i'm one of those people who NEEDS to see the ocean once a year or so unfortunately i've always lived in landlocked states the first time i saw the ocean? i was 20. perhaps i need to make up for lost time!
this picture was taken in malibu, california my first time to sunny ca was in 2008 my friend vera and i took a little hike up to point dume it was fun (although next time i'll wear something besides flip-flops to hike it in...) and this picture was taken when we came back down
i've had so many people out of town ask "but what can we DO?"
i hope you don't mind that today's 10 is ways to help out nashville. it's honestly written because people have asked for it to be. there are tons of blogs and sites out there with similar lists, but i want to specifically focus on what out-of-towners can do.
this is in no way a comprehensive list, and if you live close to our area other blogs (such as nashvillest) will be good resources for you if you don't know anyone specifically who was affected. chances are you DO know someone though and are already helping in whatever capacity you're able to.
for those of you with a bit of distance between your place and ours, here's a short list of concrete, simple things you can do to help those who are hurting.
1. we need donations of gift cards--home depot, wal-mart, target, lowe's, kroger, etc--for people who are rebuilding/replacing ruined items. gift cards instead of items simply because we NEED people to be able to spend money in our city right now. i've also seen a few people mention gift cards to local restaurants for people who have a kitchen that is inoperable. here is one place that i know is taking donations of gift cards: Otter Creek Church
2. are you affiliated with a church in your city? if so, contact a "sister church" in nashville. ask if they have specific needs in their congregation, or if they have specific ministries that are in need of extra donations/supplies for flood relief. most churches down here are taking care of everyone they can.
3. text for good! the american red cross will receive a $10 donation to disaster relief if you text "REDCROSS" to 90999 4. bottled water is needed right now. no, it's not the environmentally conscious thing to do, and it hurts my eco mind to use bottled water, paper plates and cups, and other disposable items. but the fact is, one of our water reservoirs was flooded and is currently inoperable. nashville residents have been told to cut water usage by at least half. this means most of us, if we're listening to the pleas, are pretty stinky right now since no one is taking good showers. but you know what? i'm happy to take baby wipe baths and rinse out my hair every other day--or two--if it helps my nashville. we're being asked to limit water usage to cooking, drinking, and hand washing and VERY limited other usage. if bottled water is donated, it'll cut down that much more on city water usage.
5. buy a t-shirt. right now all i have is the facebook fan page, but there should be an online store up soon.
6. for those of you concerned about the fate of animals, the nashville humane society and metro animal services are accepting donations that are more pet-friendly. :) there are also several area vets and kennels that are boarding animals for displaced families.
7. one of the coolest things i saw on facebook earlier this week was that students at my alma mater (Trevecca) were given an opportunity to receive credit by volunteering in the flood relief in lieu of their exams in some classes. how amazing is that? trevecca has always been a school of service, and i'm proud to be an alum when i hear things like that.
by the way, trevecca sustained some damage in the electrical/maintenance facilities, print shop, gym, student activity center, and a couple of athletic fields. yet i didn't find out about that until i read a press release on a nazarene church's website informing the greater nazarene community of this. clearly, student efforts are focusing on what they can do off campus...did i mention i love my university?
trevecca's flood relief efforts: http://www.trevecca.edu/info/newsandevents?id=3955 lipscomb's (i should also note that lipscomb is one of four main shelters housing families who were displaced. the others are the gordon jewish community center, al menah shrine center, and people's church in franklin) belmont vanderbilt
i couldn't find any other local universities with flood relief efforts, but i'll keep my eyes open in the next few days.
8. donate monies online community foundation (in conjunction with the mayor's office) american red cross second harvest food bank salvation army nashville rescue mission (ok, so this isn't a flood relief specific page, but they serve nashville's homeless population and they were definitely hit hard...so a donation would not be out of place for them. another worthy homeless ministry is room in the inn which several area churches participate in. another homeless project which is absolutely amazing and wonderful is the newspaper, the nashville contributor)
9, visit us. we depend heavily on tourism dollars. yes, opryland hotel and downtown are currently under water. yes, some tourist attractions will be closed for a few months. but let us show you the other sides of nashville, the sides tourists typically miss. we'll be glad to have you, and grateful that you remember us.
