Admittedly, I haven't had to deal with a whole lot of death and loss in my lifetime.  All of my grandparents, thank the Lord, are still living. (Actually I have lost most of my step-grandparents, but the people who have loved me from my conception are all still alive.)

In this microwave cooking, instant grits, fly across the country in a few hours, instant communication via Skype and email world, one thing that nature still has it's firm grasp on is grief. You can't speed through or abbreviate the grieving process. Every morning, for the last seven days, I have laid in my bed looking at an empty spot on the floor and wished that someone had figured out how to microwave cook through grief.

It has been a week, and the wound from the hole is my heart is still quite raw, sometimes still seeping with anguish... where is the heal in seven days Neosporin for that?

First let me say that my heart aches for the people of both Haiti and Chile who have experienced life-altering devastation in their countries. The following is not intended in any way to make light of the horror of the quakes.

Though it was incredibly devastating and sad, the earthquake in Chile has some really interesting stats... I have had conversations with several people lately about how really pretty interesting the quake was.

I looked online last night and compiled a list of the crazy things associated with the quake:

- It is the 7th biggest quake in recorded history, the largest was also in Chile, it was a 9.5 in 1960. The San Francisco quake was a 7.8

- It lasted three minutes.

- It shifted the Earth's axis by three inches and will change (shorten) the length of the days by something like 1.26 micro seconds (which is like one-millionth of a second). Apparently, the quake caused the Earth's spin to speed up.

- It caused an island off the coast of Chile to rise 2 meters.

- It was 500 times stronger than the Haiti earthquake; the Haiti quake was more concentrated, so that damage was more devastating in a smaller area, while the one in Chile was more widespread and less total destruction of areas hit.

- The tsunami waves that hit Hawaii, were not bad, and little damage occurred, it said that 8 foot waves washed up in some places, but was much less than they thought were probable.

- The quake also is said to have caused seiches(waves) on Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana (4,700 miles from the epicenter).

So hi ya'll... I know you thought I had died or something, but low and behold, here I am.

Beau is 7 months, Halleigh is now 3, I have been in Utah for the past 21 days, and we are trying to buy a house. Whew, things have been crazy around here.

Miles tells me that blogging begets blogging, so here is to a new start... wish me luck!

p.s. I promise the posts will get better :)

This picture is courtesy of The Bozeman Daily Chronicle.

There was a gas line leak/ explosion this morning on Main Street in Bozeman. It took out three historic buildings and damaged several others... it is sad to see them gone!

We miss Bozeman... a lot, and try to keep up with news, and this has consumed me today.

They don't know yet how many people were injured, but with such devastation, surely there were some. There are a few people missing, the fire is still burning and they are having trouble searching through the rubble due to the unsafe conditions of the buildings and the fire. The good thing is that it happened at around 8:15am, so hopefully there weren't that many people out and about.

  Last night Miles was reading a history of Durham book and he read a part to me about how the Rose Bowl was held in Durham in 1941 (actually it was played in 1942). At first I thought he was kidding, but no, here it is straight from the internet:

With the United States' entry into WWII, on December 7, 1941, there was concern about an Japanese attack on the West Coast. Much discussion focused on the possibility of an attack where any crowds might gather. The Rose parade with a million watchers, and the Rose Bowl with 90,000 spectators were presumed to be ideal targets for the Japanese. Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt recommended that the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl festivities be canceled. The Rose Bowl committee originally planned to cancel the game. On December 16, 1941, Duke University invited the game and Oregon State to Duke's home stadium in Durham, North Carolina.

They borrowed bleachers from both Carolina and State and as the picture shows, they had an amazing turn-out. Duke played Oregon State on Jan.1 and lost... GO Beavers!

If you want to read more about this click here. It will take you to a Duke University archive page.

"The heavily favored Duke team lost on a cold, rainy day to an underestimated defensive team that successfully protected an early lead. Coach Wade later stated he spent too much time being host and too little time preparing the team. He also gave the team several days off to go home for Christmas."

Duke, you just got slightly less repulsive. ha ha ha Seriously though... that is totally awesome.  Except they should have called it the Tobacco Bowl... they called it the Durham Rose Bowl instead.

p.s. if you click on the picture it will open in a new window, much bigger.

Maybe it is because it is rainy, but all day I have been thinking about William Carlos Williams' poem, XXII (aka The Red Wheelbarrow). Williams is one of my favorite poets.  While in college, I was intorduced and imediately in love with William Carlos Williams' poetry. here is The Red Wheelbarrow:

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water