Yesterday, I was chatting with my boss about our recent strides toward personal fitness and she said she'd been sleeping better lately. I realized I had been too, stated so and should have proceeded to knock on some wood. I jinxed it. Last night, I was up almost every hour tossing and turning...and not really sleeping. Finally, I dozed off a little after 3am.
Fast-forward to just before 4 a.m. ET. Out of nowhere I heard such a clatter, my eyes sprang open to see what was the matter.
Chris sleepily queried "What was that noise? Was that the wind?"
I drowsily muttered "I duh no." Whatever it was, it was LOUD.
The paranoid gears started spinning in my head...did the boiler just blow up? Is there a robber in the house? Can wind really be that loud? Is the robber going to try and...(insert snoring here)...my tired body prevailed over my overactive imagination.
Two hours later, I groggily got ready and headed off to work on the clear streets that seemed to be lacking something...oh yeah, all the snow we were supposed to get based on the weatherpersons' latest prediction of the newest version of our "worst winter storm yet." I swear they enjoy instigating mass-hysteria over snowflakes.
Fast-forward to 7:55 a.m. Upon arrival, my co-workers asked me if I felt the earthquake last night.
My haven't-finished-my-first-cup-o-coffee self responded with a very articulate "Huh?"
As they started to relay details about an earthquake at about 4 a.m., a light bulb went off somewhere in the murkiness of my brain. It was not the wind that woke me up, it was...
a friggin' EARTHQUAKE.
Sure enough. Seriously? I may have only gotten a handful of minutes of sleep last night but we do live in Illinois, right? It registered a magnitude of 3.8 (apparently 33,000 times less powerful than the one that rocked Haiti recently).
Welcome to our unpredictable,
currently chilly,
currently chilly,
moderately snowy,
Midwest
Winter Wonderland
where our old home-sweet-work-in-progress stands tonight, damage-free. And for that, we are immensely thankful.
