**I wrote this on Monday the 9th right after it happened; but we haven't been able to get internet back up until now, so here is the belated scoop**



Last night I was awakened about 1am by heavy rain. Soon thunder came rolling in, distant and moving closer. It's one of my favorite sounds in the world, so I began drifting happily back to sleep. Suddenly, it sounded like the world had exploded. The entire house seemed to jump off the foundation in sympathy with the deafening crack and crash all around us. Then everything was preternaturally dark and eerily silent except for the continuing rain. *Beep* The smoke detector alarmed from the power outage. My amazing Hubs who had gone from completely prone in sleep to standing on his feet next to the bed with the crash was immediately in action. First, he went and retrieved Li'l E from her bed at my request. He deposited her, still sleeping, in my arms. He then disappeared downstairs to do all the amazingly wonderful things that he does to make sure all is well and keep us safe. Soon the breakers had been flipped back on... mostly. A chorus of beeps rang out from various protesting appliances. Unfortunately, one sound was conspicuously absent: the central heating. Most of the lights came back, but our bedroom remained dark. When he returned he reported on the enormous crash that accompanied the crack of lightning: our garage door had been blown literally open and with such force that it ripped the mounting backwards out of the ceiling and it was clinging at an impossible angle and refused to close. After he had checked and secured the rest of the house, he returned to bed at which point our whispering woke up Li'l E and she gave me a sleepy and mildly reproachful look and went back to her own bed. We, of course, couldn't get back to sleep immediately after the whole being smited (smote? smitten?) thing, so we talked until we both finally gave in to exhaustion.

When it was finally a more normal hour for rising, we got up and began making phone calls and thoroughly checking the house. The damage was so random. Besides the garage, the oven panel blew out, the washer (but not the dryer) blew out, the Hubs' power cords to both laptop and phone are totally fried. Some outlets (in rooms where the lights themselves still turn on) simply don't work. Our copier/printer is toast. We also realized early in the day that the wireless was down. The Hubs went into the office where he had reported smelling the odor of electronic burning just after the strike, and when he followed the cord to the surge protector strip, he found that that blast actually blew the router plug physically OUT of the socket!

Thus far, we have been on the phone all morning with the insurance company (they've been amazing) and various technicians and repairmen. The fire department even sent out a truck to check the scene. It has been quite the morning.

We're barely a week in, and I'm already wary about what 2012 holds next. However, I am so incredibly thankful that we are all here, together, and safe. This has been yet another reminder of how little “stuff” means and how very much the people that we love mean.