How many times do you get to use the excuse that you're tired at work because an earthquake woke you up?
Normally by 4:37 a.m., I'm awake (so to speak) and getting ready for the drive to work from Freeport to Monroe. But on Friday morning I'd had an awful time sleeping - I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and couldn't fall back to sleep. So I stayed up, tooled around on the computer for a while, then unwisely decided at 4:15 that I'd crawl back in bed and try to catch 45 minutes of sleep. I reset the alarm for 5 a.m.
It probably was another 10 or 15 minutes before I actually fell asleep. A few minutes later, I was awakened. It felt like the bed was shaking ever so slightly. And the bedroom window was rattling.
I woke Sarah up and said, I think we're having an earthquake. A few seconds later, our 8-year-old was in the hallway, a little upset and a lot groggy and saying "the house is shaking." The two cats were both freaking out.
I'd never felt an earthquake before. Sarah had, quite often, she said, during the year she lived in Japan. Being the dork that I can be, I laid back down in bed just to feel it shaking from the quake. It was cool. It certainly didn't seem scary.
About 15 or 20 seconds later, the shaking stopped. The 5 o'clock news confirmed that it was, indeed, an earthquake - 5.2 magnitude, centered in southeastern Illinois and felt throughout much of the Midwest.
I was kind of bummed to hear that no one else at work I talked to felt the quake. And that no one called in to the Green County Sheriff's Department or Monroe Police Department wondering what was happening.
I guess most people got a better sleep than I did.
Normally by 4:37 a.m., I'm awake (so to speak) and getting ready for the drive to work from Freeport to Monroe. But on Friday morning I'd had an awful time sleeping - I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and couldn't fall back to sleep. So I stayed up, tooled around on the computer for a while, then unwisely decided at 4:15 that I'd crawl back in bed and try to catch 45 minutes of sleep. I reset the alarm for 5 a.m.
It probably was another 10 or 15 minutes before I actually fell asleep. A few minutes later, I was awakened. It felt like the bed was shaking ever so slightly. And the bedroom window was rattling.
I woke Sarah up and said, I think we're having an earthquake. A few seconds later, our 8-year-old was in the hallway, a little upset and a lot groggy and saying "the house is shaking." The two cats were both freaking out.
I'd never felt an earthquake before. Sarah had, quite often, she said, during the year she lived in Japan. Being the dork that I can be, I laid back down in bed just to feel it shaking from the quake. It was cool. It certainly didn't seem scary.
About 15 or 20 seconds later, the shaking stopped. The 5 o'clock news confirmed that it was, indeed, an earthquake - 5.2 magnitude, centered in southeastern Illinois and felt throughout much of the Midwest.
I was kind of bummed to hear that no one else at work I talked to felt the quake. And that no one called in to the Green County Sheriff's Department or Monroe Police Department wondering what was happening.
I guess most people got a better sleep than I did.
