"All shook up...literally!"

Well, if you haven't heard by now, our area was awakened with a "jolt" this morning. An earthquake that measured 5.2 on the richter scale with the epi center in a town in Illinois which is 45 miles away from our area happened this morning at approximately 4:37am.

I have never lived or have even been to California so I don't know what it's like to live in "earthquake country" but I was raised in a town about an hour & a half north of New Madrid...on the New Madrid fault line. We would have "small" earthquakes from time to time that would last maybe 10 seconds or so although we were always warned to be prepared for the "big one" that may happen any day.

The last earthquake that I can remember other than a couple of tremors we felt while living in NC, was in the early 1990's in Missouri. Randy & I were married & living in the upper rental unit of a house. Randy was at work & I was at home getting ready for school. I was in nursing school at the time. The walls started shaking, my knick knacks started moving & a couple of things fell off the wall. It lasted about ten seconds.

My zoo trip the other day sparked a pretty significant allergy episode which has resulted in a lot of drainage & coughing. Our bedroom is downstairs. I couldn't go to sleep last night laying flat due to all of the coughing & drainage so I decided to go up stairs & sit in Randy's recliner to see if I would fall asleep. It's funny because his chair is very comfortable & he falls asleep in it all the time but I could not fall asleep. I dozed off from time to time but really never fell asleep.

So at about 4:30 I decided to move to the couch to see if I could fall asleep there. I was just about to doze off when I heard & felt a "rattling." At first I didn't know what was going on & I thought that someone was trying to get in the front door. Then I sat up & saw that the walls were shaking as well as our very large & heavy entertainment center. I stood up & at this point this is where the earthquake would have normally stopped but it kept going so I started praying fervently as I walked to Phoebe's room. She was sound asleep on her top bunk. I stood by her bed & held onto it & then the shaking stopped. I thanked God & then headed toward the basement. They say that the basement is the last place you want to be in an earthquake.

For those of you who know Randy's sleeping habits you know that he can sleep through anything...severe storms, tornadoes, floods, crying & screaming children, vacumming right by his head, you name it! I got to the top of the steps & looked down to the bottom to find Randy standing there looking at me as he asked, "Did you feel that?" Ugh, yes, I sure did!!! We did a quick once over to make sure everything was okay inside structurally & then we turned on the TV. The first local station we turned on had a commercial so we flipped to the next local station. Ironically enough the man was doing the weather. We listened intently to see if he was going to say anything about the earthquake but he just went on & on about rain heading our way. Then he went back to the desk where his co anchor was. They just looked at each other & then he said, "We're waiting for more information to come in but I think we just had a pretty significant earthquake for our area." Then they started taking calls from viewers & one lady who either still lives in California but was visiting or who use to live in California called in & said she had been in a lot of earthquakes in California but never one that had lasted as long as the one this morning.

We have had a couple of aftershocks so far & may have some more through out the day. Please pray that we will continue to be safe. Thanks!