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Old 04-20-2011, 04:22 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Luzette View Post
Canudigit and Ironlady:

I'm really sorry to hear you've both got SAD and are having trouble with family members understanding. I think it's one of those things that's just very hard to comprehend if you don't have it yourself. One thing that always stands out to me is the argument that we are a four season state. Where I live it has been snowing since early this afternoon. I was in town getting groceries for Easter and bought my mom a pretty lilly. I had to make a mad dash to the car in an effort to keep it from being damaged by snow and cold. The sign at the bank said 36 degrees. What about any of this sounds like spring? It's spring in Michigan which to me is what I call Winter Part 2.

I can't argue with the fact that we don't have the horrendous tornadoes like they've just had down south. However, it's not without risk living in these winter months which I found out first hand this year. I took a fall on the ice and felt pain in my head when it happened. It scared me to the point I even mentioned it here on the forum. I didn't have any immediate symptoms afterwards and thought I was no worse for the wear, but I started having some scary symptoms a week later. I went to the doctor where I was told I suffered a mild concussion and to take it easy and avoid taking another fall. I'm fine now, but I happened to run into someone I know in passing. She mentioned that she had a friend actually die this winter from a fall he took on the ice. I guess this person fell in such a way that he sustained a direct hit on the back of the head. It happened in the morning then he was dead by the next day from massive brain bleeding. This would have been the same type injury that took Natasha Richardson back in '09 when she fell in the snow. When I was younger I used to snowmobile. I almost broke my wrist in one outing. In another incident I fell off the machine on a hill then looked up to see it had tipped over and was rolling down right behind me. I was lucky it didn't hit me, and that was all I ever cared to continue on with winter sports. I don't know why I'm rambling on about this other than the frustration in having it still be so cold when we're almost at the end of April. My plan is to try and find a way to live somewhere warmer during Jan through April then come back for the wonderful things Michigan has to offer the rest of the year.
Thanks, Luzette. You know, we may not have the number of tornadoes that they have across the South, but we do get them. Just last summer a nasty one ripped through the small town where I live. It leveled houses and trees and destroyed several businesses. Mercifully, no lives were lost, but the property damage was in the millions of dollars. Also, without giving away too much personal information, I work in an extended care/rehab facility and one of our long term residents is a middle-aged man who was perfectly healthy until he fell on the ice a few years ago. He is now paralyzed from the neck down. People who act like ice and snow are no big deal don't understand how dangerous it really can be. I have never had a major mishap because of it myself, unless you count falling on the ice and being sore the next day or sliding through an intersection where there were, thank God, no other cars present. Still, the stress of having to be soooo careful because you know what it could do isn't fun, is it?

I don't know, I am trying very hard to be upbeat right now, but it's sure hard. I am thankful that the temps aren't low enough for all this rain to freeze, but I'm certainly bummed that my dd's birthday later this week calls for MORE rain and a high of 48 degrees. (sigh). Well, not to sound cliche', but it will warm up soon (that's what I keep telling myself to keep my sanity, lol), because it literally has to. It's almost May!!! Think spring!!!
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Old 04-20-2011, 05:25 AM
 
Location: SE Michigan
6,191 posts, read 18,113,143 times
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I know it was a long time ago, but one of the deadliest tornados in US history was the Beecher (just north of Flint) tornado in 1953.
1953 Beecher Tornado

I've lived in Michigan almost ten years and there have been several damaging tornados around here as canudigit points out...Linden, Fenton, Grand Blanc. Thankfully no fatalities.
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Old 04-20-2011, 06:45 AM
 
Location: Loving life in Gaylord!
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Ive lived in Mid-Michigan for 43 years and have never seen a tornado or hardly any damage done by one anywhere near me.
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Old 04-20-2011, 08:00 AM
 
362 posts, read 693,937 times
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One of the deadliest tornados hit MI......let me find a link....
http://www.epicdisasters.com/index.p..._us_tornadoes/
Here it is....#9 on the list...

Yup I remember that spring day. I was going to Milford schools because they were doing work on the Highland school I had attended earlier that fall. I finished the 1953 school year in a church because the toranado that hit Milford removed most of the roof from the school.

My wifes dad who live on the north end of Flint went to Beecher to help look for people after that one had hit. While looking he ran across a doll at a distance looked like a little girl and scared the crap out of him, He had 2 small girls of his own at home and the third one born just days latter.

The point is although Michigan does have toranados on occation we normally do not have them in large numbers per day and the one most destructive was in 1953, 58 years ago come June. Can any state in the south say that?

As far as falling on Ice and snow many times it is the persons own fault. Failure to salt/sand walk ways, failure to wear the proper foot wear for the conditions. So called accidents usally can be traced back to operator error. Warning stickers all over power equpment today because some person mowing a lawn hit a rock and hurt/killed a kid playing in the yard, yet people still do it.

