I decided a few weeks before Halloween to throw a party for my staff.  They love celebrating and most of them enjoy dressing up for Halloween.  I sent an invitation for 2:00 PM Friday, October 30th promising punch, cookies and a costume contest.

Immediately I went into hyper mode in an effort to plan the perfect party.  We’d have a variety of Halloween themed punches, the perfect baked, decorated cookies and lots of decorations.

I spent the next couple of weeks making lists and jotting notes.  I searched for the best cookies, polling everyone for opinions.  I surfed the web and combed Pinterest for ghoulish recipes.

Settling on wormy orange punch, witches brew and blood (orange) punch, I purchased cauldrons, ladles, spider webs and more.  On Thursday night, I worked late but still managed to pick up fresh vegetables, fruit and a few other last minute supplies.  I made sure we had enough to feed an army even though I only needed enough for 15 people.  I enlisted help from family, picking up the cookies, baking treats, making dip and putting up with my insanity.

Over the course of the week, I brought supplies and decorations to the office to minimize chaos on Friday.  All of Austin and the surrounding areas woke up to a deluge of rain on Friday, October 30th.  Relieved that most of the party paraphernalia was already stored at my office, we loaded the car with the final touches and began the hour long commute.

Five miles from the house, I realized that the frozen juice cubes for the punch were still in the freezer.  Since the National Weather Center had issued flood warnings, it didn’t seem realistic to return home for ice cubes.  At about mile 10 I discovered the fruit tray and the vegetable tray were also at home in the refrigerator along with the vegetable dip.  No problem.  I would just call my son and see if he would bring it in around lunch.  Surely the sun would be out by then.

At mile 20, the radio informed us that there was a confirmed tornado on the ground about 30 miles away and the rain wasn’t expected to end anytime soon. I wasn’t going to ask anyone to get out in this mess.  No problem.  I’d just walk across the street for frozen fruit to drop in the punch and we could live without the vegetables.

At work, reports of flooding replaced any thoughts of the party while I tried to get in touch with any employees not already at work.  Now I was trying to contact my son to be sure he was paying attention to the rapidly changing weather conditions.

At 8:45 AM, I received an ‘Extreme Alert’ via my phone:

“Tornado Warning in this area til 9:15 AM CDT.  Take shelter now.”

Well, herding hundreds of costumed people down three flights of stairs to the bottom of the parking garage quickly became priority.  We are all fine and the storm passed without significant damage for us and I realized that we had everything we needed.

                            

When 2:00 PM finally arrived, it was still raining.  The party was fun and everyone was relieved to forget about storms for just a little while.