Then when we got home, I only had a few weeks to do odd jobs for my parents and neighbors to try to make as much money in the short time I had. I painted the nook in my parent's room, potted and arranged plants in this lady's garden room to make it suitable for tea parties with her grandkids and I helped my mom plant our front yard. Sadly enough, right after we had the yard mostly finished and new plants waiting to be planted sitting on the porch, the biggest hail storm I've ever seen wreaked havoc on all our hard work. But let me back up and talk about the storm for a bit.
One sunny June day, mom and I decided to have a girls day. The boys were all at youth conference and we took full advantage of that. Mom had a birthday coupon to a spa in Denver, so she got a facial and I got a much needed back massage. Then I got my hair cut and colored in preparation for the long days ahead. We went to Mellow Mushroom for pizza and decided to get it to go because the line was so long. Thank goodness we did because as we were heading home the temperature started to drop drastically. Mom was watching it fall and said "It's going to hail." She kept saying that we should stop and hide in the Mini under a gas station roof or something. But I kept feeling like we should just drive fast and get home. As soon as it started hailing, I felt so stupid. It wasn't just hailing; it was more like an angry ice god was releasing all of his teen angst upon our cute, clean, perfectly dent-free Mini Cooper. It was so loud that mom and I had to yell at each other. I was so mad that I had said to keep driving, but we had to keep going. When we pulled into the garage, the garage door wouldn't shut behind us because the hail had pilled in so quickly and was blocking the sensors. We were still yelling and desperately trying to get the door to shut so dad's new car wouldn't get pelted (He cleans that car twice a week. There's no way he'd not notice a hail dent!). So mom grabbed a snow shovel and I acted as a human shield to protect the shiny new sports car as I kicked at the water flowing in. We finally got the garage door an inch from the ground and called it good. We went inside and realized that there would be a tornado warning. We headed to the basement and not a moment too soon; water was cascading out of the window and a lake had formed in the middle of the carpet! We quickly grabbed towels from the bathroom and threw them under the window. Mom unplugged the TV and speakers as I ran to get more towels and blankets from the closet. Then mom ran to the first floor and I ran upstairs and we used every single towel in the house to mop up and attempt to plug up Niagara Falls. When we realized that the hail piling up in the window well was the problem, mom got on her snow boots and went outside, in a tornado warning, and shoveled the ice out of the well. That got the water under control and we knew there was no more we could do but dry off and hide in the pantry and eat our cold pizza. Thank goodness we had driven straight home!
The next morning we went outside. I almost wish we hadn't. The storm had shredded every leaf off of every plant and made our yard look like a vegan potluck. We had worked so hard to perfect that yard just two days before! I think we both almost cried. The boys got home late that day and helped us rake up some of the salad. We filled 5 huge black garbage bags with just leaves. Our trees are bare and our plants are nubs. What a sad looking summer garden..