Al
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Old 04-20-2011, 10:47 AM
 
1,106 posts, read 1,621,516 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by canudigit View Post
Thanks, Luzette. You know, we may not have the number of tornadoes that they have across the South, but we do get them. Just last summer a nasty one ripped through the small town where I live. It leveled houses and trees and destroyed several businesses. Mercifully, no lives were lost, but the property damage was in the millions of dollars. Also, without giving away too much personal information, I work in an extended care/rehab facility and one of our long term residents is a middle-aged man who was perfectly healthy until he fell on the ice a few years ago. He is now paralyzed from the neck down. People who act like ice and snow are no big deal don't understand how dangerous it really can be. I have never had a major mishap because of it myself, unless you count falling on the ice and being sore the next day or sliding through an intersection where there were, thank God, no other cars present. Still, the stress of having to be soooo careful because you know what it could do isn't fun, is it?

I don't know, I am trying very hard to be upbeat right now, but it's sure hard. I am thankful that the temps aren't low enough for all this rain to freeze, but I'm certainly bummed that my dd's birthday later this week calls for MORE rain and a high of 48 degrees. (sigh). Well, not to sound cliche', but it will warm up soon (that's what I keep telling myself to keep my sanity, lol), because it literally has to. It's almost May!!! Think spring!!!
That's awful about the man who is now paralyzed from the neck down due to falling on ice! It's truly tragic. I've fallen on average once every winter, and I sand and salt my drive. Usually it's just down on my backside with no injury involved, but that fall I took this year which gave me a mild concussion is now a game changer. Once you get a concussion it's easier to get more damage if it happens again. I've had that happen too with sliding through an intersection where it was just lucky no other car was in my path. I'm an extremely slow and cautious driver in bad weather much more so than many others who are out at the same time. I usually get passed by everyone going much faster than I am. In the end no matter how careful you try to be anything can happen when it's ice and snow everywhere. Where I live it's still snowing!! It doesn't look any different out my front window right now than it did two months ago. Try to hang in there and know you're not alone in how much you hate this weather. We are on the back side of all this so I'm trying to stay focused on that.
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Old 04-20-2011, 08:16 PM
 
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Canudigit,
You mentioned in an earlier post, you will miss family when you make the move South. Don't worry, they will be down visiting. We built our "retirement" home in SC last fall, everytime we head down to SC we get a call from family/friends asking if they can come visit. Which is what we hoped for, but it would be nice to have a little time to ourselves down there.
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Old 04-20-2011, 09:18 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fripper View Post
Canudigit,
You mentioned in an earlier post, you will miss family when you make the move South. Don't worry, they will be down visiting. We built our "retirement" home in SC last fall, everytime we head down to SC we get a call from family/friends asking if they can come visit. Which is what we hoped for, but it would be nice to have a little time to ourselves down there.
Fripper:

What is it that you especially like about SC that made you pick it for your retirement home? Hope you don't mind my asking.
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Old 04-21-2011, 04:56 AM
 
4,861 posts, read 9,272,457 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fripper View Post
Canudigit,
You mentioned in an earlier post, you will miss family when you make the move South. Don't worry, they will be down visiting. We built our "retirement" home in SC last fall, everytime we head down to SC we get a call from family/friends asking if they can come visit. Which is what we hoped for, but it would be nice to have a little time to ourselves down there.
LOL, I have heard of such things happening. IDK though, our families are sooo situated up here. The only family that my dh has here is his elderly dad who feels that you only travel for a.) a funeral or b.) to visit someone who is sick. If he did anything, he would probably move to wherever we move, which would be fine with us. As far as my side, they all live in NW Ohio and feel that it is the next step down from heaven. They are heavily involved in work, church, etc. and wouldn't have much time to visit or if they did they would manage to find something about it that made it far less desirable than NW Ohio.

I love South Carolina too! We are in the process of buying a condo at Myrtle Beach to rent out and to use a couple of months a year ourselves. We haven't decided yet how to handle it if family members want to use it, since the costs associated with owning it are not low already, and if we loaned it for free it would be a bit of a pinch. Fortunately though, if we couldn't loan it for free, my family are the type who wouldn't feel right using it for free anyway and would insist on paying something. I would personally love to move to SC full time when we make the big move, but my dh feels the need to be near a major league baseball franchise and he prefers the mountains of north GA to the plains of SC, so there you go, exurbs of Atlanta, here we come....IF we come.
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Old 04-21-2011, 07:03 AM
 
192 posts, read 492,461 times
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Luzette,
Don't mind at all. My folks, sisters, and their husbands all chose the southwest for their winter homes, but I needed water. Being so close to Lake Michigan and living on a small lake, I just like water. After our daughter introduced us to the southeast, we bought a timeshare in Hilton Head and used it for several years. We loved the area, but wasn't crazy about the traffic on Hilton Head, so we started exploring surrounding areas and that's how we found Fripp Island.

We enjoy biking, kayaking, hiking, my husband is a golfer, and I am a beach person. Our area of SC provides us with all of the above. I'm a short walk to the ocean, when I was down a couple of weeks ago I was walking the boardwalk across the salt marsh and saw two dolphins less then ten feet away from me. I could go on and on, but it comes down to, it just felt right for us.
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Old 04-21-2011, 09:53 AM
 
1,106 posts, read 1,621,516 times
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Fripper:

Thank you so much for the information! I've thought about the southwest too, but I think I'm like you and would miss being near bodies of water. I consider the Great Lakes our greatest treasure and will miss them when I'm gone, but I'm sure being near the ocean is next best. The area in SC you've built your retirement home in sounds lovely. Seeing dolphins would be a real treat!
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