EARTHQUACK!!

So, last night, the house was absolutely quiet (and still!). Robby and Noah were in Oklahoma at their boy scout campout. Luke and Jonah were sleeping soundly and I was checking email. Suddenly, the desk where our computer sits starting swaying. Now, this desk is very rickety and the boys bump it all of the time. So, I thought I had just bumped it with my leg. I backed up and realized that the ground under my feet was moving! I looked around and the strings on the blinds were swaying. A friend gave me some wind chimes last week and I flippantly hung them on a cabinet knob. I started looking around the room and those wind chimes were moving, too. I just froze. I really had no idea what was happening. I quickly dismissed the idea of an earthquake because we're in Texas! There are no earthquakes in Texas, right? I thought maybe there was an explosion somewhere and the ground was vibrating from that. It only lasted about 15-20 seconds. By the end, I started thinking maybe it was a tremor. Since I was at the computer, I Googled "tremors in East Texas" and found nothing. I clicked on Facebook and a friend in Arkansas had posted that she was just in her first earthquake! Very quickly, there were others posting about it. It was nice to confirm my suspicions. Good ol' Facebook! When none of the news sites could help me out, Facebook was my friend! I really thought I was going crazy or something. Then, for the rest of the night, I kept feeling like it was happening again.

At 5:30 this morning, I woke up and felt the bed swaying. Sadie (our dog) woke up, too. At first, I thought maybe it was just a dream, but I checked when I got up and there was another aftershock at that time.

I have enjoyed reading all about it and reporting what I felt on the U.S. Geological Survey's website. I just never in my wildest dreams would've imagined that we could feel them here. I guess I did know they had them in Oklahoma. The epicenter of this one was in Oklahoma City and they're saying it registered at a 5.6.

So, here's the Grandpa coincidence (if you know my Grandpa, you know he's kept a record of coincidences for years). When I was putting the boys to bed last night, we were looking at a book they had gotten from the library. It has a duck on the cover and the title is "Earthquack!" Luke was laughing about that and Jonah asked what was funny. So, I explained the play on words to him. Just an hour later, Mama felt a real earthquack!