Tornadoes in January. Just like normal.

Sit back, folks, and let me tell you about the adventurous morning of Wednesday, January 30th. (I knew it wouldn't be long before I had SOMETHING to post on here!)

First, let's back this gravy train up to Tuesday night. I'm beyond exhausted. I had visited my grandmother in IL that weekend, stayed up late Sunday night to be able to see Brett after his inventory at work had ended, and stayed up late on Monday night to go swing dancing at The 5 Spot. So by 9:30, I'm ready for bed.

This is us at The 5 Spot! Guess which one of us drank 5 Guinness' and a Jager Bomb?!

I'm really excited, too, because there were supposed to be storms, and I always sleep so well through storms! I decide to open my window a bit to get some air flow in my room. (It always ends up like 8,000 degrees in there. I'm not being dramatic.)

So I lay down. And I lay there. And I lay there. And I flip on my right side. And I flip to my left side. And I lay on my back. (You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around...) I CANNOT FALL ASLEEP.  After about 45 minutes, and some deep breathing exercises, I float on to dream land.

BAM! I am abruptly awakened from dream land. The wind outside was so strong it was blowing my blinds out, and then in against my window, making a terrifyingly loud sound. So I close my window. 

I fall back asleep. It gets hot. I wake up. 

I fall back asleep. I wake up. 

It is a never ending cycle of sleep/wake when I eventually wake up at 1:30 a.m. with a low blood sugar. 

FANTASTIC.

I go downstairs to treat it. At this point in the night, a low blood sugar is the only thing that would put me to sleep, because, hey, I'm just well on my way to passing out! And, as much as I wanted to lay down and do just that, I didn't, because that is dangerous, and I didn't feel like going to the hospital or dying that night.

I wait until I've fully recovered to go back to bed, which ended up being at 2:30 a.m. My body is exhausted so it was no problem for me to go to sleep this time. I crack my window, again, though, because now I'm just sweating, and that is gross.

One hour later, at 3:30 a.m., my mom comes in my room.
Mom: Rach, is your window open?
Me: (in a very confused state of mind) Um, it's cracked.
Mom: Ok, well you need to close it, and grab your pillow and come downstairs.
My first thought is "Why? What did I do?"....like I'm 13 and in trouble or something. 
I then come to the realization that there is a tornado warning.

I go downstairs and watch the doom and gloom that is on the news. I am a weather nerd, so I could not stop watching the weather. Which means I was not sleeping. So naturally, I was texting my boyfriend. He was awake, too. Yay! I had someone else to complain to!

Finally, at 4 a.m., I go back upstairs and think about the hour and 15 minutes I have until my alarm goes off. At 5:15 a.m., my alarm goes off, and I continue hitting "snooze" until 6. Thankfully, that's when my boss text me to tell me to wait until after the morning rush to come in to work.  
PRAISE THE LAWD! 
I got to sleep an extra couple of hours!

Still, I was very exhausted and all out of sorts for the rest of the day. It turns out, that tornado was pretty bad. It did some serious damage to my little hometown. Gracefully, my family and our belongings stayed safe. 

Here are just a few photos from the tornado:

There are more pictures on the Mt. Juliet Police Department's facebook page.