We're in the middle of a tornado watch here in St. Louis and the sky looks like it could really happen. Still. I've been in this spot before and nothing has ever happened, so it's really really REALLY hard for me to take them seriously.

After Joplin, I should.

As a precaution, I just had K9 gather up all of our tennis shoes and socks for everyone (we're all barefooted right now. We put them in a laundry basket along with a gallon of water. We piled up 2 sleeping bags and a couple of pillows. I popped the iPhone on top of the pile.

It's probably ignorant to think this will do the trick, but I felt like I should do SOMETHING, even if I'm sitting here right now posting this post, sitting next to a big window.

Say you had ten minutes to gather some stuff together – what would you put in your basket?

Craig needed to get a cell phone for his new job, so he went and got one on Sunday. He got me one too. Aside from the little pay-as-you-go phone I carried for a total of about 10 hours over the span of one year about two years ago (ie: I kept forgetting to bring it with me, or if I had it it was never charged), we have been cell phone-free for the past six years. This means we've skipped the texting craze almost completely.

Until now. On Sunday I sent some practice texts to a few people. The very first text I sent was to my sister. I texted her land line by accident. In case you didn't know this already, texting doesn't work that way. I also sent texts to several people without identifying myself. This is a problem because our phones have our Oklahoma City area code and nobody had our number yet, so we weren't programmed in to anyone's phone. So they were getting random texts from an obscure area code from someone they didn't recognize.

Tonight we had plans to go out to eat. We found out it's kids eat free night at Chili's and we were given a gift card for Chili's just this past weekend, so we decided to go. I sent Craig a message to let him know I got the coupon to print.

When he came home he asked if he needed to fix the printer. I said, "No! Didn't you get my text?" He was all confused as he looked at his phone again and couldn't find the text. I waited a minute and then said, "Hmm. Maybe I emailed you instead." But no, there was no email. Later that night he was messing with the phone and discovered he had a voice mail message. It was from me telling him I fixed the printer and had the coupon.

Apparently I can't keep my technology straight anymore. I'm about as used to leaving phone messages for Craig as I am to texting him.

Looks like I have some updating and reprogramming to do…