to the city.  She just isn't a country girl and was not happy here and I felt bad with her living in that small trailer.  She got it sold, packed up her things and she and my grandson loaded the truck and she is settled into her new apartment and is working part time at a local television studio as she looks for full time work and today she had a good interview so we are keeping our fingers crossed it will work out for her.

It has been a little hard going out and not seeing the trailer there or seeing her every day but we talk on the phone and I know she is happy and that is the most important thing.

I thought about selling off the place and moving to an apartment but the more I thought about it, I knew I would not be happy.  I am a country girl and I do love the rural living and having a neighbor so close and being in town, I know I'd feel like a fish out of water and regret it so I've decided to stay right here for as long as I can.

So the first half of the year has been full of ups and downs, some health problems but are being taken care of and I'm finding a new side of myself.  It gets a little lonesome at times, but yet I manage to stay busy and keep occupied and the way time is going, I must be doing something right.

Now that is what happened in my area of the country.  However, elsewhere, there have been huge destructive and killer tornadoes.  The worst I believe so far is the one at Joplin, Missouri.  I lived there for over 10 years and very familiar with the area that was hit as I even lived in that part of the city for a while.  It is devastating to see the destruction and to hear the stories and worse the loss of life.

There have been horrible fires out of control in the Texas  and the southwest.  I'm sure there will be more in other states if it continues to be so dry.  People have been evacuated from their homes, business closed and loss of property and land mass has caused more problems.  And they are battling a fire that is jeopardizing a nuclear facility.

On the other hand are the floods to the north.  Whole towns being devastated and suffering loss to property and crops.  From North Dakota to the southern edges of Nebraska and Iowa, the river has risen higher than it has in years and has wrecked havoc.  A small town not far from my home town was covered in waters and the farmers watched as their fields filled with water and the crops gone.  A cousin who lives in Omaha has evacuated her home and is waiting and it could be another two months before she will know or even be able to get back to her home.  She and her husband also lost their travel trailer that they set up along the river.  The waters came up faster than anyone thought and they weren't able to get to it in time.  There is a huge nuclear generating plant that is in danger from the flood waters as well.

The earth is a changing and growing planet and weather changes are just a part of it.  We all try to understand and there are a few who get some grandiose ideas that we are the cause or that it is near the end time, but in actuality, this has been going on for eons.  Long before man walked upon the earth, it went through weather changes and it has survived.

We will now but we will have to suffer a little through cold, snow, rains, flood, heat, fires and tornadoes.

So as we end this first half of the year, what can we look forward to for the next half? I'm hoping and praying that it will be better, but somehow I know that whatever is to come, I can't change it, nor can anyone else, so we will complain about the cold and the snow and we will complain about the rains and again about the heat and the dryness.  After all, what is a better conversation starter than, "Isn't this weather something else?"