Earthquake

Interesting morning!  We were all already up this morning, although still in various locations of the house - Mom was on the couch, Maddie was brushing her teeth, and I was up in the bedroom getting ready for the new day.  That's when the house started shaking for what seemed like maybe fifteen seconds or so.  The first inclination was a rather strong wind that sometimes comes along with stormy weather.  We've had a lot of rain, but there wasn't any wind outside at all - Mom was looking out the window and the trees weren't swaying at all.  It also sort of had that shaking effect of a tremendous roar of thunder or a military helicopter flying directly over the house - and yet there was no sound at all, except for the shaking of the house of course.  About halfway through the shaking, that's when we came to the conclusion:  that was an earthquake.  An earthquake?  Here?  Later on, we discovered the specifics, including the epicenter in Tennessee, as well as the fact that this was the strongest earthquake to hit the region since the 1800's.  As far as I know, there was no significant damage.  In fact, a lot of friends we talked to were completely unaware it happened at all.  I think it just depended on the region.  The richter scale measured it as a 4.1, and yes, that was pretty much the first earthquake that I felt where I knew what it was as it was happening.  Very rare sort of thing, obviously.

Anyway, that was interesting.  Maddie was off to Team Edge practice this morning, and after that pretty much spent the entire day with her friends.  She went to the Mall of Georgia afterwards, where they all hung out for a good while, and Maddie picked up some accessories for Ajax, her plush friend.  He now has a pair of shades and looks cool.  Maddie also has another plush cow to add to the entourage.  

Later on in the day, after eating at the mall, they all went over to a friend's house for an "end-of-the-school-year" party, which pretty much covers "graduation party" in there as well.  She came home pretty late to us, but she had an excellent day, despite the fact that it was cold and rainy all day.

Another fun thing for Maddie, on a much smaller scale of course, is the graduates sign that they have out there in front of the community.  Each year a banner goes out in front of all the entrances with a list of names of high school graduates on it.  And each year we say that some day Maddie's name will be up there, thinking that's a long ways off.  

Well, here it is.  Maddie's name is in the first column there, greeting everyone as they enter here at the main entrance, and then at the other entrances as well.  We see it each time we pass by, and then the lawn sign as well.  Now it's official!

Mom and I had a slightly relaxing day.  It was too rainy to do anything outside, so we just did some chores inside, getting ready for Sunday's service and cleaning up around the house somewhat.  We tried out the new "Bahamas" bath and shower gel that Mom got for her birthday, and we watched "Muppet Treasure Island," an absolute classic.  It was a "research" viewing for our upcoming cruise!

We closed out the night with reading from Discworld, and with prayers.  It was a good day today, not a monumental one, but certainly an earthshaking one.