10. or come down for a weekend and help families clean out their flood-soaked basements or houses. hands on nashville is coordinating all the FEMA volunteers, so that's a great place to look.
and pray. please. i've stopped watching the news--it's so horrible to see places that i love literally in ruins...and then there are the more personal aspects as i help people i dearly love try to sort out what is salvageable and what must be thrown away. we WILL rebuild, and we will be stronger for it...but right now it's just overwhelming and hard. pray that help will be swift and effective, that clean up will be as smooth as possible, that the city and her people will be resilient.
side note: if any of you are from indiana (southern) or the part of kentucky i'll be driving through to get there and want to send anything down with me, i'll be up thursday-saturday for a wedding. i'll have limited times that i can pick stuff up but please email me or call if you have my number and i'll DEFINITELY meet you and get anything you want to the appropriate place.
i'll also be going to the gatlinburg area later in the month, so if any of you are on the way from nashville to there (or close) i can do the same then :)
(and you can see one reason why here. i've sat in stunned silence while looking at flood damage honestly, this is the first thing that has made me tear up. the pictures have left me shocked and heartbroken; seeing damage firsthand has left me speechless. but THIS...this speaks of what we all feel as members of this city--this community. and this made me cry.)
i'd just driven back overnight from a wedding in n carolina (which will be a monday's memory later this month...more on that later)
when i look at this picture i smile yes, i look tired (i was!)
but i was with such good people (from front to back)
randy and lajuana now live in atlanta calvin and kathryne i still see regularly richard and suz took a worship ministry position at another church in town and michael and jes now has an adorable baby, finnegan (finn)
we seemed to nearly always gather around mexican cuisine on wednesday nights especially although this was a sunday afternoon anytime we gathered we laughed cried prayed and loved
still love each other very much... but times like the ones in this picture? very rare. precious.
we're officially in a state of emergency here. and while there are bad things happening (anthony's parents had a flooded basement yesterday his granny's house has 3 ft--at least--of water sitting in it) i'm choosing to focus on the positive
(the walmart a mile from my place--saturday mid-day)
i don't have any firsthand sensational pictures to post like many of my friends do and at first i was kinda bummed about that then i quickly realized how silly that is
(on the other side of me, less than a mile away)
the fact that i don't have any awesome storm pics no waves going through my backyard no rivers down the street
(another major intersection--this one about 3 miles away perhaps)
it means that i'm safe secure and dry
many that i love aren't so lucky
(downtown street)
i will say that i don't know the status of the storage unit just yet (and am oh-so-thankful i secured renter's insurance on the contents of it just friday!) but the things there are just that--things. emi is safe i am safe anthony and his family are safe
we're good :)
i'll leave you with a couple of more humorous things from the storm (because as you can see above there is much in the way of seriousness but i--we--need to laugh)
facebook status from a friend: K, now we know it is bad. Naomi Judd just called the TV station to report that her fence has been knocked down and that her buffalo are now roaming wild! Flooded house, yes, but wild buffalo, lookout!!
and further proof that nashville not only doesn't stop the music for water--it also doesn't stop creativity! "Tennessee's Not Landlocked Anymore"
this one's not funny...just poignant. i love this photographic proof that you can't stop the music here, no matter what. i think there's a whole blog post just in that statement
no one on facebook can stop talking about the rain and there are reasons why
namely this one
it's supposed to get worse less than a mile from my house is a walmart that is nearly submerged people are using boats to get stuff out of their flooded houses inSANE
Um, I haven't done these for awhile. First up, a bit of a wordle...
and
i have two.
i'm so glad April is OVER! (lost the house, car got banged in parking lot, er/hospital visit...yeah, i'm glad the month is gone. may has to be AWESOME after all this.)
and: reminding the weather: it's APRIL showers!!
yep, it's raining cats, dogs, chickens, etc in nashville today i've gotten out in it once--to teach a voice lesson this morning. i have another voice lesson to teach late this afternoon. and this in-between rainy, thundery day? i'm parked on my couch with the remote in one hand, computer on lap, and a cup of coffee next to me. it's a good day for all that.
bummer too, because cheekwood, one of my favorite nashville spots, is free today. however, i hardly think "botanical gardens" and "torrential rain" is really a good mix...so i'll suck it up and pay the admission on a pretty day soon!
emi is sacked out on the bed, i'm feeling rather snoozy myself...considering the earlier events of the week...this may just be the perfect way to spend my day after all.
