I am sure most of you have heard the age old question "If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?" I can tell you that if a tree falls in your backyard into your house at 11:00pm you'll think that there is possibly an earthquake, hurricane, tornado, terrorist attack, sink hole, you name it going on at that moment.
Josh, our friend Slim and I were all sitting in the living room last night watching Saturdays SNL when all of a sudden the loudest noise I have ever heard happened. Our back door from the kitchen flew open and branches busted in all through the door. I am pretty sure I was frozen in my spot on the couch for a minute while the boys got up to figure out what happened. Josh and Slim went outside and all I could here was "holy shit!" I immediately grabbed the video monitor so I could check on the kids to see if the craziness had woken them up. Both were somehow still sound asleep. When I went to go check things out all I could see was a million branches everywhere. We have a HUGE tree in our backyard that has basically has 3 trunks that fork out. I have always thought this tree would make an amazing fort/clubhouse for the kids as they got older. Well 1/3 of the tree decided to give up its life and simply split off right at the base and fall towards the house. I cannot explain how incredibly lucky we are with the entire situation. If our house was moved back even 5 yards we would have significant damage to our bedroom, our kitchen and the living room. Not even to imagine what could have happened to us since we were sitting on the couch. The branches are all pushed up against the house and up to Josh and I's bedroom window which is on the second story. How none of our windows broke, I have no idea. Some of the things we have outside are damaged, our fire pit is shattered, the patio furniture is all knocked over under the branches (not sure the damage of it yet), Harp's new trampoline that I freaking put together a month ago will probably need to be replaced, but fortunatly the grill survived (it's really the only thing I super care about in the backyard).
Like I said, it is a miracle how lucky we are in the situation but I cannot seem to stop running all the bad scenarios that could have happened through my head. What if it would have waited 8 hours and the kids and I were in the kitchen and the door would have swung open and branches crashed in while they were at their breakfast table by the back door. Or even worse, what if the kids would have been playing outside while I had the door open cooking lunch or dinner as we sometimes do? So so many really bad things could have happened that it's oddly comforting the way it did happen. We were all awake, the kids slept through the event, it did some damage but to nothing that is truly important.
Now we are in the process of figuring out what is next. We have had a few tree removal services come out and quote us and are waiting on our insurance people to call and come out to assess the damage to let us know what's next. It's always something isn't it? I mean really, as if this is something I really wanted to pay for right now? We are also waiting to find out if we need to remove the rest of the tree or if we need to get it trimmed back significantly. We obviously do not want a repeat of last night and if it were to happen to the rest of the tree it would put our neighbors in danger as well.
On a positive note, because I was awake most of the night waiting on the branches to bust through my bedroom window, I bucked up and drug my booty to the gym, and boy oh boy did I feel my lack of effort lately during my workout this morning. It is amazing how quickly you can lose some of your strength when slacking off a few weeks. But, the slacking off was necessary. My body and my mind needed a little breather to reboot and now I am back in the saddle again. There is also a chance I might start teaching classes now too! Getting paid to stay in shape, yes please!! Nothing is permanent with that yet though, I just expressed my interest to the general manager who said she really liked the idea and said we would chat this week about it!
I hope you all are having a better start to your week than we are but hopefully things can only get better from here! =)
You're certainly fortunate that tree didn't fall at some other critical moment and the damage is relatively minimal. Good thing your windows didn't break as well. It's probably due to the fact that your windows are quite new. Newer windows are more durable in quality, which makes them stronger and more resistant to damage.
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