Tornado redux

So remember yesterday "Tornado Tuesday"? I change my mind. That was more "Thunderstorm Tuesday". Today featured actual Tornado's. Remember that movie Twister? Oh boy did that scare the heck out of me as a little girl living on Long Island, NY. I thought that I would never have to face something like that. And after moving to north Texas, I've heard many a siren, crawled into many tornado closets and seen many funnel clouds. But nothing that hit this close to home. But I'll get to that... so first...

I work up this morning to the sound of torrential rainstorms at about 6am. I reluctantly rolled out of bed and watched trashy reality tv re-runs as I had some of my vans gluten free waffles.

It turned out to be yet another long, boring rainy day of me and Charles being locked up inside doing homework, playing with the kitten, and snacking on lots of these grapes...

Until we could see the monster on the bottom of the bowl :)

At some point, the clouds broke and the rain just stopped. I was actually able to put on a cute summery outfit, unlike my outfit yesterday of my college hoodie and rain boots, and we went to genghis grill.

If you haven't been, its a buffet style mongolian stir fry resturant. Like I don't eat enough asian food right? So you pick your meats, veggies, seasonings...



They stirfry it up...

And viola!

Delicious. I went for chicken and an egg for my meats, lots of peppers and broccoli, and brown rice.

Afterwards, I had asked my parents to drive me to the gym since my car wasn't with me. My mom had just gotten home when we pulled out of the driveway and turned on the radio only to hear that the exact location of my mom's work had been hit by a tornado, and they were unsure in what direction the tornado was headed. So we turned around, and the sky did look rather ominious...

Later we found out the actual damage to my mom's office, and the others around hers when it made the national news. The buildings that I had driven by 100 times were in shambles. Sections of buildings collapsed, windows blown out, 18 wheelers flipped on their sides, and my mom was no exception considering the roof over her office was collapsed. If this tornado had hit one hour earlier, I don't know what condition my mom would be in right now. It's the kind of thing that opens your eyes to the power of nature. Of all of the other crap that people have to deal with... cars breaking down, getting a cold, breaking your leg, I think that natural disasters are among the ultimate of these crappy situations.

I decided that while my parents were at the office surveying the damage, to make cookie dough cupcakes that could single handedly destroy my small intestines.

I know >_< . I promise they were for my brother! I had one bite though... sorry villi!

Cookie Dough Cupcakes
For the cupcakes-

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder-
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
  
• 2 eggs
  

And the cookie dough inside, it was just nestle toll house dough.

Set the cookie dough ontop of the cake batter, and the batter will rise above the dough. Bake at 375 for 25 min.

So what a day huh?! Torando's, collapsing roofs, mongolian stirfry, and the most deadly cupcakes on earth. So what can we take from this? Personally, all I can do is just be so thankful that things turned out the way they did. Insurance can give you a new roof, but it can't give you a new mom. Goodnight! :)

But first...

Have you ever encounterd a natual disaster before? What was it like?