1. packed and got overwhelmed by all the packing to do 2. called in the troops, and between the army and i we got the entire house packed and cleaned by 10 pm sunday night! 3. witnessed anthony's little sister hailey get baptized at church on sunday 4. was hit by a car in the wal-mart parking lot on sunday 5. said goodbye to my house with more than a few tears as we locked everything down on sunday. thankfully, at that point only anthony and his parents were there to witness that. (and jiminy the cricket came back in from the backyard one more time.) 6. turned in my keys to the real estate agent on monday and received a check in return 7. went to dinner celebrating hailey's baptism at maggiano's on tuesday night 8. followed dinner with an er visit. i'd been short of breath all.day and between anthony and his parents was forced...ordered convinced to go see a doctor 9. was admitted to the hospital overnight (with the threat of it being more than an overnight stay). turned out to be asthma exacerbation--a flare up of a condition i thought i had grown out of at the age of 12. anthony says i gave him quite a scare--i'm sure the oxygen mask, ivs, my incredible pain at being stuck the first time they drew blood, and the fact that i still couldn't catch my breath even by the time they got me into my hospital bed didn't help in that at all. 10. was released approximately 14 hours later (noonish wednesday) and taken to anthony's mom's house until she deemed me fit to go home. she came and vacuumed all my furniture and did a little extra unpacking too when she dropped me off onto her couch. amazing woman that she is :-D
so they say bad things come in 3s. i'm thinking starting with anthony's granddaddy's illness and death, the foreclosure, and this er visit and hospital stay we're due for a run of good things.
can i get an amen?
(for those of you who are new followers from monday--thank you! i promise i'll get to each and every one of your blogs if you commented--i had internet for approximately 5 hours before i started feeling really bad)
Hello all! I'm being featured today at a new favorite site of mine--I discovered it about a month ago and have been so grateful to find a little niche of the blogging world that I can wholeheartedly support and love!
The site is called WOW (Words of Wisdom) and I'm today's featured BON (which sounds like a delicious candy but is actually the abbreviation for Blogger of Note). I'm so incredibly honored to be chosen for this!
I'm supposed to introduce myself. The first post I'm linking to should do a rather good job of that, but here's a quick peek!
I'm Lora, recently turned 29, living in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm a Jesus-lovin, wonderful man dating, liberal, slightly crunchy, healthful (kinda) cooking, recycling wanna-be guru, yogi, clotheshorse, fun loving, just plain loving, living in the moment, eclectic gal. I embrace my ancestry wholeheartedly and try to remember my roots--midwestern (known as a yankee down here in the south though!), German and Irish. Sláinte!
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
I truly believe life is all about the journey and those you choose to share it with. And what an incredible ride I'm having! If you've been around the last couple of weeks you'll understand why I'm keeping this intro kind of short (yup, this is short for me! :0) If not, I invite you to read the posts starting March 31 or so on to now. I firmly believe that this is part of my story to share with people at large because GOD deserves the glory for the amazing things that are going on in the midst of a situation most would deem hopeless. A.m.a.z.i.n.g. things girls and guys!
Ok...so I'm literally sitting in a McDonald's parking lot for the wifi signal...and it's 11:42 pm. And my wonderful amazing boyfriend is worried sick that I'm crazy enough to do this, and I promised him I'd leave at midnight. Soooo I'm going to link you to a few posts that will give you a glimpse into who I am...and I will visit you all very soon! (I should have my internet up and running by 4pm today thank GOODNESS! I'm an addict y'all!)
