Hurricane Sandy left a trail of devastation in her path.  We here in NJ and in NY are really feeling the brunt of it.  So many people have lost homes, some have lost family members and loved ones, and some have lost their businesses.  It is hard to grasp the magnitude of this event and the change it has had on so many lives.  I made this card in honor of all who lost their homes to hurricane Sandy.  In 1972, my family lost our home to Hurricane Agnes.  The flood waters came, lifted our house off its foundation, and when the flood waters cleared, our house was upside down.  All was lost.   The most devastating thing that was lost was our childhood and baby pictures of all the family.  We have a few that we had given out to family members but there are very few pictures of us left as children.  I was 6 when this happened.  As a child, it was very frightening but the adults around me did everything to make it as nice for me as they could.  I was sent to the home of one of my mother's cousins to live until we could find housing.  I remember that she was a sweet lady and let me play on her tire swing, where I spent most of my days until we got new housing.  The government helped out, and we got HUD housing.  Many of my friends from my old neighborhood were moved to the HUD housing so we were able to stay together, which was nice.  I ended up in a better school district.  The townspeople were very generous.  They donated toys and clothing and dishes and houseware products that we needed to start over.  It certainly was a time of transition.  We had to take it "one day at a time" each step of the way.  A path became clear. 

With regards to Hurricane Sandy, we were fortunate to have lost only our electricity, the food in our fridge and freezer, and a few shingles on the roof.  Many were not so fortunate.  I remember them.  We will rebuild.  In time, things will work themselves out as they always do.

I made this card using the template from the Final Ippity Chick Challenge.  The stamps are from the Ippity (by Unity Stamp Company) called "What Matters Most."  I have loosely interpreted the sketch presented, and I hope you will enjoy it.  This is my entry for the Ippity Chick Challenge.  You may this set online for sale at: http://unitystampco.com/shop/what-matters-most/.

  Jen Marie Taylor is my Ippity Chick.  Thanks, Jen, for all your inspiration!

What you are seeing in this picture is a large root ball, upturned, that is covering up the log cabin here.  The rootball looks to be about 20 feet long by about 10 feet wide.  It is sort of a rectangular orb, if that makes sense.  This root ball is in one neighbor's yard, it is their clump of trees that came uprooted, which fall into their next door neighbor's yard, which is seen in the next picture.  Amazing!  Really amazing!

The root clump in the picture with the cabin belongs to this cluster of trees.  There is a rather large house behind these trees!  Can you imagine have a small grove of trees falling on your house?  Thankfully no one was hurt.  My town is roughly situated in the middle of a forest.  People move here because they fall in love with the natural beauty of the land.  The trees in my neighborhood are quite mature, and most of them are well over 50 feet tall.  Whenever we have a serious storm, there are always some downed trees somewhere but nothing like what we experienced with Sandy.  One of my friends wrote to me that between her and her two surrounding neighbors, they lost about 50 trees!  I finally was able to get out and drive on a street that had been closed down.  I was surprised to see groves of trees all felled.  It looked as if a tornado had gone through.  The trees that fell like dominoes were mainly on open lots.  Where there were houses, the houses broke the wind somewhat but there were downed electrical wires as electrical poles snapped in half, for miles.  No wonder the power companies are having such a difficult time getting electricity back.  Some people in my town still do not have electricity.

The weather has been so strange.  I never thought I would be saying this, but in a two week time space, we experienced a hurricane (major!), an earthquake (small, magnitude 2.0) and a snow fall (about 3 inches).  Needless to say, I feel wiped out!