My Home is in Alabama.......

.....and our community has been forever changed by the tornado outbreak that swept the south last Wednesday, April 27. I'm not in Tuscaloosa or Birmingham, but rather on the outskirts of Huntsville near Harvest Alabama and the Anderson Hills area. Almost a million people in the Tennessee Valley were without power for 4 or more days - there are still a few people without power tonight.

Every where you drive you see the storm's destruction and while I feel blessed to have survived with only some minor fence and car damage, I've experienced some really strange feelings - I couldn't put it in words until I read an article today in the local paper and someone described it as "survivor's guilt." I was planning to go out Sunday to volunteer but I developed a pretty bad upper respiratory infection and figured that I wouldn't be doing anyone a service to get out there like that and spread my germs around. I have just felt kind of helpless. Today, our local TV station held a telethon to raise money for the American Red Cross for the victims - they had media personalities at various community locations accepting donations so I was able to give a monetary donation. The telethon was simulcast on 14 sister stations around the country tonight so you may even have seen it on one of your local channels. This evening, they were holding televised candlelight vigils at several locations.

I've been thinking all week that I would like to create some type of cut file to use when documenting the storms and honoring the victims of this tragedy. I played around with Alabama themed things, made a decent looking tornado file but nothing was exactly what I wanted to do. When I read about the candlelight vigils, I realized that would make a cut file that could be used on tribute pages for all different types of circumstances.

I've completed the file but will have to wait until morning to do a test cut before I will make the svg available. Here's an image to give you an idea of what I hope it will look like:


And, if anyone might be interested, I will also be testing and making available the Alabama things I've been playing around with, as well as the tornado ... here's a preview of those:

That's about it for this evening - it's time to take my cold meds and hit the bed.